Our 1st colour tv (circa 1977) had 6 push buttons (no remote control)
0 (ATV, then SBS)
2 (ABV)
7 (HSV)
9 (GTV)
10 (GLV, then ATV)
Spare
Then when SBS switched off Channel 0 that spare button became Channel 28, and eventually the 0 button was used as the VCR channel.
When i got my first portable TV in the early 90s it had 16 presets with a remote control, and because the TV moved between Melbourne and Goulburn Valley, i think it was:
Just got myself an HDHomeRun Connect Quatro to extend terrestrial TV into my living room.
I got it because my main antenna point is located in my bedroom, which was fine because Iâve been able to use it with my PC. There have been very few attractive solutions for getting the signal relayed to our living room TV, and we didnât really need it because we had Foxtel connected which gave us most of the FTA channels. I was never really happy about the lack of some terrestrial channels and local ABC, though.
Several ideas had come to mind:
Just extend the antenna cable from the bedroom down the side of the building? Strata nightmare.
Run an antenna cable inside the flat? Not practical.
Set up some sort of device that allows the data streams from all 5 Sydney DVB multiplexes to be broadcast over my local network and then re-modulated and fed into the Foxtel box? Getting each broadcast stream from five TV tuners would have been simple, but remodulation back to DVB-T to be fed into the Foxtel STB would have cost me a ridiculous amount (obviously there isnât too much demand for a consumer DVB-T modulation device, so I would have had to get something designed for commercial use)
Dad was always the person who insisted we keep Foxtel connected but we have since had to move him into a nursing home. So Foxtel has been disconnected and the family has been relying on the TV apps on our Sony TV (which runs Google TV) for a few months now.
But I really really dislike having to switch between different networksâ apps, with all the annoyances that put a dampener on the viewing experience. Plus there have been some really bloody weird ads (obviously the product of âdynamic ad insertionâ where ad breaks are personalised and do not match the terrestrial TV feed), which just gives me the heebie jeebies (e.g. why am I receiving Victorian and ACT Government advertising in Sydney?) So the HDHomeRun was ordered in.
Initial impressions are good, it does what I want it to. Iâve been watching the cricket on Seven and have been flicking between the HDHR app and 7+ and itâs pretty clear the terrestrial HDHR source is far better in terms of picture quality.
There does seem to be a few glitches and compression artefacts on the picture which are offputting (Iâve noticed scene changes on screen often result in what appears to be one frame from the previous scene appearing immediately after the first frame from the new scene appearing on screen), and I think a direct terrestrial feed would still be better.
Oh, and one glaring issue seems to stand out - it seems the HDHomeRun app doesnât support Teletext subtitles. Nothing appears when the CC icon is selected.
Dunno if maybe tweaking the configuration on the HDHomeRun itself or using a different app to the stock HDHomeRun one on the Google TV would improve things, havenât tried it out just yet.
I purchased an eyeTV Diversity on a trip to Perth about nine months ago and completely forgot all about it until I came across it while cleaning my room the other day.
I used it once whilst sitting in a rental car underneath the transmitter on Television Road in Bickley, so of course I had no issues. I actually had more of a problem locating the drivers and software because the device was so old.
I believe the main advantage of the EyeTV Diversity is that you can use it while moving, which is impossible with conventional TV tuners (my understanding is the relative motion causes a frequency shift which conventional tuners canât handle). Iâd expect youâd still need to be located near the transmission site in order for there to be acceptable reception within a vehicle, and even then youâd still probably have periods of poor reception due to physical obstructions. For most practical purposes itâd have very limited advantages. When using it in a fixed location I could see it only having very limited advantage over using a regular TV tuner. Thatâs unless youâve got issues with (for example) fleeting interference caused by moving vehicles.
There are in-car DVB-T tuners which use diversity antenna tuners (two or four inputs), but the EyeTV Diversity seems to be the only one that was ever made to directly interface with a PC. The ones currently on the market are their own self-contained units.
