I’m surprised you can’t get the domestic tv channels on your sat tv tuner. Is this because you need to point to a different satellite?
Our satellite system is Uk Astra Freesat.
If you have Orange internet you can always get the TV package for French channels.
How much do Orange charge, Paul?
The basic service is “free” assuming you have an Orange internet package but there’s a one off “activation fee” (basically a charge for the set top box).
I went for it mostly because it was there, we don’t watch French telly but it seems to work OK. Mostly we watch UK TV (Freesat) or UK catch up. There’s a good signal from the roof aerial as well but it turns out the TV (which has a built in satellite tuner) can do satellite, or TV but not both at the same time.
We love ourYouview set up (UK) that let’s us easily watch things via t’internet that we
haven’t recorded. We rarely watch any tv programme when it is being broadcast - especially
on a commercial channel. The remote lets us fast forward in one minute intervals any programmes we record so usually four button presses gets us past the dreadful ads.
We use the Orange basic TV package and find it to be very good. We only watch French TV, although not a lot of it, in order to upgrade our French. Prior to that we existed happily without tv at all, so I know we’re a bit odd…
I think the answer to your problem is very simple; both the TVs you have tried do not have integral HD (Hi-Definition) tuners as they are of an age when it wasn’t standard to fit those (i.e. when terrestrial TV was largely broadcast in SD, Standard Definition). All terrestrial TV in France is now broadcast in HD only - an SD TV receiver will register some of the channels & even play sound, but will not give you pictures.
Even if a TV set has an “HD Ready” sticker on it & has HDMI ports it doesn’t necessarily mean that it has an HD tuner inside, it simply means the screen itself will handle HD content from an external source (DVD player, satellite receiver etc.).
To fix the problem you need top buy an external HD tuner that you then plug your aerial into, & the output to an HDMI port on your TV (some have SCART as an option as well, if you want to live with SD quality). These are available in all brico type places for around 30€. Example here…
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Actually Jonathan might have hit the proverbial nail on the head - I must admit I assumed that the British set was the older of the two and so the French set was newer - the switch to full HD was 2016, but HD channels had been broadcast prior to that. I’d expect any TV much later than about 2012 to have had the necessary tuner but cheaper models might not.
Anyway - that would have been confirmed by trying it at the neighbours…
its an acquired taste, some documentary are good and the news can help with learning the language…but the quiz shows and similar can be pretty dire, and unending diet every night of films…often past their sell by date!
Mostly, it just would not work as a family activity. SWMBO and N° 1 son don’t speak much French and I need to turn on French subtitles to follow what is going on.
I have no experience of satellite tv reception but I see that if the satellites are quite close to each other (in degrees) it’s possible to add a second lnb in the dish.
If going for a seperate system using terrestrial broadcasts, I personally would go for a Humax unit with a hard drive. If you have no need to record then the item listed should be okay. I’m not sure whether you can easily record using the usb socket.
Product description (Amazon)
Takara sl99 W TNT decoder HD Earth white – In-out receiver HD 1080i USB port (MP3 player – MPEG4) – Antenna – HDMI – SCART Socket – LED display – Multifunctional Remote Control – Dimensions: 130 mm Width, allows you to get TNT HD channels from the new standard of April 2016, on your TV
Thank you Michael. About a year ago I sold a (German?) Humax-type box that could take inputs from up to 6 Satellite dishes. I had bought it because (a) it was cheap at a vide-grenier (car boot) here in France and (b) because I was toying with using Astra (UK Freesat) and maybe Hotbird &/or TV5. Like so much of what I get involved with, it was a 5-minute wonder. Just too much going on in my life. So I’m fully aware of these possibilities but decided to stay terrestrial for French TV.
Maybe this little box will do all I need.
That will do the job, assuming I’m correct. If you start to get pictures but still a limited number of channels you should be able to solve that with better alignment & then maybe an amplifier.
Thanks jonathon, over the next week or so I’ll try to close this down.