French and Spanish channels?

corkoniense

I am a bit ignorant and know of nothing other than NTL, Chorus and Sky, which are pretty useless in providing what i am looking for......
Is there any channel provider out there that provides RTE, TV£ BBC, C4, sky etc as well as the major French and Spanish channels? I guess i am looking for some kind of custom built selection of channels. especially interested in catalan and galician channels as well, but would settle for major channels....

Sponge Bob

They are on Hotbird not on Astra2 and are frequently encrypted with Viacrypt so you need an FTA receiver that can decrypt Viacrypt too such as this one below and a card from 'somewhere'

http://www.hm-sat-shop.de/10032.ahtml

...you could also motorise your dish and run it off that receiver but I am getting technical now ....sorry

corkoniense

now i just have to check up what all these words mean!! thanks spongebob, its defo worth a try...

Ulsterman 1690

Basically you need a satellite reviever (box) preferably with a "Viacrypt" decoder (although you will recieve SOME channels without the decoder and a satellite dish pointed at the Hotbird Satellite (13 degrees East)

Most satellite dishes in Ireland/UK point at a satellite called Astra 2 (28 degrees East)

For Catalan and Galician stuff I think theres some on the Astra 1 (19 degrees East) satellite I know theres definitely Basque stuff on there

Pal

on Hotbird/ASTRA1 you can get quite easily
for an initial modest outlay

TVE
TVE24
REAL MADRID TV
Andalucia
TVCi
TVV
Galicia
Basque TV

+ lots of French channels

Shinto

Hi corkoniense,

I can't comment on the Spanish channels but ive done a hell of a lot of research on the French channels so i'll add my two penny bit.

I recently got satellite equipment to specifically get french tv. I havent set it up yet...im still waiting for some parts to arrive from Ebay in Germany. (they had trouble with the fact that ireland has no postcodes so there's a big delay!!)

I've decided that there are enough quality french channels available Free-to-Air (FTA) that i didn't bother getting a reciever with a "Viacrypt" decoder. I would have had to pay extra for that, and id then have to buy a Viacrypt card. Yes, SpongeBob and Ulsterman are correct, their way would provide the best quality and most channels, but im a cheapskate student so i went for my method.

Being a demi-francophone, i have looked at the FREE french channels (http://www.lyngsat.com/freetv/Europe.html) available, and i am perfectly content with the quantity and quality of french channels available FTA.

I've decided that the best and cheapest thing to do is point the satellite dish at "Astra 19.2East" and "Hotbird 13East" satellites. They have many channels which come from many francophone countries (france, belgium, luxembourg, algeria, and morocco). And yes, some of them are good quality "major" channels like TV5, LCP, and Arte. Im also looking foward to the European Union channel (EBS) which is available in many languages. So you'll be able to select french or spanish. Its the same thing with EuroNews channel which is also available. I should have about 10 to 15 francophone channels.

I can't tell you what ive got exactly cos i havent set up my satellite dish yet! But i will post a comprehensive list of the FREE french channels available from those satellites in a week or two, or three...whenever my bloody stuff arrives by post! You can then judge whether or not those i have listed would be deemed "major" enough for your liking. Vive la francophonie!

satgirl

corkoniense wrote:

Is there any channel provider out there that provides RTE, TV£ BBC, C4, sky

RTE, TV£, Sky only on available on a a $ky subscription using a $ky box.

BBC1-4, Sky News, UTV, ITV available FTA on Astra 2A,B,D on 28.2e using a FTA box.

Arte, France 2,3,4,5 are FTA on AtlanticBird 3 (5w) no cams or dodgy cards required. This was rumoured to be changing last March, but they're still FTA.

Arte would be my favourite, it's just dazzling.