Full HD TV with Freeview but how to see HD ?

Merlin

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Hi,
This seems nuts to me but if buying e.g the LG M2780D Full HD 1080P Tv, it specs say Freeview tuner, thats not Freeview HD is it though! ? So how the heck do you feed it a HD signal then ? This for a house with digital/analog roof aerial only. e.g. cottage or OAP home. Switchover forces change to digital tv from crt.

Other HD tv's of 26inch also say freeview. Freeview HD seems only to exist in 32inch and upwards, but space denies anything bigger than 28 inch on this occasion.

Merlin
 
If the TV doesn't have an internal freeview HD tuner then it's some sort of external box be it FreeviewHD, SkyHD or blu-ray player etc.

As you say only have a standard aerial then some sort of Freeview HD set top box would seem to be the only option.

However if you are not worried about HD you could just get a standard SD freeview box and connect that by scart to the old CRT TV and avoid replacing the TV altogether.
 
Freeview HD isn't Full HD anyway so it wouldn't make a difference. Only if you want to play 1080p like Blue Ray would you need full HD.
 
We see that at least when fed a HD signal like BBC HD the picture quality improves up to the standard of CRT, on standard signal its less detailed, edges are sharper admittedly and text well defined but actual detail in the objects is missing, things a lot softer.
Just need to find a way to get HD like BBC HD to a flatscreen if replacing a crt, but a Freeview HD is almost the price of the TV !

...or as youi say, get a normal freeview box and keep the crt.
 
Just need to find a way to get HD like BBC HD to a flatscreen if replacing a crt, but a Freeview HD is almost the price of the TV !

Is it? The TV is around £325, recently you could have got a Freeview HD STB for £40 / £45 at Dixon's or £50 at Maplin. So you just might need to wait a bit. Or try Curry's the same receiver as Dixon's is £50 if you can find one.
 
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recently you could have got a Freeview HD STB for £40 / £45 at Dixon's or £50 at Maplin
what model name/number is that ?

DBenz
 
Google is your friend - I found a £50 FV HD STB at Curry's within a couple of seconds - DIGIHOME DVBT2-665.

Mark.
 
Freeview HD isn't Full HD anyway so it wouldn't make a difference. Only if you want to play 1080p like Blue Ray would you need full HD.

Freeview HD makes an enormous difference Ok it isnt Bluray but it is 1080x1440i as against standard freeview at 576x720i thats 3.75 times better according to my calculator!
 
what model name/number is that ?

DBenz

It's the DRG "Digihome" badged version of the Vestel T8300. Looks like they are out of their central stock as it is only available for reserve and store collection on the Currys site at £50

Same thing is on the Dixons site at £45 including delivery but is out of stock. It looks like Vestel have stopped making these boxes as there are virtually none available on line (none at the major on line stores apart from Argos at £80 for a Bush branded version and Comet's Ferguson version, same price).

There is also a dearth of low end HD receivers, the cheapest seem to be the Philips or the Tesco STBHDIS2010 model at £70. Comet do a Goodmans box at £70

Tesco do have a £50 model, the STBHDH2010 but this looks very similar to another "badge" model from Argos, the Alba STB300HD that earned a Which? "DO NOT BUY" rating. The Technica version has a flap on the front which appears to cover the distinctive five buttons on the right but I have yet to see one "in the flesh" to check this out to verify they are the same OEM receiver. It is not clear who makes this box but the non-availability of other stores' new badged boxes may indicate that Vestel is having problems with its second generation of T2 boxes or possibly they underestimated demand

Update: See my comment below. It now looks like the Alba, Grundig, Goodmans and Technika STBHDH2010 are the same workings in 2 different cases and slightly different front panels.
 
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There is also a dearth of low end HD receivers, the cheapest seem to be the Philips or the Tesco STBHDIS2010 model at £70.

Thats the tesco one I got for £35 on their outlet site generally very pleased with it.
 
Thats the tesco one I got for £35 on their outlet site generally very pleased with it.

So far Tesco have marketed three HD receivers, you can tell the model from those middle letters. The V was their badged version of the Vestel "three buttons on the front left" model which appeared under at least 13 different 'brands' including Digihome, Ferguson and Bush.

