NTL quality of reception.

H

Hawthorn

Guest
Has anyone noticed that some of the NTL cable TV channels have worse reception than others, mainly the lower number ones?
 
Digital or analogue?

When you say lower numbers, do you mean 1 - 10?

I find on NTL Digital that "low rent" channels have lesser bandwitdh allocated, but it is the same on Sky. I.e. Shopping channels and lesser watched channels will have more pixelation and dropouts etc.

C'est la vie.
 
If you mean the analogue service I was told by an NTL engineer that some of the frequencies they use are very close to the broadcast frequencies used by RTE. As a result, the cables can act as aerials and pick up the signals. That's why you sometimes see ghosting of one channel over another.
 
On analogue cable we have always had problems which are definitely not caused by our local setup:
  • Certain channels not coming in clearly - often C4, E4, Discovery etc
  • Volume on different channels varying significany (fine on one station and next you switch and nearly get blasted away!)
  • Lately the sound on SKY News has become completely distorted and sounds like it's coming from the bottom of a barrel (a bit like their news content!)
  • About once a month the cable signal disappears completely
I must look further into getting a basic free to view/air satellite setup and ditching ntl: altogether even if it means the loss of a few channels and the need to use an antenna for local stations.
 


You should consider upgrading to [broken link removed] - €25 a month to sign up (at the moment) and an extra tenner a month rental.


I heard from an NTL engineer that the quality of the analogue service is poor as NTL are cramming [broken link removed] into the cable bandwidth designed for about 10.
 
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MonsieurBond said:
You should consider upgrading to [broken link removed] - €25 a month to sign up (at the moment) and a tenner a month rental.
Click to expand...

A tenner a month? I live in Tipp and the cheapest chorus is 27.99. Anyone know can u get ntl in a chorus area?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
MonsieurBond said:
You should consider upgrading to [broken link removed] - €25 a month to sign up (at the moment) and a tenner a month rental.

A tenner a month? I live in Tipp and the cheapest chorus is 27.99. Anyone know can u get ntl in a chorus area?
Click to expand...

The UPGRADE to digital is €10 a month - you need to have the Analogue service first!

The Analogue (called "Basic TV" on their site) is €19.50 a month. (See rates [broken link removed].)

So the end result is similar to Chorus, suprisingly.
 
I have Chorus Digital and the reception is great as you would expect.

The analogue reception is poor at the moment, seems to have deteriorated recently.

So why don't I watch the digital, I hear you ask? Well I watch very little live television. I set the recorder at the start of the week and watch things when it suits me.

Am I right in saying that I can only set the recorder for one digital channel at at a time. In other words if I want to record three programmes while I am out tonight on three different channels, I can only record one digitally and the other two via analogue?

If I switch to Sky, would it be any better?

Anyone out there fancy doing a Key Post summarising the pros and cons of the various options - Sky, Chorus, Free to Air etc?

Brendan
 
Brendan said:
Am I right in saying that I can only set the recorder for one digital channel at at a time.
Click to expand...
Most likely your video/DVD recorder has an analogue tuner built in so can pick any analogue channel to record from itself. However for digital the tuner is in the digital decoder box so only it can change channel and the recorder can't make it do this. So to record digital the recorder can only record from the digital channel already selected (unless some digital tuner/decoder boxes have the ability to change channel on a timed basis which I doubt). This is why combined digital decoders and recorders (DVR/PVR boxes) are becoming popular as they can select any digital channel and record (possibly even while watching another - at least on cable?).
If I switch to Sky, would it be any better?
Click to expand...
Not unless you get the SKY decoder/recorder option (SKY+?).
 

With similar problems, I finally got a service-man to call – it took 2 months. He said that the problem was RF breakthrough from transmissions from the 3-Rock and that nothing could be done unless I installed double-screened cable. He suggested that NTL weren’t really interested in supporting the analogue service longer-term and would prefer that customers switched to digital. The area I live in is due to be re-cabled but the experience of a friend in a re-cabled area is that it didn't solve the problems.

I decided to install FTA as I’ve described in another thread. With some preliminary research and by paying careful attention to how best to find Astra 2, it proved to be quite easy and I’m pleased with the results. The only station I miss is Ch-4 but it’s not a major issue. The Irish stations are picked up using a cheap UHF antenna installed in the attic. I get an added bonus as I’m struggling to learn German so I get Astra 1 as well where there is a large selection of German stations.
 
Cable problems are generally caused by signal strength which can be adjusted up and down both at the exchange and also at the junction box in the road. Asa everyones in a loop, a problem with one box can affect everyone after that box in the road. If you have a cable modem you can check the signal strength yourself.

[broken link removed]
 
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