Aerial upgrade or Freesat ?

[swayzak]

hi

I'm moving into a new house today.

Aerial reception is pretty poor so was about to get engineer to upgrade the equipment.

However, I've just discovered Freesat, and that it is coming very soon.

Presumably, if I want this then it's not worth paying x hundred quid for aerial work when Freesat will serve me better ?

[chrissyman]

Yes i would go with freesat and get you get bbc hd c4 hd and so on.

[SamRadford]

I'd have both. What's your postcode?
What's your aerial setup?

[ched]

To be honest you have been able to get 'free satellite tv' for quite a while. When I say free what I actually mean is freesatfromsky and it was £20 for a card, this would slot into a sky box connected to a dish. This works fine, the new freesat comes from the BBC and ITV and basically is their own Electronic Program Guide and showing the free to view channels that are already broadcast via the Astra satellite.

Anyway back to your dilemma:

A couple of things to consider are: Do you want HD tv? Do you want TV pictures in a different room?

If you want HD tv I would say hand on a short while and get the HD Freesat.
Looks like a grundig HD freesat box is £149 at Comet, but it wont record programs. You will probably need 2 feeds from a dish to be able to use a recording box.

If you want tv in different rooms I would go for a new aerial as you can add a distribution amp to it and provide freeview signals round the house. Also freeview recorders are fairly cheap now and I am guessing that freesat recorders will initially be over £200.

Hope that gives you a few ideas.

[swayzak]

Many thanks.

On balance, I think HD is a bigger priority for me - especially as I'm going to get one of these http://www.panasonic.co.uk/html/en_GB/617578/index.html

But signals for at least one upstairs room would be nice.

I've tested the aerial points now - the lounge one appears to be fine & picks up freeview OK (at least with my little Bush gizmo that sits between aerial point & TV, not sure about the built in Freeview).

The upstairs signals are crap - can only get fuzzy analogue.

You can get additional rooms added with Freesat, as I understand it, so I guess I could add these if necessary.

Do you need a special Freesat box even if you only have portable analogue Standard Def CRT sets ?

Last time I got a high gain aerial / amp put in it was £200+ so I don't want to do this unneccessarily ....

[ched]

If you are going the freesat route then you can get quad lnb (the bit that sticks out from the dish) these can supply 4 signals. So you could run 4 freesat boxes, but if you wanted a freesat recorder you will probably need 2 feeds to a recorder. You can buy an old sky box of ebay and then buy a freesatfromsky card for £20, this with a dish would be a cheap option. You can get freesatfromsky installed via comet for £80 ish and you get extra channels for a couple of months. This would get you a dish installed and a way of viewing the free channels.
Then at some point you could change the lnb on the dish to a quad one (about £10 from ebay) . Then you could add feeds to other rooms in your house.

You will need a freesat box for a normal crt tv and also a feed from the dish.

Also remember that when the analogue tv transmissions stop you will need either a tv with freeview built in and an aerial, a freeview box per tv plus aerial, or a freesat box with feed for each tv.
Also your video recorder will only be able to record the channel that your freesat or freeview box is set to. So you cant watch 1 channel and record another when analogue switches off without extra freeview/freesat boxes for your video recorder or a digital recorder for freesat or freeview with dual tuners.

Of course you could go the pay tv route as well. Such as Virgin or Sky etc...

Hope thats not too confusing.

[PLASMABABBY]

swayzak, you seem to be talking a lot about Freeview and aerials. I wonder if you realise that you cannot connect a Freesat box to an aerial. It has to be connected to a Satellite dish. Sorry to point this out if I have misinterpreted your posts. But to make sure that things are a little clearer for you and others I will make the following summary. I am not technically minded or setting myself up as an expert but as I understand it from a layman's knowledge:

1. To get an HD picture you must have an HD Ready of Full HD TV set.

2.To receive Freesat you will need a Freesat box (not a Freeview box) which are available as either SD or HD. You need the HD one to receive HD pictures. This has to be connected to a Satellite Dish

3. To receive FreesatfromSky you will need a Sky Box connected to a Satellite dishand a viewing card if you want Ch 5 and Five Life and Five US.

