Hello

I am moving to Winterthur in May and I am planning on buying a few electrical goods before coming as I think it may be cheaper to do it in the UK. I have a few questions:

1) Are UK TVs compatible with the Swiss systems?
2) Should I stick with analogue or can I use digital?
3) Is it worth buying a set top box in the UK or Switzerland?
4) What english speaking channels would be available as a standard (flat has cable) and what others could I get and how?
5) Can I use my digital radio in Switzerland?

Thanks in advance

The TV standards are different from the UK PAL I and Switzerland PAL B/G. This means if you plug in a tv using the coaxial cable wire from the wall you are likely to get a picture, but have no sound.

BUT for digital TV - If your UK TV has a scart socket at the back you can use a cable box, blue win TV or a sky box (if you have access to one and can install it in Switzerland Don't tell sky ands you need a south facing wall to mount a satellite dish)

Most homes in the cities have cable TV and this will be
an analogue signal. It can be normally upgraded to a digital box.

If you ask the cable company what digital package they offer, this will give you an idea of what is available.

A UK set top box like Freeview is of no use here.

Bottom line - Bring your tele if it has a scart socket, go digital since this will give you more choice, with either a set top box through the cable company or use Blue Win TV, where you will get, BBC 1, BBC2, ITV1, BBC3, BBC4, Sky news, ITV2, 3 aand ITV4 as well as Film Four.


If you are using Swisscom for your phone you can opt for their Bluewin TV through their internet services. YOU get most of the UK channels except C4 and C5. See Bluewin TV thread.

BBC1 and ITV1 is available online through Zattoo www.zattoo.com

Lastly bring a Tesco Internet phone http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.100-9564.aspx with you. This is a box which conndects into your internet router and a normal phone plugs into it. Will give you a normal UK number in CH and you can dial the UK as if you were there. We pay GBP 5 / month for unlimited UK landline calls each up to 70 mins in duration.

Digital radio is here, but reception depends on your area and it is not as well established as in the UK.

I have added a few tags to your thread, click on them to find related threads. You are in the right forum, you just need to search and look about. All of your questions have been answered before. For example, Cablecom is your digital cable/internet provider that has bbc, itv, etc.

If the tags don't provide enough links, try this:

http://www.englishforum.ch/search.php

You might want to get SKY before you leave and bring it with you, or Satellite Freeview. The dish etc you canget here but bring the box with you.

Winterthur is served by Cablecom. You can check the availability of all services on the Cablecom website, but generally, every location in the city of Winterthur with an existing cable connection should be well served.

1. Yes, if your TV is a multi-standard TV. Check the user manual, the TV standard used in Switzerland is PAL B/G. The UK uses PAL-I.
If your TV is PAL-I only, then you can only connect via AV or SCART. You cannot use the analogue tuner. If the TV is PAL-I only, and more than 2 years old, consider selling it in the UK.

2) As you wish. There are a couple of analogue cable TV English speaking channels, but there are 11 English speaking channels on digital cable TV (DVB-C). Digital free over-the-air (DVB-T) is restricted to just 4 x Swiss channels, plus anything you may be lucky enough to get from Austria and Germany, depending on your location. There is no more analogue over-the-air TV.
However digital cable TV is encrypted and you must use a Cablecom digital settop box, so there is no point buying a TV with builtin DVB-C digital TV tuner.

3) Depends what you want to receive. For satellite: shop around. For cable TV: you can only use the Cablecom settop box.

4) All info is here:
http://www.cablecom.ch/en/index/tvra...sender_dch.htm
You get BBC Prime. BBC 1, BBC 2, BBC World, ITV 1, ITV 2, CNN, CNBC, Al Jazeera, Film4, and Fashion TV as native English channels, all included in the basic digital TV offering.
Plus many programs and movies are shown in multi-language, with English being the most common 2nd language. So I watch Greys Anatomy on SF2 in English.

5) If your digital radio is DAB, then yes. The Swiss use the same DAB standard. Should work.


There is a small fee of 6 CHF per month to rent the cablecom digital TV receiver. No recorder function. Full details here.
If you want the digital receiver with built in recorder (what I have) the price is 10 CHF per month (on top of the satdnard apartment connection fee, which is normally included in the rent), but the first 3 months are half price (or first 6 months if you buy another Cablecom product)

If you will own your own house/apartment, then you part the standard service fee of around 20 CHF per month (pays for the analogue TV and radio), plus any additional services like digital TV receiver etc.

Cablecom also do very good internet deals, their internet speeds are fantastic - I get 15Mbps - and the pries are very reasonable.