Freesat: 80 channels, £150, or £200 with HD inc. installation

adr0ck

keefj wrote: »

Has anyone else noticed a reduction in strength of the freeview signal recently? A conspiracy theorist might suggest they are trying to persuade us to switch to freesat.

There is a serious point though. I was sold freeview on the promise of a great picture and interference free telly. Despite paying out for a new arial and downlead, and being in a supposedly "good" reception area. I often get drop out and pixellation in the picture and sometimes can't get channel 5 at all. I was hoping the signal might get better as the service became established but it seems to be getting worse. It would be nice if the BBC sorted out the probelms with the current systems before investing heavily in the next. It seems clear that most of the advances in TV technology are to do with increasing profit for the man rather than improving service for the customer. Don't even get me started on Flat screen TVs!

Keith

one of the reasons the bbc has invested in freesat is because of the signal problems with freeview

adr0ck

--Tony-- wrote: »

I understood you can manually tune a few channels on your sky box, if this uses the same satellite is it possible to manually tune to any of the channels not on sky?
I have an HD box but sky has no ITV-HD and only BBC-HD preview so it would be nice to tune these two in.

as far as i'm aware

no

adr0ck

cypher915 wrote: »

I read somewhere on interweb that you can get freesat from sky for nowt. Here's how it works. If you are a sky customer, cancel your sky subscription and tell them you are going to get freesat from sky. Apparently your dish, box and card can then be used for fsfs(freesat from sky). Otherwise you can get a £20 card from them. There are more channels also.

this is explained in the first post above

adr0ck

checjb wrote: »

I cancelled my Sky contract a while ago but still have the box and dish working and I'm wondering what I need to do to switch it over to Freesat reception? Do I need a new box or can I simply retune it somehow?

Thanks for any info.

C.

you need a new box

Former_MSE_Lawrence

Missoula wrote: »

Is it correct that Freesat does not offer Channel 5?

Yep, but it's expected to be launched on freesat soon.

caseyjones_2

We already have a sky box downstairs set up to receive Freesat From Sky, can one of these boxes be used in addition to that?

As far as I'm aware, setting up Sky to work independently in different rooms requires a Sky+ box and possibly a new subscription with them.

It does seems like the channels available on Freesat will be better than the Sky equivalent.

EDIT: Should have mentioned that Freeview isn't an option here.

--Tony--

adr0ck wrote: »

as far as i'm aware

no

I was going on this:
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=298185

and link within

http://www.lyngsat.com/packages/skyuk.html

I have already tuned regional channels.

I think you can add a second LNB to an existing sky dish which would supply a freesat box.

almillar

Yeah, I've been a bit confused by this and it's sortof anwered above. Freesat sounds great, once the HD recording boxes come along, and the £80 is just sonething you'll have to pay. But hold on, Sky will install AND give you a box for £75, AND you can have 4 months of Sky TV. Then ditch and get the Freesat box. £5 saved, and that's just on standard prices, always plenty of offers on Sky, as mentioned above.
So, the problem I have is, will this dish, etc be good enough? Surely I will need, like Sky+, an extra LNB (the wee thing in the middle of the dish) to be able to record 1 channel and view another on these soon to be launched recorders, you have to assume they'll have this functionality. So that would be a bit of extra cost. May be better in this case to wait for these boxes to come to market, then the £80 installation may cover for this equipment. But I want HD - NOW!!
Alan

DAV9000

Hi,
We became fed up with paying more and more for our Sky subscription last year when the programmes were getting worse, so we did what was suggested earlier in this post and phoned Sky, cancelled the subscription, but stated "We would like to be freesat viewers". The number of channels available is tiny; BBC, ITV, CH4, FIVE, Sky news and one or two others.
What's the difference between what we are watching, as freesat viewers, and this new Freesat? Can we get it? If so, how? And do we need a new digibox?

--Tony--

DAV9000 wrote: »

What's the difference between what we are watching, as freesat viewers, and this new Freesat?
Can we get it?
If so, how?
And do we need a new digibox?

All questions answered in post No1