Freesat

[slypie]

Does anyone know when this new Freesat is launching in the UK (the joint venture between BBC and ITV)? Will it include all the channels that Freeview has because the Sky Freesat has slight differences.

This is because I'm thinking about buying a TV card for my PC and have a dish and cable point and though of using this over a freeview TV card.

[Funkstar]

There are a lot of unanswered questions about Freesat.

FreeSat home page

The website says 'spring'.

I would hold off buying a DVB-S2 card for the time being. There is a blog post I've read that states that Hauppauge card will not work as they are not Freesat certified. Whether this is correct or not, no-one really knows. There is a theory that there will be encription which the official Freesat STBs can handle to limit the transmition to the UK. Either that or the official line is that DVB-S/S2 cards are not supported, but will work fine.

As I said, we won't really know until the service is actually launched. However you can get pretty much all of what will be Freesat already on FTA satellite.

[Lee @ SCAN]

That's strange Funkstar as I've been having a few indepth email's from the technical guys at hauppauge regarding freesat and what is needed so we are all on the ball here once customers ask.

Here is what I've been told by them so far ;

The Freesat service will be using the same encoding system as Sky, and will require them to also purchase a subscription card for a one off fee of £10.

So because of this it will require them to buy one of our satellite cards (Nova-s plus, Nova-s2-hd, nova-s-usb2, hvr-3000 or hvr-4000) along with the WinTV-CI.

Make sure you make them aware they will need to but the relevant CAM and the subscription card

I've got a hybrid card waiting to play with once the subscription cards and stuff start appearing locally.

[directhex]

wait wait wait wait... what? freesat will be encrypted? i really think someone at hauppauge has the wrong end of the stick there:

* sky's encryption system, NDS, is a proprietary news corp system that they do not license for general use
* there is no legal CAM which can decrypt NDS
* banner freesat content (itv and bbc channels) are already available today, on sky's satellite, and are NOT encrypted. channel 4 will be removing encryption ASAP (some time this year) specifically so people won't need a CAM/card

a lot of confusion comes from the two competing services - freesat (unencypted) and freesat from sky (freesat content plus some NDS-encrypted channels)

[slypie]

It's such a nightmare trying to wade through all the info to find what is needed in terms of TV cards for Media Center PC's. I am right that if I want to hook my Sky+ through my MC PC I have to buy a card with S-Video in connector?

Would this do the job to allow me to watch Freesat and connect my Sky+ box up through my MC PC?

[directhex]

Originally Posted by slypie

It's such a nightmare trying to wade through all the info to find what is needed in terms of TV cards for Media Center PC's. I am right that if I want to hook my Sky+ through my MC PC I have to buy a card with S-Video in connector?

Would this do the job to allow me to watch Freesat and connect my Sky+ box up through my MC PC?

it would need one sky box per s-video input (the 500 has dual analog inputs, the 150 has only one)

[Funkstar]

I've done some more reading, and as predicted, there is a lot of confusion surrounding Freesat right now.

The problem with DVB-S cards may not be down to encription, but the TV software not handling the EPG and interactive content. They haven't been certified for the Freesat logo, so are viewed as "not compatible" by the Freesat organisation.

Argos have four STBs on their website and in the catalogue: Argos - www.argos.co.uk

[directhex]

and that's indeed what differs between "free to air" satellite and Freesat(tm)(r)(c) - the EPG and interactive sections.

with the BBC's involvement, I'd be very surprised if they didn't simply use the same standards as on Freeview (EIT for guide, MHEG for interactive), but most free-to-air receivers do NOT deal with these services - and may not be designed to search for EIT/MHEG data on different transponders.

[Funkstar]

Thats all down to the software though isn't it? all the card is doing is tuning to a frequency or transponder and sending the MUX to the drivers/software.

So if they use the same data for their DVB-T and DVB-S services, MediaPortal/MythTV/MediaCenter could all deal with the data in the same way they currently do with DVB-T.

[directhex]

Originally Posted by Funkstar

Thats all down to the software though isn't it?