The latest to market is the H which, as I comment, looks worryingly similar to the "five buttons on the right" Alba which, incidentally, has a model number similar to Comet's Goodmans at £70 and its Grundig stablemate. The cases do not look similar but they are of similar sizes and they use a "power brick" separate from the case. On very much closer examination of the various documents available, it looks like the Alba, Grundig, Goodmans and Technika "H" are the same box in a different case with a choice from the manufacturer of a front plate either having no buttons (Grundig and ? Technika). a single power button (Goodmans) or five buttons -power, channel up/down and volume up/down (Alba). The remote controls for the Goodmans and Technika are the same with an identifying "home" button on the top left. The link is further reinforced if we assume the "H" is for "Harvard International", the parent group of Grundig and Goodmans, in the same way the "V" model was from Vestel.


Unlike Vestel (and the Humax HD Fox T2) which are manufactured in Turkey, Tesco's IS model is marked "Made in China". I have one for the bedroom I got for £50 from their web site when they reduced it from the "originally" £100 to £70 (the current price) but forgot to remove the web offer voucher for £20 off. :devil: (I suppose you should really say £49 with the Clubcard points)

WHEN IT FIRST CAME OUT it was very glitchy and could remove the HD channels if you retuned from an HD channel to the sane programme on SD ir if you tuned to BBC1 when it was simulcast on BBC HD. There were work arounds. That accounts for the number of returns that ended up in the Tescp Outlet

The software was updated thankfully before BBC1 HD started as]the box defaults to the guide on Channel 1 when turned on, Interestingly they do this without using the DTG update service. Instead Tesco have linked up with a "Channel Zero" for a teletext like data service that is updated overnight and they use that to broadcast downloads. The pain is that this also includes splash advertising for Tesco which appears on the programme information pop-ups and so does not leave space for the start and end times of programmes. Consequently all you get is a "progress bar" that tells you that it is a certain point in the scheduled broadcast. A half filled bar could mean you are, say 5 minutes into a local news broadcast or 90 minutes into a 3 hour epic so you have to flick to the main guide.

The niggles aside, the firmware upgrades have turned it into a pretty reliable box and has that "reassuringly solidly built" feel to it. One nice point not found on many boxes is that you can change the contrast and brightness of the picture sent via HDMI. Helpful if you are using more than one HDMI input so you can balance the live TV picture to, say, the output from an upscaling DVD player or Blu-ray.
 
Unlike Vestel (and the Humax HD Fox T2) which are manufactured in Turkey, Tesco's IS model is marked "Made in China". I have one for the bedroom I got for £50 from their web site when they reduced it from the "originally" £100 to £70 (the current price) but forgot to remove the web offer voucher for £20 off. :devil: (I suppose you should really say £49 with the Clubcard points)

WHEN IT FIRST CAME OUT it was very glitchy and could remove the HD channels if you retuned from an HD channel to the sane programme on SD ir if you tuned to BBC1 when it was simulcast on BBC HD. There were work arounds. That accounts for the number of returns that ended up in the Tescp Outlet

The software was updated thankfully before BBC1 HD started as]the box defaults to the guide on Channel 1 when turned on, Interestingly they do this without using the DTG update service. Instead Tesco have linked up with a "Channel Zero" for a teletext like data service that is updated overnight and they use that to broadcast downloads. The pain is that this also includes splash advertising for Tesco which appears on the programme information pop-ups and so does not leave space for the start and end times of programmes. Consequently all you get is a "progress bar" that tells you that it is a certain point in the scheduled broadcast. A half filled bar could mean you are, say 5 minutes into a local news broadcast or 90 minutes into a 3 hour epic so you have to flick to the main guide.

The niggles aside, the firmware upgrades have turned it into a pretty reliable box and has that "reassuringly solidly built" feel to it. One nice point not found on many boxes is that you can change the contrast and brightness of the picture sent via HDMI. Helpful if you are using more than one HDMI input so you can balance the live TV picture to, say, the output from an upscaling DVD player or Blu-ray.

As I said I got one of these for the kitchen/breakfast room TV very recently for £35 on the tesco outlet site. I assume mine is updated as no niggles so far but we do not get full DSO with HD here until one month tomorrow. It is used with a "cheapo" UMC 22" 1080p TV also got from Tescos with a big money off 1080p TV's offer glitch for £100. :devil:

The freeview performnce of the TV is very good but at £35 decided to get the Tesco's IS somewhat as an experiment.

Using this box I have found something remarkable .

