Bought a new TV in the UK. Does not work in France. Any ideas do I require a box or something?
A modern TV should work if it has a built in HD Digital tuner. If it doesnāt you need a TNT receiver to get French TV. They can be bought very cheaply from any decent supermarket.
+1 to the first reply. Any new UK bought TV should happily receive French TNT broadcasts, which are now only in HD (i.e. it must be a set with an inbuilt HD tuner).
Have you set it up in the UK before bringing it over here? If so you will need to rescan to get the TNT channels &, obviously the UK ones will disappear. This assumes you have a working & correctly aligned aerial in/on your property.
If you wish to receive UK TV the usual route is to get a Freesat or Sky (yuck!) receiver hooked up to suitably aligned dish.
What model?
That model is compatible with French TNT broadcasts (received via a terrestrial aerial). It does not have a satellite tuner built in.
If it doesnāt work you might find that you have an old aerial, of it is mis-aligned. Alternatively, as said, you just need to rescan/retune it.
Thanks for the information.
The most satisfactory way to resolve your issue would be to get a FreeSat tuner and dish installed. Following prior research we brought a Humax HDR 1100S over with us and got a local British satellite installer to set up a suitable dish system. This gives us all the UK Freesat channels and you can have an add on which gives you the French channels as well.
Thanks for that information.
Barry, does that āadd onā for the French channels require an aerial, or is this also via the Freesat box? Iām just going down this route - about to order the Humax box from Amazon UK and wondering if thereās anything else I need. A local company will provide the satellite dish, cabling etc. I currently have nothing at all, not even an aerial. Thanks.
Hi Lindsey,
Yes, my local guy offered to fit the add on if required. Basically it is just a second LNB (the little receiving horn on the dish) set at an angle to pick up the French TNT satellite channels as well. It is quite a common system. We had something similar in Egypt to give us Hotbird and also Nilesat. You need it because the separate satellites are in slightly different places in the sky.
Hope this makes sense for you.
Barry
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In suspect the āadd-onā mentioned is an additional LNB (Low Noise Block) which receives the focussed satellite signal at the end of the dish arm. It is possible to fit one to receive French TNTSAT broadcasts on the same dish as UK stuff but as these are from a different satellite position (19.2 degrees east for TNTSAT as opposed to 28.2 east for FREESAT) one of them wonāt get as full a signal as the other, depending which you make the more central one.
If you require French TV a simple aerial it still the easiest choice, in my view. It also will save switching between modes on your Humax box.
Really helpful reply, Jonathan, thank you.
Donāt forget that your Humax PVR satellite receiver works best when used in conjunction with two inputs/cables from the satellite dish. This allows you to record one channel whilst watching/recording another, or even recording two channels whilst playing back another.
Thanks Chris. Yes, I definitely want the option to record two channels whilst watching anotherā¦ but just to complicate things, I have 2 houses, sitting close to each other. One (expensive!) company has advised that I can use one 130 cm dia satellite dish to feed both houses, but I hadnāt realised the need for extra cables. Do you know if itās possible to have four inputs/cables - i.e. so I would have one Humax PVR in each house, each with the recording option? Thanks again.
Bit beyond my knowledge, but Iād have thought that if you have a quad LNB on the dish it would give you the 4 inputs you need. Someone will correct me if Iām wrong.
One dish + 4 output LNB = 4 feeds to separate places, or 2 x 2 i.e. your suggestion is OK.
Why a 1.3m dish? Are you a long way south?
Yes, way down in the far south west, only 40 mins from Spain. Thereās a hill behind the house, to the south, and some large treesā¦ but thereās a good gap and the test the other day showed thereād be an excellent signal. Thanks Jonathan.
Ah, yes, that would do itā¦
Yes, I think so - thanks very much Barry.