The number of  households still depending on terrestrial aerials for TV are said to be about 250,000. The rest of the population supposedly are subscribing to some pay per view service such as Sky or UPC and will be unaffected by the switch off. For those households solely depending on analogue aerials this is the date where that service is switched off and they must have a Saorview box or TV to receive TV signals from that date forward. It all seems simple enough and most people are aware the change is coming.

Remember you need a box for every TV and if you are within the Mount Leinster area you may need to change your aerial.

The easiest way to check this is to go to the Saorview website and look at the coverage map.

1. Firstly type you address in the search field above the map.
2. Once the map has shown you the area it thinks you want, click on the place finder on the map and drag it to where you think your house is on that map.
3. The left hand column will give you details of the most suitable transmitter and the frequencies to tune to and by clicking on the “Show Coverage” button over then map you can see if there are any black spot (areas of no coverage) around you.

It’s the best indicator of Saorview signal for your area, and should be your first port of call when considering Saorview.

Those with FTA boxes may have noticed that on the 18th of August a selection of channels disappeared from their channel lineup, these channels were:

Tiny Pop
Tiny Pop +1
Pop
Kix
Pop Girl
Pop Girl +1
Chart SHow TV
The Vault
Flava,
Bliss,
Scuzz
Dance Nation TV
NME TV
True Movies 1
True Movies 2
True Entertainmant

These channels can be re-tuned to your FTA box and the process for re-tuning the most popular FTA boxes is posted here

The new settings for these channels are:
11,307   V    27,500    2/3

This offer is available in conjunction with the current promotion of a month’s free viewing when taking either Sky Sports or Sky Movies.

From August 1st, all customers taking Sky Sports 1 & 2, that’s new and existing customers, will get ESPN at no extra cost. That’s a saving of €144 a year.

With ESPN you can look forward to:

• Live Barclays Premier League matches.
• Live Aviva Premiership Rugby.
• Live Serie A, Coppa Italia and Bundesliga.
• Live World Rally Championship.
• Live NBA, NHL, NFL, UFC and more.

The ESPN pack includes ESPN America. If you have an HD subscription, you get ESPN and ESPN America in high-definition.

ESPN is still available at €16/month for customers without Sky Sports, or €12/month for customers taking Sky Sports 1 or 2.

The new HD digibox has been on sale for a few months now. It’s only available to customers as a multiroom box ie. not as a stand-alone box. When Sky added the HD capability they removed the RF (aerial) tuner from the new boxes.

What does this mean to the average customer?. To most it won’t make any difference. Nearly all our customers use either a SCART or HDMI lead to connect their box to the TV. Where it does make a difference is when you want to connect your box to a remote location. Some of our customers have their boxes installed in an attic or comms room, others want to be able to distribute the picture to more than one room. With all the previous boxes, and the current Sky+HD box, this was simply done with a cable from the RF Out 2 connection and a remote eye at the secondary location(s), but that’s no longer possible with the new digiboxes. It’s not the end of the world; the same functionality can be achieved with either a wireless video sender, or a clever remote link kit that emulates the old features. Just bear this in mind if you’re thinking of distributing a new multiroom installation.

Sky have also put together a dedicated area of their website for Sky Atlantic, have a look here to see current and upcoming programming from Sky Atlantic.

In the days of analogue signal a more expensive cable usually meant a better shielded lead with less likelihood of interference and thus carrying a “cleaner” signal to your TV, therefore you could justify spending that extra few pence.  All analogue signal, audio or video, will benefit from a better quality cable.

However, HD pictures are digital, they consist of a series of 1’s and 0’s and your TV converts this to a picture.  With digital signal it’s either received or it’s not.  There’s no such thing as only some of the signal coming through, if this happens you get no picture. Therefore why do retailers not sell you the cheapest cable they can find?  The answer is simple, electrical retailer make huge profit on branded HDMI leads. See the graphic below for an explanation. (Graphic is from mint.com and American consumer website.)

The lesson, don’t waste your money on expensive digital leads.

Oh yea…contact me if you’re looking for a reasonably priced HDMI lead.

Budget Planner – Mint.com

For those of you not familiar with these channels; BBC Three and Four start at 7pm, while kids’ channels CBBC and CBeebies are on through the day, but finish at 7pm.

The new channel numbers are:

The ITV channels, including UTV, still have to be manually tuned through Other Channels. There is a step-by-step guide here for Digi and white Sky+ boxes, or here for HD boxes.

Sign up to Sky before June 30th and get a free Sky+ box and free standard set-up.

Half Price Sky for 3 Months

New customers who take a Sky Movies or Sky Sports pack will get half price viewing for the first 3 months.

Disneyland® Paris Competition

Sky are offering 20 VIP trips to Disneyland® Paris. To enter the competition just sign up to Sky before June 30th and complete an entry form in-store.

Sky Price Freeze

Sky have guaranteed a price freeze on all their viewing packages, for both new and existing customers, until 2013.