Sony Android TV from UK to France

[Yulbrinner]

Hi guys,

i have contacted the support team but they didn’t answer my question below:

I bought a KD49X8309c in the UK with Android TV on it, I will move to France soon and was wondering if my TV will be able to get DVB-T digital channels and if all the per-installed BBC iPlayer, ITV, Channel4 will be replaced by other French catchup TV (I am interested because I’m French myself).

Do I need to get another firmware to switch the configuration from UK to French?

thank you for your help.

[IamNic]

Hi @Yulbrinner,

you can think of DVB-T (terrestrial) like radio.

If you travel trough the country, you do receive different radio stations in different areas.

The same is true for DVB-T. You won't be able to receive the same channels in France that you could receive in the UK.

I though am sure you need to scan for the frence channels, once you moved into your new home. Since they will probably not use the same exact slot as the UK channels, the UK channels won't simply be replaced by another one.

- Nic

[royabrown]

If you are using the YouView side of things, don’t expect that to work very well.

A YouView box, taken to Spain, loses most of its Players, and the ones that it doesn’t use geo-restrictions to decline to play you actual programmes, though they will generally give you the lead-ins.

It will tune Spanish channels, even the HD ones, though these come over DVB-T in Spain, as they do in France, but shows them from 800 upwards, and with no programme information in the EPG, though it does list the channels.

Things ought to be better on the Freeview side, and the TV may be inherently more versatile, and you may be able to switch it to French operation. But in a Samsung TV I brought back from Spain, the setting for UK operation was in an Engineer’s Menu, which needed a special sequence on the remote to access, and came with suitably dire warning that one misstep could brick the TV.

But I fundamentally could not get any HD channels, as Samsung save money by not putting a DVB-T2 tuner in sets for areas where they aren’t used.

Not an issue you will have, going the other way.

But Frenchifying the set may take a few steps.

I suggest you have a look in the regular menus to see if you can change geographical area anywhere, and if not, try and figure out how to get into the Engineer’s Menus, and hope those don’t need an Engineer’s Remote, like Panasonic BluRay Players do if you want to make them region-free.

Or perhaps some kind soul here will have more details....

[tractor9]

Terrestial UK TV of any sort will not work correctly outside the UK. A signal from a correctly directed sattilite dish to a UK sattilite receiver will work but no YouView only the free to air signals.

[copicke45]

France uses the same DVB-T & DVB-T2 terrestrial transmission standards as the UK, although it uses MPEG4 encoding on DVB-T and HEVC on DVB-T2. Your TV should be able to cope with both.

But as has been said, turn off the Youview app and just use the inbuilt guide. You should be able to reset the country to France in the initial setup settings which would probably remove the Youview app anyway.

[tractor9]

I lived in Central France for 5 Years and I can tell you you will not get a UK terrestrial signal you need a well directed sattitlite dish. Yes France and most of Europe use the same  DVB-T2 If you are multilingual no problem but that does not mean you can receive UK TV even if you do have a UK TV license. 

Free to air stuff via the Astra Sattilite is the way to go, gives nearly all the FreeView programs but you do not the get guide or a decent program schedule.

Even then you will have to purchase a French TV license (paying to use the TV not to receive the programming).

[copicke45]

The OP is not asking about watching UK TV in France. He is asking about taking his TV from the UK to France and whether it would work.

I think most people are aware that if they move to a foreign country they will only get the locally available terrestrial channels.

[eoinocinneide]

Hi,

I brought mine from Ireland to the Czech Republic.

Everything works fine, can tune DVB-T stations, can get to Streams over the web, can download and use Android Apps.

Only thing I can't get right is the automatic translate feature from Czech to English.

[Yulbrinner]

HI guys

thank you for all these answers. I should be able to get my tv to tunes the French channels then just one last think, Sony pre-install some apps like BBC or Channel4 VOD etc, they do the same in France apparently. Can I somehow remove these apps or change a firmware to simulate a French purchase and have the French pre installed apps ? Thanks