Freesat or Freeview?

Enterprise_1701C

We have both - very useful for when the weather decides to block one signal or the other!

sniggings

Enterprise_1701C wrote: »

We have both - very useful for when the weather decides to block one signal or the other!

come to think of it, I have both too, the TV has build in freeview but no recording, so that is a good backup if like you say one goes down.

Not sure though I would have got freesat if I didn't already have the dish up and had a decent aerial! at the time the house aerial wasn't good enough (thanks workmen, as now it is) if it was good enough at the time, I don't think I would have chosen to spend the extra to have a dish installed.

The_pc_tech

I went down the Freesat route as Freeview reception is a bit hit and miss round here or at least it was when I got the dish put up, those that went for Freeview had to spend money on amplifiers to get it to work, I knew a satellite setup would be simpler so just went for that.

My personal advice would be if you are in a low valley or uneven terrain go for satellite but the only thing is Dave is not available on Freesat, I did even mail the broadcaster (UKTV) and they say there's no plans to add it to satellite.

There's a good few news channels on there.

almillar

Niv, please do be more specific - I don't think that Goolies' post was biased at all (I have both, and prefer Freesat BTW) so what part of it did you not like?
The weather affecting the signal part? Any aerial or Satellite signal can be affected by weather, and with digital, a weak signal is more annoying, drop outs and breaks, instead of shadowing or fuzziness in analogue. But when you consider how the signal travels (miles across the atmosphere for aerials, miles from space for satellite), it follows that satellite is MORE weather affected than aerial.

victory

Thanks for the replies, the ones with freesat and freeview do you also have sky/virgin or freesat enough? Do not understand the PVR?

macman

Personal Video Recorder-same as a Sky+ box: record, delay, rewind functions.

[Deleted User]

almillar wrote: »

Any aerial or Satellite signal can be affected by weather, and with digital, a weak signal is more annoying, drop outs and breaks, instead of shadowing or fuzziness in analogue. But when you consider how the signal travels (miles across the atmosphere for aerials, miles from space for satellite), it follows that satellite is MORE weather affected than aerial.

I think the point is that the original post gave the impression that satellite services were subject to regular disruption due to "weather".
In fifteen years of having a satellite dish, I've only experienced (very minor) problems associated with "weather" and only on very rare occasions.
A properly fitted and aligned dish will produce faultless reception in anything other the most extreme weather conditions. Needless to say, Britain doesn't have a very extreme climate!

sniggings

victory wrote: »

Thanks for the replies, the ones with freesat and freeview do you also have sky/virgin or freesat enough? Do not understand the PVR?

when you see PVR just think Video recorder, it's just a different name for a box that records from TV.

mjm3346

GooliesOfFire wrote: »

Freesat
-pros: more channels, still more new ones can be expected even HD ones as there is room for it.
-cons: prone to signal problems in very bad weather, usually requires additional decoder, ugly dish outside your house

Freeview:
-pros: usually no additional decder required as new TVs come with it built-in, you can hide freeview aerial in your loft so it's not visible outside and not affected by any weather problems
-cons: limited number of channels and it's not going to change for better with limited frequencies available, especially more HD channels are not very likely to appear

That is probably due to your set-up, mine is the other way round, Freeview can be lost in wind/rain but nothing touches the Freesat signal.

GooliesOfFire

mjm3346 wrote: »

That is probably due to your set-up, mine is the other way round, Freeview can be lost in wind/rain but nothing touches the Freesat signal.

Mine Freeview not affected by weather. My aerial is in my loft and wind and rain do nothing to it.

When I had Freesat in my old house we sometimes (once/twice a year) had some problems with some channels at very cloudy weather. If your signal is affected by rain it can be water in your cables and can affect both Freesat and Freeview.. same with wind - can affect both if poorly fitted aerial/dish.