At £175 for the equipment and fitting – is it a good deal?

Anyone gone down this route to get Freesat TV and can give me some advice?
cheers

Fit it yourself

i wouldnt pay for it.

i use it sometimes because the sky dish was there when i moved in.

it has naff all decent channels although sometimes i get a better reception on the likes of 5 if there is a good movie on.

freeview on my telly does me fine.

If you can’t get Terrestrial Freeview, then it’s an ok setup.
You could probably get it cheaply second hand.

Main problem is lack or recording ability. I could be wrong (so double-check) but whenever I cancel Sky they always want £10/month just for Sky+. It’s the best recording facility available, but for £120 every year, you may be better off looking for alternatives.

yep sky plus is unavailible without paying them.

good news is very little worth recording on freesat that isnt availible on iplayer, 4od or itv player

Main problem is lack or recording ability. I could be wrong (so double-check) but whenever I cancel Sky they always want £10/month just for Sky+. It’s the best recording facility available, but for £120 every year, you may be better off looking for alternatives.

The freesat signal is from the same satellite as sky so if you have an existing dish you can use that and buy a freesat box to record if you want to record. You need two cables running from the dish for recording though.

Freesat doesn’t really offer much that you don’t already get from Freeview, and even though both Freesat and UKTV (Dave, Yesterday, etc) are both consortiums with BBC in the driving seat Freesat doesn’t carry the UKTV channel for some reason. Its a usable alternative to free view if you don’t have a decent reception for terestrial though.

I have a fresat Humax HDD recorder. Great kit good reception all the time which was iffy with freeview.

I’ve also got a Humax freesat+ box as we moved into a new house with a sky dish already in place so thought I’d try it. It plugged straight in and set up no problem. Picture has also been faultless since we’ve been in and can record/rewind tv.

We have it hooked up to the broadband so you can watch iPlayer through it too. Not really interested me but you also get all region variations of the terrestrial channels, not something I think you do through freeview (might be wrong).

We use an old Sky box (and paid the Sky installer who had come round to fit Sky+ £10 to chase in a cable to our bedroom).

Cost us £20 (IIRC) for the FReesat card and it works fine – no recording or anything but it is only ever for occasional nightime viewing and kiddie programmes in the morning.

Interesting. I’ve just bought a Samsung TV with an inbuilt Freesat tuner. I’ve been trying to work out if it’s worth installing a dish.

Do you already have a dish fitted ? If so, simply buy a Humax Foxsat HDR box and Bob’s your uncle. If no dish, get one fitted, then buy a Humax box.

Then install the customised firmware that makes it do clever things. 😉

Thanks for the advice guys.

I think getting a dish fitted and going down the Humax Recorder route will be best.

cheers

Samsung freesat+ plugged into existing sky dish and phone line can record 1 and watch another and do all the iplayer type things. Does more and has more channels than i need.

If – like me – you can only receive “Freeview Lite” it is worth having Freesat. For instance I don’t have ITV 4 on Freeview on the “big telly” so had to watch the Tour de France on the Freesat box upstairs.

I got Freesat as our TV reception was terrible. I’d be happy with freeview if the signal was strong enough.
Looked at Freesat from Sky, but didn’t trust them, especially as you have full-blown sky for a few months then have to ask them to turn it off. I had visions of nagging sales calls going on forever once they had my contact details.

Bought a Humax box off the STW classifieds, got a dish fitted and haven’t looked back.

We only have freeview which only gets a few channels – no ITV3 or 4 for example.

I think we get around 15 channels in total!

maybe consider a new aerial – i live in sight of the transmitter – about 18 miles away but i can see it at night.

I get most channels and i dont even have an aerial or anything close to resembling an aerial plugged in.

I can see the transmitter as I type; it’s only 200m away with direct line of sight and the reception is excellent as you might expect. If I remember correctly there’s still not enough available space on the digital spectrum for every region to get full Freeview hence why some only get 15/20 channels. The only ones I miss are ITV 4 for the TdF and Film Four

If you are not getting a good signal through your ariel then it may be benificial to put up a dish and go for freesat, however shop arround and see what an ariel installer would charge for a dish and look at getting one of the hummax PVR’s that will allow you to record the freesat channels as and when you want with no subscription.

I can see the transmitter as I type; it’s only 200m away with direct line of sight and the reception is excellent as you might expect.

if it’s a main transmitter or a strongish relay, @200m I’d expect all sorts of signal issues

jota180, I have no issues with signal other than missing channels. Even on analogue the reception and picture quality was much better than friends who were on Sky or Freeview, although as the digital switchover neared there was some diagonal striping on the BBC channels. No probe on Freeview

Then install the customised firmware that makes it do clever things.

tell me more! ….. But if its not something like extra lives or unlimited ammo I might be disappointed.

http://www.avforums.com/forums/freesat/1599048-media-file-server-bundle-foxsat-hdr-release-4-0-part-2-a.html

Looking at Humax freesat HDR boxes – they say I need a broadband connaction – why? Is it so I can access iPlayer and 4od etc?

Yes, the broadband is just to view iPlayer and other similar services. I think there are a couple of on demand film options too but they are not particularly good yet.

You can use the Humax box without a broadband connection and will view/record/rewind fine but you will just lose the few iplayer features.