Alternative to Sky?, Combo box??

[Rocker]

I have lost patience with Sky. They show no loyalty to their customers, none whatsoever. I contacted them about getting Sky Sports for the duration of the Ryder Cup [4 days]. I expected it for free for those few days, refused. I offered them €10 for the four days, again refused. Their only offer was for 1 month at €30 something. I threatened to cancel our subscription, the Agent [cheekily] offered to put me through to the cancellation department. She even said that their charge was "less than it would cost me to attend the Ryder Cup".

Anyway that more or less made up my mind for me. When I have an alternative I will cancel my Sky subscription. We only view free to air channels anyway so our only loss is the facility to record a series of programs [Series link].

My question is: what is a combo box? If it gives me all the Rte stations, all the BBC stations, all the ITV stations, then it is a definite runner. Opinions and suggestions most welcome. Thanks.

[tony]

Combo means one remote control and both saorview and freeview combined in one box. You can also buy a combobox with recording features. Humax make some good stuff I have the pre saorview humax and you can record one and watch another channel.

[james]

You will need a satellite dish [which you have] and an aerial for the saorview stations [i.e. rte etc.]. I don't know what sort of aerial you will need -- maybe indoor, maybe outdoor. The Irish stations are not on free-to-air satellite.

It's important you have a 'Freesat' rather than just 'free-to-air' satellite receiver. Freesat will give you a 7-day program guide. I have a Humax model which I am very happy with but I understand the model I have is not made anymore. 'Free-to-air' satellite will just give you the current program and the next program. I think if you stop paying sky you can use your current box as a free-to-air receiver [but I am not 100% sure of this].

For 'Saorview' you also need a box that will give you a 7-day guide. That probably means it needs to be certified and carry the logo. I have a Walker box which is OK but the menus are not as good/easy as on the Humax.

I don't think you can get a combo box that is Freesat and Soarview certified.

Things get more complicated if you want to record ...

James

[Fran]

I have 3 of these set up in the house. You need a satellite dish pointing at astra 2e - (28.2 deg east) which luckily you already have courtesy of sky (although you may need a dual LNB). Then you need an UHF aerial to get saorview - where you point it will depend on where your transmitter is (most likely Clairmont Carn for you).

Map here:

http://www.saorview.ie/get-saorview/mak ... erage-map/


Then you need to bring the satellite connector and the RF connector from the aerial into the back of a combo receiver box.

http://www.tvtrade.ie/triple-tuner.html

That one is an example. You can just add an external hard drive, or even a big USB stick to it and then you can record all you want. If you happened to find a err, movie file on the internet, then you can play it back on it. No need for a DVD player any more. You can also pause the TV in the same way.

What you don't get:

Sky sports, nat geographic, discovery, sky movies, etc etc although sometimes you can buy a card that slots into the unit.
Series link as per sky usually doesn't work very well
Often the EPG ain't great
Often the new saorview teletext (MHEG5) ain't great


fran

[Rocker]

Thanks guys for the replies. One question, partly answered by FRAN, is does the text work? On RTE & BBC? Also, and this is a key requirement, does the Red button work on the BBC? The football results program, Final Score, is on the BBC red button from the start of the games on each Saturday. It switches to BBC1 around 4.30.

[Fran]

Nope - red button is sky only I think.

Check that the box you are buying is MHEG5 compatible. A lot of them aren't because they are coming from central europe (we use the same codec as them, but different to the UK) and they don't seem to need/want MHEG5.


Tom - needless to say you are welcome to call any time if you want to have a look at mine before committing.

Fran

[james]

I have a red button on bbc news and it works with a humax receiver. Also the humax gives me the 7-day tv guide ...

Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freesat#Ireland

and note the quote "Combination Receivers with Generic FTA Satellite and Irish DTT Saorview are available from shops, and installed by companies, none are properly Freesat compatible or certified."

I bought a humax receiver from alliance video in georges street but they have gone out of business. I think you can get them from amazon or richers sounds in belfast. You have to set a postcode and I picked one for london. There was a site giving a list of codes for the various regions. The box just checks the code is valid but it does not transmit it anywhere so you could use the postcode for (say) tesco in belfast or tesco in london etc ..

list of postcodes http://www.tvtrade.ie/blog/tag/hd-freesat/


james

[james]

More info on freesat ...

http://www.astra2sat.com/