TV on board

Marmalade

Marmalade

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What's the best solution for TV on board - we've always been snobby about this but we're about to do an about face!

Freeview?

Satellite?

Can I use my sky viewing card?

What's the state of the art here?
 
or a laptop with a freeview usb card which you can get for £20 and then use any household or boat aerial plugged into it.
 
shmoo said:
3G dongle and laptop.
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totally. i used a freeview dongle, rubbish. if u think about it, u lose the signal on digital u lose everything. on analogue the picture just went funny. save your money and get a 3g dongle then u have access to lots of recorded t.v. i recomend o2, allways had a signal with them
 
We went down this route a couple of months ago, we are staying onboard more and more and SWMBO was missing her corrie and emmerdale.

We have an LG flatscreen with digital built in but in the marina we only ever got a few BBC stations through the boat aerial (think its a Status?).

We spoke to a few liveaboards in the marina and they all suggested sky. We didnt fancy having a big dish screwed to the pontoon though. I had a look at a few websites and came across one called "Road pro". They sell a dish called the Multimo which is fairly discreet and has a few mounting options. I also picked up a Sky freesat receiver from Argos for around £20 and a sat finder from Focus for £10. I had plenty of satellite wire in the garage as we recently had a new dish fitted to the house with Sky+ double core wire.

The receiver is very small and fits neatly to the side of the tv and uses very little power.

The dish can sit neatly under the sprayhood but we find that if one of us gets in and out of the boat that it can interrupt the signal so we now place it on the coachroof just outside the sprayhood. Obviously it will be useless on a mooring or anchor as the boat will move but we find it fine in the marina, in very high gusts the picture can sometimes jump a little until the boat settles again. The dish can be mounted to a pole or it has its own flat base.

Overall though we find it easy to set up and a fairly reliable picture. Gives all the usual channels such as BBC and ITV and also a selection of other stations. Our receiver doesnt have a slot for a sky card but some more expensive boxes do.

Both the tv and receiver are very low power so can be used off the inverter but we probably wouldnt use the tv out of the marina.

Ian
 
Satellite is possible, but many thousands for onboard system, unless you want to just setup your dish on the pontoon (and the marina let you).

Digital TV can be hit and miss, yes when u loose signal you loose teh whole picture, not just go fuzzy, but often digital has got a signal where analogue hasnt got anything, so dont rule it out.

Laptop can be good solution, espically if you have one already, just add a USB digital tuner, or just a USB video input and use a regular freeview box running on a small inverter, these can be more sensative than the USB versions.

If not laptop then LCD TV either a 12v version, or running of an inverter, feed by a digibox (or built in tuner / digibox).

If using laptop then 3G is another option.

Ants
 
We have a fantastic TV. It is natively 12V/24V will pick up Freeview, Analogue, radio, has inputs for video, has a card reader to display images from your digital cameras etc and a built in DVD that you can make multi-region. Best of all ours came with a wall mount for the boat, but you might need to buy this as an accessory now, it is worth asking because the one supplied is small and swivels so takes into account healing. It is simply brilliant.


http://www.avtex.co.uk/index.php/products/W193DR
 
Marmalade said:
What's the best solution for TV on board - we've always been snobby about this but we're about to do an about face!

Freeview?

Satellite?

Can I use my sky viewing card?

What's the state of the art here?
Click to expand...

Hi Simon,

Don't know state of the art, but I can offer the very solution we used.

LCD TV that used 12V and Freeview box on 12V (nowadays you should be able to simply get a digital TV). Had a 6ft aluminium pole cable tied to the pushpit. Every time we wanted to watch TV, pull out the cheap loft aerial that we would keep in the lazerette, run the cable down the companion straight into back of TV. Pumped sound through stereo (the cable for that should still be on the stereo!).

The aerial bit was heath robinson, but the picture was as good as home and we even managed to watch at anchor on a still night.
 
Hi Simon,

Firstly, if you go the 3G with a dongle, (i.e. mobile broadband), make sure you have a ton of monthly allowance. It uses about 250Mb for a 2 hour football match, so 1Gb is used in 8 hours of TV, (and that's without any other browsing, or downloading). AFAIK, downloading video is much the same, (e.g. youtube, iplayer, etc.). I get 1Gb as part of my £20 per month t-mobile deal. I can increase it to 3Gb for about an extra £5, or 5Gb for about £10, and I can turn it on or off, a month at a time, as I wish.

I had a Samsung 23" on the bulkhead adjacent to the forward heads, (with hindsight, 19" or 21" would have been fine - 23" was probably a bit big). My aerial was a Triax UFO at the masthead. Had no trouble picking up analogue all over the Med., and it was subsequently fine for digital Freeview in Glasson Dock. Dogwatch also uses a Trax effectively.

Alternatively, you could get a TV receiver for the laptop, but you would still need to connect it to a decent aerial as above.

