[mahutchinson]

I am tempted to dump Virgin and invest in Freesat but am wondering whether its advantage over Freeview will continue into the future. Can Freeview ever increase its channel numbers and can it ever carry iplayer ?

[Interceptor121]

iPlayer travels through internet not satellite or digital terrestrial so it is a feature of the decoder or the tv but has nothing to do with the Tv tuner or satellite receiver

For what concerns the channels there is no more bandwidth to come unless there is a more efficient compression than the MPEG2 used by DVB-T tuners.
DVB-T2 using X264 requires half bandwidth

Over time that will happen and this will be like it has been for broadband
ISDN-Fiber Optics-Satellite-DSL over normal analog lines

Give it a few years and once HD freeview decoders have great penetration and become de facto standard in TVs you can have more channels or same channels all in HD or most likely a mix

[grahamlthompson]

Freeview is restricted to 5 SD digital mux and one HD mux so any increase in channel capability will either depend on encoder improvements or will impinge directly on picrure quality (unless the government decide not to sell parts of the UHF spectrum to the highest bidder). By 2012 new Narrow beam satellites focussed on the UK from Astra SES will be in orbit so potentially in the longer term satellite would seeem to have a lot more exapnsion capability.

[mahutchinson]

Thanks. Sounds like Freesat then for the foreseeable future.

[Interceptor121]

Of course one thing is capability the other is the commercial appeal

Satellite always beats terrestrial but there need to be channels there

I am frustrated because CH4 and Five are going HD on freeview but due to commercial reasons not coming to freesat

On freesat I have many channels already now but many are

[mahutchinson]

Originally Posted by Interceptor121

I am frustrated because CH4 and Five are going HD on freeview but due to commercial reasons not coming to freesat

I didn't know that. That is a minus point, assuming you believe there is any quality broadcasting on those channels. CH4 possibly, Five unlikely. I was also interested in the iplayer capability through the ethernet but perhaps Freeview boxes do this as well ? I haven't looked at those recently. I suppose I will probably have a media streamer soon which does iplayer but if the set top boxes play external stored video is there any need for a separate streamer at all? Lastly, it was the number of channels on Freesat which was enticing but I expect reviewing them it's the same few I would be using each day on Freesat or Freeview. I seem to be talking myself out of buying into Freesat now.

[Interceptor121]

Originally Posted by mahutchinson

I didn't know that. That is a minus point, assuming you believe there is any quality broadcasting on those channels. CH4 possibly, Five unlikely. I was also interested in the iplayer capability through the ethernet but perhaps Freeview boxes do this as well ? I haven't looked at those recently. I suppose I will probably have a media streamer soon which does iplayer but if the set top boxes play external stored video is there any need for a separate streamer at all? Lastly, it was the number of channels on Freesat which was enticing but I expect reviewing them it's the same few I would be using each day on Freesat or Freeview. I seem to be talking myself out of buying into Freesat now.

The new Humax FOX-T2 has an ethernet port. At the end of the day iPlayer goes through broadband all you need is the interactive system to point to a page that tells the decoder to connect and then is effectively streaming a flash live video or similar

I made an assessment of the few channels that are not in freesat but freeview
Virgin1, Virgin1+1, 4Music, Yesterday, Dave, Dave ja vu, Sky Sports News, Quest, Five USA*, Fiver* Viva* and Sky3
With most you are not missing much but is nice to have Dave and Sky Sports News maybe


In general terms freesat has the capabilities to guarantee better broadcasting and signal quality but it always depends on the implementation that the broadcasters provide. ITV had dreadful satellite quality until few weeks ago

I have freesat and my next TV due in shortly will have both freeview and freesat HD. Is good to have choice but £160+ for the HD freeview from Humax seems a lot

If you have already freeview in your TV tuner freesat HD is worth it