Freesat owners thread

menz83

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Well, in the mood for a bit of bragging as I got my Humax Foxsat box today so thouht we could also start discussing what we like and what we dislike about freesat!

So far so good. Unplugged my sky box, plugged in the Humax then bang, 74 channels in total. Really pleased with BBC HD. Its on par and sometimes surpasses many blu-ray movies I own! Rest of the channels look great compared to my old sky box that was using composite video!

The best thing is, I did a manula tune and have come up with a total of 460 channels! Just flicking through them and have so far found Luxe TV HD so pleased to at least have another HD channel! Away to start browsing through the rest of the channels to see whats there!

So whats everyone else's view? Anyone pick up a Grundig or Bush box?
 
what makes the Humax foxsat better then the other HD FS Boxes
 
I believe the Humax is the only freesat box that allows you to manual tune for all FTA channels. However, a major downpoint for some would be that it has no LNB out.
 
At the risk of getting the longest reply in history what are the 460 channels. If Freesat say that they have 80 where do the other 380 come from?
 
Where did you buy your box from?

It seems there are various problems getting hold of one - anything from 'the launch has been delayed' to 'you can't buy it without installation too'. Both of which sound like total BS!
 
Can it output HD over component?
 
At the risk of getting the longest reply in history what are the 460 channels. If Freesat say that they have 80 where do the other 380 come from?


I take it they are mostly non-UK channels (but some will be in English anyway) and they won't be in the FreeSat EPG.

My Pace 810 shows about 700 channels - not all free-to-air

Cheers, cooperda
 
Where did you buy your box from?

It seems there are various problems getting hold of one - anything from 'the launch has been delayed' to 'you can't buy it without installation too'. Both of which sound like total BS!


Saw a couple today in Stockport.

Cheers, cooperda
 
Well, in the mood for a bit of bragging as I got my Humax Foxsat box today so thouht we could also start discussing what we like and what we dislike about freesat!

So far so good. Unplugged my sky box, plugged in the Humax then bang, 74 channels in total. Really pleased with BBC HD. Its on par and sometimes surpasses many blu-ray movies I own! Rest of the channels look great compared to my old sky box that was using composite video!

The best thing is, I did a manula tune and have come up with a total of 460 channels! Just flicking through them and have so far found Luxe TV HD so pleased to at least have another HD channel! Away to start browsing through the rest of the channels to see whats there!

So whats everyone else's view? Anyone pick up a Grundig or Bush box?

Does it record i.e is it a PVR as it is of no use to me otherwise.We both often work evenings and most TV is watched from Sky+ recordings?
 
The PVR's arent going to be available until August apparently.

The Humax does have component output so i would assume it would output HD via HDMI and component. I had to do an over the air software update before I got sound on BBC HD, only took a few minutes though.

I bought my box from Comet in aberdeen. It might be worth quoting the product number when phoning as most of the staff are useless! The product number for the Humax is 444855.

Most of the channels are pants. Luxe HD is worth pointing out, but only for HD material, nothing else! FX HD and sky box office HD are there but are obviously encrypted. Some other stuff that it has found is the likes of Zone Reality, variuous shopping channels, music channels and quite a lot of other stuff that I will never watch. In the process of manual tuning, it appears that i have lost channel 4! Away to spend a bit of time on the box to see what I can figure out.
 
The PVR's arent going to be available until August apparently.

The Humax does have component output so i would assume it would output HD via HDMI and component. I had to do an over the air software update before I got sound on BBC HD, only took a few minutes though.

I bought my box from Comet in aberdeen. It might be worth quoting the product number when phoning as most of the staff are useless! The product number for the Humax is 444855.

Most of the channels are pants. Luxe HD is worth pointing out, but only for HD material, nothing else! FX HD and sky box office HD are there but are obviously encrypted. Some other stuff that it has found is the likes of Zone Reality, variuous shopping channels, music channels and quite a lot of other stuff that I will never watch. In the process of manual tuning, it appears that i have lost channel 4! Away to spend a bit of time on the box to see what I can figure out.

I can wait unil August I wonder what the cost might be?:smashin:
 
just in case you missed it the BBC FREESAT BLOG has put up a review of it today, can the thread starter confirm the details of the said report?

Best regards,

SS
 
just in case you missed it the BBC FREESAT BLOG has put up a review of it today, can the thread starter confirm the details of the said report?

Best regards,

SS

I think you started a thread plugging this article on your blog already today. I don't see any adverts on your site (big thanks to firefox) but I can imagine there are many of them.

In most forums this would be considered as spamming. :spam:
 
The review is fairly acurate. The box is simple to use, with nice clean menu's that are real easy on the eye.

Upscalling is great, however, the only niggle is that you cant set the upscalling off for non-hd channels without downscalling the HD channels i.e. if I set the box to 576i, BBC HD is shown in 576i. I would much rather have my amp scale the SD channels from 576i to 1080p rather than the box scalling to 1080i then my amp deinterlacing to 1080p.

Another niggle is when you switch to the non-freesat EPG to access all the FTA channels, the channel order goes crazy and renames some well know channels to numbers instead e.g channel 4 changes to 8350. Took me ages to find it again. I have ended up turning the official freesat EPG back on and stuck with teh 76 channels!

Audio is good, but lacking a bit of volume on some channels. The AC3 stream on BBC HD requires me to really crank my amp up to get audio at a decent levels. Same goes for SD channels although not as bad as BBC HD.

Just phoned Sky to cancel my subscription. Wow did I get treated like a piece of dirt. Wasnt offered any free stuff but he did get me to try and sign up for Sky broadband. After I said definatley not, he practically hung the phone up on me! Comission driven is my guess :D
 
just in case you missed it the BBC FREESAT BLOG has put up a review of it today, can the thread starter confirm the details of the said report?

Best regards,

SS

Unfortunately the quality of the writing on that site, as well as the awful design, makes my eyes bleed. Does anyone have any alternatives?
 
Menz83

Can you get Channel 5 on your box, have found that my local Comet have them in, but at present the only way I can get Channel 5 is via my Sky Box Freeview box wont pick it up and would need to unplug this to connect new Freesat box, like Partner likes watching "House" so I have a promlem.
 
No channel 5, but '105' of the EPG has been reserved for 5 when they eventually come over, which I believe is in the coming months.

I have heard over at the digitalsy forums that currys have plenty stock. Give your local branch a phone and quote the stock number '0000536738' to see if they have any available.
 
Can you tell me if Emmerdale and Corrie are broadcast in HD, I hear there will be HD symbol in a corner if it is. Oh and if you would, could press the red button so it shows the programme in HD and leave a comment here. The misses won't let me get Freesat if those channels are in HD.

:lease:
 
Can you tell me if Emmerdale and Corrie are broadcast in HD, I hear there will be HD symbol in a corner if it is. Oh and if you would, could press the red button so it shows the programme in HD and leave a comment here. The misses won't let me get Freesat if those channels are in HD.

:lease:

Im not getting a red button prompt on ITV. I heard it was going to be an interactive service, but have not had the prompt all day. Pressing red anyway does nothing. I have heard that only the test broadcast is the only current ITV HD stuff available, still cant find that though! I did read that ITV will be launching their HD service in the next fortnight.
 
Just to join in on the questioning :) Does the box output Dolby Digital over HDMI (unlike Sky) or do you need to use Optical?
 
Just to join in on the questioning :) Does the box output Dolby Digital over HDMI (unlike Sky) or do you need to use Optical?

Yup, DD over HDMI. Will not work out of the box though, you need to do a software update which only takes a few minutes.
 
I see there is an ethernet socket on the back, what for though? iplayer?
 

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