[OptiRick]

Hi,
I am ready to ditch Sky and want to go with Freesat. I would like to be able to record but think that the Humax recorder is a bit pricey.

I have had a brief look into it and with the potential for extra channels plan to either get a Technomate with an external drive or a Dreambox HD.

The only qualm I have is the lack of the Freesat EPG on the above boxes. I did read that a deal was due to be done, has it or is it on the horizon?

Any other input into what appears to be a potential minefield would also be appreciated.

Cheers

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by OptiRick

Hi,
I am ready to ditch Sky and want to go with Freesat. I would like to be able to record but think that the Humax recorder is a bit pricey.

I have had a brief look into it and with the potential for extra channels plan to either get a Technomate with an external drive or a Dreambox HD.

The only qualm I have is the lack of the Freesat EPG on the above boxes. I did read that a deal was due to be done, has it or is it on the horizon?

Any other input into what appears to be a potential minefield would also be appreciated.

Cheers

Blimey I just looked up the Dreambox 800 £210.00 no HDD only one 1 tuner and according to the spec it's only a DVB-S tuner, it's pretty likely BBC-HD will be on a DVB-S2 transponder before long. The hdr at £250.00 (or less) sounds cheap to me. A bit puzzled what extra channels do you think you will get on the above ?.

[bob1]

The dm-800 is dvb-s2 ,if its saying its not then the spec its listing is wrong ,probably a Chinese copy with the wrong spec listed.
I only know of the dreambox that can use the freesat epg other than a freesat box, thing might have moved on since though and other boxes might be able to read it.

[OptiRick]

Originally Posted by grahamlthompson

A bit puzzled what extra channels do you think you will get on the above ?.

I thought you could pick up other satellites/broadcasts on them (albeit some requiring a card).

[Geofbob]

Originally Posted by OptiRick

I thought you could pick up other satellites/broadcasts on them (albeit some requiring a card).

And requiring larger or motorised dish and/or disecq switching.

[Member 354643]

Originally Posted by OptiRick

Hi,
I am ready to ditch Sky and want to go with Freesat. I would like to be able to record but think that the Humax recorder is a bit pricey.

I have had a brief look into it and with the potential for extra channels plan to either get a Technomate with an external drive or a Dreambox HD.

The only qualm I have is the lack of the Freesat EPG on the above boxes. I did read that a deal was due to be done, has it or is it on the horizon?

Any other input into what appears to be a potential minefield would also be appreciated.

Cheers

If you have a dreambox you can download the epg but only 7 days at a time

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by OptiRick

I thought you could pick up other satellites/broadcasts on them (albeit some requiring a card).

A foxsat-hdr can view all the fta stuff at 28.2/28.5E using non freesat mode and as it supports diseqc switching you can also use it with multiple lnb's or a motorised dish. It won't however be as versatile as a dreambox but it's going to be quite a bit cheaper when you factor in having to buy a hdd. And it has a CI slot as well

[rozzo]

Originally Posted by grahamlthompson

A foxsat-hdr can view all the fta stuff at 28.2/28.5E using non freesat mode and as it supports diseqc switching you can also use it with multiple lnb's or a motorised dish.

The following post suggests Panasonic may be about to enable diseqc switching on its freesat tvs and perhaps by extension of the same logic on its freesat recorders.
TV with builtin Freesat, that has DiSEqC - Satellite TV support forum & Digital TV support forum.
Has anyone been able to verify this? If so it would be good news to have one other manufacturer that can produce a diseqc enabled recorder which might actually also be capable of performing a manually set timer recording of non-freesat / other sat programmes which tha humax cannot.
The only other hope is that Technisat will extend the HDFS receivers recording functionality to a new twin tuner model with freesat epg.

[logiciel]

Originally Posted by OptiRick

a Technomate with an external drive

That's my solution - works perfectly - same with the Passion+.

[rozzo]

@logiciel
I understood Technomate receivers only display now and next epgs as far as UK channels are concerned. Passion+ has some sort of unofficial means of accessing the freesat epg does it not?
For me both are unsuitable anyway as neither has a twin sat HD tuner.

All
Any news on the Panasonic "news" regarding enabling diseqc?

BTW, this thread is a bit of a cross-over theme with the freesat sub-forum so don't know where it might get most views/responses? Can it be referenced from both?

[logiciel]

Both of them are inconsistent in how much EPG information they provide, sometimes now and next, sometimes more.
Correct about dual tuners - that's one reason why I have both.