Sony Bravia KD32W800 Tuning

[Johntheo5]

Sony Bravia KD32W800

Bought one of these recently. it has a Freeview tuner, I also have a external Freesat box. I have my (rabbits ears) Antenna plugged into the TV socket and the Freesat box into the TV HDMI1 socket, the Satellite cable is plugged into the Freesat box. The TV "sources" show Freeview Live TV, HDMI1, HDMI2, HDMI3 and Android TV Home. Works fine as set up, after a Antenna scan, I just select HDMI1 (via the Manhatten box) for my Freesat stations and select Freeview Live TV which gives me the usual Irish channels known as Saorview.

If I connect the Satellite cable into the TV port (with the antenna remaining in the TV socket and I change the TV tuner from antenna to satellite and do a scan on my usual Astra2 28.2E, to get all the free to air channels but I lose Saorview (Irish chnnels) that I had via the antenna tuning. In other words can I have both the Satellite channels and the antenna channels available together without using a external box, are there two tuners in this TV?

A (much) older Sony Bravia KDL32W5810 gives both Freesat (even better, for me, than Freeview) and Saorview without any external box.





Specifications Of the Sony Bravia KD32W800

NUMBER OF TUNERS (TERRESTRIAL/CABLE)

1(Digital/Analog)



NUMBER OF TUNERS (SAT)

1



TV SYSTEM (ANALOG)

B/G,D/K,L



TUNER CHANNEL COVERAGE (ANALOG)

45.25MHz-863.25MHz(Depend on country/area selection)



TV SYSTEM (DIGITAL TERRESTRIAL)

DVB-T/T2



TUNER CHANNEL COVERAGE (DIGITAL TERRESTRIAL)

VHF/UHF(Depend on country selection)

TV SYSTEM (DIGITAL CABLE)

DVB-C



TUNER CHANNEL COVERAGE (DIGITAL CABLE)

VHF/UHF/cable, Depend on country selection



TV SYSTEM (DIGITAL SAT)

DVB-S/S2



TUNER CHANNEL COVERAGE (DIGITAL SAT)

Intermediate Frequency 950-2150MHz



CI+

Yes

 

[Lucid]

Thanks for posting the specs.

Are you saying that the TV doesn't give you a way to switch between Soarview and Freesat? IOW, it's making you choose one or the other as the only live TV choice?

 

[Johntheo5]

I,m not quite saying that as I really don't know if the TV actually has two tuners or some sort of composite tuner, if so there may be something in the menu/setting that I'm not accessing properly.
What I can say for certainty is that it will provide Saorview OR Freeview depending on which one I've scanned last, when I go to source you can see whats displayed in the screen, the first photo, "Freeview" shows HDMI 1 selected (highlighted)so I get the Freesat channels from the Manhattan box, the second photo, "Saorview" shows Freeview Live Tv selected (highlighted) which gives me Saorview because it was "antenna" scanned.
If I remove the F connector from the manhatten box and insert it in the TV then I will still get saorview from the Freeview Live TV, but if the last scan was from the satellite then i will get Freeview, there may be some "menu switch"?

 

[Lucid]

Your TV does have 2 tuners. It's in the spec you posted.

NUMBER OF TUNERS (TERRESTRIAL/CABLE)

1 (Digital/Analog)


NUMBER OF TUNERS (SAT)

1

One tuner can handle Freeview/Soar (digital)and digital cable. It can also cope with analogue. It's just a matter of how the RF signals are decoded. Your satellite reception needs something different though.

Apart from being an entirely different frequency range, satellite also requires power sending up the coax to make the LNB work. In addition, there's also variation in the power level - 13V or 19V - to switch reception modes between two different frequency bands within the LNB, and on top of all of that there's a tone on or off to change between horizontal and vertical polarisation. There's a lot more going on with just basic satellite reception.

What's puzzling is the new TV's apparent inability to switch between those two tuners. I would expect both tuners to be able to scan and hold stations in memory, then for the TV to allow viewing to be switched between Soarview and Freesat as simple as swapping between the HDMI inputs. I think that's what you were getting at regarding the older TV.

(Note: I have to be careful here because there are tuner boxes that will receive both Freeview and satellite and make the whole lot accessible via a single TV guide. That's what I thought you might have been suggesting with the older Sony TV.)

Sony has followed the heard with the ruddy awful e-manuals method of producing an instruction book. The quick-start guide and everything else that's available from them doesn't cover switching between Freeview (DVB-T2) and Freesat (DVB-S2) as far as I've found. That's very frustrating.

