8793 television sets in italy

Why not buy one in Italy?

see [url]http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/building-renovation/6577-english-tv-set-italy.html[/url] for some stuff to consider

they are a good site cheaper in the uk

[quote=PAS 55;82590]Why not buy one in Italy?[/quote]

The [B]digital[/B] reception (i.e. the equivalent of the UK's Freeview) should work perfectly in Italy, and give you all the major channels, and more. The analog setting will probably give you picture but no sound.

Like the UK, Italy intends to go all-digital by 2012. The first region to experience "lo switch-off" (!) is Piemonte, next year.

[url=http://www.dgtvi.it/stat/DGTVi/Page1.html]DGTVi - Per la Televisione Digitale Terrestre[/url]

The only problem about buying one locally is that they only 1 channel.........................Bloody Football ...........

[quote=marco;82596]they are a good site cheaper in the uk[/quote]

Trony's flat screen start from about 159 euro's

There seems to be a wide variation in quality. Contrast,speed,brightness. All for fairly similar prices. They may all look alike and have the same size but unless you're comparing the same model number in both countries it's easy enough to end up comparing apples and oranges.

We bought our Samsung the black flat screen from Euronics about the same price as the UK.

Actually at the time it was £100 cheaper but with the weak pound at the moment it's still only £10 more expensive in Italy

I would buy locally in Italy, so that if there are any problems I would be able to solve them on the spot. Prices seem to be reasonable as well if you shop around.

Indeed, buy in Italy. UK terrestrial TV works slightly differently to anywhere else in Europe (also Australia and New Zealand, by the way) meaning that your TV will not be able to give you sound as well as picture. A bit of a disadvantage. If you use a video receiver - an Italian one, that is - you can use it instead of the tuner in your new UK specification TV set. Set top boxes work fine as well,of course. Some TV sets have the ability to work in the rest of Europe though - look in the set-up menu for any European country other than the UK.

There are advantages to having a TV set without sound though - I'm thinking San Remo Festival here!

If you bring over a Freeview box with you, you can watch Italian digital TV, with sound, just fine.

If not, very likely you will have no sound.

The question is specifically about a digital television. The 'lack of sound' issue is related only to the RF (aerial) feed into the RF tuner of the telly.

Think about the telly as a computer monitor, do you think your monitor 'might not work' if attached to an Italian desktop? Nuff said, I think.

[quote=Charles Phillips;82653]Think about the telly as a computer monitor, do you think your monitor 'might not work' if attached to an Italian desktop? Nuff said, I think.[/quote]
A Television set - as opposed to a monitor - contains a tuner that is designed to receive picture and sound broadcasts via a TV aerial. It matter not that the TV is a digital set, no more than it matters if it is "HD Ready". The signals broadcast here in Italy are, at present, mainly received in analogue form via a TV aerial. There are very few TV sets that contain, built-in to the case, a digital receiver (although B&O do a nice one for about €8.000). That is the function of the "set-top box".

So, the reality is that if you have a TV set, bought in the UK to UK specifications and you are intending to plug a TV aerial directly into it without using an additional box (or tuner) to unscramble the signals, it will be silent as the UK standards are different to the rest of the world.

This is one of those topics that should be in a permanent "help" file, isn't it!

Analogue transmissions will be switched off in the UK and Italy by 2012 (well, that's the plan!).

I'm told that digital coverage in Italy is complete already, so if you are determined to cart your old analogue set from the UK to Italy, you need to buy a "set-top box". Since these cost as little as £17 (see Argos), it's hardly a major issue.

I think this thread is going off the rails a bit. Largely my fault for lazily linking to another thread about audio problems with analogue TV, rather than just answering the question, which was very specifically phrased for the OP's own circumstances.

The question was whether there would be any problems taking a UK digital TV to Italy and watching Italian terrestrial broadcasts.

The answer (as always) is that it depends.

Case A
If the region in which the TV will be located is not yet receiving digital terrestrial TV, then the signal that the aerial will recieve will be analogue (as that's what the broadcaster will be transmitting). The UK uses PAL "I" while Italy uses PAL "B/G". These are standards governing picture & audio. PAL I has its audio broadcast at an offset of +6MHz while PAL B/G has its at +5.5Mhz.

