Televisions
hi just looking at a TV for our new motorhome
any advise on what to look for would be appreciated
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Comments
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Well I purchased an Avtex about 3 years ago, and I have to say that its been great. Its designed to be used in a mobile sort of context, so its very easy to retune it when moving to new locations. Various screen sizes available, inbuilt Dvd player and nice sharp picture!
TF
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We bought a 12 volt/mains TV with built in DVD from Aldi for £100 and found this to be fine. Only trouble is they do not come up for,sale very often
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hi just looking at a TV for our new motorhome
any advise on what to look for would be appreciated
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I think you need to give us a bit more information. Will you only be using it on 230v electrics via an aerial. If so any TV would do although I feel you will get a better picture if you buy a branded TV. If you want to use it on 12v then your will have tos
earch a bit deeper but they are out ther. If you intend usng it via a satellite dish you might want to consider one with a built in free to air satellite receiver. You choice is more limited but they are out there. We have an Avtax, by no means the cheapest
but excellent none the less.David
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I agree with other it depends on
1. where do you want to use it - only UK or Europe + UK
2. how much do you want to spend - if on a budget and only want to use in uk then the big supermarkets have good fairly cheap tv's that will do
3. what do you want to use it on - mains 240v only or 12v aswell
4. do you want to have a DVD player aswell as USB - if the answer to most of the above is yes then you need to be using something like an Avtex or a Cello
We have the Cello tv, it is both 240v + 12v has built in freesat, freeview, irish freeview, DVD + usb port. If you intend on going to europe you will need a satellite dish aswell 85c will get you down to the border with Spain, pretty much all of France, Germany, Luxembourg Netherlands and Belgium.
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We have just bought a Finlux 22" which is 12 volt and 240 volt picture is absolutely fine with a good angle of view. Only had it a few weeks so can't speak about reliability. Sound quality is adequate for use in the confines of a motorhome. It has a DVD Player built in and the ability to record to. USB port.
Currently £155 on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Finlux-Combi-Travel-Model-22FBE274B-NCM/dp/B00NAXRJYO
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We use an 'ordinary' TV in the caravan - I think it's a 24", but has no 12 volt - it's mains only. That's no big issue for as as we always use EHU. It's got an integrated DVD drive and has a USB and various other ports. It certainly serves our purpose. We bought it from Tesco's and paid about £150 for it.
David
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We bought a 12 volt/mains TV with built in DVD from Aldi for £100 and found this to be fine. Only trouble is they do not come up for,sale very often
I bought one of those earlier this year and found it to be rubbish and took it back. It kept losing the signal in areas where there had been perfect reception with other TVs. Now have an Avtex 24" DRS which, whilst expensive, is excellent. As TF says,
easy to re-tune, outstanding picture quality, DVD player and in-built satellite decoder. Use it with an Easy-Find satellite dish when terrestrial reception is poor and that, also, is very easy to set up. Well worth the extra money in my opinion.0 -
We have been using a cheap Argos 19in 240v (£90 I think) only tv for a number of years. It is fairly basic but has a built in DVD player. The tv has been fine in UK and Europe and we have a cheap Digibox for receiving via satelite. It has been fine and
trouble free. Easy enough to retune for UK or Europe terestial tv. We use either the Status caravan aerial or a free standing sat disc. The changes to the satelite footprint a couple of years ago have resulted in freesat not being available all over europe
but you would be surprised at the hotspots you find! Adjusting the sat disc - well, the first time took ages but you get better with practice: download the info showing degrees and elevation for locations throghout UK and Europe. A compass and 'sat finder'
are a great help!0 -
The use off EHU on 12 VDC situation is not quite a "black and white" issue because as I did for years you can run a mains TV off an inverter.
It is not as efficient as the better of the12 VDC TVs can offer as there will be invertion losses, though if correctly specified these are not too great and can be sub 20%.
IMO, it does open up the selection of very much better value for money and higher quality domestic market TVs. We had a 15" SONY that for its time was excellent and only changed when a new van featured an inbuilt widescreen TV. It was powered by a size optimised quality inverter.
If only an infrequent off EHU user going that route has IMO a lot to offer.
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You got to answer the question do I need to be able to use it on 12v or will I always be on mains? Once you have settled that question then you can start considering your other requirements and starting getting specific recommendations.
Also how important is TV to you? In the last few years we have had 5 evenings without mains due to site supply problems. In did not matter to us greatly that we had no TV as it is only used on about 2.5% of evenings away. It usually stays in the cupboard
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You got to answer the question do I need to be able to use it on 12v or will I always be on mains? Once you have settled that question then you can start considering your other requirements and starting getting specific recommendations.
Also how important is TV to you? In the last few years we have had 5 evenings without mains due to site supply problems. In did not matter to us greatly that we had no TV as it is only used on about 2.5% of evenings away. It usually stays in the cupboard
I agree with this. We watch a lot more tv than we used to simply because the TV is on a mounting. When it was under a seat we hardly got it out and set it up and didn't miss it. Our TV is 12v simply because most of caravanning is off mains using a inverter
is perfectly feasible but what you are doing is take a 12v dc supply which is then transformed into a 230v supply you feed this via the plug into the TV which immediately transforms back to 12ish volts. Al this is relatively inefficient.0 -
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. Our TV is 12v simply because most of caravanning is off mains using a inverter is perfectly feasible but what you are doing is take a 12v dc supply which is then transformed into a 230v supply you feed this via the plug into the TV which immediately transforms
back to 12ish volts. Al this is relatively inefficient.Whilst that may be true I would suggest you can buy a very much "better" domestic market quality TV for quite a bit less money than a niche market Avtex. We have now an Avtex and IMO it is a lot poorer in nearly every respect than the SONYs and the Samsung
HD sets at home.The ineffeciency of using an inverter is only of import if it impacts on the TV's use. With our solar panel set up the inverter's losses have no tangible impact.
