Freeview quality over aerial compared to Virgin TV

[HobGoblyn]

Hi, just got a loverly new QE55Q80D and am really happy with it.

I don’t watch much terrestrial TV,  but those times I do, the quality on my Virgin 360 cable box is 100 times better than over the aerial on my Samsung TV.

Everything else, the Samsung TV  is either the same or much better quality (much quicker opening apps on the Samsung compared to the Virgin box).

Once my virgin contract is up, I’m thinking about ditching Virgin TV altogether, but the quality of the Freeview channels on Virgin is so much better.

Am I missing something on my Samsung please or is this a limitation of over the air Freeview?

I’m in the Uk if it makes any difference?

Many many thanks

[garageflower]

You might want to check your outside aerial. If it's internal (loft) or one next to the TV, then again, have a fiddle and consider a booster. Obviously, if your aerial is inside, then OTA is very poor compared to an outside aerial. Incidentally, you could consider a high gain aerial.
Make sure your TV is set up with your postcode.

I'll just say, although I don't have a Samsung TV, if you can manage the odd bit of interference, you'll find you use the functionality of your Smart TV a whole lot more.
I was with BT and ditched their box and Internet, saving myself quite a bit of money.
With the savings, I financed a number of streaming services (including Sky Sports on NowTV) and still had change. (Apple has some good content, for example, and often offers 3 months free, whilst if you've already got Amazon Prime, you've also got a free streaming service).

I also bought myself a recordable 1TB box. It's not the same, but the PVR is adequate, though you're obviously limited by the number of tuners on your TV. Compared to a dedicated box like Virgin's, it'll feel inferior.

But stop being old fashioned (says a 50-something music dinosaur!!) and ditch the linear TV for streaming and box sets. We now prefer to watch the BBC, ITV, etc, through their respective players (even the news!) It's actually quite liberating, and you're no longer a hostage to programming schedules. You'll soon find you've forgotten all about how you used to watch TV before, and enjoy exploring the wonderful world of streaming.

Good luck with it.

[-Robot-]

You really can't compare ariel reception and signal strength with what coming over fibre or streaming services

Terrestrial TV is over your ariel, weather and location from broadcast station, affects signal strength and broadcast quality

Surely, I am not telling you anything new, or maybe I am?

[HobGoblyn]

Thanks.

My  previous TV was a Sony and using its built in apps was really clunky, hence I used my Virgin Media box for everything. My Samsung TV  is super fast making my Virgin box seem very slow.

I had the Aerial connected for emergencies (knowing my luck, Virgin would go down Xmas eve) and a few years ago, after heavy rain, I noticed water dripping down the back of the TV, turns out it was coming out of the aerial cable.

So I had a brand new external Freeview aerial fitted.

I was under the impression that Freeview is digital, I thought with digital if we have a weaker signal strength we don’t get a degraded picture quality, it either works or it doesn’t, and the problem a weaker signal causes is losing the signal more in say stormy weather?

I’m very very happy with my new TV, personally I watch very little live TV, but on a weekend, my wife is in the habit of scrolling around the VM guide and putting something on to watch.

If the quality was similar on the Samsung, I could convince her to dump the VM box altogether.

We only wanted Virgins Giga volt broadband, but their deal with basic TV was cheaper than just broadband, hence we have the Virgin 360 TV box, and as we have almost a year of an 18 month contract left, there’s no point in not using Virgin if their Picture quality is significantly better.

A few weeks ago an elderly friend of mine got given an old large flatscreen tv.  I purchased a £15 Freeview internal aerial from Amazon, I fully expected it to be useless and us returning it, but it worked superbly and gave him a very decent HD picture.  

Much much better than the pic on my Samsung

And I THINK that’s the problem, on my Samsung, I don’t appear to be getting HD over the aerial, only SD, my external aerial should be a lot better than the cheap interior aerial that gives my friend HD, hence I’m not convinced I’ve set the Samsung up correctly 

I have a spare 2 TB SSD , I plugged this into my Samsung TV and I can pause, record and schedule recordings for a future date, tested, all working great.

While I  rarely (if ever) record things now, I just wanted to check that it worked so I tried a scheduled recording and it worked totally fine. I simply click on a future episode and I get the following on my Samsung TV which is very similar to the way it works on our Virgin box

All that’s missing are the HD pics.

Samsungs channels starting at 4001 are superb quality.  Maybe in the future Freely TV will come to the Samsung?

[-Robot-]

With Terrestrial its hit and miss, if location is right you may even find different people more or less channels too. They have increased the amount of broadcast station then. When they first started. I get half decent quality but really don't watch much TV either. Do have Netflix but thinking of cutting it off as don't watch enough tv

[JAMES4578]

Aerial reception is variable and not totally reliable,location can make a difference though and a better aerial may help.  I watch a fair bit of TV  but not used Freeview for some time.

Terrestrial Tv will be phased out at some point https://retra.co.uk/news/timeline-of-changes-to-freeview-and-satellite-tv- 

[HobGoblyn]

Thanks everyone

It's time I nudge my wife to watch less live TV

[HobGoblyn · Accepted solution]

Apologies to you all and Samsung for me being a complete *****.

With my Virgin box it automatically put the HD channels in at the beginning of the guide.

Going through the guide on Samsung I realised that Channels 1 to 5 are the normal definition BBC 1, BBC 2, ITV, CH4 & CH5 which is what I’ve been watching, wondering why the pic is so poor 

I’ve just realised channels 101 to 105 are the HD versions, these HD versions are the same quality as my Virgin box.

[HobGoblyn]

I've had my Virgin box turned off for the last two weeks and we haven't missed it at all.

Discovered I could rearrange my Chanel list on the Samsung using Favourites, so have all the HD ones at the beginning of the guide now.