I know that you have a Manhatten Freesat box, so you can get both services by simply leaving the TV tuned to Soarview, but that's not the point. There is a genuine requirement for switching as the channel mix will be different between terrestrial and satellite, and it shouldn't require a customer to go buy an extra box when the TV has both tuners.

LG changed the way that some of their TVs switched sources - most notably the OLEDs - with their Web OS TV software. Instead of a simple input cycling they made it so that it required a convoluted diversion through some menus. Do you think that Sony has buried its source selection in the same way? What happens if you press the TV button on the handset repeatedly?

Have you spoken to your dealer or Sony's online help?

 

[Rodders53]

OP has asked same Q on the Sony Community website on Monday; with no replies so far (Thursday afternoon).

What country is input (selected) when asked (and when is/was that Q asked)?
Could it be to do with that in any way (especially if it's needed to be changed when re-tuning -T vs -S)?

I agree with the Sony manual (and other online help/instructions) being as useful as a chocolate teapot. Nothng found via Google on AVForums or DigitalSpy, at least so far, either.

 

[Johntheo5]

Thanks for your very detailed reply, is tuner 1 looking at the "antenna" socket (where I have the rabbits ears?, I have a choice of scanning Antenna, cable or satellite, but no reference that I can see re scanning with different tuners so one tuner in my case seems to be able to scan both antenna and satellite but the last scanned "wins".

I have pressed the TV button several times but it only switches once, from the Manhatten to TV.
I spoke to a number of dealers but no joy possibly because most people buying these TVs allready have either a Saorview or a Freesat box so only needs the TV to pick up one or the other.
Yes, I have a docket with Sony so might get a reply sometime.

One annoying thing with this model is that it has no Off LED.
Edit: Apologies to Sony, there is a ON blue LED under "Sony" that I didn't see in the daylight.

 

[Johntheo5]

What country is input (selected) when asked (and when is/was that Q asked)?
Could it be to do with that in any way (especially if it's needed to be changed when re-tuning -T vs -S)?

Don't remember if country was asked for but think the language was.

 

[Rodders53]

OP has had one semi-useful response on Sony Community

"I do know that the early Android sets has a similar limitation where you could either have YouView or Satellite tuning, but not both at once.

This set is a 2021 model with Freeview Play but also works with Soarview in Ireland.

I'd suggest that a full factory reset is attempted. With both SAT and TV antennas connected. That might allow both connections to be detected and 'enabled'? Possibly.

Consider repeating with no internet connectivity enabled (even when prompted to set up) in case it's something to do with IP addresses (location) and Android?

Plain daft if it cannot do both; but at least the STB can provide satellite along with the TV tuner for Saorview. Far from ideal though!

 

[Johntheo5]

I also had a response from Sony HQ which stated "We can confirm that you can get both but not at the same time" so if that is to be taken literally, then so be it, I'm happy to have Saorview from the antenna jack and Freesat from the Manhattan box via the satellite F connector.

Something that may be of interst, if I have both the antenna & satellite cables plugged into the TV, then as stated previously, the last one scanned "wins" but if the last scan was satellite I can then do a satellite update or a satellite rescan, the satellite update did upload 4 or 5 new channels which logically should just be added on to the hundreds of the full satellite scan but when I then go to view them in Freeview TV all I get are these couple of stations and all the others have disappeared!, I just do a satellite rescan which prompts/reminds me (before doing so) that I will lose all the previously saved channels which again would make sense except that the previously saved channels now consist of the 4 or 5 updated channels, again, a case of last scanned wins? I then just do a satellite rescan and remove the satellite F connector from the TV and connect it into the Manhattan box and get all my Freesat channels via the HTMI1 cable and the Saorview channels from the antenna cable and Freeview.

 

[Johntheo5]

OP has had one semi-useful response on Sony Community

"I do know that the early Android sets has a similar limitation where you could either have YouView or Satellite tuning, but not both at once.

This set is a 2021 model with Freeview Play but also works with Soarview in Ireland.

I'd suggest that a full factory reset is attempted. With both SAT and TV antennas connected. That might allow both connections to be detected and 'enabled'? Possibly.

Consider repeating with no internet connectivity enabled (even when prompted to set up) in case it's something to do with IP addresses (location) and Android?

Plain daft if it cannot do both; but at least the STB can provide satellite along with the TV tuner for Saorview. Far from ideal though!

Success at last.

After scanning with both Satellite and Antenna you then go to, Settings, then Channel, then Channel Installation Mode, you the just select from the three choices of; Antenna, Cable or Satellite, whichever source you require, in my case either Antenna (for Saorview) or Satellite (for Free to Air).....then press Exit.