The point I am trying to help bring into this discussion for the OP is that the TV does not have to be a 12 vDC device if you camp off an EHU.
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Thanks everyone alot of info to digest. was looking at the Avtex a bit expensive but have been having trouble running in on our cheap Tesco TV . Thanks again
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Bargain popped into local furniture scheme store bought two 19 inch flat screen TVs with free view and DVDs players but no remote £40 the pair already got uni remote at home both working prefect in the van I no a bit of thread but a bargain not to be missed
check your local scheme out you never no what you my find Ho both elec tested0 -
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. Our TV is 12v simply because most of caravanning is off mains using a inverter is perfectly feasible but what you are doing is take a 12v dc supply which is then transformed into a 230v supply you feed this via the plug into the TV which immediately transforms
back to 12ish volts. Al this is relatively inefficient.Whilst that may be true I would suggest you can buy a very much "better" domestic market quality TV for quite a bit less money than a niche market Avtex. We have now an Avtex and IMO it is a lot poorer in nearly every respect than the SONYs and the Samsung
HD sets at home.The ineffeciency of using an inverter is only of import if it impacts on the TV's use. With our solar panel set up the inverter's losses have no tangible impact.
The point I am trying to help bring into this discussion for the OP is that the TV does not have to be a 12 vDC device if you camp off an EHU.
Last year I bought an "exclusive" Samsung HD Tv from Currys. It had an external 14v power supply it works perfectly from the caravan battery. My personal opinion is that you pay a lot for the Avtex name. Wrt to the inverter I agree it is practical but what
ever way you look at it, it is a less efficient solution.0 -
We have got through 2 "cheap" supermarket bought TVs and number 3 has a dodgy DVD player but I put it down to the somewhat rough life they lead in transit and dont think paying more would improve matters.. We only use them for DVDs and don't watch TV any
more, not because we are too intellectual but because I have decided given the quality of much of the output life is too short for satellite dish alignment on the far reaches of the footprint just to get something on UK GoldCouldn't agree more AD, however we are having a roof mounted one fitted rather than carry the 85cm dish and tripod around. We did think about getting Sky so we could get more channels when down in Spain but have ruled that out aswell becasue it would just
be channels we don't watch anyway so what's the point. Instead what we do is record programmes we do like, while at home onto a portable hard drive. We put films on it and half hour and hour long programmes so if we want to watch something before going to
sleep we have a varied selection. By the way you can no longer download Filmon to a device
OH is looking at a more powerful wifi aerial to
see if that would improve the signal when on sites.0 -
What hard drive are you using as it would be easier than copying to DVDs as I do now.
AD, its an Intenso 500Gb but any good quality one should be fine. We have it set up in the spare bedroom, so can just pop in an set it when we see anything we think we might like. We have very good freeview here so lots of rubbish channels to choose
from
The box we have coupled up to our main tv has a built in hard drive and a dvd player so we do on occasions copy films from the hard drive to a dvd to take away aswell.
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What hard drive are you using as it would be easier than copying to DVDs as I do now.
AD, its an Intenso 500Gb but any good quality one should be fine. We have it set up in the spare bedroom, so can just pop in an set it when we see anything we think we might like. We have very good freeview here so lots of rubbish channels to choose
fromThe box we have coupled up to our main tv has a built in hard drive and a dvd player so we do on occasions copy films from the hard drive to a dvd to take away aswell.
Thanks I will look into it.Its got to be easier than recording and then copying to DVD
Much easier
, just make sure its compatable to the TV you will be using to watch it back on, if using a differant one to record on.0 -
"Incidentally for anyone else with Sky we have a Sky+ box that acts as an hard drive but the software is such that nothing on it is acccesible unless we can get a valid tv signal"
...as David says, this is true, but in fact its more than this....the search for the tv signal will also check that your viewing card is valid.
no card or an invalid card will prevent many of the box features being used, including record and live pause.
non subscription channels can be watched without a card (once you have a signal....) but cant be recorded.
there are other dedicated (twin tuner) satellite recording devices on the market which arent tied to any subscription, but no Sky sports/movies can be viewed.
for those that watch such things, the big attraction with Sky is the much, much larger footprint for their premium channels, allowing sports, movies etc to be viewed (and recorded) all over (eg) Spain even on a smallish dish.
again, for info, Sky also sends a range of programs (documentaries, movies etc) directly to the box over the satellite for viewing at leisure, even with no wifi connection.
so, always a bunch of new stuff arriving even when out in the wilds....
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BB, as you know we looked into getting Sky so we could take it away with us to Spain. We have a sky+ box at home with a freeview card. I think if we needed to have Sky at home (we don't) then I would consider upgrading the package to so I could take it away
and receive these channels. However we don't and at a cost of £32 minimum a month just to receive some kind of channels when away for 2 months seemed to be a bit OTT.For anyone who is thinking of getting the new Q box from Sky you will need to change your LNB and the Q Sky card is differant to the one used in a Sky+ box so you can't remove the card from the Q box and pair it and use it in a Sky+ box. We found all this
out recently when we were looking into it, another reason for not going down that road.0 -
agreed, if you're already a Sky subscriber, it makes sense to take what youre paying for away with you....and, of course, it works...
for those that dont use Sky at home, there are other ways to time shift programs, though once beyond the south of France (and the end of the UK home channels...) those programs wont be worth recording...
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