Leave Sky and go to Freesat - Any good?

penrhyn

You need a Freesat box, try Humax Direct managers specials.

https://www.humaxdirect.co.uk/Direct/ProdCat/freesat?ck=factory

drewthemunky

Thanks for the reply!

I guess I'm trying to avoid getting new 'main' equipment if possible, plus I would have to run a second cable from the dish to be able to record and have the same functionality I had in my last place. My question was really if I can convert / adapt my existing equipment or to spend less than the cost of a new box?

System

To answer your questions - no

Your Freeview box can't be converted to receive satellite transmissions nor can your TV just get a card that gets Freesat.

You'll need to TV with Freesat functionality built in or a new Freesat box to allow you to watch/ record Freesat transmissions via your TV.

Humax (as recommended by penrhyn ) are amongst the best boxes.

penrhyn

In which case either fit a new LNB to your dish and run the twin feed In using shotgun cable, with a new box, or sort out your aerial, costs would nbe similar I suspect.

Owain_Moneysaver

drewthemunky wrote: »

- Is there an internal TV card I can swap out to covert the TV to freesat?

Very unlikely

drewthemunky wrote: »

- I also have a twin tuner freeview box with 1TB storage that I paid about £250 for a few years back, so don't really want to replace this if I can help it. Is there another box that can sit in front of it to receive the dish signal, convert it into a signal the freeview box can recognise then pass it to the TV from there? I found something on eBay called an 'RF MODULATOR FOR FREESAT FREEVIEW YOUVIEW - CONVERT SCART TO TV AERIAL RF COAX'
(sorry, it won't let me post a link) - something like this, perhaps?

Modulators will convert one channel of video to UHF. You'd have to connect:

DISH -- > Freesat box --> Modulator --> Freeview recorder aerial socket

and even then it would only work IF your Freeview recorder also has an analogue TV tuner, which it probably doesn't. It would be better to go from the Freesat box direct to the Freeview box IF the freeview recorder has SCART input sockets and can record from them, which it probably doesn't.

drewthemunky wrote: »

-At last resort I could always replace the terrestrial aerial I suppose...if any of the above if possible, would an aerial replacement be cheaper?

Possibly.

You might be better buying a cheap Freesat box (about £40) to convert your existing TV, then sell the Freeview recorder and put the money towards a new Freesat+ recorder.

Or you could sign up to Sky which is probably the lowest initial cost, but will cost you more in the long term.

Moneymaker

drewthemunky wrote: »

The terrestrial aerial in the loft is tiny and does not get a good enough signal to pick up channels, even using a booster.

Are you certain that the booster is powered? It won't pass a signal without power.

The only purpose of a booster is to amplify the signal to overcome the losses when it's passed through a splitter or down a very long cable. Otherwise it's not needed.

If the aerial really is too small, put a larger one up there. If you divulge your postcode, we can tell you what aerial is likely to work best.

Rodders53

The cheapest solution for you as you have Freeview PVR and TVs is to get a suitable aerial installed or upgrade / fix the existing.

http://www.aerialsandtv.com/loftaerials.html and the rest of that site has a wealth of good advice.

A nearby postcode (within 1-200m of your home) would allow furher mor accurate advice on likelihood of aerials in a loft working etc.,. http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/postcodechecker/ in 'detailed view' will provide predicted reception, transitter etc,.,

Only if Freeview proves unworkable should you consider buying freesat kit to use the dish connections - unless you have spare cash and want the extra TV channels you may get that way.

the_devil_made_me_do_it

Does anyone know which channels are available on freesat?

Telephoned the dedicated freesat phone line and they couldn't tell me.

I just don't relish going through every single channel to find what's available.

Also, can you use the catch up service?

wiogs

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

http://www.freesat.co.uk/get-freesat/freesat-plus-with-freetime

the_devil_made_me_do_it

Realised I will be using freesat from Sky, so I assuming from what I have read in this thread, that the channels listing will be different than the ones freesat have?