Info

PDD

Hi Guys,

I was wondering does anyone know where I can get an origional sky decoder box. I will be gettting a Sattelite for FTA and I was told that the sky decoder boxes are the best quality.

Does anyone know if there is a way to get Channel 4 or does that all depend on the sattelite that you point to?

Dave

L1011

They're probably the worst for pure FTA, but you can buy a Sky digibox on ebay, or new from satellite.ie and most other sat shops - your local independent installer even. They are only any use for 28E, don't do motorised, don't have digital audio, and the tuners are poor on bad signals.

Channel 4 is FTV on 28E; you need a Sky digibox and an FTV card - see the stickies on this forum for that.

byte

If you want to use the interactive services like BBCi, Sky News Active and digital text etc, then you'll need a Sky Digibox. Also needed if you plan to get an FTV card that MYOB has mentioned.

Otherwise, get a standard FTA box, which allows control over what channels are listed where, channel deletions, and of course motorised setups.

PDD

Interesting, well I will be getting someone to install it for FTA and then maybe for sky. Do the dishes only pick up one Sattelite or can they pick up 2/3 or is that down to the size of the Dish?

So if Sky DigiBoxes are crap can anyone recommend a reasonably priced one?

St Senan

Try these and compare prices and delivery charges. there all in Ireland

www.corksat.com
www.satworldonline.com
www.zintek.tv
www.satellite.ie
www.electroplus.ie

Capt'n Midnight

SKY boxes are great for the EPG - program guide and that all the stations are programmed in from the start. They are the only way of getting SKY encrypted channels. An FTV card + Digibox will get you C4 C5 and SKY 3 :rolleyes:

They have a very primitive signal strength on-screen so more difficult to setup the dish than almost any FTA box.

They can't search for new channels, a real pain if you want to watch a channel that isn't on 28E and hasn't paid SKY to be on the EPG. Forget about any foreign langauge channels. Also you have no control over the channel numbers, to change you have to enter a 3 digit key. You can't hide the spam channels and regional variations have to be setup in "other channels" which takes a lot of button presses to change channels and has to be re-added ever six months or so when the box "forgets" them. There is no option to flick betwee two channels either.

L1011

You also can't add channels which are FTA but carry CA flags (AXN Italia on Hotbird); or channels which are FTA but use non-22/27.5 symbol rates (formerly lots, now down to occasional freeviews on the Olisat channels on Eurobird)

watty

The best solution really is a Quad LNB and a Sky ROI box, a Sky box with FTV card and a FTA satellite receiver (with a four way switch optionally to other LNBs for other satellites for the same dish).

Having your cake and eating it.