samus
Novice Member
Hello, I am in the process of buying a house that has existing Sky Q service and no (or very poor) terrestrial signal. We intend to use FreeSat instead (and will need a new TV anyway) and I'm trying to work out my option - I'm quite new to satellite systems in general so please forgive any ignorance in my questions. As far as I can tell, my options are:
1) replace the Sky Q wideband LNB with a hybrid LNB (~£35 Visiblewave looks like it would do the trick) - then connect one of the legacy outputs to a TV with built-in FreeSat tuner. I've never had a dish before but it seems as though switching the LNB isn't too big a deal as long as I can get access easily to the dish. However, will probably be limited to a single tuner so I can watch OR record (unless I want to watch and record two different things on the same transponder).
2) buy one of the new FreeSat 4K set-top boxes with wideband input - maybe the easiest solution, but an extra £200 per TV plus the need to split the two LNB outputs, run coax to each of them. I don't think any TVs exist with wideband FreeSat built-in, but please anyone shout if that is a product that exists, or is likely to exist soon! A FreeSat equivalent of a Sky Q minibox would also do the trick but I don't know if those are in the works, or (even they are) if that would require replacing the main box too at further expense. Maybe slightly less expensive if I go with the non-recording box and get a TV with external hard drive PVR capability, but my current Samsung smart TV has this and it's not great.
3) SAT>IP - but here I am limited by the availability of SAT>IP servers with wideband input. The only one I've found so far is the Kathrein EXIP 418, which is more expensive than the FreeSat box (~£250 if I buy from Germany, more from Amazon UK). It would enable easy expansion to future TVs, but with a fair amount of DIY required and I'm not even sure yet how many TVs/other receivers we'll want. Additional expense (1) to buy/build receivers, though if I went with a Raspberry Pi-based solution this could probably be kept relatively low, and (2) for a separate Wifi router (unless I could run this by ethernet into my broadband Wifi router? but I don't know if that would work or if it would congest the network). Even more DIY would be to build a receiver box with a PCI tuner card / FMC, but even if I were up for that, I haven't been able to find any that support wideband input.
I think I might just go with the FreeSat 4K box now, but in the future use a couple of splitters to branch off to a SAT>IP device if we have the demand and/or if they get cheaper. Any thoughts/suggestions/corrections welcome! Thank you.
1) replace the Sky Q wideband LNB with a hybrid LNB (~£35 Visiblewave looks like it would do the trick) - then connect one of the legacy outputs to a TV with built-in FreeSat tuner. I've never had a dish before but it seems as though switching the LNB isn't too big a deal as long as I can get access easily to the dish. However, will probably be limited to a single tuner so I can watch OR record (unless I want to watch and record two different things on the same transponder).
2) buy one of the new FreeSat 4K set-top boxes with wideband input - maybe the easiest solution, but an extra £200 per TV plus the need to split the two LNB outputs, run coax to each of them. I don't think any TVs exist with wideband FreeSat built-in, but please anyone shout if that is a product that exists, or is likely to exist soon! A FreeSat equivalent of a Sky Q minibox would also do the trick but I don't know if those are in the works, or (even they are) if that would require replacing the main box too at further expense. Maybe slightly less expensive if I go with the non-recording box and get a TV with external hard drive PVR capability, but my current Samsung smart TV has this and it's not great.
3) SAT>IP - but here I am limited by the availability of SAT>IP servers with wideband input. The only one I've found so far is the Kathrein EXIP 418, which is more expensive than the FreeSat box (~£250 if I buy from Germany, more from Amazon UK). It would enable easy expansion to future TVs, but with a fair amount of DIY required and I'm not even sure yet how many TVs/other receivers we'll want. Additional expense (1) to buy/build receivers, though if I went with a Raspberry Pi-based solution this could probably be kept relatively low, and (2) for a separate Wifi router (unless I could run this by ethernet into my broadband Wifi router? but I don't know if that would work or if it would congest the network). Even more DIY would be to build a receiver box with a PCI tuner card / FMC, but even if I were up for that, I haven't been able to find any that support wideband input.
I think I might just go with the FreeSat 4K box now, but in the future use a couple of splitters to branch off to a SAT>IP device if we have the demand and/or if they get cheaper. Any thoughts/suggestions/corrections welcome! Thank you.