Freeview via Cable? - Advice Needed

Lennys_Shinpad

Hi,

I have a question about Freeview.

Despite my attempts to convince her otherwise, my wife insists on paying for Sky. She just has the basic package so that she can watch Sky Atlantic. I often want to watch football while she is watching her programmes and bought myself a small TV for our spare bedroom. However, we don't have a good TV aerial in that room so can't use the freeview TV I bought. I am also planning to switch to a cable broadband provider.

Is there a way that I can use a cable service to get a decent TV signal in my spare bedroom? If not, could Freesat be an idea for me? I am used to good old analogue TV so any advice would be much appreciated.

kwikbreaks

Lennys_Shinpad wrote: »

Is there a way that I can use a cable service to get a decent TV signal in my spare bedroom?

Yes - http://store.virginmedia.com/digital-tv/set-top-boxes/multiroom.html Cable TV isn't free though and probably multiple boxes will cost extra.

lammy82

I don't think you can get a TV signal from your cable supplier without paying for cable TV service.

Assuming you're with Virgin Media for broadband, you could ask them how much it would be to have a Virgin Media box in the bedroom. It might be cheaper to cancel the Sky package and get Virgin Media in the main room and an extra box in the bedroom.

Alternatively you could ask Sky for multi-room - this will add about £10/month onto the subscription you're already paying, and will give you an extra Sky box in the bedroom.

Freesat/Freesat from sky is another option: you would need to get a cable run from your satellite dish (and may need to upgrade the LNB on the dish) to the bedroom, and use an old sky Digibox (you'll get most of the channels without any viewing card).

The minimal spend option is probably to run an aerial cable up to the bedroom from wherever the main aerial point is and then just watch Freeview on your TV.

Finally, if you have got an iPad / laptop / computer in the bedroom, you could simply use http://tvcatchup.com/ to watch most of the free channels via that device.

System

what football are you planning on watching on freeview?
If you want to watch football, either pay for sky sports or watch streams on-line...

you could also get an old sky box and run a new connection from the dish to that box, you can get all the free to air channels that way, and second hand sky boxes are cheap enough on a certain auction site - however, you won't be watching much football on that unless there's a game on itv/5

DCFC79

Depends what you want OP, do you want to watch footbal at the weekend eg premier league or just the matches on ITV/5 ?

stevemcol

Have you got a loft and does your area have reasonable reception? If it's an upstairs bedroom you could fit a loft aeriel (dead easy if you can do even basic DIY) and drop the cable through a hole in the ceiling. Next time you decorate you could bury the cable in the wall if you want it neat.
That was my solution to a bedroom TV and works well.

almillar

stevemcol's advice is good. Either do this, or buy a Freesat box and connect it to your existing dish if it's easier. If you've got Sky+ you've got a quad LNB (the bit in the middle of the dish). 2 of the outputs will be going to the Sky box leaving 2 spare, and you can use 1 of these for the Freesat box.

Lennys_Shinpad

Thanks for all the responses. They have been very helpful.

I would love to get rid of Sky but the lady's not for turning.

I only really want to watch the ITV/C5 matches during the midweek and maybe record MOTD and the football league show to watch up there. We are actually redecorating at the moment so I could go for the loft aerial (any recommendations on one?).

We do have SKY HD at the moment so would I be able to use a Freesat box? I'd also be happy to connect up an old Sky box. Would I be able to reuse an old HD box or is that not an option?

closed

what aerial have you got now?

Lennys_Shinpad

There is a TV aerial on the roof between our house and other semi. The cable runs down the roof and the side of the house without going through the loft.

closed

is that what's plugged into the bedroom tv, and giving poor reception?

Unless you live in a poor reception area, even a cheap portable aerial may give you good enough reception as the signal strengths have gone up since switchover