So, in that circumstance, if the TV has ONLY a digital tuner, it will receive nothing. If it is a hybrid (i.e. it has both analogue & digital tuners), it would receive video but no audio - UNLESS the TV has a setup menu which allows the user to select between PAL variants (many TV's, especially more expensive ones, have that facility)

Case B
If the region in which the TV will be located already has digital terrestrial broadcasting, and the aerial at the property is suitable to receive digital broadcasts, then the TV will get a digital signal. There is a pan-European standard for digital terrestrial, called DVB-T.

So in that case, you would receive video & audio (plus any subtitles/interactive services etc. which may be available) just as per a TV bought within Italy.

So,
1) establish whether your region has digital yet - If so, you're sorted.
2) If your region is still analogue, check your TV to see if it has an analogue tuner as well as a digital one.
3) If it doesn't, it won't work in Italy until your region switches to digital.
4) If it does have an analogue tuenr, check your TV setup menu (or your manual) to see if you can select PAL B/G as an option
5) If not, again it won't work until the region switches to digital.

Finally, note that if you're stuck in an analogue area of Italy, you still want to watch terrestrial TV, and you still desparately want to bring over your UK digital TV to use in future, you can still do so: just buy the cheapest video recorder you can find in Italy (eg. second hand?). Put the RF from the analogue aerial in the back, connect the video to the TV using SCART, and you'll be OK for both sound & video.

I tried this trick last night with my UK video player and to a certain extent it worked!

I had to compromise though and slightly fine tune the channel, so i could get sound, at the expense of some of the picture quality, but it did work (we may just have a naff aerial though)

We were watching TV on our UK Freeview box until it gave up the ghost....

[quote=Italiargh;82693]I tried this trick last night with my UK video player and to a certain extent it worked!

I had to compromise though and slightly fine tune the channel, so i could get sound, at the expense of some of the picture quality, but it did work (we may just have a naff aerial though)

We were watching TV on our UK Freeview box until it gave up the ghost....[/quote]

That's a different trick. By "de"tuning the UK VCR, you're moving towards the 5.5Mhz offset where the audio is carried in the Italian signal. You could do the same on the TV itself (all TV's allow you to manually adjust the tuning) so the VCR is irelevant [[I]edit - except to the extent that it may offer tuning the RF by twiddling a knob rather than by stepping through preset frequencies in discrete increments like most TV's do. twiddling offes finer control and so you may (just) end up with a more acceptable compromise of picture & sound[/I]]

The "trick" I was referring to was to buy a cheapo ITALIAN VCR. it will therefore correctly find & decode the audio from the RF. Using a SCART will carry that demodulated audio into the TV on dedicated pins on the SCART cable. So the TV will get a correct audio signal on its AUX input regardless of the differing PAL variant as the AUX is not RF it's a line in/out signal.

digital terrestial boxes are less then 50 Euros now in places. The problem is there is nothing on :SLEEP: Or in my area

RAI 24 News
BBC world news
Some sort of shopping network
Various pay football channels.

That's about it here. But if your area has more it might be worth it.

If the region in which the TV will be located already has digital terrestrial broadcasting, and the aerial at the property is suitable to receive digital broadcasts, then the TV will get a digital signal.
.

So,
1) establish whether your region has digital yet - If so, you're sorted.

Hi Pigro,
Thank you for such an informative post but please explain how we can determine if an ariel will receive Digital? Just trying it isn't always the obvious solution it might appear to be and also could you post a link so we can all find out if our various parts of Italy are receiving Digital signals. Please.
Sprat

[quote=pilchard;82822]how we can determine if an ariel will receive Digital? Just trying it isn't always the obvious solution it might appear to be [/quote]
older aerials tend not to work well or at all because the design is slightly different and they are often pointed in the wrong direction (as digital may be broadcast from a different transmitter location than analogue). However, you would not really be able to tell that just by looking. A TV engineer would obviously be able to connect a scope to your aerial socket and measure the signal ... if you don't have a local guy who'll pop in & check it for you, and you dont already have a digital TV available to suck it & see ... I'm afraid there's not much I can offer. If you establish that your comune already has Digital (see below), you could maybe take the hit on a £20 USB TV tuner for your PC and try it out. That's reasonably cheap and you'd end up with a reusable device? If your PC gets a good signal then your aerial is either designed for digital or you're just lucky (my 15 year old analogue aerial in the UK works very well for digital). If it doesn't, then the aerial neeeds realigned or changed - time to get the TV guy on the case.

