Where to get Formula 1 on telly

[davemurgatroyd]

Originally Posted by almillar

Thanks for the correction about it being on Virgin. And just to correct post #9 justbiteme2k - the cheapest way is NOT to add sports (and get it in SD) but to add the HD pack for half the price (£10.25) AND get it in HD.

His post was referring to Virgin who only supply Sky Sports F1 as part of the Sports Collection and do not do an HD pack - you are referring to Sky subscriptions not VM.

[Leon W]

I went down the RTL route to watch F1 live.

Bought the Ross HD Satellite kit from B&Q (£49.99) but only paid £44.99 as I got an old person to buy it on Wednesday for the extra 10% discount

Pointed it at Astra 19.2 and that's all there was too it.

RTL had a few ad breaks but nothing like the bad old ITV days and even a couple of those they still showed the race picture in picture. Listened via Radio 5 Live on my laptop and the commentary was perfectly in sync with the picture.

Not many english language channels on Astra 19.2 apart from BBC World but there is plenty of French, German, Spanish, Austrian and other channels showing all sorts of sport. I'll only use it for the F1 to be honest but will switch it to 28.2 during the off season to pick up Freesat channels. For a one off payment it should see me OK for the next few years.

[BYF]

Tried to get my old sky minidish and pace receiver to pick up Astra 1 19.2 E, but no luck, it just says "not locked" with no ID just four zeros, despite having a signal.

2 weeks ago before the F1 season started I had no such problems, it locked on fine, as I added RTL through the other channels menu. Has something changed? Have Sky locked out all the old boxes?

[Colin_London]

Originally Posted by BYF

Tried to get my old sky minidish and pace receiver to pick up Astra 1 19.2 E, but no luck, it just says "not locked" with no ID just four zeros, despite having a signal.

2 weeks ago before the F1 season started I had no such problems, it locked on fine, as I added RTL through the other channels menu. Has something changed? Have Sky locked out all the old boxes?

Just go down the route of getting a very cheap FTV DVB-S receiver (less than £30 new off Amazon) and attaching it to the dish instead of the Pace.

[Colin_London]

The current best workaround appears to be to watch RTL (SD) which is FTA on Astra 19.2E, perhaps by using a caravan mobile dish and cheap FTA reciever. Astra 19.2E signal is very strong in the UK, as good as Sky.

Then use BBC Radio 5 Live via a DAB radio (or possibly your Freeview box into an amp) for the commentary - apparently the delay in the DAB feed lines the commentary up almost exactly with the RTL picture.

Unfortunately you do have to put up with German ad breaks.

[scooby75]

Or just stream it live. No Ads, nothing additional to buy.

[dazzaofdagenham]

And how do I do that ?

[BYF]

Got the HD Satellite kit from B&Q today, should hopefully have RTL up and running very soon, plus access to free UK HD channels, still don't have freeview HD here. Another good thing about it is it looks like I can record to USB stick with it.

[almillar]

BYF, I reckon you would have been better buying a Humax Foxsat HDR Freesat box which can do all the same stuff but has a nice programme guide, proper hard drive built in, and iPlayer etc if you connect to your broadband. Do you know the difference between Freesat and free satellite (which you've just bought)? I also think you need to point the dish in different directions to get RTL and the UK stuff?

[Leon W]

B&Q are now selling the Ross HD satellite kit for £40 until April 12th for those interested.