Whereabouts on the Coast are you staying at?
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Reception appears to have improved enough for the Prime7 Central Coast suite of channels to be scanned in on the TV.
Unfortunately I still canât get a good enough signal of either regional network (which letâs be honest, are the most interesting services from a usually Sydney-based media enthusiastâs perspective) for successful storage on the USB tuner, but Iâll keep you posted.
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I noticed in Nepean Hospital about 2 years ago they were using a WD Live TV media player for media playout.
Also I found this image on the web a little while back of a screen in the Macquarie Hospital (I think) that shows the slideshow for Triple M. I was trying to figure out what device they were using in the headend for it. It shows an antenna signal strength in the upper left hand corner?
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It looks like someone has fixed the smartcard on âFOXTEL-1â of this MATV system, with that channel now running Fox Sports 506:
But âFOXTEL-2â is still running the F104 âplease upgrade your subscription to see this channelâ prompt. Just incase you were wondering, the other channels (using the same LCN/name set-up from 201 onwards) are Discovery, TV Hits, Disney, Fox Sports 503, Nickelodeon & Sky News Live respectively.
Unfortunately, reception of the Central Coast regional channels still isnât happening on the USB tuner (but somehow seems to score mostly resolvable picture/audio on the Hilsense TV - must be a really sensitive tuner or something) due to weak signal levels.
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Itâs just a guess, but that looks a little like the output of a crappy DAB+ component tuner I had a while back.
It was a real badly put together thing (fell apart, came with a crappy power supply), but it was really cheap and had a colour screen, SD card slot and a composite output for the slideshow so I grabbed one.
The one thing that really sucked though was that it would crash really easily and on half the channels it had a really bad pitch shift. It was pretty much junk.
(the dgtec dg-dab888r, for the brave)
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That looks like a great quality vintage AM/FM tuner you have underneath the DAB tuner though. Does it have AM stereo, or is it newer than that?
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I wouldnât know D:
That isnât my photo (Ă la the watermark in the corner). Iâd long since turfed the tuner in question and had to search for another.
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I would not be suprised if thatâs probably the one! I also note according to the manual that Dgtec were (are?) a Hills product and Hills is also a big player in Hospital TV systems.
Great work temp!
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Currently in hospital after an operation yesterday⌠Really need to pee but one of my roomies just collapsed and coded at the end of the bed but heâs coming ok now and will be alright but not what I needed to wake up too.
TV however is great, seems to be just like a normal TV, a couple of old entries in there like Aspire and an old duplicate WIN entry but the rest are all good and perfect reception. Only issue is the speaker on the bed buttons is muffled when soft and quite loud when at a clear level. At least Iâve been able to watch the cricket though and should be home and tucked up in bed before day 5 starts.
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I recently went on a two week holiday in WA, QLD and NSW. Three places I stayed (Quest Bunbury, Crown Promenade Perth and Meriton Pitt Street Sydney) had Foxtel channels. I wished I had taken some photos for comparison. From my memory Crown had the best line-up because it included most Foxtel sports and movie channels in HD plus a dozen foreign language channels. Meriton had six of the seven Fox Sports channels but reception was average. Quest also had several Foxtel channels but no Fox Cricket, and picture was blurry.
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Currently staying at the Rydges in Cairns for the weekend, the TV in the room is bizarre.
As with many places, Rydges are feeding the signal into the TV through their own methods. It seems to me like the TV is receiving an analogue signal, thereâs no EPG, and some of the channels that arenât working are showing the static effect that used to be prevalent in the analogue days. As usual, all the menu options are disabled. Theyâve also custom named all the channels on the TV, which are mostly wrong. Picture quality is really bad on some channels, and some are stretched to shit!
This is what iâve got:
1: âABC1â showing ABC, picture quality is very low!
2: âABC2â showing ABC Kids/Comedy, picture quality very low, colours jumping around, looks terrible.
3: âABC3â showing ABC Me, working normally
4: âFOX1â showing Fox Sports 2, normal.
