freesat recorders

auchterarder

Having previously used sky+ then purchased panasonic txl32g10b tv with built in freesat i now wish to buy the cheapest possible freesat recorder. Spotted a sagum at £200 does anyone no any cheaper?
Also now using 1 Lnb straight into tv now for freesat can i just put 1 other Lnb into recorder when its bought and use it properly ?

macman

Pay just a little more and get a Humax Foxsat HDR-well worth another £35. About £235 from Richer Sounds.
Yes, you just need two feeds from the LNB to record one channel while watching another.

dbuk44

The Sagem I think you are talking about got 4/5 stars from Whathifi.

http://www.whathifi.com/Review/Sagem-DTR-94250S/

You can get it from John Lewis for 199 w/ 2 yrs warranty, or from Currys for 199 less 5% less 3% topcashback (see HUKD for the 5% curry code).

The other poster is right; Humax has a better program guide and less reported issues with recording. I believe the you can also stick an ethernet cable in the back and configure it to show iPlayer Beta.

You can get a Grade A/open box Humax for 15 quid more:
http://www.humaxdirect.co.uk/product.asp?ProdRef=10076&cat=Factory

Pokerlad

auchterarder wrote: »

Having previously used sky+ then purchased panasonic txl32g10b tv with built in freesat i now wish to buy the cheapest possible freesat recorder. Spotted a sagum at £200 does anyone no any cheaper?
Also now using 1 Lnb straight into tv now for freesat can i just put 1 other Lnb into recorder when its bought and use it properly ?

Take the feed out of the TV and use both in the Set Top Box. Then connect the STB to the TV via a HDMI cable. You wont lose any channels and will be able to use both tuners in the STB as intended.

almillar

Another post saying that the Humax is worth the extra. I read a review of the Sagem that says it's quite good but just has too many wierd quirks to be priced so closely to the Humax.
Also, you'll have 3 Freesat Tuners, 2 in the Humax and 1 in your TV. If you want that setup to work FULLY you would need to add another feed from the dish. 2nd best would be to put both feeds from the dish into the Humax, then it has a pass-thru output that you can plug into the TV. This will all work fine until a situation where you are recording 2 things on the humax, and your TV will then only be able to use very few channels, or none at all (at which point you can always switch to FreeVIEW if you've got an aerial connected.
HTH

Pokerlad

almillar wrote: »

2nd best would be to put both feeds from the dish into the Humax, then it has a pass-thru output that you can plug into the TV.

No need to use the pass-thru with two feeds. Just plug into Sat 1 and Sat 2 (labeled that from memory) and HDMI to TV.

auchterarder

Pokerlad wrote: »

Take the feed out of the TV and use both in the Set Top Box. Then connect the STB to the TV via a HDMI cable. You wont lose any channels and will be able to use both tuners in the STB as intended.

Many thanks for the advice.But if i take LNB feed out of tv and put both available feeds into freesat recorder then am i not bypassing the very thing the tv had to offer which was built in freesat.Probably should have got a cheaper tv without freesat then got the recorder box.
On another point why is ch4 hd only available on a sky hd box and not freesat HD? im a bit confused about previous channels on sky+ no longer on freesat. Is there any news of any more hd channels joining freesat?
Many thanks to all who took the time to reply here.

Pokerlad

auchterarder wrote: »

Many thanks for the advice.But if i take LNB feed out of tv and put both available feeds into freesat recorder then am i not bypassing the very thing the tv had to offer which was built in freesat.Probably should have got a cheaper tv without freesat then got the recorder box.
On another point why is ch4 hd only available on a sky hd box and not freesat HD? im a bit confused about previous channels on sky+ no longer on freesat. Is there any news of any more hd channels joining freesat?
Many thanks to all who took the time to reply here.

Well you are but you wont gain anything from keeping a feed in the tv (unless you added a third feed) but you will gain more functunality from the box by using both in that and the key thing is u wont lose anything.

Channel 4 is a rights issue. The channel is FTV not FTA so is in effect encrypted. Im not sure what would need to happen to change this. There is no current way for FreeSat to dycrypt this channel but I guess in theory a card could be brought out to use in the CAM.

Leopard

Since you have made the investment in a FreeSat HD television, it's worth running a third feed from your dish to it. Shouldn't cost much and it will enable you to watch HD on your television while your box is recording on both its satellite tuners.

Currently, we have five satellite feeds to our lounge; two for FreeSat HD, two for Sky+HD and one that's still plugged into a Sky+ box.

In eleven months time, we're intending to give Sky the heave entirely and keep the Sky+HD box as a simple "FreeSat HD" box (one on which we'll still be able to watch Channel 4 HD.)

So we'll be doing what you should do; using three feeds from the dish to the lounge. (We'll re-route the fourth and fifth feeds to the kitchen.)

almillar

Yep, in my view you should add a 3rd feed, next best thing would be to add the pass-thru, then you can watch built in Freesat without having to turn an external box on. I explained the technical problem above which I was able to live with for months without too much hassle.
No-one really knows why Channel 4HD (and e4HD) aren't on Freesat, I'd love if you wrote to Channel 4 about it and got an answer, there area only really rumours at the moment about a Sky exclusive contract that hasn't run out yet, and that some shuffling needs to be done in the transmitting satellites for it to happen. But Channel 4 HD takes public funding and should be available on all platforms IMO. No excuse now that FreeviewHD is sort of here, with Channel4HD.

Pokerlad

almillar wrote: »

No-one really knows why Channel 4HD (and e4HD)

E4HD is certainly not on Freesat because Channel 4 want paying for it. I cant remember if it is on Virgin but certainly on Sky it is a pay channel within the HD subscription and in turn part of that is passed to channel 4.