To watch UK TV in the Med., (or anywhere in the world), I installed a Slingbox at home, and Slingplayer Mobile on the laptop, (and the mobile phone, and now the iPhone). This works over the internet, (you watch and control your home TV, so if you have Sky at home, you can watch it and control it from the boat), so you need to make sure you have tons of upload allowance at home, (we used Zen, which is truly unlimited for uploads, but limited for downloads). At the boat end, I was usually able to source a mobile broadband sim with a high allowance. I also used a download meter, (Netmeter), and rationed my watching to stuff I really wanted to watch. On one occasion, we lost the signal in Portugal and, when we got home, we found the internet plug had become unplugged, (???). If I lost a signal and SWMBO was at home, I could usually talk her through getting a connection back - unless we had had a tiff, and she had deliberately unplugged me :). In Italy, I was able to get PAYG SIMs with 9Gb per month from TIM for €30 per month, and 5Gb per month from WIND for €25 per month, so I had 14Gb per month for the few months I was cruising there, and was able to watch as much as I liked, more or less. I got a 5Gb per month contract in Malta for about £20 per month as I/the boat was there for a couple of years.

As for a Sky with a dish - I've seen quite a few boats, all over Europe, with dishes either on the quay, or on deck. I presume it can work OK. If you cant use your card from home, you can get a free card which allows you to watch lots of channels, (mainly the same as Freeview). I think your home card may allow you to view the same, even if it wont allow you to see all of your paid for package. having said that, I think Sky cards are paired with the box so, if you were prepared to cart your home box to and from the boat, you should get your full package.

REMINDER - any type of video over mobile broadband uses loads of your allowance, so you need to get a big allowance, and be prepared to ration it. T-Mobile are good because they send you a text when you are close to your limit, and they dont charge extra if you exceed it.

Hope that adds a bit to the rest of the info posted,

Cheers

Richard
 
The best solution to a TV on board is to re-kindle the art of conversation.

Oh ... sorry ... looks like you actually want advice on how to turn a peaceful haven into an extension of your living room - don't do it!!! :D

It's like shopping on Sunday, everyone thinks it's a great idea at the time and only later realises what a mistake it was. Wouldn't it be great if we were forced, by law, to relax at least one day a week? :(

You'll only be irritated by loads of channels with nothing on, and then the picture and sound will go at a crucial point in the programm. Just another source of frustration and stress. IMHO. :D

I only posted this because it looks like your mind is not yet made up ;)
 
as said be careful of the charge for the download

i had to give in to the TV on board, corrieetc.. arrrrg.

70 quid flat screen from teaco, glomex aerial at top of mast and a 12v booster, freeview built in and all clear and no freeze up.
 
Baggywrinkle said:
The best solution to a TV on board is to re-kindle the art of conversation.

Oh ... sorry ... looks like you actually want advice on how to turn a peaceful haven into an extension of your living room - don't do it!!! :D

It's like shopping on Sunday, everyone thinks it's a great idea at the time and only later realises what a mistake it was. Wouldn't it be great if we were forced, by law, to relax at least one day a week? :(

You'll only be irritated by loads of channels with nothing on, and then the picture and sound will go at a crucial point in the programm. Just another source of frustration and stress. IMHO. :D

I only posted this because it looks like your mind is not yet made up ;)
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Couldn't agree more, but with three sons and having been rained out the last two summer holidays it has been a God send. Last year it rained every single day of our summer cruise.
 
I watch TV via 3G and laptop almost exclusively now, even at home. Don't really have any digital drop out issues. All the main stations stream and offer some sort of "on demand" playback so I never download. I have a PAYG SIM from "3", separate from my voice-call ordinary SIM. £10 gets me 2GB a month (I think), which I never get near using up. How much telly can a person watch?

Certainly around here (Ipswich) 3G coverage is better than terrestrial freeview.

As for shopping on Sundays, and hundreds of channels: bring it on. No-one is forcing you to go shopping on Sunday, or to watch channels you don't want to watch, only offering you the choice. You are free to decline.
 
If you have the money go for the Avtex with built in DTT tuner and DVD player, but with mast mounted aerial. Its brilliant.
 
Baggywrinkle said:
The best solution to a TV on board is to re-kindle the art of conversation.

Oh ... sorry ... looks like you actually want advice on how to turn a peaceful haven into an extension of your living room - don't do it!!! :D

It's like shopping on Sunday, everyone thinks it's a great idea at the time and only later realises what a mistake it was. Wouldn't it be great if we were forced, by law, to relax at least one day a week? :(

You'll only be irritated by loads of channels with nothing on, and then the picture and sound will go at a crucial point in the programm. Just another source of frustration and stress. IMHO. :D

I only posted this because it looks like your mind is not yet made up ;)
Click to expand...

Why do you care what other people do in the privacy of their own saloons?

Do you have any rules on what we can wear/cook/play?

If you could furnish us with the rules it would be appreciated...

Thank you

Love from the rest of us.
 
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