Home Cinema in Yorkshire

Thursday, 14 October 2010

ET Satellite Aerial & Home Cinema are a well established company who will shortly be celebrating 20 years in the home entertainment trade.
Whether you require a new aerial for Freeview, a satellite dish installation for Freesat or a fully automated  cinema room, ET are the company to use.
They are a small company, which drives its business towards being professional, customer friendly, and above all to deliver a service which will get their name known throughout yorkshire.

A CAI member for most of their trading days, they have in the last couple of years become CAI plus members, and very recently became a certified Cedia member.

Some of the product names ET deal with are-
Panasonic, Monitor audio, Sonos, Yamaha, Onkyo, Mission, Lutron, Elan & Pronto to name a few.

ET's showroom in Mexborough, South Yorkshire is split in to different areas,
there is firstly a small shop front dealing with the Satellite & Aerial sales, the staff are very friendly and knowledgable, and this knowledge base is recognised by 'Digital UK' as ET are listed on their web page as being an approved advisor store, something which only a few stores in the area will achieve.
Secondly beyond the shop front are two dedicated demo areas, demonstrating various Panasonic equipment,
along with other products such as Pronto controllers, Monitor audio SF1 speakers and Elan touch panels,
also in these areas is an entry level projection system designed to show what maybe a garage conversion or non dedicated cinema room could look like.
Upstairs is the main demo area, demonstrating the Panasonic TX-P50VT20 3D Plasma, and a dedicated cinema room, featuring Optoma Themescene HD projector, Onkyo THX amp, Panasonic Blu-ray player, and various speakers for the 7.1 surround sound set-up including Monitor Audio C380-FX surround speakers.

All in all whether commercial or domestic, TV aerial or full Home Cinema, give ET a call and see first hand how good their service actually is.
Why use a "one man band " who you can never get hold of once he has your money, or a multi-national company who has no customer skills and massively high turn over of staff, all ET's curent staff have at least 15 years experience in the trade.

Check out the website to see some of the past jobs they have done and some of the products that they can offer.
 www.ethomecinema.co.uk

Blog written by Jason Norris.

Digital Switchover in Yorkshire region

Your guide to the digital switchover

TV in the UK is going digital, and the existing analogue TV signal will be switched off transmitter group by transmitter group between now and 2012. Switchover means that almost every household will be able to receive digital TV through their aerial giving many people access to a wider choice of channels.
When do I switch?
When your home switches to digital will depend on where you live in the UK. The following switchover dates have been released to the public. Other TV regions yet to switch will go in 2011 or 2012, and will be listed once specific dates have been announced. To find out when you switch visit the Digital UK postcode checker. Switchover happens in two stages to give people the chance to check their equipment. It is important you are ready by stage one. Anyone with a Freeview service will need to retune their digital TV or box at both switchover stages.

Yorkshire TV region

• • Belmont transmitter group - 03 August 2011 (Stage One) and 17 August 2011 (Stage Two)
  • Oliver's Mount transmitter group - 03 August 2011 (Stage One) and 17 August 2011 (Stage Two)
  • Chesterfield transmitter group - 10 August 2011 (Stage One) and 24 August 2011 (Stage Two)
  • Sheffield transmitter group - 10 August 2011 (Stage One) and 24 August 2011 (Stage Two)
  • Emley Moor transmitter group - 07 September 2011 (Stage One) and 21 September 2011 (Stage Two)

How do I switch?
There are a number of ways to get digital television and both subscription and non-subscription services are available.

• Convert your TV yourself with a set-top box or digital TV recorder
• Have someone else convert your TV by installing satellite or cable
• Replace your TV with an Integrated Digital TV

Remember to convert every TV set that you want to continue watching before your switchover date. If you decide to get new equipment, look for TV sets, digital boxes and digital TV recorders that carry the ‘digital tick’ logo. It identifies products and services designed to work through switchover.
What channels will I get?
With digital TV, you can enjoy the five traditional TV channels, plus lots more.
All viewers who receive Freeview services will get around 15 channels with most receiving more than 40 channels depending on where they live. To find out which ones you are likely to receive visit the Digital UK postcode checker. If you’d like a greater choice of channels, you should consider a subscription service through satellite or cable and receive up to around 400 channels.
How will recording be affected?
If you currently own a video or analogue DVD recorder, it will continue to record and playback videos or DVDs, however it won’t allow you to watch one channel and record another at the same time.
If you want to continue doing this, consider getting a digital TV recorder with a ‘twin tuner’ that will also convert your TV. The most popular type records directly onto a hard disk, but there are other options, including recorders that record onto DVDs.
Is your TV aerial ready for the digital switchover?
Any roof top aerial in good condition is capable of receiving analogue and digital TV services. You don’t need to have a ‘digital aerial’ for switchover. If you have good analogue reception now it is unlikely you will need to replace your existing aerial. If you think you need to repair or replace your aerial, ask for a recommended installer.
Switchover Help.