I temporarily set the box up at 1080i HDMI output using a HDMI cable borrowed from my main TV set up. I found that this was better than 1080p output as I have alsofound previously with external upscaling freeview tuners. (i.e. the TV deinterlacer is usually better than the box.) The picture (of course on SD) was very similar to the onboard Freeview tuner.

However as I needed the HDMI on my main system I disconnected it and reverted to the use of a scart cable using RGB. The resultant picture I can only describe as remarkable. It is far clearer/sharper than either the onboard DVB-T tuner or the sameexternal STB upscaled via HDMI. I have now received another HDMI cable and have installed this alongside the scart. I can now switch rapidly from RGB Scart STB, HDMI STB. and onboard DVB-T . There is no doubt which is best.

Notwithstanding this it is more sensitive and tolerates the flock of birds that roost on our aerial every evening:mad:
 
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The specification on their own web site clearly states that it has a HD tuner, so that's where you feed it a HD signal from.
LG M2780D-PU LCD Monitors - 27” LED Backlit LCD Monitor with Built-in DTV Tuner (27.0” diagonal) - LG Electronics US


Now all the OP has to do is attempt to tune the thing to an American terrestrial signal. Your link is to the US site and the specs on there state ATSC tuner.

The UK site does not have this screen size but presume the 23 inch version of the same Mxx80D will be similar. The site indeed states it has an HD tuner but the detailed specs do not include DVB-T2. In fact there is a section in the handbook on how to attach an HD receiver. I think this is the old problem of some European countries using DVB-T for HD and the information not being specific for the UK.


Clearly if it was sold in this country as being able to receive Freeview HD, a full refund is due.
 
:mad: So they do, in brackets!
And I can't find anything at all on the UK site - can you link to that 23 supposedly with the HD tuner?
"LG M2780D Full HD 1080P Tv, it specs say Freeview tuner" is odd for a TV that clearly IS for the US market.
There's something odd here, and I agree with that about it being sold wrongly.
 
:mad: So they do, in brackets!
And I can't find anything at all on the UK site - can you link to that 23 supposedly with the HD tuner?
"LG M2780D Full HD 1080P Tv, it specs say Freeview tuner" is odd for a TV that clearly IS for the US market.
There's something odd here, and I agree with that about it being sold wrongly.

Here is the link to the LG site for the UK and the 23 inch model. You have to be careful about the last letters in the model number as those I think indicate the market it is intended for. You also have to read this section on the Features tab a bit carefully.

Full HDTV with DTV TunerBuilt-in DTV tuner (supporting MPEG4), the standard format of digital TV broadcasting, supports viewing of high resolution HDTV without requiring a separate receiver.
I have also downloaded the instruction manual and this only includes the term "DTV" which implies it is a cut and paste based on the US ATSC model. The setup instructions only refer to DVB in connection with certain EU countries where DVB-C cable can be viewed on the monitor. Other references are to "European standard". Given that the feature quoted above does not refer to DVB-T2 but only MPEG4 decoding as used with bog standard DVB-T in other countries, I have a strong feeling that this is another example of bad product/technical standards knowledge by the writers.

I had another example personally a couple of weeks ago when I came across a display of Avermedia tuner sticks in my local Tesco. They had various language versions of the product information on the packaging including in English which was indicated by round union flag symbol. I took the pack to the service desk and, asked the Duty Manager who I asked for if she understood the wording to mean that I could use it to receive Freeview HD. It included things like "enjoy HDTV". Their POS display stand also implied that you could use it in the UK to receive HD. This is from their specific UK site for one stick, note the name and that the page has a symbol of a television with HD in letters at the top of this description:
The latest AVerTV 6 ensures that users are perfectly entertained. By supporting up to 1080i high definition TV viewing, AVerTV Volar HD PRO offers users to watch and record HDTV programs. Even better, you can plan the recording schedule, or record directly in iPod format to make your favorite shows on-the-go.
Only when I pointed out it was not T2 and therefore impossible to get HD in the UK and she had confirmed that with somebody in the TV section did she agree to have a note placed on the Avermedia stand. The packaging did not include the important section found a little later in the features section on their site:
Support H.264 / MPEG-2 HDTV formats up to 1080i / 720p (DVB-T2 is not supported)
 
Good research.
Another odd point for the list, that they show the 23 but not the 27.
 

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