Does anyone demo TVs from an aerial ?

[cs2011]

Just been to Currys / PC World to view some TVs, but they are all fed from demo signals, not from an aerial. This means it is impossible to see how they really perform in practice, particularly regarding upscaling from SD. John Lewis is the same.

Are there any retailers who demo from an aerial feed ?

I'm interested mainly in the Sony 49XE9005 and Samsung 49" QLED.

 

[laserman16]

Our "local" John Lewis does, also Hughes Electrical and Richer Sounds as well.

 

[bigboss]

You'll need to go to independent specialist shops for a proper demo. Remember that large stores are likely to have a shared feed which massively deteriorates performance and is not representative of aerial signal quality at home. I was at John Lewis on Friday wanting to demo some DAB radios. None of them worked well as many people were trying out different DAB radios.

You can take some DVDs with you to check upscaling quality.

 

[Turnbacktime]

The two John Lewis stores closest to us both do. They won’t usually have the sets switched to it, but staff have always handed over a remote when asked and left me to play.

apparently it is a Curry’s policy not to provide off air pictures to sets on display because of the “difficulty is distributing the signal” or so they told me. In same way it seems to be policy not to train staff on the goods they sell. Was told HDR was like high def only higher. Would never buy a set from them.

 

[bigboss]

Currys is right about difficulty in distributing the signal (shared feed) though.

 

[daveh75]

Remember that large stores are likely to have a shared feed which massively deteriorates performance and is not representative of aerial signal quality at home

Sorry BB, but this is complete nonsense, and I'm surprised at you. Remember these are digital signals we are talking about, there are no degrees of quality, it either works or it doesn't.

Currys is right about difficulty in distributing the signal (shared feed) though.

Again, having designed, installed and commissioned many a distribution system, including systems for retailers, and everything from little independents to large department stores over the 15 years I spent as an independent aerial/sat system installer this is also nonsense.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

^ If done right you're right.

But I suspect most retailers don't bother. Just let the sales team plug them in any old way. Lots of connections and splitters, etc.