I have just done a google to try and find out what channels the basic buy and plug in sky box has on it. This is not the one that you pay £17 and upwards per month, but I can't seem to find anything about the channel info. Can anyone tell me or point me in the right direction before my wife makes a complete balls up of communications in this house?
Dave
Do you mean the Freesat from Sky service? £150 odd up front and nothing more to pay.? My mum's got that (Terrestrial Freeview doesn't work for her postcode). In my view, the only thing that's better than terrestrial digital is that you get Al Jazeera channel but you don't get Dave.
Yes, that's what I after the info on, but sky look like being shy about advertising it.
Wife wouldn't watch that, as it is too male for her.
Dave
FreeSat is nothing to do with Sky. Quite the reverse, actually. It's run by BBC and ITV.
There are two Sky Freesat and FreeSat.
No, "Freesat From Sky" was launched before "Freesat", so it could be argued the BBC/ITV pinched the name from Sky.
Freesat had already been trademarked by the BBC. That's why 'freesat from sky' always includes the 'from sky' bit.
FreeSatfFomSky:
Curious.
Out of interest, has anyone any experience of Freesat and Freesat from Sky?, I'd be curious (in passing only) as to the quality difference. I know from my experience with Sky, that the quality of broadcasts often leaves a lot to be desired (apparantly due to limited bandwidths, etc).
This might be a useful decision point for someone investigating free satellite broadcasting.
You can get *most* of the FTA channels without involving either Sky or FreeSat.
Sure it's not down to the quality of the programme being transmitted? Even something that started out half decent - like a feature film - can suffer from a poor transfer at some stage before transmission.
FreeView, on the other hand, does reduce the data rate on some channels.
If you can DIY it's so cheap you can just see for yourself. A Lidl satellite kit at about 60 quid gets most of the FTA stuff. And setting the dish is easy.
The quality of the signals is identical, because both freesat and freesatfrom sky receive from the same transponders on the same satellites (might be a couple of exceptions to that e.g. C4)
freesat and freesat from sky do use different EPGs, and obviously you can't receive encrypted or FTV channels on a freesat box, just FTA.
I've seen some people complaining that the freesat boxes are lower quality, I don't know if they're right, but you can judge that for yourself in the shop.
Can be true in reverse too, to save bandwidth costs ITV channels are transmitted at 544x576 on satellite, compared to 702x576 on freeview.
Freesat will be more attractive when the twin tuner PVRs come out as well...
On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 21:28:41 +0100 someone who may be Dave wrote this:-
To add to what the others have said.
1) Freesat from Sky and Freesat channels are broadcast from the same group of satellites. In fact the BBC2 Scotland or whatever that you see on both is exactly the same transmission from the same satellite. 2) There is a third way of seeing the same programme, a standard FTA (free to air) satellite receiver as one would buy on the mainland. 3) I assume that you don't have an existing dish pointing at the Astra 2 group of satellites. 4) Freesat from Sky involves someone fitting the gubbins. With Freesat you can either get someone to do all that, or you can just buy the receiver and DIY the dish. 5) With a FTA receiver people generally buy all the gubbins and install it themselves, though you can pay someone to do some or all of it. 6) What you get depends on which of the three ways you have chosen. Note that all three sorts of receiver can be used with the same dish. Freesat from Sky has one particular electronic programme guide (EPG). It tries to lock you into "Sky" channels, though there are limited facilities to add some others. It has Channel 5. 7) Freesat has another particular EPG. There are facilities to add "non-Freesat" channels. The receivers have an Ethernet socket, ready for television on demand (not working at the moment). At the moment Channel 5 is not on it, due to a contract they signed with Sky, but the last I heard it should be there by Christmas. 8) FTA receivers will get any channel that Freesat receivers will get. It is also much easier to view other channels. There are not a lot of these, but what some like is to watch the local news for other locations. This is easy on FTA, more difficult on the other two. There is not a proper EPG on a FTA receiver, only now and next information. Channel5 will appear at the same time as it does on Freesat. 9) If you have a HD television then there are other considerations. HD receivers cost more, but the pictures and sound are a great improvement. The BBC do several hours an evening now and special events on their HD channel (there is a programme guide for BBC HD on the BBC web site). ITV HD is a rare event at the moment. It is not available on Freesat from Sky, is available on Freesat and can be picked up on some FTA receivers with a degree of difficulty ranging from easy peasy to fairly hard, depending on model. Channel4 HD is only available on Freesat from Sky, no idea if this will be on the others soon or even later. Is it worth it at the moment? You have to decide. HD signals use the same dish as SD (standard definition) signals, so you can buy an SD receiver now and only have to change the receiver to get HD in the future (assuming you have an HD television) when things are a little more settled. 10) Which option you prefer is a matter of your personal preferences. Time/skills to DIY against the cost of having someone else do it.On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 10:32:22 +0100 someone who may be David Hansen wrote this:-
Forgot to add. These can be bought as kits from places like Maplin , or the bits can be bought separately.
It is possible to sometimes buy satellite stuff more cheaply in places like Lidl. The receivers from there are well worth looking out for as they are good quality, as is the satellite in a suitcase kit. The latter is also available all the time, for more money, from Maplin .
On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 10:08:01 +0100 someone who may be Andy Burns wrote this:-
There are only two manufactures of receivers at the moment. The Bush, Grundig and Goodmans ones are the same thing inside different boxes. The other manufacturer is Humax, who only make an HD one. The quality is at least as good as the ones with a Sky badge on the front, which isn't saying much.
By contrast there are many manufacturers of FTA receivers and one can select from a far wider range of products with a far wider range of quality.
Will more manufacturers take up Freesat? No idea. The UK now has two non-standard EPG systems, Sky and Freesat. This strikes me as quite mad given that there is a perfectly good standard EPG system available, which many German channels use. Unless lots of people adopt Freesat I doubt if many manufacturers will think it worthwhile producing special software for the UK, especially as to get the Freesat logo there are restrictions placed on the hardware and software. Two examples of this are only having "Freesat channels" on the main programme list and cutting off the YPbPr output on some/many broadcasts for the most silly of reasons.
I saw some specific complaints (can't remember which make/model, look in uk.tech.digital-tv if interested) that the chroma/lumi signals had been decoded with a displacement between them, leading to colour fringes, and were still the same on replaced boxes.
True, if you can live without a 7day EPG.
And Sky didn't want to buy the "Freesat" trademark when the BBC offered it to them. I guess that is sensible as it keeps their brand name "Sky" in the market place and makes it easier to distinguish between the (now) two "freesat" services. Hum, that must be a mistake, marketing normally want to confuse the consumer...
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