Recording with Freesat

economiser

After months of satisfactory freeview reception we are now experiencing very poor, often non existant, signals from Crystal Palace. I have been told that it may (note may) be OK again if I upgrade my aerial and cables. The cost of this makes freesat look an option I ought to consider. A snag I think is that I have a dvd recorder (with freeserve tuner) which I suppose would not work with freesat. Would I need a new recorder to do this?

Jeewhizz

I have freesat recording fine with my dvd recorder. I am using an old grundig sky box for the freesat reception, and it has a VCR out for the scart - I connect this to the DVD recorder, and it's working fine

economiser

I don't think I was very clear in my original post. Jeewhizz, can you record one programme whilst watching another?

Starfish

If the Freesat receiver, be it a regular Sky box or a twin tuner PVR SKY+box, by hooking up to an external recording unit such as a DVD recorder, you will only be able to watch the programme you are watching.

Unless you have second receiver (or SKY +) you will not be able to watch a channel whilst recording another.

Jeewhizz

You would need to get sky+ (£10 a month charge for freesat users), or get two freesat boxes, and plug them both in (you'll need a dual LNB on the satellite).

open-gate

If I buy freesat and a recording decoder, will I be able to record from freeview transmissions using my existing humax freeview recorder? I Would want to be able record one channel whilst watching another.

ashcarrot

bear in mind there is two freesats currently (one by sky and a "proper" one from ITV/BBC)

hamblettamaud

let me spell it out clearly. freesat is free. you can also buy the freesat recorder (from humax) to record programmes to hard drive. sky is not free. you need to pay a subscription in order to be able to use their sky+ recording system. the two are not compatible with each other, and a non-sky hard driver recorder will not record sky programmes.

i know which one i'll be rooting for.

savemoney

I got the freesat (Humax) PVR just came out 2 weeks back. It used the old sky dish we had a quad lnb installed

You can receive other satellites on the freesat pvr if you go in the menu and select and and search for other satellites

Simon_John_D

If I want to record from FreeSat do I need both a FreeSat Box AND a FreeSat Recorder or can I gat by with just the recorder?

savemoney

If you want to record off freesat (not the sky one but BBC etc) you need a Humax PVR as shown below http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5321832/Trail/searchtext%3EHUMAX.htm

But they are in very short supply as they only been out 3 weeks and demand is outstripping supply

If you want to just watch freesat only a cheaper version is available there are two versions versions HD and SD boxes the HD versions are more expensive however you can then watch BBC HD for free

The box above can record two broadcasts at a time and play a recording you need a sky disgital dish, and a twin or greater LNB

You can watch other none freesat Astra satelittes in the Humax going in the settings of the box after that.

There are around 140 digital tv stations available but many are regionally like BBC Wales/London etc plus there is BBC HD this for now is apart time channel, during day its demo and after 6pm it comes on stream. There si also around 40 radio stations too this will get better in months and weeks to come

The Humax pvr can also play from a USB pen drive mp3's, jpgs and also upload from the box video although I haven't tried video yet. It also has a ethernet socket yet to be used by freesat I also heard they may be able to use BBC iplayer at some point down the line

http://foxsat-hdr.wikispaces.com/