Free to air satellite

tali

Can someone explain pros and cons of free to air satellite such as this one?
http://www.aldi.co.uk/uk/html/offers/special_buys3_20473.htm

martinthebandit

Its freesat, depends if thats what you want. I put ours up, got my kit of fleabay. But then the wife bought a freeview recorder so now we just tend to use that all the time.

Kurtis_Blue

Pros:
Its not "freesat" its free sat, meaning it wont only work with the small amount of freesat channels it will work on any sat it can see, google "hotbird free to air channels"
There are a good few birds up there but for Europe its mainly hotbird, astra1 and astra2.
Its £40!!

Cons: It wont allow you to watch any "premium" channels or pay to view as it does have any cam slots etc..
The box and dish are obviously poor quality.
doesn't state the dish size that I can see.

scotsbob

The advertisement says 65cm dish so it should be ok if you live in the south of the UK. You may want to check if the receiver has the ability to record (for the price I would doubt it so you may want to add a recorder of some kind.) It probably may not have a 7 day electronic programme guide, maybe just "now and next" but there are lots of open source ones available. Because it does not have "Freesat" label it won't have "Freesat" restrictions so you will be able to record everything.

davemurgatroyd

scotsbob wrote: »

The advertisement says 65cm dish so it should be ok if you live in the south of the UK. You may want to check if the receiver has the ability to record (for the price I would doubt it so you may want to add a recorder of some kind.) It probably may not have a 7 day electronic programme guide, maybe just "now and next" but there are lots of open source ones available. Because it does not have "Freesat" label it won't have "Freesat" restrictions so you will be able to record everything.

The dish size should be suitable anywhere in the UK apart from possibly the Northern Scottish Islands if correctly aligned. That is only a single tuner SD only receiver.The only receivers so called "open source" EPGs will work on are receivers that are open source themselves and that receiver is definitely not. Note also that it may well have a 7 day DVB-S EPG but that will not display anything other than "now and next" on 28 East (the freesat/Sky satellite group).

almillar

free to air satellite is not the same as Freesat, and you should research the differences (many listed above) before buying it, may be a false economy depending on what you want.

vale46_2

hi
i have a similar kit i can use it to get foreign tv from astra1.@19.2e.hotbird.@13.0e.etc
for sport football motogp practice that the bbc dont cover
Europa.champ league football.bundesliga2. concerts on zdfkultur.etc

most on astra1 are German channels.you can get Eurosport.sport1 German national TV like ZDF.SAT1.RTL.they show F1.
(Sky sports will show most of that next year)
They mostly come in there native language if you can cope with that.

you can get freesat/uk channels on it as well there on astra2 28.2e it will show now/next programme listings but not a full EPG
To set the dish up if your ok at DIY Use the dishpointer site it will show you the direction you point the dish at to get
28.2e,19.2e.13.0e satellites

gnasher18us

You need to decide what you want free sat / free to air sat for.

If you just want free High Def channels look at Freeview HD through your normal aerial.

Most free satellite television is rubbish.

scotsbob

vale46 wrote: »

hi

you can get freesat/uk channels on it as well there on astra2 28.2e it will show now/next programme listings but not a full EPG

You can get a full 7 day EPG if you can download a patch for your receiver.
Once you have patched it all you need to do is move to 11778 wait for a minute then move to another channel. You should then find you have a full 7 day EPG.

Oliver14

gnasher18us wrote: »

You need to decide what you want free sat / free to air sat for.

If you just want free High Def channels look at Freeview HD through your normal aerial.

Most free satellite television is rubbish.

Actually Freesat has almost as good a line up as freeview now. If your in an area where the freeview signal is dodgy freesat is a good option

http://www.freesat.co.uk/

tali

Wouldn't i better off buying an old Sky freesat box from ebay? seems to give most channels per pound(that is what i want) -i don't thiink freeview boxes gives that number of channels?