[quote=pilchard;82822]]and also could you post a link so we can all find out if our various parts of Italy are receiving Digital signals. Please.
Sprat[/quote]
[url=http://www.dgtvi.it/dgtvi/copertura.aspx?TRS_ID=1550000]DGTVi - Per la Televisione Digitale Terrestre[/url]

I know this is going to make me sound like a complete idiot but do you need an aerial to get local tv. By that I mean an aerial on the roof. Is it possible to have an indoor one and if so does anyone know where to get them!

We have a tv at our place but only ever use it for DVD's. As we are going out this week and hubby isn't planning on skiing, we haven't got that many dvds out there and it will probably be too cold for him to paint the outside of the house I thought it would be good if we could rig up some sort of reception in the short term. Failing that does anyone know where you can buy metal coat hangers these day!

Jackie

you can buy indoor aerials from Euronics etc. They are usually OK for analogue, but not great for digital - as it requires a stronger signal before you'll get any picture at all ... that's the downside to digital, works very well when it works, but its on/off whereas analogue just gets gradually worse as the signal degrades. An indoor aerial good enough to get digital TV in an average area would normally be quite expensive (i.e. amplified) so not a very good idea for just occasional use ... would probably be not much more expensive just to get a proper external one.

However, it sounds like you're not fussed about whether its analogue or digital - in that case, the cheaper kind of internal aerial from Euronics or the web etc. would likely give you something watchable, as long as your house isn't in a poor reception zone. No guarantees though, you bascally need to buy & try.

ps. I think NickZ posted about this recently and has bought one - maybe he can advise better.

Thanks Pigro your a star.
Sprat

The little one I bought for 20 Euros actually is amplified. I forget how much it claims it gains.

I'm guessing the combination of my house and location made it a poor choice. Even with a proper aerial it's a bit of crap shoot.

Rai 1 is very poor.
Rai 2 is great and hard to tell from satellite.
Rai 3 is fair.
TeleNorda tends to be very good.
The hungarian [I think .hr would be hungary] aren't bad but other then the US shows with subtitles I"m not sure of the point.
TeleCapri [I think that's it] tends to be okay but all the shows are old B&W ones so who knows.
TeleMolise is fairly bad. Note this is the closest one to my location :wideeyed:

Everything else is worse.

The indoor aerial managed I think Rai 2,Hungary and a few others. All in less then exciting quality. But around here even getting radio in the car is a challenge.

Hi all,

I think one of the biggest problems in Italy is that transmissions come from all different directions therefore you need 3 or more aerials on top of the house to receive more than 20+ digital channels. (depends on your area)

I wrote about my experiences in my [URL="http://www.italyforum.it/blogs/chillout/15-italian-television.html"]blog[/URL].

One of the things to consider is it better through an additional box or a TV with it built digital?

Italy is one of the first countries providing the pay per view channels over digital ([URL="http://www.mediasetpremium.mediaset.it/"]MEDIASET[/URL] OR [URL="http://www.la7.it/cartapiu/"]LA7[/URL]) and the cards will only work in set top boxes and not the TV's with digital built in.

Mediaset costs €8 a month for the 6 film channels and you can change the language of most films into English should you prefer.

Best thing to do is check out the link [url=http://www.dgtvi.it/dgtvi/copertura.aspx?TRS_ID=1550000]DGTVi - Per la Televisione Digitale Terrestre[/url] select your province and comune and it will tell you what channels you can receive and from where they are transmitted. (to give you an idea of how many aerials and the directions you will need.)

Hope this helps.

Chillout

[quote=chillout;82857]I think one of the biggest problems in Italy is that transmissions come from all different directions therefore you need 3 or more aerials on top of the house to receive more than 20+ digital channels. (depends on your area)[/quote]
Ah! I was thinking of mentioning the multiple aerial issue, but then decided against it since I wondered if it was possible that the only reason our place had [I]four[/I] aerials pointing in different directions was because we're in the hinterlands of Abruzzo.

