Why Sky Or Freesat when you can have 23 satellites for £180 one off

gjchester

scotsbob wrote: »

Yes it is all legal, in the same way it is legal for someone in France to tune to the BBC. I have 23 satellites to watch and approx 7,000 channels .

Only if it's not encrypted, if it's encrypted them as I said you may, or may not be able to buy a legit card to watch it, and you may or may not be able to re-program the box to get round it. In both cases the legality is iffy to say the least.

scotsbob wrote: »

I notice a number of posters above have made little comments about foreign languages, they clearly do not understand how the receivers work. All Hollywood movies, programmes made for the Discovery channel, etc etc etc are produced in English. Foreign broadcasters dub on an additional soundtrack in their native language. The receiver box allows you to select the soundtrack you want..

Hardly.

It does not matter what the original programme was made in, it matter what it's broadcast in. Satellite signals can carry multi audio signals (as can terestrial TV for that matter but it's not often used). The key word there is CAN. The broadcaster is under no obligation to carry english language audio, they may not have even have access to the English language version, it depends if they did the dubbing or it was done for them. They usually do, but thats no guarantee they will in the future. Look at S4C or BBC Alba, they are Welsh and Gaelic channels in the UK. Neither carry English language audio, although they do sometimes carry subtitles.

Coming back to the posters original comments Nickelodeon according to KingofSat frequency charts is only available in the clear on two satellites BADR at 26E and Nilesat at 7W Both are listed as only carrying the arabic language audio and as they are intended for the UAE you can see why.
You mention Discovery Channels, NO-ONE carries those in the clear again according to KingofSat so the language selection is irrelevent as we were talking about free to air only.

Just because the system is capable of multiaudio does not guarantee that you'll get English as a language, it purely depends on what the broadcaster chooses to broadcast.

scotsbob wrote: »

I also note the little comments about what is watchable on all these channels. Well other countries appear to have less reality tv and shopping channels than we have. I don't watch every channel but then I have a choice of over 2 dozen film channels and all the sports including Scots and English Premiere than I could ever want. I also enjoy the different slant on news and current affairs that other countries have.

Again this is a huge grey area. Premire League football is licenced by the FA to Sky. I know it's available via Canal+ from France but again it's up in the air if it's legal to recieve it. Legally you cannot buy a Canal + card here as they don't have the rights to broadcast football here.

Similarly it depends on the encryption, no-one has (as far as I'm aware broken Sky's encryption. If you have dubious box it may work now but it's always cat anod mouse with the broadcasters how long it will work for.

System

I think we can sum all up by saying there is nothing legal about it. Well the FTA is legal but none has an English soundtrack apart from the news channels

ninky_2

nirelandguy wrote: »

I think we can sum all up by saying there is nothing legal about it.

exactly. like pirate dvds and illegal downloads off the internet. i don't agree with stealing content.

gjchester

nirelandguy wrote: »

I think we can sum all up by saying there is nothing legal about it. Well the FTA is legal but none has an English soundtrack apart from the news channels

Not quite, it's not that black and white.

There are free to air channels in English, just none of the channels that are classed as premium and premium sport may be there but it may vanish soon, and the cards are a grey area.

There was a few years ago where a case where a landlord was prosecuted for the same thing ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7475842.stm ) OK, it's going to appeal, and thats a pub where they were re-showing it for profit (ie beer sales), but the point of law upheld by the UK courts was Sky is the only people in the UK with the rights to show Premier Leage football so any non sky card is illegal.

Turner Classic Movies is in English, has movies , is free to air, but it's full of old films and adverts.

If you want the good stuff you have to pay for it.

scotsbob

gjchester wrote: »

but the point of law upheld by the UK courts was Sky is the only people in the UK with the rights to show Premier Leage football so any non sky card is illegal.

.

"Only in the UK" is the key phrase. Sky is the only UK broadcaster allowed to show the games in the UK.
The FA and SFA also licence the games to overseas broadcasters. Today the Arsenal V Chelsea game is being shown on 23 different foreign channels. Three of those ( 7TV, DSF and NTV) are showing it FTA. I can legally watch them and no cards are necessary. Similarly, the Celtic V Aberdeen game is on 5 channels and AJ1 is showing it FTA.

The whole point of my original post was that it is possible to watch such programmes without being tied to Sky or Freesat.

gjchester

scotsbob wrote: »

"Only in the UK" is the key phrase. Sky is the only UK broadcaster allowed to show the games in the UK.
The FA and SFA also licence the games to overseas broadcasters. Today the Arsenal V Chelsea game is being shown on 23 different foreign channels. Three of those ( 7TV, DSF and NTV) are showing it FTA. I can legally watch them and no cards are necessary. Similarly, the Celtic V Aberdeen game is on 5 channels and AJ1 is showing it FTA.

The whole point of my original post was that it is possible to watch such programmes without being tied to Sky or Freesat.

Do any of them have commentry in English?

scotsbob

gjchester wrote: »

Do any of them have commentry in English?

Wel I only watched the Celtic game and it had an English audio feed which I obtained by using the method I described in my previous post. Rather bizzarely Oman TV showed the Hearts V Falkirk game. I didn't see it but an ex colleague there emailed me to say that when he switched the audio channel from Arabic to English he got Gaelic! Presumably because they took their feed from BBC Alba which transmitted it in the UK in Gaelic only.

Then again who needs a commentary? Sport is like !!!!!!, you don't really need a commentary to enjoy it.

gjchester

scotsbob wrote: »

Wel I only watched the Celtic game and it had an English audio feed which I obtained by using the method I described in my previous post. Rather bizzarely Oman TV showed the Hearts V Falkirk game. I didn't see it but an ex colleague there emailed me to say that when he switched the audio channel from Arabic to English he got Gaelic! Presumably because they took their feed from BBC Alba which transmitted it in the UK in Gaelic only.

Then again who needs a commentary? Sport is like !!!!!!, you don't really need a commentary to enjoy it.

Doesn't that just prove my point. Just because you *may* have multi audio it doesn't mean you'll get it.

Sport may not need audio, but films do.

scotsbob

gjchester wrote: »

Doesn't that just prove my point. Just because you *may* have multi audio it doesn't mean you'll get it.

Sport may not need audio, but films do.

With all due respect I am wondering if you are using an out of date receiver or one which is not set up correctly.

I have English audio on all the film channels I watch. I can receive 48 movie channels on 23 different satellites (excluding TMC). I can access English audio on every one and none of them are subscription channels.

What receiver are you using?

gjchester

scotsbob wrote: »

With all due respect I am wondering if you are using an out of date receiver or one which is not set up correctly.

I have English audio on all the film channels I watch. I can receive 48 movie channels on 23 different satellites (excluding TMC). I can access English audio on every one and none of them are subscription channels.

What receiver are you using?

It's *NOTHING* to do with the reciever.

The broadcaster chooses what audio they transmit. Unless your reciever has a universal translater built in no matter what you have you won't get English on a channel that does not broadcast it. It can even vary according to the film if the broadcaster has not bought the english language soundtrack you won't get it. Nothing can change that.

The audio channel marked english is just a flag. Just because it says it's English that doesn't mean it is. The broadcaster "should" set the flag to the language in use but they may just use the default audio channel.

Your football comment sort of proves the point. Just because the reciever says it's English it doesn't mean you'll get english out of the speakers.