Sky Vs BBC HD?? Really two types?

[JDXAV]

EDIT: My title is wrong. Should be Sky Vs BBC FREESAT??

I've been phoning around to get a Freesat installation arranged on my house, and two people asked me "do you want the Sky or BBC Freesat". The first one I assumed they were just asking if I wanted Sky or something, but another person asked too.

I am now a little paranoid The dish itself is the same for Freesat and Sky anyway isn't it? And the LNBs also are standard since you can watch Freesat from a spare LNB on a Quad setup on your dish?

Is it me or the customer service people who are badly informed?

 

[Starburst]

While the satellites and dishes are all the same there are two very definitive services on offer. The most well known is obviously SKY who are a primarily a PAY operation and last year the joint BBC/ITV Freesat service launched which has it's own proprietary boxes and EPG (just like SKY) but only requires a one off payment (like Freeview).

A retailer needs to know which service you want as it determines the hardware and price of the package and some retailers will be SKY dealers so they will tend to hard sell the SKY product as they get paid for that.

 

[JDXAV]

No I know Sky and Freesat are very different. I wasn't asked "do you want Sky or Freesat"... I thought that was what they meant but they really did mean "do you want Sky Freesat or BBC Freesat"... that was literally the question I was asked by 2 different people.

Sounds weird to me... unless they were trying to sell me a Sky box with no contract to use only to receive Sky's free channels? But even then I'd told them I already had my Freesat box/recorder so the dish/LNB would be no different.

 

[Starburst]

Ah, I'm with you

FreesatfromSky and Freesat are two different things and yes the former is a one off payment (two options) for a single tuner box and install unlike the standard subscription contract.


FreesatfromSKY


Are you simply after additional feeds to supply a second box because if that is the case you simply need to swap the LNB for one with more outputs and run the cable. They may be harder for a standard retailer to handle (they sell pre-packaged options) so perhaps an independent Dsat installer is the better option for that sort of job.

 

[JDXAV]

Right now we have no dish installed at all, starting from scratch. I've ordered the Humax FoxSat so they quoted to install me a dish with quad-LNB, with two cables attached both going to our living room.

My understanding is when I want to get a standard Freesat box for my study, I can buy a cable myself and simply link it up without needing an engineer - I picture the quad-LNB having 4 little connectors onto which cables can be attached?

 

[Starburst]

My understanding is when I want to get a standard Freesat box for my study, I can buy a cable myself and simply link it up without needing an engineer - I picture the quad-LNB having 4 little connectors onto which cables can be attached?

Spot on
When the install the dish if you can have in a position where you think you can access it easily even better. It may even be worth asking the installer to add a third or fourth feed for a small consideration

 

[JDXAV]

Think it will be in easy reach, at ground level almost due to local conservation rules. Maybe I'll get him to add a 3rd cheap since the dish will be virtually outside my study window... no more than 10 feet of extra cable would be needed.


Anyhow, thanks for the help. Happy I asked for the right thing now, looking forward till everything happens tomorrow! Maybe have it running in time for the football on ITV HD