[INDENT](When I say our place [B]had[/B] four aerials, that was when purchased. They blew down in late 2006 and they've not been replaced. Being able to watch Italian TV over the last year might have improved my Italian to some extent, but unfortunately I could feel brain cells dying in droves every time I switched on and failed to find something that wasn't football, raucous game shows involving very young women in skimpy outfits or unintentionally hilarious dramas depicting the Caribinieri being all heroic... or at least doing something more heroic than strutting around town chatting up women or standing by the roadside stopping cars and demanding documents.)[/INDENT]

So is it the case that the wonderful, consumer-friendly Italian tradition of each broadcaster using a different transmission antenna will continue after the switch to digital?

Al

Just clicked your blog link Chillout & read about your satellite system. E69 is nice & cheap. Is it one of those cheapy kits you see at Castorama or even Lidl from time to time?
I am intrigued to know, & here you'll have to forgive my stupidity & ignorance, how you are recieving all these FREE channels? Have I been living in a time warp & haven't heard you can get satelite TV for free. Not being very big on the gogglebox, but now feeling it's about time I caught up, especially with world news, am finding that the techie side of it is all a bit complicated/expensive.
Have a mate who gets UK Sky TV here in Italy, with the wonderful benefit of BBC Radio 4, so have been considering going for their £19 pm deal.
Pilch

[quote=pilchard;82884]...how you are recieving all these FREE channels? Have I been living in a time warp & haven't heard you can get satelite TV for free. Not being very big on the gogglebox, but now feeling it's about time I caught up, especially with world news, am finding that the techie side of it is all a bit complicated/expensive.
Have a mate who gets UK Sky TV here in Italy, with the wonderful benefit of BBC Radio 4, so have been considering going for their £19 pm deal.[/quote]
My experience is that the sort of satellite channels you get for free are worth just about that much... which is not to say that I think that the vast majority of the stuff on [I]any[/I] channel is worth much more!

I bought an €80 satellite system in Castorama in the hopes of getting transmissions from Sky's Astra satellite and I didn't find it too difficult to set up. The main challenge was finding the satellite, but if you know where North is, figure out where the satellite is relative to North and look up how far above the horizon the satellite should be at your location, even that wasn't hard.

We don't pay any subscription fees to anyone, but what we get is not much: CNN, Sky News and a load of channels showing stuff scraped off the bottom of the barrel. Suffice it to say that the highlight of a typical evening's offerings would be an episode of [I]Remington Steele[/I]. On other channels, there will be things like back-to-back showings of [I]Cops[/I], [I]Ally McBeal[/I] or [I]The World's Scarriest Police Chases[/I].

Things are brighter on the radio front since there's no problem getting all the BBC stations - including every regional service - as well as lots of commercial stations from around the UK. It has, however, been quite an odd feeling to sit on the terrace on a lovely summer's evening in central Italy and hear in the background a traffic report describing how torrential rain has created chaos on the M25 and throughout central London.

Al

Depends on what you like. There is free stuff I'd pay for while much of say Sky Italia I wouldn't take if you paid me :nah:

Best thing I can suggest is going to the Lygnsat website and checking out the Hotbird [Main Italian] and Astra [main German] satellites. Click on the links to the various free channels and see if you like enough.

[quote=pigro;82695]That's a different trick. By "de"tuning the UK VCR, you're moving towards the 5.5Mhz offset where the audio is carried in the Italian signal. You could do the same on the TV itself (all TV's allow you to manually adjust the tuning) so the VCR is irelevant [[I]edit - except to the extent that it may offer tuning the RF by twiddling a knob rather than by stepping through preset frequencies in discrete increments like most TV's do. twiddling offes finer control and so you may (just) end up with a more acceptable compromise of picture & sound[/I]]

The "trick" I was referring to was to buy a cheapo ITALIAN VCR. it will therefore correctly find & decode the audio from the RF. Using a SCART will carry that demodulated audio into the TV on dedicated pins on the SCART cable. So the TV will get a correct audio signal on its AUX input regardless of the differing PAL variant as the AUX is not RF it's a line in/out signal.[/quote]
After over a month, i just remembered, that my dad has an oldish Italian VCR (with Scart) that he never uses, so i tried it and it works a treat. Not only sound, but it's also found Rai 1.

It now means, of course, that i can't use the excuse of not being able to watch Italian TV, to learn the language any more :winki: