jt89104

Hi,

Does anybody know how I can connect an HDTV antenna to a UK TV?

Lots of folks in my area are cutting the cord on cable TV and instead plugging in an HDTV antenna (an indoor aerial) in order to pick up a few free network TV stations. I have a 5 year old UK TV that I brought over here with me. I had to buy an adaptor on ebay in order to plug it into the RF input socket on the back of the telly. Now it is plugged in but won't pick up any channels. I guess it needs some kind of box?

Michael

You'll need something like this



with a HDTV antenna with a coaxial connector



and the HDMI output of the converter box is connected to a HDMI input on your TV.

GeoffM

I enquired about something like this for an outhouse we have - too far from the house to run a cable (or Wifi without a repeater). But the salesmen said "don't bother - you'll only get 3-4 channels". Seems that around here the analogue channels are slowly disappearing.

If you have reasonable internet then you're probably better off getting a Roku ($49) or similar. Plenty of free channels there.

Michael

Broadcast analog channels were discontinued in the US in 2007 and all broadcast stations were assigned digital channels.

If you want to get the national networks ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX, they are only provided via the airways, cable, or SAT. PBS can be gotten via the airways but also delayed via PBS: Public Broadcasting Service on the internet. If you want to watch the local news, major sports programs live, and most of the popular sitcoms and drama programs without waiting for them to go into syndication, you need either the airways, cable, or SAT.

Except in some rural areas, all of the above channels should be available via the airways in HD and SD. The CW and local channels should also be available in most metropolitan areas but many of those channels will only be available in SD.

Nutek

Depends where you are. I can actually pick up some OTA stuff better than it comes in across the cable.

https://www.tablotv.com/channels/

OCKF

Didn't think UK TVs would work in US?? Be interested to know what you had to do to make it work in US.

Michael

From my understanding, all UK TVs support both 50 and 60 fps of uncompressed data on the it's ports so as long as a converter box outputs 50 or 60 fps of uncompressed data, it should work. Since the OP was apparently already using a US cable box that outputs 60 fps to the HDMI connection, a tuner like above just receives the signal and decompresses to produce 60 fps of uncompressed data just like a cable box.

A UK terrestrial tuner can't be used in the US since the US uses ATSC for transmission and the UK uses DVB-T. The US also uses MPEG-2 for compression/decompression for HD and the UK uses MPEG-4. For SD, both use MPEG-2 for compression/decompression. Therefore a US tuner will receive ATSC signals and strip out the compressed data and decompress using MPEG-2 to produce 60 fps of uncompressed data for both HD and SD.

OCKF

Thanks for the clarification!!

GeoffM

The problem is that (apparently) the analogue signals were okay but the digital signals require a lot more "quality" in order to provide a stable picture. While we're hardly rural at 350,000ish population, the distance and mountains are the problems. As relatively few use antennas, there is no point trying to improve the signal from the transmitter end.

Pulaski

If you only have a weak signal you need more than an indoor antenna. You need something like mounted to the roof and pointed very accurately at the transmitter, like a satellite dish has to be lined up carefully. Hopefully you don't have trees obstructing the signal from the transmitter. You then will need a good quality coax to connect it to the TV.

Michael

That is true. Analog normally won't break apart on weak signals unless the signal is very weak. Analog normally just gets fuzzy or wavy on a weak signal since the data is just modulation of the carrier signal and if the modulation is not at the strength it should be, color changes or syncing for that frame may be slightly wrong. Digital on the other hand has to be 100% correct since frame generation is dependent on the previous frames and once one frame is corrupted, all following frames will be corrupted until a sync frame occurs. This is why when digital breaks up, the break up generally lasts for several seconds until a sync frame occurs.

Michael

The reason the North America uses ATSC and most of the rest of the world uses DVB-T or ISDB-T is that ATSC travels better over open areas but doesn't work as well in cities where buildings can degrade the signal more easily. Since North America has large rural areas, ATSC may have been a better choice.

North America also chose MPEG-2 as a compressor for HD since it was refined and very reliable by 2000. MPEG-4 compresses data significantly better (less data required) for the same quality as MPEG-2 but MPEG-4 was unreliable, under development, and specifications were changing. If MPEG-4 was chosen, then initial US HDTVs wouldn't have been able to have HD tuners built into the TVs. Even prior to terrestrial broadcasting, all US HD TVs had MPEG-2 decompressors built into the TVs since the terrestrial HD standard was defined in early 2000 prior to HD on cable and SAT.

The UK opted for MPEG-4 for HD but for several years, HD tuners were not built into UK TVs since MPEG-4 hardware decompressors were not yet perfected. The UK initially used MPEG-4 for SAT and cable HD but problems would show up such as during a golf tournament, the grass may possibly start to change shades giving a rolling appearance.

The US now allows terrestrial broadcasters to broadcast HD using either MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 but since most US HDTVs do not have MPEG-4 decompressors, terrestrial broadcasters have not switched to the more efficient MPEG-4 to free up bandwidth. If in the future, US airways run out of bandwidth, then terrestrial broadcasters will either have to compress MPEG-2 more producing lower quality or switch to MPEG-4.

In the US, initially everyone (cable, SAT, and terrestrial) used MPEG-2 since networks broadcasted MPEG-2 to them. As soon as MPEG-4 was perfected, SAT decompressed the MPEG-2 signal and recompressed it using MPEG-4 prior to broadcasting to free up bandwidth. Now some cable networks are transmitting their programs to cable and SAT providers using MPEG-4 so cable providers now have to decompress the MPEG-4 packets and recompress using MPEG-2. US cable providers would like to switch over to MPEG-4 to free up bandwidth on their cable systems but with a 65% market share, it would cost a lot of money to swap out all the MPEG-2 only STBs that are currently in use. US cable systems have a large capacity (about 4-7 gigabit depending on the system used) so using MPEG-2 hasn't hurt them too much. However if they could switch to MPEG-4, they should have enough bandwidth to provide 1 gigabit internet access, all the current channels, and still have plenty of room for further expansion.

GeoffM

Trees aren't the problem. See above.

Pulaski

I always try to give "complete" information for anyone else who comes along now or later and finds the post.

Anyhow the point I was alluding to is that if there were trees you would have a worse problem.

Michael

One of these would probably work better if transmitting towers are in different directions.