Digital Cable TV Woes

[Ratsima]

At my Cha Am condo I have a Samsung TV that has a digital tuner. My condo has an in-house cable TV system that provides dozens of both digital and analog channels. I just scan the digital channels and this seems to work fine. The TV displays all the static metadata as well as program schedules, etc.

But, if I'm away for a few weeks and come back, the TV still displays the metadata (it knows that such and such a channel is supposed to be Thai PBS, or Thai Rath or whatever). But, the TV just says "No Signal" on every single channel and the schedule info is no longer displayed.

If I rescan, all is well until next time, except that I lose all my "favorites".

I asked the condo about this and they say their system is fine and no other reports of problems and that it must be my TV.

I asked Samsung about this and they say that the fact that I can rescan proves that the TV is not the problem so it must be the cable TV system.

Finger pointing at its best. Any ideas?

[Bluesky]

Just as a point of clarification does your condo have either power disruptions or do you turn the power off when the condo is vacant?

[Ratsima]

There haven't been any power interruptions recently. I leave the power on when I'm away and the TV, while switched off, still has power for its standby mode.

I run a webcam from the condo which uploads an image every four minutes, so I would know if there has been a power outage.

I should add that I have a similar Samsung TV here in Korat. We have frequent power outages; some lasting many hours. That TV never loses the digital tuning in spite of the outages.

[hhinner]

...

I asked Samsung about this and they say that the fact that I can rescan proves that the TV is not the problem so it must be the cable TV system.

Finger pointing at its best. Any ideas?

Faulty logic from Samsung. If anything, it shows the TV has the problem. It's most unlikely that the cable system changes all the frequencies so often. Not sure what the implication would be, but does this also happen for analogue channels?

[hhinner]

Have you tried updating the firmware?

[Ratsima]

I checked when I was there last week and the firmware is up-to-date.

I asked my wife, and she says that last time we got there (last week) both the digital and analog channels were out. However, when I rescanned I only scanned for digital channels.

I'm only there for five or six days each month, so experimenting with it is slow going; especially since it only seems to fail when we are away.

[hhinner]

Rarsima, I googled "samsung tv forgets channels". You're not alone it seems.

[Ratsima]

Yeah, I had seen that, but nothing seemed to fit. I will try the reset solution next time I'm there.

I'm sure the TV is in home mode as that's something I checked last week.

Thanks.

[JimmyGreaves]

Sorry to hijack the subject but is it possible to get a digital tuner to pass data to an analogue only tv?

[hhinner]

^^ Yes. You can buy a set top box for free to air digital channels. These channels are all in Thai, but original soundtrack is usually available for non Thai programmes (e.g. English football, movies). You would also need an antenna, interior or exterior, powered or unpowered, depending on your location.

If you want cable TV then you obviously need to get a package from a cable company.

[Ratsima]

The cable TV company here in Korat finally started digital broadcasting. We asked them about a tuner for our analog-only TV. They don't have, and told us to just buy one. Of course, all the converters I've seen locally are for broadcast frequencies only and cannot tune digital cable frequencies.

So, until I find one we're stuck with analog....

[hhinner]

The cable TV company here in Korat finally started digital broadcasting. We asked them about a tuner for our analog-only TV. They don't have, and told us to just buy one. Of course, all the converters I've seen locally are for broadcast frequencies only and cannot tune digital cable frequencies.

So, until I find one we're stuck with analog....

If they're using frequencies in the broadcast dtv range (474 - 858 MHz) then you can probably use a standard DTV set top box. I just tried this with our cable and I got some digital channels through a standard digital broadcast STB.

[Ratsima]

If they're using frequencies in the broadcast dtv range (474 - 858 MHz) then you can probably use a standard DTV set top box. I just tried this with our cable and I got some digital channels through a standard digital broadcast STB.

I tried it with a couple standard digital TV boxes and got no channels at all.

[JimmyGreaves]

Thanks guys I'll ask HH Cable if they supply a DTV set top box. Dont really want to buy one, put their coax cable into it and get nothing. The analogue channels are bad quality where we live only the first 10 are watchable but they push loads of dtv channels down the wire I hear.

Whats the normal connection from the dtv set top box to the tv?

[hhinner]

^^ JG, it was HH cable (G TV Cable) I tried the above test with. There were only the DLTV channels available to the digital tuner. However, according to their website they do have a digital package so maybe you should talk to them. packages