If you are having reception problems prior to the digital switchover, or if you are looking to change to Digital now, please do not hesitate to contact us either via our web booking form.

Reinforcing the Risks of Using an Aerial Rogue!

The next two years of the digital switchover roll out is the time to be extra vigilant when looking for an aerial installer.  It certainly appears from the CAI’s angle that there are more and more rogue traders emerging that think aerial rigging is an easy job, and a quick buck to be made.

Its imperative that if you think you need help where an aerial is concerned that you seek someone reputable.  Its always wise to look to see if the installer belongs to a trade association. (The CAI is always the best place to start).  If you find an installer using the CAI logo, they must also provide their unique ID number, this can either be found on the advert itself, or on their membership certificate.  All CAI approved installers will also carry a photo ID card, and this will also show their unique ID number.  If you are at all unsure, you can check the website at www.cai.org.uk.  All CAI members are awarded this number along with full use of the logo when they are fully fledged members of the Confederation.

All CAI installers must provide adequate insurance, they have all undergone a full inspection and in most cases (if they are also plus members) will carry an up to date working safely at height certificate and have undergone a criminal record check to give you extra piece of mind.  Of course if in the end you still feel that an installation could have been slightly better, CAI also have a formal complaints procedure in place and can offer a double guarantee on their work.

Many rogue traders pretend they have various qualifications and are a member of a trade association, when in reality they turn up without the appropriate reception testing equipment and safety equipment, start drilling where they shouldn’t, offer to replace the existing aerial when it doesn’t need replacing and want to charge horrendous amounts of money for doing very little.   To stop any installer like this from doing any work on your property look for all of the points above, but also be wary if a rogue aerial installer comes to your door and:

    * Avoids giving references.
    * Only supplies a mobile no. and gives no address on their letterhead/business card.
    * Will do the job ’cheaper for cash’ on the grounds that the customer avoids paying the VAT.
    * Will not confirm anything in writing.
    * Tells the customer they are approved by an organisation when they are not.
    * Tells the customer not to worry about the details of the job.
    * Confuses the customer with jargon and complicated explanations.
    * Cannot give a specific cost for materials or labour but asks for money upfront.
    * Provides a quote that is surprisingly low – if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is!

If as a customer, you are clear about the work that needs to be done, you have collected 3 written quotations, have checked they are members of a trade association or other body, asked for references and followed these up and checked to see the companies insurance (currently 2mlln for domestic cover and 5mlln for systems) then you are well on your way in finding a good professional aerial installer,
other than that check ET's web page and you've already found one.

www.ethomecinema.co.uk

ET Satellite - Home Cinema - Freeview HD

www.ethomecinema.co.uk

In previous blogs, I have mentioned that an aerial upgrade isn’t always necessary to receive Freeview and that existing aerials can also be used when looking to go digital.  But what of Freeview HD?, would you need an aerial upgrade then?.
Extensive tests of Freeview HD kit have been carried out by various people – including the Humax HD-Fox T2 set-top box and Panasonic Viera TX-P46G20B 46in TV – and these have shown that some people that get perfect Freeview reception may need to upgrade their aerial in order to get Freeview HD.
Testing in labs found recently that, although perfect Freeview reception was found,  Freeview HD reception was poor. Due to the higher bandwidth requirements of the new HD channels,  weaker signals, which caused no problems with regular Freeview, caused the high definition channels to break up and become unwatchable.
Realigning the roof-top aerial is sometimes all that is needed to fix the signal strength and get perfect Freeview HD channels, but other people may not be so lucky and could require an aerial upgrade or other measures to receive HD channels.
With Freeview HD starting to be rolled out more aggressively – 4.5m homes currently have access to the HD channels – poor HD reception is a problem that could potentially affect a lot of people.
So, what can you do? First, make sure that your aerial is pointing in the same direction as your neighbours’.  If it’s not, you’ll need to get it adjusted. It’s best to use a roof-mounted aerial, as those in lofts are more easily blocked.
If your aerial is pointing in the right direction, you can try an aerial booster.  For this to work you need to place the booster as close to the aerial as possible: boosting the signal once it’s travelled a long way will do nothing to improve your reception.

If you are receiving problems with reception of HD or even just Freeview service, then please don't hesitate to contact us for info. www.ethomecinema.co.uk

Thanks for reading,
Regards
Jason Norris
ET Satellite & Home Cinema
Mexborough, S.Yorkshire