Please help me sort out my TV

[Yellow Saddle]

On Thursday evening BBC finally called a halt on our Manhattan Satellite decoder and iPlayer box. I had been expecting it and did look at the website listing of affected models but ours wasn't on there. Now there's no catch-up TV and no Poldark and no Bake-Off and all those other things that make for a happy household and gives me so much free time in my workshop without being unsociable.

I looked at the BBC website but all that tells me is to go to some other websites where these gadgets are reviewed without sufficient details to make me feel confident enough to order one of them

Anway, here's the scenario.
The Manhattan decoder plugs into an amp via those three screened cables - the red, yellow and white.
The amp outputs to a dumb monitor (not TV) via a single screened cable via it's Monitor Out port.
The amp has no HDMI or USB. It does have S-Video (really awful quality picture).
Inputs to the amp can be via red/yellow/white.

What I want to do is to replace the Manhattan decoder with one with the right output ports but everything now seems to be USB or HDMI. If possible I'd also like to pass it all through a DVD recorder which I can't do at the moment.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

[ufkacbln]

1. Find a 10 year old
2. After asking their parents, offer them a fiver to sort your TV


Problem solved

 

[mjr]

Is it completely dead or just the iPlayer bits?

BBC's attitude to standards (and their licence fee payers!) is pretty poor. I've a set which works OK for me but iPlayer things get downloaded with get_iplayer to a USB stick which gets stuck into the TV. I gave up getting it directly on the TV a few breakages ago.

 

[EnPassant]

What is it that the bbc have actually switched off here? Analogue satellite has been dead since 2012 afaik.

r/w/y is left / right audio (r/w) and composite video (y). technically s-video is superior to a composite feed, but there may be other factors in a chain.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

Is it completely dead or just the iPlayer bits?

BBC's attitude to standards (and their licence fee payers!) is pretty poor. I've a set which works OK for me but iPlayer things get downloaded with get_iplayer to a USB stick which gets stuck into the TV. I gave up getting it directly on the TV a few breakages ago.

Only the iPlayer bit.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

What is it that the bbc have actually switched off here? Analogue satellite has been dead since 2012 afaik.

r/w/y is left / right audio (r/w) and composite video (y). technically s-video is superior to a composite feed, but there may be other factors in a chain.

BBC switched off iPlayer on certain "older" devices. However, my device is exactly two years old.

OK, so RWY is called composite feed. Then either the amp puts out a dirty S-video out or the monitor doesn't like it because S-video from amp to monitor is mottled.

 

[EnPassant]

BBC switched off iPlayer on certain "older" devices. However, my device is exactly two years old.

OK, so RWY is called composite feed. Then either the amp puts out a dirty S-video out or the monitor doesn't like it because S-video from amp to monitor is mottled.

Ok, sorry it confused me somewhat, so it's the iplayer part on a digital satellite receiver that is no longer supported. But 2 years old? meh, bbc that's a bit naughty.

The yellow bit is the composite feed, in that the RGB (red green blue) is all mixed up in one cable. The white and red parts are left and right audio only.
S-video is technically better in that it keeps RGB separate. (as do scart or hdmi, which also carry audio where s-video does not).

It's hard to say which link in the chain is ultimately responsible for a given picture quality, but it's fair to say that a composite feed is right at the bottom to start with. And as with other things the quality at output will be dependent upon the weakest link in the chain, it's possible that the amps 'conversion' to a separated s-video from a composite input plays a part, but without trying different inputs and outputs from devices with the requisite interfaces it would be hard to tell.

So you can watch broadcast tv still on the satellite receiver (albeit with fairly crappy quality) just no iplayer functionality? In which case the cheapest/simplest solution would be some type of media streamer I'd have thought.
The bbc themselves have 4 links to reviews of such things here

Sorry, none of this really provides the complete answer....yet...

 

[Yellow Saddle]

Ok, sorry it confused me somewhat, so it's the iplayer part on a digital satellite receiver that is no longer supported. But 2 years old? meh, bbc that's a bit naughty.

The yellow bit is the composite feed, in that the RGB (red green blue) is all mixed up in one cable. The white and red parts are left and right audio only.
S-video is technically better in that it keeps RGB separate. (as do scart or hdmi, which also carry audio where s-video does not).

It's hard to say which link in the chain is ultimately responsible for a given picture quality, but it's fair to say that a composite feed is right at the bottom to start with. And as with other things the quality at output will be dependent upon the weakest link in the chain, it's possible that the amps 'conversion' to a separated s-video from a composite input plays a part, but without trying different inputs and outputs from devices with the requisite interfaces it would be hard to tell.

So you can watch broadcast tv still on the satellite receiver (albeit with fairly crappy quality) just no iplayer functionality? In which case the cheapest/simplest solution would be some type of media streamer I'd have thought.
The bbc themselves have 4 links to reviews of such things here

Sorry, none of this really provides the complete answer....yet...

Thanks for summing up. I've looked at those links but as I said in the OP, they don't offer any help, they're reviews and pretty shallow at that.

In short, I'm looking for an iPlayer/digital sat decoder with a composite feed output.

 

[Goggs]

I'm surprised to hear someone's still watching BBC.

 

[EnPassant]

Thanks for summing up. I've looked at those links but as I said in the OP, they don't offer any help, they're reviews and pretty shallow at that.

In short, I'm looking for an iPlayer/digital sat decoder with a composite feed output.

Ah ok. Fair enough, I don't use one anymore so I'm probably not best placed to answer this.

Both composite and indeed s-video are legacy connections now (as you have noted with the advent of HDMI) and you may struggle to find either still available perhaps?
However, if the amp has an S-video input (I can't imagine it doesn't if it has a corresponding output), technically that's preferable to composite and might give you a better picture. So don't restrict yourself to composite output as a satellite receiver with s-video out would serve as well and should in theory provide a better picture.

 

[DaveReading]

If yout TV has HDMI In and you have broadband/wi-fi, all you need for catch-up TV is a £10 NowTV box.

Won't help with live TV or recording, though.

 

[vickster]

I'm surprised to hear someone's still watching BBC.

Why?

 

[steve50]

If I have read the op correctly, this should sort him out, as long as he has a broadband connection.
One of these for streaming every available channel including all sky sports channels etc, http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MXQ-Quad-...911184?hash=item25c0f28cd0:g:t1cAAOSwbsBXmyMe

And this should sort out your s-video conversion issue ,http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_o...eo+to+hdmi.TRS0&_nkw=s-video+to+hdmi&_sacat=0

 

[Yellow Saddle]

I'm surprised to hear someone's still watching BBC.

Very helpful. Thanks.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

If yout TV has HDMI In and you have broadband/wi-fi, all you need for catch-up TV is a £10 NowTV box.

Won't help with live TV or recording, though.

Note that it is not a TV but a monitor attached to an amp. The monitor is dumb.