Freeview, Freesat or Freesat from Sky?

[Parm]

Always used Freeview myself, but moved to a new place that has no TV aerial and a satellite dish - wondered why at first, but there's a good reason; freeview reception round here's a bit hit and miss.

We can only get Freeview Lite (which is missing a fair few channels) so I'm now exploring Freesat or Freesat from Sky as alternative options. Been a while since I've used a Freesat box and I've never experienced Freesat from Sky, so hoping to get some feedback from anyone who's spent some quality time with either platform.

I do have a Sky HD box lying around somewhere (used to be a subscriber) so Freesat from Sky's an easy option, as far as I can tell I just need to phone up and get the £25 viewing card. Though, with Sky I won't be able to use the box to record so I'm tempted to go the Freesat route and get a pricier PVR.

Anybody here using Freesat or Freesat from Sky? If so, which box do you use and what do you make of it? Thanks in advance!

[jackvdbuk]

i had freeview years ago, went with sky for half price for 12 months and by the 6-7th month you start to realise you are watching the same stuff every day so didnt keep sky as hate paying for something ive seen so many times.

freesat was so simple to put in with the existing sky installed, just connect the coax! very happy with it although the UI is no where near as good as sky but for free its definitely worth it! also with sky its not just the freesat/free channels you get you see but all the premium channels so very annoying seeing something you like then then a "subscribe to recieve this channel".

[Phage]

Same thing here. Went from Freeview, which would always pixelate and hang at a critical moment, to Freesat.
We have a little HD humax box and the whole thing is a complete no-brainer.

[b0redom]

Out of interest, what's the picture quality difference between a decent Freeview signal and decent Freesat signal? Do they use the same encoders/bitrate?

[Smudger]

Richer Sounds have some pretty good deals on Freesat PVRs at the moment, I think, but Humax seems to be the Daddy...

[Parm]

Those of you with Freesat, how do you go about routing the signal to other TVs around the house? Multiple set-top boxes?

[jim]

My experience of freesat with Sky was woeful, virtually every channel but terrestrial came up as subscription only... spoke to Sky, got a proper Freesat card, still nothing.

Loads of channels that work fine on freeview just do nothing.

[finlay666]

My experience of freesat with Sky was woeful, virtually every channel but terrestrial came up as subscription only... spoke to Sky, got a proper Freesat card, still nothing.

Loads of channels that work fine on freeview just do nothing.

A lot of that is down to the dish sending the signal, stuff like Dave is fine on freeview but on Sky it's from an encrypted stream IIRC

That said Freesat itself (IIRC I actually get "free satellite" as I use a DVB-S card in my HTPC not an official freesat box) gets most of the channels, except Dave (Five*/Five USA recently popped up)
Still not seen much on the DVB-S2 cards for more HD channels though

As for multiple boxes... it can be a bit of a faff, at my parents we got an octo-lnb and ran 2 cables to each place that would have a box (2 is the minimum for anything with timeshift if you want full channel control, it gets messy doing it any other way, as I found out the hard way)

[directhex]

Out of interest, what's the picture quality difference between a decent Freeview signal and decent Freesat signal? Do they use the same encoders/bitrate?

Good question. Answer is "it depends on the channel and time of day" - e.g. image quality on BBC channels is adjusted to give all the megs to Doctor Who, or major sporting events. Codecs are the same, resolutions are similar but not always the same (e.g. 576i versus 544i)

Additionally, quality got much worse on Freeview when the shuffled things around to make room for Freeview HD. Basically Freeview is broadcast across six frequencies (called multiplexes in this context), where each frequency gets ~20mbit of data to spread over a bunch of channels. 1/6 of those channels were spread across the other 5 multiplexes, when the 6th was converted to HD-only.

Satellite doesn't have that issue, and has dozens and dozens of frequencies (transponders) with bundles of channels.

[directhex]

A lot of that is down to the dish sending the signal, stuff like Dave is fine on freeview but on Sky it's from an encrypted stream IIRC

It's down to who owns the satellite transponder used to broadcast that channel - Sky own most of the transponders on the Astra 2 cluster, and the rental fee they charge channel owners depends on whether they're a Sky exclusive (i.e. encrypted) or not.

[Funkstar]

Those of you with Freesat, how do you go about routing the signal to other TVs around the house? Multiple set-top boxes?

To get the satellite signal to multiple locations, you will need a feed from the LNB (the receiver on the end of the dish arm) for each destination, or two feeds for a PVR. This is the same way Sky do it. I know you can get splitters and switches, but these are pretty specialist and to be honest I'm not sure what te setup would be to get more destinations than you have LNB outputs.

[Parm]

Few things made my mind up for me in the end. Didn't want Sky as I dislike having lots of channels I can't watch without a subscription, Freeview Lite is missing some key channels, so it had to be Freesat.

Found the existing dish on my new house lurking on the far side of the garage, with a single LNB and a cable that I think goes underground and round to the other side of the house. Didn't fancy trying to run another cable, so I'm holding off on a PVR (don't really watch enough tele to warrant one) and picked up a standard Freesat box.

Went for this one which I thought was a decent price: http://www.tesco.com/direct/manhatta...e/731-1041.prd

Also includes installation! I have the dish already, but they'll upgrade it to a quad LNB and, if I'm lucky, maybe run a few cables to other rooms. First impressions of the Manhattan Plaza HD-S receiver are good - interface is quick and responsive, image quality's good and setup was simple. Remote looks and feels a bit tacky, but I'm happy with it.

[Rob_B]

Sorry to bring up an old thread but what are the decent Freesat boxes at the moment? Just after something to link to my Sky dish, must have PVR capabilities

[HalloweenJack]

free sat and freeview actually have slightly dfferent content:

dave is on freeview but not freesat for example:

http://www.ukfree.tv/compare11.php

[Phage]

Sorry to bring up an old thread but what are the decent Freesat boxes at the moment? Just after something to link to my Sky dish, must have PVR capabilities

Humax have a very good rep and have a range of models with PVR.

[Rob_B]

free sat and freeview actually have slightly dfferent content:

dave is on freeview but not freesat for example:

http://www.ukfree.tv/compare11.php

Aah that sucks, I quite like some of the old stuff Dave shows.

I'll check out the Humax PVRs when I have some more time, there looks to be a lot of models, I'm only after something fairly basic (read: Cheap)
Also might just ring Sky and see if I can wangle another few months 1/2 price instead (?) :/