Advice getting aerial / Coax to TV

[Ed_Corney]

Hi so I have a bit of an issue following a renovation.

I have a kitchen extension with a TV mounted on an internal wall, which was the old external wall of the house.
The internal wall has studs (about 80mm deep) mounted on the old external brickwork, with 12mm plasterboard over the top, with a few niches in there to mount a TV.
We do have a couple of power sockets in the mount, but in our haste/stupidity to get it up, we forgot to get a coax cable in there.

We are using a sky stream puck to watch /TV currently (plugged into a powerline adpater to give more stable internet connection), but there seems to be a recurrnat issue with audio and viual lagging, which makes watching live TV unbearable.

As I undertand it, there a few things I might be able to do to fix my issue.

1) Use a firestick or similar / the apps on the TV (iplayer/ ITVX / 4OD etc) - not my preference, given you can't scroll/surf channels easily.

2) Use a digital / portable aerial - might work but it would have to be housed behind the TV in the wall, which I'm guessing would compromise the signal and would make changing anything a real pain in the TV woudl have to be taken off the wall each time.

3) Get a Coax to the location - might be possible but a lot of work as the main Coax is on the pther side of the house and it would involve getting the floor up in the bedrom above and fishing cables through blind etc...

Personally I think I might be forced to go for #3, evene if it is a lot of work, as the other solutions seems sub-optimal to me.
Am I I missing something really simple that would sort the issue? The 'main' coax is very accessiable on other side of the house in that it comes down the wall and intio our living room, where I lso have some hard wired cat 6 cables. Is there some solution to extend that wirelessly?

Cheers

 

[Murdochcat]

Try a fire stick first. Not expensive and no mess

 

[foxhole]

Would need to know house plan to advise

 

[Tigercubrider]

Can you drop the Co-ax through the old rear cavity wall?
It’s a pain to do but you might be lucky and get a tracer from the loft.
Or at least from the first floor.

Or simply pay an aerial guy to run a new cable to (presumably) the back of the house.

 

[Diver Fred]

Do Option 3 and put a CAT 6 cable in at the same time, in fact put 2 Co-Ax's in so you can be ready for Satellite as well as Terrestrial TV and TV over the BroadBand network.

Your other half may complain initially but will thank you for do it in future as it hides everything out of sight.

 

[Lucid]

Have a second TV antenna installed, and then the cable drop routed just to that TV.

At the moment, live TV over the internet is still a fragmented service. It doesn't matter whether you watch via a Fire TV stick, or the TV apps, or some other smart device, there still isn't complete coverage of all the channels. It's getting better, but it still isn't yet a full list. Those that have a service often include forced adverts before live viewing commences, and that makes channel hopping a painful process that you don't have to endure with a live TV feed from terrestrial or Sky's digital satellite service.

The future though is internet delivered TV. We have the start of it with BBC iPlayer, Sky Stream, Sky Glass, and now Freely TV, the beginnings of what will be the IP replacement for Freeview. Quite how long it will take for all the channels to get onboard is a bit of an unknown right now.

Freeview has about 100 channels. This includes those channels counted twice or three times because of HD and +1 versions, but not the regional editions of the BBC and commercial channels. Freely has just under 30 channels excluding the additional regional editions. There are no +1 channels, and no distinction made for SD/HD. The bulk of what's currently available via this IP service is from the main backers: BBC, ITV, Ch4 and Channel 5.

The U channels such as Dave and Yesterday have been added recently (and included in my 'just under 30 figure'), but that still leaves a lot of other channels as yet unrepresented. when you look at the Freely website, and its TV listing, you'd get a very different impression. That's because their TV guide is based on a TV connected to the internet and to a terrestrial aerial. Incidentally, Freely appears to be a hardware dependent app, and so it's limited to Freely edition TVs. I can find it through the Fire TV Stick app market, but it's not available to download onto either of my FS devices as it's listed as incompatible.

By the sound of things too, your Wi-Fi might be struggling a little to maintain a connection to the puck, so I'm guessing you'd have the same issue with any IPTV service. One more reason to cut straight to the chase with an outdoor aerial rigged directly to the TV.

Depending on the Sky hardware you have, it is possible to convert the HDMI output into the equivalent of an extra Freeview channel (actually, a mux) and either take that directly to the kitchen TV via coax cable, or even add the signal to that from a terrestrial aerial. Your puck, connected somewhere with better Wi-Fi coverage could be the source.

 

[Ed_Corney]

Thanks for all the replies.

The issue with the puck is not wifi, as it's running off a powerline adapter plugged into one of the sockets behind the TV (though perhaos that is too weak - I'm sure it would be betetr with direct Cat6 cable). I've also been reading up on the issue on various sky forums and it seems to be a common issue, possibly related to soundbars etc.

Getting a Coax/Cat6 cables to loction is the best option but a right pain given the location (basically the middle of the house) - I'll give it a bash

 

[Diver Fred]

Thanks for all the replies.

The issue with the puck is not wifi, as it's running off a powerline adapter plugged into one of the sockets behind the TV (though perhaos that is too weak - I'm sure it would be betetr with direct Cat6 cable). I've also been reading up on the issue on various sky forums and it seems to be a common issue, possibly related to soundbars etc.

Getting a Coax/Cat6 cables to loction is the best option but a right pain given the location (basically the middle of the house) - I'll give it a bash

Powerline adaptors really aren't suitable for use in the UK. They are OK in the USofA where most if not all houses have a Transformer to drop the mains voltage for the Socket outlets - it acts as a Low Pass Filter (so isolates the power line adaptors).
Your immediate neighbours may be of the same Phase and also using one so they will interfere with each other.
Be much better to drop a CAT5/6 or 2 now with the arial cable to sort that problem out properly.