Freeview/Freesat?

[UKJeeper]

Cancelled my Virgin subscription (trying to save money). I was just going to get Freeview but Freesat seems to be available now. Has anyone used either, any suggestions?

[Yoshi]

freeview is best, freesat has less channels worth watching!

freesat doesnt have Dave!!!!

[mudmuncher]

Use freesat when taking the caravan away and more than happy with the range of channels available  :D :D

[Range Rover Blues]

Freeview, £30, no brainer

Freesat will have HD channels and be unprgradeable (so are most freeview) so I'm toying with getting one after Christmas when the price comes down and there are more channels with HD

[Disco Matt]

Properly set up Freesat generally has better reception than Freeview, plus for those of us who live in areas with no Freeview it's the only way to get all the BBC channels that we're paying for with the TV licence...

[burgerman]

 We cashed in sky+ and opted for a free view box with twin tuner ( Humax) Basicly  you can freeze/rewind/and easy recording pretty much the same as sky, But free after buying the box, Works fine for us :D

[UKJeeper]

Got a Freeview box at Argos today. Freeview box took about 30 seconds to plug in and configure, much better picture than the TV tuner acheived and obviously a lot more channels (and i can delete the cr*p ones from the listings!  ).
Bit of a PITA not having ITV listed but the workaround is easy enough. Best £20 i've spent in a while.


As far as recording (especially as she has to keep up with the Walford Square saga...  ), i've found twin channel PVR/DVR boxes that let you watch one channel and record on another, several of these are at or below £100. When funds become available, i'll get one of those.

[Yoshi]

ITV should be listed???

Sounds like its either not got a freeview arial (normal arials can pick up the stronger freeview channels) or its not pointing the right way!

[UKJeeper]

The aerials pointing right at Crystal Palace, and i'm the highest house on the hill. Points in the same direction as the other billionty TV aerials in my part of town. I even checked on the Freeview coverage checker (on the website) with my postcode, and nope, no ITV until the digital changeover (2010).

IIRC my parents have the same problem with ITV, and they are in the same town.

No biggie, I have more permanent options in the works.  ;)

[Range Rover Blues]

If you can't get ITV on Crystal Palace can you get another transmitter on another channel?

[zebidee]

Freesat's still a bit pricey with  dish installation - I'm waiting until they bring out a recordable box before I go for that.

We go BT Vision when we were in our last place (no satellite and really poor aerial aerial reception) - we've moved now but am not sure whether I'll renew or not when it comes round.

Z~

[Disco Matt]

Installing freesat is a doddle - all you need is a signal strength meter, compass, and the info on which satellite you need to point at. You can find out where to point it on the web, then you aim the dish and use the signal strength meter for fine tuning. I've set two up DIY with no problems - if you can work on a 4x4 you can set up a satellite dish.

While I don't like Sky their minidishes are cheap and easy to come by on ebay for about £20 - they're not particularly well made but once you've got it together it works perfectly well for picking up the freesat stuff. You'll also need a box, cable, and connectors but they're simple enough to find online. I was lucky in that the ideal location for the dish was above the roof of an outbuilding, so I didn't need to balance on a ladder while working!  :lol:

[DoubleTop]

recently had similiar thought process - I had a quote for a new aerial, our existing one is just good enough for using a £20 freeview box, but we did have some nights where we got nothing.  It slowly got worse as winter came, so had a quote for a new aerial - £225.  £75 later and a Sky contract to say I'll leave the phone cable plugged on 'pay once view forever'.  If you are good at remembering to cancel things, cancel at month 3of4 the 'premium' chanels or they lock you into another four months.

So in short, £75, two engineer visits, the hardware and everything sorted in time for Christmas.  I'd be lying if I said the install was error free, a second engineer was needed as the dish was slightly out of alignment, but the guy that put it up was rushing after being stuck in the legendary traffic.  I'm not one to grumble - too much ;)

DT.

[Bishops Finger]

The aerials pointing right at Crystal Palace, and i'm the highest house on the hill. Points in the same direction as the other billionty TV aerials in my part of town. I even checked on the Freeview coverage checker (on the website) with my postcode, and nope, no ITV until the digital changeover (2010).

IIRC my parents have the same problem with ITV, and they are in the same town.

No biggie, I have more permanent options in the works.  ;)

[Edited] sake Tim go laning mon...