Using Sky HD+ for Freesat

prowla

If you remove the viewing card from you sky box, that's what you'll get with Freesat.

neilmcl

prowla said:

If you remove the viewing card from you sky box, that's what you'll get with Freesat.

No, that's what you'll get from Free to air channels from Sky which isn't the same as Freesat.

planforfuture

So I will need to get a Freesat box in order to receive tge Freesat channels and not Free-to-Air channels? Btw, is it possible to split the HDMI output from the Freeset box and feed the signal to my main TV and a small TV in the kitchen?

Neil_Jones

planforfuture said:

So I will need to get a Freesat box in order to receive tge Freesat channels and not Free-to-Air channels? Btw, is it possible to split the HDMI output from the Freeset box and feed the signal to my main TV and a small TV in the kitchen?

No (on the Freesat thing), read the posts again.  Without an active Sky subscription you get the FTA channels and a couple of others.  There's a difference between Free to Air (which any Rod, Jane and Freddy in the footprint with a dish pointing in the right direction and a suitable receiver can get), and FTV (which are normally the ones that in days of old you'd have needed the card for but were otherwise free but most channels are either FTA or encrypted.

Re: splitting HDMI output - no.  You need a splitter that can bypass the protection of the HDMI standard, and even then there is a certain point where the signal of a HDMI cable fades, they're only good up to about 15m if that as one cable.  There are boosters you can get or HDMI Extenders but you'd have to put up with the same channel on both sets, you can't have two channels on two TVs from one box.

planforfuture

Are there any proven working HDMI extender/booster that actually works as I don't mind both TVs watching the same channel?

planforfuture

Think I may just get a cheapo freeway receiver and run a  splitter on the sat cables onto the kitchen TV to give it complete control of individual channels to watch. This should work right?

planforfuture

Thanks guy. Got the Freeway recordable 4k box delivered today and connected straight to the dish, setup in less than 5 mins. Good signals and picture quality. Like the built-in on demand apps such as Netflix and YouTube. Better connection as I wired the network cable to the router. Bye bye Sky. 😊

planforfuture

Freesat not Freeway 

planforfuture

The only drawback of the apps is the user interface when entering search text via the control. Mobile devices with keyboard and languages support is far better.

planforfuture

Sorted. Just realized that I can use my mobile phone YouTube app to search and then cast it into the freesat YouTube app. 😙😁😁😊