TV in France

jenny_f

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but here goes...

my Grandparents are moving to France. They have been told they need some form of Sky card to be able to get BBC/ITV etc over there, costing about £70, anyone know more about this and where we can get it cheaper?

Cheers in advance

bingo_bango

I know there was a thread on this last year. Will go have a look and report back.

edit: I've gone back to 2004, and can't find that other thread...sorry!

Lob_Rockster

a freesatfromsky box and card should be about £149; that's box, dish, card.
alternately they can get BBC and ITV for free with any satellite system.

do they have digital tv now?

jenny_f

In the UK they currently have a freeview box, but have been told that that won't work over there. Basically they need some card (FreeSeat??) and I've been the one designated to find it cheaper or to even find it!!!

windym_2

Don't know about France but our friends have Sky in Cyprus. They registered the box over here and then when they go to Cyprus (6 months at a time) they take the box and card over with them and plug it into their (enormous) dish. They then get all the same package.

brodev

You need a SKY digibox and a Freesat card. When they get to France they will need a satellite dish installed. The size of the dish will depend on where exactly they are. Second hand Sky boxes can be bought for £20-£50 on Ebay. make sure that you get 1 box , 1 remote and 1 Scart lead. A freesat card can be got from Sky for £20. If you wish you can PM me and I will step you through it all.
Another thought , If they are close to England they may receive Freeview as present.

espresso

brodev wrote:

You need a SKY digibox and a Freesat card. When they get to France they will need a satellite dish installed. The size of the dish will depend on where exactly they are. Second hand Sky boxes can be bought for £20-£50 on Ebay. make sure that you get 1 box , 1 remote and 1 Scart lead. A freesat card can be got from Sky for £20. If you wish you can PM me and I will step you through it all.
Another thought , If they are close to England they may receive Freeview as present.

Agreed except for your final thought. Very unlikely as some Brits on the south coast have problems with Freeview reception due to restricted power levels, so that the signals don't interfere with France!

:eek:

jimjams99

Hi Jenny,

Just moved to France 3 months ago. We're renting and the owner kindly installed a satalitte dish with its own free to air digital reciever (box). Once the engineers pointed it in the right direction it picks up a huge number of UK freeview channels. All the BBC channels and all ITV. Not Ch 4 or 5 at the moment but there is a rumour they will be avalible soon. So no sky box or card needed but no way to add extra subscription channels at the moment as far as I am aware.

Also their freeview box might actually work with a normal antenna depending where in france they are, but of course will only recieve french version of freeview eg french channels.

Hope that helps

Jamie

dc

The French have always had to be different, besides originally having a different number of lines in the picture than 625, they use Secam as opposed to the German PAL system for colour coding, so the Freeview box will not give a colour picture if any, as it uses PAL.

Satelite is the only way and they will need a UK tv set to receive Sky for the same reason. The weaker the signal the bigger the dish.

HTHs dc

PS Sky signal also depends where in France they are living as has been said, the satelite beams its signal like a torch to the UK as part of its Astra licence and to prevent Sky from interfering with other satelites

Zinger549

Some friends of ares hose a house in Normande in France and they can get sky with thee digibox and mini dish

brodev

jimjams99 wrote:

Hi Jenny,

Just moved to France 3 months ago. We're renting and the owner kindly installed a satalitte dish with its own free to air digital reciever (box). Once the engineers pointed it in the right direction it picks up a huge number of UK freeview channels. All the BBC channels and all ITV. Not Ch 4 or 5 at the moment but there is a rumour they will be avalible soon. Jamie

The reason that you cannot get CH4 or CH5 is that your free to air box cannot descramble the signal. If you get a Sky digibox and a freeview card you will be able to get CH4 and CH5 now. CH4 and CH5 are contracted to Sky for a couple of years yet and until that contract ends they will not be free to air.