4. To receive Sky subscription channels you will need a Sky Box or a Sky+ box or a Sky HD box. (HD is an additional £10 per month whereas with Freesat BBC HD and C4HD are free) This must be connected to a Satellite dish.

5. To receive Freeview you will need a Freeview box or a Freeview PVR or a TV with a Freeview tuner built in. This has to be connected to a suitable aerial - not a Satelleite dish. You cannot, at present, get HD pictures with Freeview and you said that HD is a bigger priority for you.

I know there are other options but I am trying to keep it simple - my neighbour thought that if he bought an Full HD tv set that's all he would need to get HD pictures and he is not alone among the general public who do not follow these things carefully.

Experts please feel free to correct, advise and criticise (constructively please).

[swayzak]

Originally Posted by ched

If you are going the freesat route then you can get quad lnb (the bit that sticks out from the dish) these can supply 4 signals. So you could run 4 freesat boxes, but if you wanted a freesat recorder you will probably need 2 feeds to a recorder. You can buy an old sky box of ebay and then buy a freesatfromsky card for £20, this with a dish would be a cheap option. You can get freesatfromsky installed via comet for £80 ish and you get extra channels for a couple of months. This would get you a dish installed and a way of viewing the free channels.
Then at some point you could change the lnb on the dish to a quad one (about £10 from ebay) . Then you could add feeds to other rooms in your house.

You will need a freesat box for a normal crt tv and also a feed from the dish.

Also remember that when the analogue tv transmissions stop you will need either a tv with freeview built in and an aerial, a freeview box per tv plus aerial, or a freesat box with feed for each tv.
Also your video recorder will only be able to record the channel that your freesat or freeview box is set to. So you cant watch 1 channel and record another when analogue switches off without extra freeview/freesat boxes for your video recorder or a digital recorder for freesat or freeview with dual tuners.

Of course you could go the pay tv route as well. Such as Virgin or Sky etc...

Hope thats not too confusing.

Thanks again - a lot of useful info ...

I'll try and clarify my position exactly.

After trying the lounge aerial point yesterday, I actually seem to get a partial digital signal from the Waltham transmitter (my post code is LE2) - get stuff like ch5 & E4+1 but no BBC1, 2 or 3 or CBBC !

So it seems to get full Freeview SD at the moment, I will need some aerial work doing.

My main Panny LCD (Full HD) obviously has Freeview built in, and I have a Bush Freeview dongle thing for the portable CRT.

Ideally I would like HD in the lounge but happy with SD upstairs (1 or 2 rooms).

So my options as I see it are:

- Freesat done for the whole lot, but only HD box for lounge
- get aerial done so the upstairs rooms get good signal for SD Freeview & get HD Freesat for lounge
- forget Freesat for moment and just get good aerial feeds to all 3 rooms

What would be approx. costs of these options ?

How much is it per room for HD vs SD freesat ?

thanks

swayzak

[cygnusx04]

I've also got this dilemma. Currently have Freeview piped into my Media Center PC via Hauppage PCI cards. My aerial is not great and needs upgrading. I'm wondering whether it's worth it, or waiting for FreeSat to get established.

No idea how FreeSat will work with MediaCenter? Will i still get a digital signal or will it be converted to analog via the receiver like with SKY at the moment.

Also sounds like there may be some HD channels on the Freeview spectrum. Will this require a new aerial or work with existing freeview SD broadcasts?

[Archie Fax]

Originally Posted by cygnusx04

No idea how FreeSat will work with MediaCenter? Will i still get a digital signal or will it be converted to analog via the receiver like with SKY at the moment.

Should be the same as sky boxes. Output is via rf or scart.

No wait. Not analogue so probably scart and or s-video. Same connections as freeview boxes at the very least.




.

[Gadget Freak]

Originally posted by cygnusx04

Also sounds like there may be some HD channels on the Freeview spectrum. Will this require a new aerial or work with existing freeview SD broadcasts?

HD freeview coverage has been announced as starting in 2009 but it will initially be limited to certain areas. You will need a new HD tuner to receive it but it will work with an existing ariel. This link to the news story might help:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7328029.stm