"Keith G" wrote in message
...

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Keith G
wrote:

"PJO" wrote in message
...
I know this is rather off topic but I don't know of a TV group (is
there one?).

Freeview... Having just bought a standard set top box I was amazed
to
discover that one is unable to watch one channel while recording
another. Does anyone know of an alternative STB which can do both
jobs
with the simple press of a button?


If you want to watch one digital channel while recording another, the
best, if not *only* way (presuming no digital telly) is to daisychain
2
STBs together. There is one by (dare I say it?) Bush being advertised
for only £40 atm. (Not an undue amount, IMO.)

Well, I've just boldly gone and bought a DTTV receiver box (Nokia 221T).
Chose this one as it had good reviews and has a S/PDIF output for sound
as
well as a pair of scarts.

The 'snag' wish daisy chaining I have found is as follows:

Both the DTTV and my VHS/DVD combo unit have 'aux' scarts as well as
'TV'
scarts, so can actually be daisy-chained in either order. However
although
each outputs RGB, the each (it would seem) only accept composite or S
video. Thus the unit at the 'far' end of a scart daisy chain suffers a
loss
in image quality. Since my TV has two scarts - but only one RGB - this
is
a
pest.

At present I have opted to have the DTTV box at the 'far' end of a daisy
chain, so the DVD can still give good pictures, but the DTTV picture
suffers as a result.

When the DTTV box is connected directly to the scart RGB input of the TV
it
gives a very good picture despite our only having a poor signal level
which
causes breakup when it is raining heavily. (A better antenna is on the
list
of future improvements ;- )

I am currently investigating scart switches of the types sold by
lecktropacks, etc, to see if I can effectively give my TV two RGB inputs
by
using a suitable switch. I believe you can get 'auto' ones that switch
in
response to the inputs.

The quality for recording does not matter so much, so I'll either use
UHF
or try the aux scarts. No point in trying to give the VHS a superb image
as
the recording will be relatively poor anyway! :-)

Seems weird that units output RGB but do not accept it inwards to pass
through...

OT: Another pest with the Nokia turns out to be that the 'TV station'
and
'Radio station' lists are distinct, so switching between radio and TV is
clumsy if your TV is switched off and you are just hearing the output
via
S/PDIF. Is this standard for DTTV boxes?

The user guides for both the DTTV box and the VHS/DVD recommend daisy
chaining scarts with the VHS/DVD 'upstream' of the DTTV so far as
signals
sent to the TV are concerned. This works, and means the DTTV box can
auto
switch and pass through the VHS/DVD output, which is convenient. However
the degrading of DVD images is obvious when I do this.

FWIW I tried connecting the DTTV output to the secondary scart on the TV
(which does not have RGB inputs) but this caused problems as they seem
incompatable as to the form of composite/S video. Colour was difficult
to
obtain, and seemed to rely upon 'leakage' from one cable to another, but
I
have not yet sussed this out beyond finding it did not work! ;-)


Wah! Some pretty scary stuff in there!

As my little 'flexible friend' is now worse off to the tune of one Sagem
ITD602 STB, I hope the following list of functionality.....

Quick guided first installation
Ultra Fast auto tune
AUX scart with RGB input passthrough
Electronic Program Guide ( EPG)
Sleep timer
7 favourite lists with organizer
video freeze mode
Parental lock to control access for channels and
set up menus with a pin code
Powerful diagnostic screens

....and the following specifications......

High speed microprocessor 350 MIPS
Fully DVB-T compliant
2k / 8k and 7MHz / 8 MHz supported
Analog VHF-UHF loopthrough
MHEG5 engine UK profile 1.05
English OSD
DVB subtitles
Teletext
Software update over the air (OTA)

...... used in conjunction with the Sony digital telly will allow me to
report that, later this evening, I have had *none* of these same problems!
(I am not confident, at this point in time.....)

:-)

One thing I *do* know is (for those who still think quality of
interconnects
is unimportant) that an 'iffy' Scart lead is its own pain and will lead
one
into the very depths of misery and despair......






With the exception of the video freeze mode the Pace DT210F does all of
these as well - for £79.95 at Comet. Plus it also has a modulator and both
digital and analogue audio out connectors in addition to the twin SCARTs.


--
Woody