Set Top Box

Hi,

There is not a great deal of difference in performance between various brands of set top boxes. Even the cheapies work well, however, don't expect miracles. If the analogue signal is very poor, the digital box will not be able to work properly either.
Having said that, I have installed them in some places with pretty ordinary reception and they worked well enough, conversely, I have also set them up where reception was quite good but they just refuse to pick up one or more channels.
The more annoying aspect with poor digital reception is the fact that you will get perfect picture and sound most of the time, only to drop every now and then at the crucial point/punch line. At least with a crook analogue picture you can follow the plot.
Anyway, just get one and try, they are cheap enough these days.
Cheers

arofs1,

I have a set top box and my experience first hand is that if the signal is poor then you will not get a digital signal.

Regards,

Rob

There is a conex ?? brand that is actually 12v. Depending on where you are in the S/E could also depend on which transmitter to look at and also what sort of antenna to look at. Have a look at www.dba.org.au it has a list of what transmitter sites serve what area.

A set top box is a great investment, and many locations you get no picture/signal at all with analogue you get a perfect picture on digital. I travel nearly full time and like to watch a bit of television, and in places we used to get poor to no analogue television you get a perfect picture on digital at more than twice the range from the transmitter. Digital TV is far superior than what I imagined it would be in the country areas.
With digital you need to do it properly otherwise you get no signal. You will need a TV aerial that is cut to suit the new channel numbers on digital and will also do horizontal and vertical polarisation at both times, as in some locations there are both horizontal and vertical transmissions. An aerial amplifier is essential with digital and your present amplifier should work well. You will need to use RG59 cable between your aerial and aerial amplifier and aerial amplifier to set top box. RG59 can be used well with the screw on connectors from Jaycar. RG6 is not suitable for mobile use and is zero benefit and more than double the price. For mobile use Jaycar and DSE have the Digimatch aerial Jaycar cat no. LT3172 Digimatch VHF/UHF Economy 7 Element Receives $69.95 and from DSE cat no. L4024. There is no other TV aerial suitable to my knowledge that will do with the Digimatch does and is cut for the new digital channels.
As for set top boxes the Muller from Woolworths/Safeway supermarket or the MTV or Kross from Coles Supermarket at $69.00 work as well as any other box I have tried. Both come with 240v to 12v plug packs and work great directly on 12.0 volts.
If you want a signal with digital get the right aerial, set top box and the RG59 cable and you will be on your way.

In reading the replies to this topic, there appears to be much confusion.
Please keep the following points in mind. They predominantly deal with permanent / fixed installations but are just as applicable to portable setups.

1. Each and every Television Antenna / cable installation is different so where you may get away with something in one installation, you may not get away with it somewhere else.

2. Keeping point 1 in mind, in strong signal areas, the existing TV antenna and RG59 (thin) coaxial cable) may provide a more than adequate signal level.

3. Not all coaxial cables are the same. There are various types of RG59 available, the quality mainly being in the % of shield coverage. This may vary from about 40 to 90%. The greater % of shield coverage the better = less attenuation.! Resistance in a coaxial cable is called attenuation. The attenuation in a coaxial cable will increase with an increase in frequency, thus VHF will have a lower attenuation than UHF. Often the condition of the connections to older TV antennas is very poor.

4. In order to obtain the best possible TV signal, annalouge or digital, it is best to use quality coaxial cable (RG6 Quad shield - I pay about $110.00 per 305 metres)
with F connections to the antenna and wall socket. Multiple TV outlets will reduce the available signal to all outlets (example: 4 outlets connected via a 4 way F connector splitter will provide less than 25% of available antenna signal to each outlet)

5. The antenna will need to suit the available channels for a particular area so this needs to be checked out. In a weak signal area, a TV antenna that is tuned to accomodate the Digital as well as analouge channels will be required.

6. Example of an actual Installation here in Melbourne.
House in Hampton, SE suburbs. Old combination VHF / UHF antenna using a 4 way splitter, mostly RG59 coax to 4 outlets, 2 x TVs with digital boxes.
Back TV/ digi box receiving OK in SD - RG59 coax.
Front TV/ digi box receiving pixelated SD & no HD - RG59 coax - closest to antenna.
Replacing the antenna with a 20 element combination unit and the lead in cable and a 4 way F connector splitter provided good HD to the front TV except ABC HD which was pixelated. Replacing the cable from the splitter to the wall outlet with RG6 quad shield coaxial cable provided a good ABC HD signal. This installation was carried out in stable weather conditions so there shouldn't be any variables caused by propagation.

7. The difference between Digital & Analouge TV is similar to that of Digital & Analouge mobile phones. With Digital you tend to either get reception or not. With analouge, there is a degrade in signal but not a complete cut off in marginal reception areas.

8. A pre-amplifier will amplify any signal, wanted or not, received by the antenna. It will not increase the signal received by the antenna. They are best avoided except where numerous outlets or long cable runs are required.

9. Different digital boxes & TVs, even the same model / brand, can have different receiving levels due to factory tuning.

10. The above comments re coaxial cable etc are just as relevant to HF and UHF radio installations. The key being here that the coaxial cable runs are quite short in mobile installations so the thinner RG58 (50 ohm) cable can be used on UHF.

I hope that this clarifies things. Cheers Tony. (http://www.qsl.net/vk3cat)

To boost your signal by means other then using a better/higher antenna, you will need a RF-pre amplifier which is NOT a set top box. While some of these amplifiers may improve the signal for your TV, they amplify the noise and rubbish to the equal extend. In analog tv you may get a good or bad picture with varying reception, with digital tv you get a good or no picture with the sound being lost first. Set top boxes are to convert the signal from a digital to analog signal, the pre amplifiers within vary largely in their sensitivity. I use 3 of the type HDT900 from MediaStar. As digital is on UHF (not VHF!), your antenna may be a lot smaller with equal results.