New TV - Tuner bad?

[#1]

The boss bought a new TV recently. The old one is a freeview one but there is a column in the middle that keeps displaying odd colours - nothing life changing but if you look carefully it does.

So she bought a Samsung smart TV.

After 4 hours of trying to get the thing setup, I gave up. The smart TV side was easy - I'm a techie person like many.

No, it was the terrestrial digital receiver that was really grinding me down. The old TV ran off a small indoor aerial. The new one was utterly useless with it and couldn't pickup anything at all. Nothing. After 4 hours of repeatedly trying everything i could think of, I gave up.

The boss called out a aerial man who fitted one up in the loft and now it works fine but even he said the newer TVs don't seem to have very good receivers.

Anyone else had any issues?

[#2]

Moderator's note(s):

Thread moved from General Chat to Tech Help.

[#3]

@7up 

Is it a case of the old one was picking up the standard definition channels and the new one is tuning to HD channels?

[#4]

@7up 

Now you've got the new TV receiving a signal and tuned, you'll probably find the Samsung has the ability to show various parameters for each tuned channel, such as Signal strength, Signal quality and BER (Bit Error Ratio).  It might be interesting to check the readings for a few channels and then swap the old aerial back in to compare with what you get from it.

On my Samsung that function can be found via navigating the TVs menu, or it can be displayed by pressing the 'i' button on the RC for 15 seconds.

[#5]

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@Baldrick1 wrote:

@7up 

Is it a case of the old one was picking up the standard definition channels and the new one is tuning to HD channels?

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Possibly so i guess.. but the old one was a HD TV too but wasn't smart.

[#6]

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@RobPN wrote:

@7up 

Now you've got the new TV receiving a signal and tuned, you'll probably find the Samsung has the ability to show various parameters for each tuned channel, such as Signal strength, Signal quality and BER (Bit Error Ratio).  It might be interesting to check the readings for a few channels and then swap the old aerial back in to compare with what you get from it.

On my Samsung that function can be found via navigating the TVs menu, or it can be displayed by pressing the 'i' button on the RC for 15 seconds.

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Nope, nothing like that. The TV doesn't show truly techy info, infact I was a bit shocked that they seem to have dumbed it down instead.

[#7]

@7up

… the old one was a HD TV too but wasn't smart.

Was it HD or HD Ready? HD Ready TVs that I have had we’re capable of displaying an interlaced full HD picture but only had a SD tuner, which have lower bandwidth requirements.

[#8]

@Baldrick1 

I thought HD ready TVs were capable of a max resolution of 1280 x 720p and some did, in fact, display Full HD channels but scaled down.

[#9]

@Mav 

You have prompted me to look at my old spare circa 2006 Samsung TV. This does 720p or 1080i. More to the point is that it only has a SD digital tuner so can't receive HD channels. I'm not sure how this impacts on the aerial characteristics but can imagine that an indoor serial, possibly originally designed for analogue reception, might struggle.

[#10]

@Baldrick1 

I can't confirm whether HD Ready TVs back in 2000s had HD tuners but they definitely do these days https://www.currys.co.uk/tv-and-audio/televisions/tvs/hd-ready-tvs.

But, like you say, probably have no direct bearing on the OP's issue.

[#11]

IMO 'HD Ready' is one of those terms (like calling VDSL 'Fibre') conjured up to con the unwary consumer into thinking something is what it isn't.

In anticipation of receiving HD TV I can remember back around the 2000s asking in a couple of TV shops when there was likely to be a TV available with a DVB-T2 tuner; the owner of one of them hadn't even heard of DVB-T2, I kid you not!

[#12]

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@Baldrick1 wrote:

... but can imagine that an indoor serial, possibly originally designed for analogue reception, might struggle.

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I'm not an expert, but I follow that school of thought that believes a TV aerial is equally good for analogue or digital.  The only difference that I can see is if the new digital multiplexes are broadcast on different channel groups than the analogue ones they replaced, which then may require a different aerial.

IMO "you need a digital aerial" is yet another 'salesman con' to sell someone an aerial installation.

Edit;  punctuation typo

[#13]

I have a (if there is such a thing?) `digital` aerial (or at least it was a new one 2 years ago?) on the roof and that`s picked up retuning signals for all the freeview channels. We have two Samsung UE32" Full HD HDR LED TV`s (both bought from Argos for £199. I done both the set-up installations (bypassing the connectivity to WiFi as I don`t yet wish to connect to that) and just followed the onscreen prompts. Once the TV did the initial set-up, the TV just came on and that was it. I just chose the digital auto-tuning as I scrolled the arrow keys on the remote. I fully expected to be head scratching along the way but no, it just went fine.

Can`t say I`d be the same trying to set up the WiFi though!!! 😄 Even though it`s probably simple enough.

[#14]

A bit like gold plated HDMI cable connectors?