5: âFOX2â, unsure of exact channel, severely stretched horizontally, heaps of text, logos, details from the left and right of screen cannot be seen.
6: â7TWOâ showing 7Two, working normally.
7: âSEVENâ showing 7, poor picture quality.
8: â7MATEâ, showing 7mate, normal.
9: âWIN9â showing WIN, working normally.
10: âTENâ showing Nine, audio working sometimes, picture frozen on a cap from The Grinch movie
11: âELEVENâ showing SBS Viceland, poor picture quality.
12: âGOâ showing 9Life, working normally.
13: âGEMâ showing 10Peach, normal.
14: âONEâ showing 10Bold, normal.
15: âSBS1â showing SBS, poor picture.
16: âFOX8â showing Fox8, poor picture.
17: âANIMALâ showing TLC, severely stretched horizontally, cannot are left or right side of image, TLC logo, or heaps of text.
18: âMUSICMAXâ showing Max, funnily has no audio.
19: âSKY NEWSâ showing SkyNews, image squished vertically, letterboxed at the top and bottom of feed.
20: âGATEWAYâ, nothing, just analogue static.
21: â7TRAVELâ, nothing, just static.
22; â7TRAVELâ, black screen with the words No Signal.
23/24/25: No name, just a blue screen with no audio.
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Some pics (sorry, just photos of the TV)
Bad picture quality on ABC Kids:
Stretched horizontally:
Nine is stuck on this frozen image. Yesterday, Saturday, when I arrived it was frozen on a picture of Today Extra with 9:15 on the clock, was like that all day yesterday. Today, itâs stuck on this image from The Grinch Movie.
Sky News, black bars top and bottom:
TLC, badly stretched left and right:
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I stayed in an Adina in Sydney last weekend. The room had a standard definition television so none of the HD channels were visible, and as I have experienced before Fox Sports, Sky News and Discovery were all analogue channels. Also, I tried to plug my laptop into the HDMI inputs but they had been disabled. They really need to replace all the televisions in those serviced apartments.
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Sounds like a lot of their distributed networks need to be fixed. But Iâd say itâs an expense they donât think they need to spend.
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I hope you complained about the poor reception, static, distorted AR, etc?
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Gee, Iâm now starting to think that the MATV system where I stayed on the Central Coast last month wasnât that badâŚalthough it was still extremely disappointing to see two (later one) Foxtel channels out of action and unwatchable regional channel reception for almost all the trip!
Ahh, that stretched picture reminds me of when pubs/clubs first upgraded their main screens to widescreen plasmas & Foxtel Digital more than a decade ago while often still keeping smaller 4.3 CRT (or in some cases, LCD) sets.
Woah, now thatâs really dodgy!
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Exactly why I actively avoid Adina accom. Have done so since it was named Medina in 2003, two visits more than enough.
What suburb on the Central Coast?
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Umina at the holiday park which will undoubtedly be packed with tourists from Sydney over the next week or two. The TV signal most likely wouldâve been fed through some internal MATV system due to the presence of those six (or 4-5 on the last trip) Foxtel channels. Donât know about the FTAs but Iâd imagine they wouldâve originated from just over the water at Bouddi.
Although most average viewers probably wonât care just as long as the main Sydney channels are working, from this media enthusiastâs perspective it was disappointing that reception of the regional channels werenât working (and was still patchy on the last day) because after being in Sydney for the entire year, it wouldâve been good to have the opportunity to watch channels other than relays of the exact same channels I receive at homeâŚeven if the Central Coast services of Prime7 & NBN Nine have very little local content.
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And WIN still isnât available from Bouddi or Gosford ether (AFAIK).
Only Forresters Beach (Wyong).
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Exactly and Umina does not receive the Wyong signal, Bouddi is it.
Exactly, during aggregation switch on, I was constantly frustrated about motels and resorts not updating equipment for the UHF channels. Ended up asking upon booking if they had the new channels installed.
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