Small hotel - which Freeview box for guests?

big gus

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Hi all,

As the title says, we run a Victorian Guest House (very small hotel) and after much consideration the other half has persuaded me it would be against the character of the building to slap new LCD televisions in each room.

Therefore we are merely going to purchase 15 Freeview boxes to use in conjunction with the current CRT teles that are in each room. I feel its the cheaper option (obviously), she feels it's more in keeping with the decor. Hey ho.

My question is, can anybody recommend which type I should go for and if possible a link? What sort of price should I be looking at. There's no point in going for anything fancy like recording etc as they are purely for guests who won't use those facilities.

(as an aside, is there anything else I need to buy or is it just 15 freeview boxes and 15 scart leads?). Each tv does have its own outside aerial.

Thanks all,
Gus
 
Just to check - all the TVs do have SCART sockets? Any that do not would require Freeview boxes with RF modulator, which are not common now.

No specific recommendation but have seen clients with caravan parks use whatever the local supermarket stocks. The logic is they are buying cheapest they can source locally, even if they may end up with different models after a little while. They seemed to have a fairly regular loss of remote controls, but I would have thought that issuing a remote on check-in that was recovered when customer is checking out would work.

Good luck!
 
Personally if I had booked into a room and was offered a 4:3 television and a Freeview box I would feel a little cheated in this day and age. A small flat screen telly could be much less intrusive in the general decor of a room.
 
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Personally if I had booked into a room and was offered a 4:3 television and a Freeview box I would feel a little cheated in this day and age. A small flat screen telly could be much less intrusive in the general decor of a room.

I must second that opinion. Much neater, and can be backed against a wall....
Mike.
 
>I must second that opinion. <

+1 In this day and age, you'd be well put out to find a 4:3 TV with seperate box unless you're talking 1/no star accomodation. Plus free wi-fi!
 
I also go along with the opinion that I would be very disappointed in this day and age if I checked into room and found a 4:3 CRT with a freeview box. I stay in small hotels and B&B's a lot and I think it is over 3 years now that I have had a room with a CRT :thumbsdow
 
The unfortunate drawback of modern small flatscreen TV's is significantly inferior sound quality compared to 'Victorian' box TV's.

Nevertheless, I would have expected that paying customers would be used to, and expect, integrated modern simplicity rather than dealing with separate boxes.
 
Go for the cheapest single scart model in the local supermarket. Should be under 20 pounds.
 
If you are changing the TVs obviously for the quantity you require you should be dealing with a wholesaler and getting a significant discount not paying high street prices on a bulk order of 15 units.
 
As someone who frequently stays in B&Bs in the Lake District and Peak District, I have to say that I would far rather see an unobtrusive, small flat screen TV than any CRT + Freeview box in my room.

Having said that, small TVs are pretty pointless when watched from 8' away in bed and I'm usually more than happy to get a good night's sleep anyhow ;)
 
If you install Freeview boxes in every room then you will have issues keeping track of the boxes, remote controls and also stopping people from re-tuning these or doing other things in the menu.

Why not just install a small SMATV Digital-Analogue system for the 5 main channels at the aerial point.

Eurosat do boxes like the A2B Multibox and another one called the Multiview exactly for this.
 
Thanks, pmcgsmurf.

I'm not the most technically gifted so would you mind explaining that in a really condescending manner, as if speaking to a 6-year-old :blush:

How I read it is that I could buy this SMATV thingy and it would send the five main terrestrial channels to each room.... but obviously the teles already have all the five main channels - so not sure I've understood correctly (?)

If you're suggesting it would have the capability to send the 20-odd Freeview channels to each room then you've sold it to me?!

How much and can I fit it myself :)
 
If you're suggesting it would have the capability to send the 20-odd Freeview channels to each room then you've sold it to me?!
It will if you buy 4!

[condescending manner] 5x4=20 [/condescending manner]

Actually I think they convert 6 digital channels into 6 analogue channels so after the analogue channels are switched off you can still use the analogue TVs.
 
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Pretty much summed up in the previous post.

Not really aimed at providing the Freeview channels, really for use where people want to utilise their existing equipment and convert the digital channels back to analogue and even have them transmitted on the same rf channels as the old analogue channels.

You simply fit one of these boxes between the tv antenna and the distribution system to the tv's.

Of course you can add in more units so could add in 2 and have 10-12 channels, perhaps the 5 main, then news, childrens etc., could even have a news channel with subtitles and 1 without.

I'm not sure what these units cost, at a guess I'd say maybe £400-£500 but should be easy enough to find out from the likes of Eurosat.
 

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