Entertainment For Lively Minds
Freesat?
Posted by Doug B on 31 January 2011 - 12:10pm.
Getting sick of dodgy signal reception on my freeview and am considering switching to a freesat system. Can anyone give me the pros and cons of freesat? Is it worth getting the HD version? going recordable etc.
Are the extra (non freeview) channels any good? Is reception always perfect?
Any info greatfully recieved.
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Also..
forgot to ask, can the signal be sent to other sets in different rooms?
12 Months of Freesat
Hi Doug,
We switched to Freesat from Sky 12 months ago and went for the Humax HD recordable box. Since then the picture has been perfect enjoyed (if that is the right word!) the world cup in HD and getting ready for the 6 Nations.
I would say apart from the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 family of stations the rest are pretty rubbish, but any programs we have missed on Sky etc we wanted to see we have caught up with on DVD. Which has proved to be a lot cheaper than Sky.
The box we got also can be linked to your home hub and if wanted you can get iPlayer to your telly with the ITV version coming soon.
Sky keep asking us to rejoin them with really good offers and the last one we were tempted by but when we asked the kids they were not interested.
Really think how much telly you watch and you can stream it to other rooms if you get the right kit.
Those calls from Sky
My standard response to their regular phone calls offering special offers to return to the fold is
Me: "Is it free?"
Young Scottish Lady: "No."
Me: "Well I'm not interested then, thanks."
I sometimes follow this up with my opinions on Rupert Murdoch. It doesn't seem to stop them phoning about once a month though.
Improved signal strength
Before you take the plunge... are you in an area that is about to switch off the analogue signal? If you are, then the signal strength will be boosted at the time of the changeover so your signal may improve. Also, do you have a decent aerial? A decent aerial might seem expensive to have installed (we paid about £150) but is a lot easier to maintain than a multi-LNB satellite dish and can be more easily piped around the house - if you stick with freeview you have more choice of equipment as well.
What exactly...
are the maintenance problems with the satellite dishes. Never heard of anyone having problems myself.
LNB graveyard
LNBs die relatively regularly. I've had a Sky dish (analogue and digital) now for nearly 23 years and I reckon I've had 3 single LNBs die, one quad one and one of the LNBs in my current quad one has gone which is fine because I only use two of them so I've moved the cables but if I wanted to run more boxes from it I would need to replace the unit. I would like to think that one aerial mounted on a chimney would easily last that long with no maintenence.
I would guess that a lot of people haven't experienced problems because they had Sky analogue for a few years which was replaced by Sky Digital (new dish and new LNB) before the old one died then they went for Sky+ and got yet another new LNB. I would guess that the majority of Sky+ LNBs on the sides of houses are only about 5 or 6 years old. You only need to look at ebay to see how many quad LNBs are available which suggests that a lot need replacing (although obviously some will be to replace single ones).
Very happy
With Freesat. We already had the dish from Sky and bought the Humax HD recorder from Argos using Nectar points accumulated from Sainsbury's. I can't think of a single programme I have missed despite the loss of 300-400 channels when we gave Sky the boot. I resented paying over £40 per month for channels I rarely, if ever, watched. And to be asked to pay even more to watch in HD just added insult to injury.
I bought
a Freesat digibox (Humax Foxsat HD) when they first came out and as an early adopter I have had absolutely no problems with it at all. I'm currently looking at upgrading it to a Humax HD PVR or HD Freeview PVR.
You don't need a special dish for HD, the dish I'm using is absolutely ancient as is the LNB but still performs well. You will, however, need a dual LNB for a Freesat PVR, which means two lots of coaxial cables entering the house, and you know what the FPOs think about cables...
Free as a Bird
We gave up on Sky+ in October and replaced it with a Panasonic HD Freesat recorder thingy - it does all that Sky+ did :- namely records stuff to watch whenever you want.It also does a lot more:- it can play movies/videos stored on a USB stick. It plays CDs.It plays DVDs.It records onto recordable DVDs which means if there is something you really want to keep it can be copied off the Hard Drive onto the DVD. It 'plays' photos from USBs of some other memory cards.
To be fair it is not quite as user friendly as the Sky+ box but that is the only real (minor) minus point.
It cost only £250 (we didn't go for the latest model hence the good price) against the £18 a month we were paying for the Sky+ box.
Hope this helps!
Recording is very useful
I went the straight receiver route first, which made using the old VCR a pain in the butt, particularly if I wanted to watch anything else. Being able to record 2 channels also v.useful for me.