So if they use the same data for their DVB-T and DVB-S services, MediaPortal/MythTV/MediaCenter could all deal with the data in the same way they currently do with DVB-T.

bingo. maybe some minor patches required for the first two - and a new full-price edition of windows for the latter (and people write hundreds of lines of bad hacks to get around deficiencies instead)

[Funkstar]

Originally Posted by directhex

and a new full-price edition of windows for the latter (and people write hundreds of lines of bad hacks to get around deficiencies instead)

I wouldn't expet anything less

[slypie]

Originally Posted by directhex

it would need one sky box per s-video input (the 500 has dual analog inputs, the 150 has only one)

Ahh thought that card was for digital connectors like sky. Didn't see it was analog. Wouldn't that render the card useless when the switch over happens?

Sorry for the stupid questions but I aint got a clue on TV cards

[Funkstar]

Originally Posted by slypie

Ahh thought that card was for digital connectors like sky. Didn't see it was analog. Wouldn't that render the card useless when the switch over happens?

Not at all, it is an analogue capture card, not an analogue TV tuner. It will still be able to capture from an analogue source, like the output from a Sky box.

[directhex]

Originally Posted by slypie

Ahh thought that card was for digital connectors like sky. Didn't see it was analog. Wouldn't that render the card useless when the switch over happens?

Sorry for the stupid questions but I aint got a clue on TV cards

sky does not give you digital. this is ANOTHER source of confusion.

it's probably easiest to explain on a per-source basis

source 1: analog terrestrial tv

to receive this, you need an analog framegrabber card (which relies on your CPU to do all the work), or an analog encoder card (such as the the pvr150, which has its own cpu to encode things to a useful format)

source 2: sky or ntl

sky is digital satellite, but you cannot (legally) receive sky without using a sky box. once it's in the sky box, the only way to get it out again is via analog capture - the same types of card as above (usually using the s-video connector on one of said cards). you combine one of the cards with an "ir blaster", which emulates a tv remote (so your software on your pc can send a signal for "101" when you try to switch to bbc1, for example)

source 3: freesat (not from sky) or freeview

for these, you need an appropriate digital tuner - be it a DVB-T card for terrestrial or DVB-S for satellite, with a possible need for DVB-S2 in the future. mpeg2 (or h264 for hd) streams fly around the sky, and are simply grabbed by your tuner and saved to disk. features such as an EPG are entirely dependent on your software (digital TV can carry guide data and interactive data, but not all software can use them)

[slypie]

Originally Posted by directhex

sky does not give you digital. this is ANOTHER source of confusion.

it's probably easiest to explain on a per-source basis

source 1: analog terrestrial tv

to receive this, you need an analog framegrabber card (which relies on your CPU to do all the work), or an analog encoder card (such as the the pvr150, which has its own cpu to encode things to a useful format)

source 2: sky or ntl

sky is digital satellite, but you cannot (legally) receive sky without using a sky box. once it's in the sky box, the only way to get it out again is via analog capture - the same types of card as above (usually using the s-video connector on one of said cards). you combine one of the cards with an "ir blaster", which emulates a tv remote (so your software on your pc can send a signal for "101" when you try to switch to bbc1, for example)

source 3: freesat (not from sky) or freeview

for these, you need an appropriate digital tuner - be it a DVB-T card for terrestrial or DVB-S for satellite, with a possible need for DVB-S2 in the future. mpeg2 (or h264 for hd) streams fly around the sky, and are simply grabbed by your tuner and saved to disk. features such as an EPG are entirely dependent on your software (digital TV can carry guide data and interactive data, but not all software can use them)

wow cheers for the info that's cleared up a lot of confusion. Is it therefore possible to get a card that will be able to view freesat with an analog connector on it. The reason is that I may get rid of Sky and just use it for Freesat in the future but would like the choice. Do I look for a hybrid card?

[directhex]

Originally Posted by slypie

wow cheers for the info that's cleared up a lot of confusion. Is it therefore possible to get a card that will be able to view freesat with an analog connector on it. The reason is that I may get rid of Sky and just use it for Freesat in the future but would like the choice. Do I look for a hybrid card?

yep, that's a job for a hybrid card