BT Youview - Switching to RF Passthrough

[pbar]

I am thinking of buying a BT Youview box. Can someone please tell me, is there a way to quickly switch to viewing through the RF passthrough, without having to turn the Youview box off. I ask this, as I have CCTV cameras which are modulated down the same RF cable. With my current (but ailing) Thomson Freeview box, there is a button on the remote which quickly switches to RF output view. Thanks.

 

[lbear]

I presume your CCTV setup is sending an analogue RF signal. The RF on all YouView boxes is pass-through only and they have no analogue tuner so you would need to use the tuner in your TV to receive the CCTV. You need to have your YouView box either on or in low eco standby for the power to the RF amplifier and pass-through circuit to allow this pass-through. In "high eco mode" these boxes turn off such electricity use.

YouView boxes only output through either the SCART or HDMI sockets. For HD you will be using the HDMI connections and set your TV to whichever AV input this is designated to, similarly for SD only SCART connections if you do not have an HD set.

In effect you will be using the TV's remote control to switch between either the HDMI or SCART connection to view broadcasts or recordings from the YouView box and an analogue channel using the TV's tuner.

One thing you may have to watch is whether your local transmitter is now using a UHF channel close to that output from the CCTV cameras. If you receive from a main transmitter, there are extra HD transmitters and some have local TV taking up further frequencies.

 

[pbar]

Thanks very much for your reply. I may have over complicated my question a little. I understand the above, and you are correct. With my current (Thomson) freeview box there is an option on the remote to stop viewing the digital transmission and thus the TV image will switch to the RF passthrough. This is a quick and easy way of viewing whatever signal is passing through the RF output. Any such thing on the Youview box that you're aware of?

 

[lbear]

Sorry, thought I had made it clear; all a Youview box does is take the RF input, amplifies it slightly and splits it between the RF out and the box's tuner(s). They (and most current boxes) do not like older STBs take the digital transmissions, decode them and then send the digital channel as an analogue RF signal. The principal reason for this is picture and sound quality and you will be hard put to find a box with that feature. SCART only connections are near universal on Freeview boxes and, as I said, HD requires HDMI connection with even better quality as the boxes upscale to 1080p (if your set will accept that signal, the lower definitions are available as options).

Equally, the boxes do not have an analogue tuner which would be needed to display your CCTV input.

The Huawei boxes have a different remote control and this does have a button which you can program to change the input on your TV (mine scrolls down the whole list from the internal tuner to the last HDMI socket). The Huawei DN370T and DN372T are actually quite reliable and go for around the £50 on eBay. (The DN360T is their single tuner "zapper" without a hard drive but an @ 30 minute buffer)

 

[pbar]

Thanks for your reply, it's appreciated. Although you are answering questions which I am not asking and already know a great deal about, or rather I have not made my question very clear. The signal from the CCTV is already RF modulated, and distributed to several TV sets/boxes, including the potential Youview box. I simply wish to know if the Youview box has an option to switch to viewing the RF passthrough. My previous box (as well as some others) had this feature, via a button on the remote. It is a quick and easy alternative to using the TV's remote to scroll though the AV/antenna inputs. Thanks.

 

[wongataa]

Thanks for your reply, it's appreciated. Although you are answering questions which I am not asking and already know a great deal about, or rather I have not made my question very clear. The signal from the CCTV is already RF modulated, and distributed to several TV sets/boxes, including the potential Youview box. I simply wish to know if the Youview box has an option to switch to viewing the RF passthrough. My previous box (as well as some others) had this feature, via a button on the remote. It is a quick and easy alternative to using the TV's remote to scroll though the AV/antenna inputs. Thanks.

They cannot do what you want. They do not have any analogue tuning capability making it impossible.

 

[pbar]

Thanks for your reply. I do not need an analogue tuning option. Just an option to quickly switch to whatever is being passed through the RF out.

 

[VisionMan]

It doesn't have an RF out. Thats what everyones saying. Nothing passes though it, other than what lbear told you above.

 

[pbar]

It does have an RF passthrough, any RF signal which happens to be sent down the antenna, passes through to the output, and can then be viewed on whatever device (i.e. TV) is connected. It's the method of viewing that passthrough which is the basis of my question. Sorry if I've not been clear.

