Channels available in Thomson DSI4212

hogweed

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I used to have Sky in 2 rooms of my house, but cancelled the second one when my girlfriend moved out. However, my daughter who visits a couple of times a week would like TV in that room, and the cable from the dish is still there, so I thought I might buy a cheap Freesat box off eBay and just plug it in.

But... I've read endless threads about Sky viewing cards etc, and I wondered if these Freesat boxes need any kind of card in them, or if that’s purely a Sky thing?

Sometimes you get Sky boxes for next to nothing on Freecycle etc... but I understand for them to work you need a Freesat card – so I suppose the Freesat boxes must have the licensing built in or something, or is the Sky Freesat card just a way of Sky recouping some money for having to transmit the signals?

Thanks
 
I used to have Sky in 2 rooms of my house, but cancelled the second one when my girlfriend moved out. However, my daughter who visits a couple of times a week would like TV in that room, and the cable from the dish is still there, so I thought I might buy a cheap Freesat box off eBay and just plug it in.

But... I've read endless threads about Sky viewing cards etc, and I wondered if these Freesat boxes need any kind of card in them, or if that’s purely a Sky thing?

Sometimes you get Sky boxes for next to nothing on Freecycle etc... but I understand for them to work you need a Freesat card – so I suppose the Freesat boxes must have the licensing built in or something, or is the Sky Freesat card just a way of Sky recouping some money for having to transmit the signals?

Thanks

A sky box without a card or a freesat box that can't take a card will both work fine. The sky box without a card will have more channels on the epg than a freesat box but you can't choose your local regions. You will lose channel 5 on the sky box but can add the fta version used by freesat using add channels. The £20.00 freesat from sky card wiil restore your local regions, Ch5 from the epg and add a few FTV channels, from memory Sky3, Fiver and Five US
 
The £20.00 freesat from sky card wiil restore your local regions, Ch5 from the epg and add a few FTV channels, from memory Sky3, Fiver and Five US

Thanks. So... an actual Freesat box will have the regions and those extra channels away, will it? Without having to buy an extra card?
 
A freesat box wont give you fiver,five usa,Sky 3 etc as they are encrypted,hence the need for a FSFS card to receive them with a Sky box...
 
Thanks. OK, so if I want those channels, I'd be better getting an old Sky box and buying a card?
Yeah, it's the easiest/cheapest option tbh.
You could/can use a FSFS card in Freesat boxes(in non-freesat mode) with the addition of a cam, such as diablo,t-rex/dragon cams, that would read the sky cards and give you those extra channels.
However those cam's only work with the old blue/yellow house sky cards,and Sky are in the process of changing the encryption/replacing the cards and these cams dont work with the new white sky cards and it doesn't seem likely they ever will.....
 
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Thanks. So... an actual Freesat box will have the regions and those extra channels away, will it? Without having to buy an extra card?

Most of this has already been answered except the bit about ITV Regions. On a sky boxe with a card afaik you only get the local ITV region in the epg, Freesat lets you choose your local region as you can use any postcode and you always get ITV 1 london at 977. On both systems you can add the fta ITV 1 regions using add channels/non-freesat mode.

ITV 1 London 10758 V
ITV 1 Granada 10758 V
ITV 1 Anglia North 10758 V
ITV 1 Central West 10758 V
ITV 1 Border England 10832 H
ITV 1 Central East 10832 H
ITV 1 Thames Valley 10832 H
ITV 1 Wales 10832 H
ITV 1 West 10832 H
ITV 1 West Country South 10832 H
ITV 1 Anglia South 10891 H
ITV 1 Border Scotland 10891 H
ITV 1 Meridian South 10891 H
ITV 1 Tyne Tees North 10891 H
ITV 1 Yorkshire West 10891 H

Note ITV 1 West Country South currently has a much better picture quality than the other regions
 
Without a FSFS card the Sky digibox will give you ITV Central West Midlands on 103 and ITV London on 993 with BBC London on 101 and all other BBC regions in the 900s. With a FSFS card you will get the correct BBC and ITV regions (channel 4 and Five as well but the only differences are the adverts) as well as ITV London and all the BBC regions in the 900s. The FSFS card will also give you Sky 3, Fiver, Fiver +1, Five USA, Five USA+1 and allow setting of parental controls.
 
Well, being a tight-fisted git, I asked on The Freecycle Network last night, as I knew some people would have old Sky boxes lying around in their attics after upgrading to Sky+ etc – I've got one to collect already. As I’m getting it free, I might even lash out on a card!

Thanks to everybody for your help, as always.
 

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