Which bbc/itv Freesat Box to buy

1jim

Hi,
Possibly in the wrong section but I wondered if anyone could reccomend me a Freesat Box (the BBC/ITV one not the sky one)
I only need a standard digital not highdef one as only have crt tv.
Ideally the box (not sure if all of them do this) would be able to be manually tuned or search for non-freesat channels that are also free
Many thanks
Jim

almillar

Probably the wrong forum altogether. As far as I know they're all pretty much the same but I've seen some debate about manual tune, and also how easily accessed the manually tuned station are. You'll get much better information by going to http://www.digitalspy.com
and having a read of the Freesat forum, you'll probably get your answer without even having to post.
HTH

Hungerdunger

almillar wrote: »

Probably the wrong forum altogether.

Which MSE forum would you have posted it to, then?

savemoney

Humax make good boxes. The fox-T is a good box but not cheap about £60. They also make pvrs for around £150+

OK_Sauce

How about this package from Maplin. Depending onyour location you may need a larger dish (north of the country).

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=218642

almillar

Hungerdunger, it wasn't a Moneysaving question (not that I mind) so I suggested that the MSE forum (that's all those wee wouldn't get the best answer, and suggested an AV forum. None of the replys above specify if the products have the ability to manual tune to the other channels. Thanks for the useful post though :-)

OK_Sauce

Pretty much every satellite box available to buy in this country can be manually tuned unless it's a Sky Digibox - including the one I linked to.

alanrowell

Personally I'd wait until after Christmas by which time

a) prices will have dropped for the Freesat boxes
b) Freesat PVRs will be available
c) 2nd generation Freesat boxes will be available

At the moment it's really only a toy for the early adopters or those people who *must* have a few hours of HD TV each night

1jim

went and got a Goodmans box and am very pleased with it, very good signal, lots of extra channels (but still not a lot to watch), didnt get a HDbox as dont have a HD TV

BexTech

OK_Sauce wrote: »

Pretty much every satellite box available to buy in this country can be manually tuned unless it's a Sky Digibox - including the one I linked to.

A Sky box can be manually tune, just not that great at it. Via the add channels.

EU requirement that they can't block out any Free To Air channel. Hence they must allow a way of adding channels if they haven't paid to be on a proprietary EPG system.

BexTech

The Goodmans, Bush and Grundig boxes are all the same Alba Group box, just a different badge.

You don't need a HD TV for a HD box, does allow you access to the 3 current FTA HD channels - with the added bonus the picture quality will be better on the HD channels than the SD channels due to higher bitrate and higher resolution of broadcast - although on a SD TV down-converted.