 

[MarkE19]

you would not be viewing the YouView output via RF, but HDMI or scart. therefore to switch to the CCTV viewing on the TV's analogue tuner requires the Youview box to change the AV input on the TV, which as far as I know it can't do.

So as everybody so far has said, you are unlikely to find any modern HD PVR that will do what you want.

Mark.

 

[VisionMan]

Indeed. No modern PVR/box supports such a function now. As thats analogue tech and they are all digital now. So you would need to find another solution.

 

[pbar]

Thanks for the continued replies. I did suspect that newer boxes would not have such a feature. Although I do still have the impression that my question is misunderstood a little. My fault for my wording I expect. I have had previous boxes (digital boxes, connected via scart), which have had an option to bypass the digital signal, therefore you will see the RF passthrough, a signal modulated (but not by the freeview box of course), and sent down the same antenna cable. Great avatar by the way Mark, classic album that is.

 

[Gavtech]

There has to be a fundamental misunderstanding here.

If what you are asserting was true then it would be impossible for the box to actually control an analogue RF feed fed in from higher up the chain. That analogue RF would pass through regardless of what the box was doing at any time.
( I'm making the assumption here that the box is of a vintage where RF pass though was the norm - It is not now)

All may depend on what you mean by pass-through.
For the moment let's ignore the control aspect.
In your described scenario how do you believe the CCTV signal reaches the television?
Does the Analogue RF signal come down the coax feed - in and then out of the box , onward via RF coax to the television where it is discriminated by the TV's analogue tuner?

OR

The CCTV signal comes into the Freeview box and is then fed out of that box via scart to the TV ?

As everyone has implied here, for the latter to be possible the Freeview box would also have to have an analogue tuner... which is possible - but extremely unlikely.

Possibly, the set up you describe as working before, had what amounts to a scart control, switching pin 8 on or off, and what that does is actually control the TV causing the TV to switch between its AV input ( as fed from the PVR) or the TV's own Tuner thus seeing the discriminated RF fed analogue signal via the TV's analogue tuner. ( assuming the analogue tuner was tuned to the appropriate CCTV frequency)

Suffice to say, going back to your original question, it is probably safe to assume that a Youview box does not have such a facility.

However your TV remote control will have such a device in the form of its input selector...so you can switch between an AV input and the TV's tuner.. albeit it may be less convenient than the button you describe.

Youview is an HD device and as such expects to be connected via HDMI ( albeit some boxes will have scart outputs too)

 

[pbar]

Thanks for your response, which, I'm very pleased to say has a good understanding of my scenario. Actually I had connected up a BT Youview box and was just coming on here to post my findings. The RF passthrough does indeed work, and very well indeed. One of the best, in terms of quality, which I have seen. It seems to have an anitference filter yet no loss in strength. Very impressive, as this box is, as a whole. It's excellent. Just to respond to your comments, as you have taken the time to reply to me in depth which I appreciate. The CCTV signal is modulated into an RF frequency, which is then distributed and fed into the digital antenna cable and then reaches several TV sets including the Youview box. The digital TV signal is then sent to the TV via HDMI in the normal way, and the modulated RF signal then passes through the box, again (in this instance), to the same TV using a standard RF patch cable. You are correct in that by changing the TV input selection, one can switch between Freeview and the CCTV and back again. Although a little cumbersome, but what I expected, which is what prompted my question of switching methods between the two. Now, the previous Thomson freeview box which was connected (and connected in the same way, albeit scart in place of HDMI), had a rather quaint button on the remote, which, in just one process turned off the digital signal leaving the only available output being the RF passthrough (note passthrough only, not an actual RF frequency as although this box did have that feature also, it was user disabled), therefore the CCTV image displayed on the TV, as the TV recognised this as the only live input. It's a unique feature I feel with the Thomson box, and a couple of others also. The same result can be achieved by turning the digi box to standby, and, as mentioned by us both, using the TV remote to change inputs, both of those methods being more clumsy obviously. Thanks again for the replies, appreciated!