A Few Freesat Questions...

Matty007

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Hello folks. Ive recently been looking at freesat (the BBC one, not sky). Im lucky enough to have moved into a new house which already has a brand new sky dish and the appropriate sockets installed. I have posted a few questions below and would appreciate any response.


Am I right in saying Ill just need to buy the box and plug it in without the expenditure of having an engineer round (seen as I have a new dish installed)?.

Is freesat worth the money or would freesat from sky be a better alternative (I realise the sky one requires a phone line, which I don’t have)?.

Ive heard humax are releasing a foxsat PVR soon. Does anyone know of the release date and cost of one of these?.


I really appreciate your time in replying to my questions.

Matt.
 
If the dish alignment and LNB output are ok then yep just plug in a Freesat box.
Considering a single tuner SD box is around £50 then it's difficult not to say it's decent value however there are variations between it and Freeview so it depends upon what is important. If you go for HD then upto £150 for a single tuner Freesat HD box is quite expensive but if you are desperate for HD and don't want to pay a subscription in any form what other choice do you have:)
The £75 freesatfromsky does need a phone line but the £150 doesn't or you could buy a SKY digibox used or new without going through SKY and then get a £20 freesatfromsky card and no worry about a phone line.

The Humax HD DVR does not have a confirmed release date or price, speculation is before xmas and under £300.
 
Is freesat worth the money ?

If you consider £150 for a doorstop value, then yes. If not, avoid. The SD pic on my Humax is woeful (soft) (Humax said it was better than their freeview box, so I can only guess what that picture is like) and there is simply hardly any content on HD. My first box (goodmans) didn't even work out of the box, so I'm not a fan of Freesat at all.

I must admit Freesat HD didn't promise much at launch so in that respect, I don't feel lied to but I had hoped it would be a lot better than it is. I have kept the box to catch the odd Champions League match on ITV HD and that is it.

Sky, whether you like it or not is a far better option IMHO.
 
I realise the sky one requires a phone line, which I don’t have.

Neither require a phoneline. Not even a subscription to Sky TV requires a phoneline unless you are going multiroom.
 
You pay Sky £30 if you don't have a phone line.
 
Is freesat worth the money or would freesat from sky be a better alternative (I realise the sky one requires a phone line, which I don’t have)?.

IF the analogue switch off is about to hit your area AND/OR you can't get Freeview in your area, then Freesat is essential.

As to which Freesat to go for, only you can really answer that. Where they both show the same program (eg. BBC1) then they really are showing the same program (it's only beamed once from one satellite). Your "Sky dish" is just a satellite dish.

You have to look at the available channels from each offering and only then can you decide which is the one for you. On Freesat you get BBCHD and the 'red button' HD on ITV, but no Five (at present anyway). Freesatfromsky has BBCHD, several other HD channels, but no ITV HD, but it does have Five. Only you know if any of these factors are an important to your buying decision.

Also, the Humax has a "non-Freesat" mode, where it will pick up all the available free-to-air satellite signals. Here you will find Luxe HD :boring:

davepuma obviously is not happy with his particular purchase, I would suspect that he is in a small minority. I certainly do not recognise any of his criticisms. If you buy something and you're not happy with it, take it back and get a refund. If you're going to keep it, then don't moan.

The price of Freesat boxes is dropping, currently you can get the Humax FoxsatHD for under £130, and it is much too light to be an effective doorstop (but it is a good satellite receiver - my opinion). The Grundig is even cheaper. The twin recorder version (expected in November) is still priceless. But again, if this is the right box for you only you can decide, based on your viewing preferences and wallet capacity.

Sorry that there is no simple yes/no answer, but if that were the case, there would be only one product available. You are the consumer, and it's consumer choice that the market is trying to satisfy.
 
you can add me to the list of people utterly underwhelmed by the whole fressat experience

i bought two boxes from john lewis a few weeks back and apart from strictly come dancing in hd , it's been a TOTAL waste of time and money , the epg is useless and pq/sq on sd stuff is cr*p

my advice is stick with freeview or if you've got a few quid to blow , get sky hd

i've got an elgato eyetv usb freeview dongle attached to my mac pro and it WIPES THE FLOOR with this thing
 
ive posted before that i didnt and still dont , get or understand the premise behind freesat. People buying it for HD are misguided at best. Simply put there is very little content.
 
ive posted before that i didnt and still dont , get or understand the premise behind freesat. People buying it for HD are misguided at best. Simply put there is very little content.



In theory the reasoning was so that the 25% of households not currently covered by DTT could have access to a non-subscription digital TV service without dealing with BSKYB.
Sounds reasonable and with the BBC and ITV putting together the basic framework and bringing in manufacturers to make the boxes and retailers to sell them then not hugely different to the birth of Freeview.

