2008/5/22 Rob Malpass <lug@???>:
> Does anyone know anything about Freesat?
I've been intending to buy a Freesat PVR, so I've been doing some research.
> I have one Sky dish which has 3 cables coming off it - 1 to my study which
> I've never used and 2 going to the lounge which is happily driving my Sky+
> box.
>
> _Apparently_ if I buy a HD Freesat box from say Currys, I can connect it to
> the spare cable in my study but the bloke at "Freeat from Sky" tells me I
> won't get anything without a £20 card which I must buy from them. However
> he was adamant you can't get HD over Freesat - which is at odds with
> www.freesat.co.uk as I pointed out to him. He seemed to be saying "Freesat
> from sky" is different to Freesat - but I presume this is because the boxes
> that "Freesat from Sky" supply aren't HD ready rather than plug said aerial
> into my own Humax box and it won't work. One of the things I was buying it
> for was HD was and whether it was worth it - hence my reluctance to proceed
> without all the facts
Freesat does broadcast HDTV. As far as I can tell, the only channel
currently being broadcast in HD is BBC HD, which broadcasts a small
amount of content repeatedly. ITV and Five have plans to launch HD
Channels.
When you buy a freesat-from-sky install I don't think you get a HD
capable box, however I can confirm that you can view BBC HD on a Sky
HD box with no subscription, as I am currently doing. However, without
a subscriber card I've been unable to work out how to get access to
all the free to air channels.
> So in short, I want to buy this £150 HD Freesat box and use it with my
> existing spare satellite connection which everyone seems to be fine with -
> but if it can't get HD channels either now or in future - there seems little
> point.
If I were you, I'd want to check that your 3rd bit of coax is actually
connected to the LNB/sky dish and is it the correct LNB for the
satellites broadcasting the Freesat channels. I can't imagine why the
engineer would have bothered to connect an extra cable to the dish.
You can find out if it will work by connecting your sky box to it and
checking you can see the channels also available from Freesat.
Really Freesat is just a new electronic program guide (EPG), a push to
get consumer DVB-S equipment into high street shops and a brand name
for some of the free to air satellite channels that have been around
since 2003 (BBC) and 2005 (ITV). Those channels are also the ones that
appear in the Sky EPG, so when you watch, for example, BBC1 via your
current Sky box you are watching "Freesat".
There are a lot of other free to air channels [1] [2] available from
the Astra 2D and Eurobird-1 satellites used by Freesat and these don't
appear to be listed in the Freesat EPG [3], so it would be worth
considering getting equipment that either scans for channels or at
least lets you manually add channels and give you easy access to them
(they won't be in the EPG, remember).
Lastly, given the current dearth of HD content and the expense of HD
(DVB-S2) capable PVRs, I'm considering just getting a SD PVR.
Cheers,
Graham
[1]
http://www.lyngsat.com/astra2d.html
[2]
http://www.lyngsat.com/eb1.html
[3] Well, they're not listed here
http://www.freesat.co.uk/index.php?page=whatson.Main
