Hotel weirdness

On 07/03/2012 10:43 AM, David Bolton wrote:


"Tim Downie" wrote in message ...

I know that hotel TV systems can be odd but the hotel we were in the other
day contrived to supply our room with 5 analogue stations (and no digital
ones) and it was in an area that undergone the digital switchover!
(postcode AB41 6BL).

The TV had a "DTV" menu but it was greyed out and inaccessible.

Presumably they were using a decoder to generate an analogue signal to then
feed their rooms which seems odd given that our TV looked DTV ready so to
speak.

Why would they do this? The only thing I can think of is that most of their
TVs didn't actually have digital receivers built in and that the TV in our
room didn't actually have one either. I'm guessing that the menu was greyed
out because it used components common to other models that *did* have
digital receivers built in. Does this make sense?

Tim


Another reason some commercial systems do this, is to save money sorting
out the dodgy RF distribution system. With most hotel systems I've seen,
they have various "areas" of the hotel which have been extended from the
main system (usually by electricians) and these parts don't really work
properly. The analogue gets through just about, albeit quite snowy.
Pushing DVB-T signals down it would result in constant pixelation in
these parts. Much cheaper for them to just whack in some modulated RF
signals and never sort the problems!




I stayed at a hilton last year - had a 32" hd set in my room.
sadly all the channels were originated from a sky box somewhere in the
building and distributed via analogue means - complete with nasty
interference. the widescreen channels were set to non anamorphic
letterbox - it really did look nasty.

--
Gareth.
That fly.... Is your magic wand.

Graham. wrote:

The Bytex Mk3 system was more elegant.
Each TV had a set-top box called a VET
Video Entertainment Terminal

I had a really nice hotel system in my care, never a problem with it.
Then the boss had one of these systems installed. Two problems:
1. The 70MHz signal didn't get back to the computer reliably.
2. The boxes on the backs of the tellys caused severe interference to
the UHF channels. After a lot of blame was thrown about I set up a demo
in the manager's own room. One of their tellys and one of mine.
Both tellys powered: Both had interference, theirs worse than mine.
My telly powered, theirs off: Perfect reception.
Their telly on, mine off: interference.
I then was able to demonstrate that powering a telly three rooms away
caused interference.

Bill

Brian Mc wrote:

I have certainly never heard of a box which could take some (say 6) AV inputs
and assemble a DTT-mux on a set RF channel!

We use them all the time.

Bill

Brian Mc wrote:
Bill Wright wrote:
: Such things are readily available except for Sky channels.

Pardon!!! If boxes to assemble DTT-compatable muxes even exist
I really can't be arsed with this. Google Triax, Promax, Televes,
Hirschmann, Spaun, Taylor Transmitters etc. and see for yourself. Do
your reseach before contradicting them that know.


they most
certainly are NOT "readily available" (and if they DID exist they would
work just fine for Sky!)
The original question was boxes that will directly convert a sat channel
or channels into a DTT mux. You can't do that with a Sky encrypted
channel because it's encrypted. You have to use a Sky box and feed the
AV into the DVB-T modulator.

Bill

Bill Wright wrote:
: I have certainly never heard of a box which could take some (say 6) AV
: inputs and assemble a DTT-mux on a set RF channel!
:
: We use them all the time.

Do you have a reference to such things? They would have to be affordable to
hotels to be of interest in this context!

Brian Mc wrote:
Bill Wright wrote:
: I have certainly never heard of a box which could take some (say 6) AV
: inputs and assemble a DTT-mux on a set RF channel!
:
: We use them all the time.

Do you have a reference to such things? They would have to be affordable to
hotels to be of interest in this context!

Six channels for about £1k. Not that much more than 6 VSB mods and PSU.

Bill

"Paul D Smith" wrote in message
...
There's one possible advantage in receiving all the channels using a rack
of DTT receivers, and then distributing them via analogue RF. When
retunes are required, you don't have 300 rooms to visit !

Do Hotel TVs not have a management console from where you can request all
TVs to retune? I always assumed that was the sort of thing they would
have to justify having a hotel TV and not a bog-standard TV.

Paul DS

Holiday Inn do - they have a special [LG] TV with hotel mode and even their
own channel.

"Paul D Smith" wrote in message
...
There's one possible advantage in receiving all the channels using a rack
of DTT receivers, and then distributing them via analogue RF. When
retunes are required, you don't have 300 rooms to visit !

Do Hotel TVs not have a management console from where you can request all
TVs to retune? I always assumed that was the sort of thing they would
have to justify having a hotel TV and not a bog-standard TV.

I thought "Hotel TV" was one that didn't work if you took it outside of its
closed system

tim

"Paul D Smith" wrote in message
...
"Brian Mc" wrote in message
...
Paul D Smith wrote:
: Do Hotel TVs not have a management console from where you can request
all
: TVs to retune? I always assumed that was the sort of thing they would
have
: to justify having a hotel TV and not a bog-standard TV.

I think that hotels typically use the "rack of decoders approach". As
many
hotels add a few SATELLITE chaneels to their mix of RF channels
(sometimes
even Sky channels if they pay Sky enough!) your suggestion of having each
room have its own Freeview TV would preclude that!

I think I once saw a Sky decoder menu page on what was supposed to be a
Sky
Movie channel on a TV at Center Parcs.

Premier Inn seems to use a Freeview box but one which looks like it's a
"hotel model" - no Sky there. That was the environment I was thinking
off.

Travelogue use a distributed system

None of the special functions on the remote control work and I was peed-off
about not being able to turn on the subs.

I was on my 8th week there before I discovered that the same channel + subs
is available on a completely different channel number

tim

"tim...." wrote in message ...


Travelogue use a distributed system

None of the special functions on the remote control work and I was peed-off
about not being able to turn on the subs.

I was on my 8th week there before I discovered that the same channel + subs
is available on a completely different channel number

tim


If you mean distributed aerial system then that would be same as the TL we
stayed at last year we had a 32" Freeview TV in the room.

One Britannia hotel had crt TV set with 10 programs from I assume 10
Freeview boxes.
Another Britannia had TV fed by its own Freeview box.
Regards
David