The problem of course is that there is already an existing non-sub option and the market is saturated already and so HD was the only real facility they could have to make it stand out although cheap DVR's would help. The lack of HD programming from both the main backers, the lack of interest from Five and existing deals for CH4 plus the vastly expensive with no viable way to make money aspect of HD makes FTA HD almost a dead end.
I'm afraid for the next few years PAY telly is going to be the HD champion and I would even put money on DTT HD outselling FreesatHD by 2012 when analogue should be gone for good.
 
yes i would agree to all of starbursts posts
the unique selling point was ITV HD which can be received on any receiver worth its salt really !
Thank you jesus for my motorised dish!
 
I'm afraid for the next few years PAY telly is going to be the HD champion and I would even put money on DTT HD outselling FreesatHD by 2012 when analogue should be gone for good.
I would agree!

The "other", seemingly fatal, Freesat flaw is that it relies on transmitting from Astra 2D - without a plan to make this happen!

What incentive have they got which could make Sky relinquish their encrypted transponders there - I doubt if SES will force them! This just does not seem to have been considered!
 
In theory the reasoning was so that the 25% of households not currently covered by DTT could have access to a non-subscription digital TV service without dealing with BSKYB.
Sounds reasonable and with the BBC and ITV putting together the basic framework and bringing in manufacturers to make the boxes and retailers to sell them then not hugely different to the birth of Freeview.

The problem of course is that there is already an existing non-sub option and the market is saturated already and so HD was the only real facility they could have to make it stand out although cheap DVR's would help. The lack of HD programming from both the main backers, the lack of interest from Five and existing deals for CH4 plus the vastly expensive with no viable way to make money aspect of HD makes FTA HD almost a dead end.
I'm afraid for the next few years PAY telly is going to be the HD champion and I would even put money on DTT HD outselling FreesatHD by 2012 when analogue should be gone for good.

The problem is: DTT HD had been "tested" for many years but will it ever materialise?
 
DTT HD was tested for just under a year, in the London trial; other HD services around the world are a little older, but not enough I think to qualify for "many years."

And yes, HD on Freeview will materialise - there are firm plans for the service to be launched later next year, and I've seen the technology demonstrated (at IBC last month). The reason it's taken a while is because we're going straight for DVB-T2 and MPEG4/AVC, rather than picking an intermediate option and then potentially needing to replace kit in a few years time.

As for the rationale behind Freesat, one key issue for the two stakeholders (BBC & ITV) is that while there is presently a subscription free satellite option, it is wholly controlled by a third party, with no guarantee that it will continue, nor that they will be able to introduce advanced features wen they want to.

Launching Freesat gives the PSBs certainty that they will be able to deliver programmes subscription free via satellite, and use advanced features when they want to - at the moment, for example, radio stations can't do interactive on Sky's platform, and there's no IPTV functionality available. Why should any innovation by the BBC and ITV on satellite be restricted to the pace at which BSkyB is willing to roll it out?
 
DTT HD was tested for just under a year, in the London trial; other HD services around the world are a little older, but not enough I think to qualify for "many years."

And yes, HD on Freeview will materialise - there are firm plans for the service to be launched later next year, and I've seen the technology demonstrated (at IBC last month). The reason it's taken a while is because we're going straight for DVB-T2 and MPEG4/AVC, rather than picking an intermediate option and then potentially needing to replace kit in a few years time.

As for the rationale behind Freesat, one key issue for the two stakeholders (BBC & ITV) is that while there is presently a subscription free satellite option, it is wholly controlled by a third party, with no guarantee that it will continue, nor that they will be able to introduce advanced features wen they want to.

Launching Freesat gives the PSBs certainty that they will be able to deliver programmes subscription free via satellite, and use advanced features when they want to - at the moment, for example, radio stations can't do interactive on Sky's platform, and there's no IPTV functionality available. Why should any innovation by the BBC and ITV on satellite be restricted to the pace at which BSkyB is willing to roll it out?

Well said!

Plus anyone will be able to receive HD from the PSB's via Freesat while DTT HD is rolled out over the next 4 years.
 
If you consider £150 for a doorstop value, then yes. If not, avoid. The SD pic on my Humax is woeful (soft) (Humax said it was better than their freeview box, so I can only guess what that picture is like) and there is simply hardly any content on HD. My first box (goodmans) didn't even work out of the box, so I'm not a fan of Freesat at all.

I must admit Freesat HD didn't promise much at launch so in that respect, I don't feel lied to but I had hoped it would be a lot better than it is. I have kept the box to catch the odd Champions League match on ITV HD and that is it.

Sky, whether you like it or not is a far better option IMHO.

Perhaps there is a problem with your TV.

I have just purchased a Sony 40X3000 and a Humax Foxsat HD box. I also have a Humax 9200 PVR. The picture quality on both boxes on SD is superb, as is the picture quality from the internal tuner on the Sony.

Picture quality on HD is mind blowing. Alas, there is a paucity of HD material, and I'm not enamoured with some of the programmes on BBC HD, but I'm sure this will be rectified within the next few years.

A new Humax Freesat box will not be a waste of money.
 

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