terrestiral and sat FTA box

Lennoxschips

Hi, long time no speak.

I was wondering if anybody knew of a set top box that could receive both fta satellite and fta digital terrestrial.

I want Dutch public TV and BBC/ITV/Film4/CNN. Dutch TV used to be available for free via analogue through the air, but unfortunately they've turned that off and it is now only free on digital terrestrial. As you can imagine, I'd prefer just one set top box to do both jobs of satellite and digital terrestrial. Does such a thing exist?

Dutch TV is also available FTV on Astra 1 satellite, so I thought I'd get a multidish for both BBC and Dutch TV. But the FTV smart card for Dutch television costs 80 euros (!) to buy and 20 euros to activate. Not to mention another 100 euro for the CI module. This is robbery, so I'll stick to my single dish.

byte

Oh, these most certainly exist.

Eg. here is a Topfield with DVB-S and DVB-T tuners. Of course, that one is a bit expensive as it's also a PVR but you get the idea.

There are other enthusiast receivers, like some Dreamboxes, Reelboxes, etc that allow the ability to just plug in tuner modules, eg a sat tuner and a DTT tuner.

Is Dutch DTT using MPEG2, and is it FTA (doens't need a card and CAM)?

Lennoxschips

Thanks, that's exactly the kind of equipment I was looking for, good to know it exists.

The three Dutch public broadcasters (Ned 1, 2 & 3) are unscrambled on DTT. All the other Dutch channels (the commercial ones) are scrambled though, but I never watch them anyway.

I don't know what kind of DTT they use though. Probably worth looking into, as I heard it's unstandardised across Europe.

watty

Also ReelBox PVR from germany. Works well, but UI not great.

cormacl

Dreambox 7025 can be setup for two tuners, -T & -S variants to give you both sat and digital terrestrial. Like the reelbox, its a PVR, but cheaper and with an excellent UI (one of the best around)... its not HD (high definition) capable.

Kaon have some S/T combination models (e.g. Kaon KTSC-570 available from www.hm-sat.de, sat-place.de and others) and others that are also PVRs.. I've never owned or used one but have seen them on the shelves in Germany and Dr. Dish has given them very favourable reviews.

Your best advice is to check Dutch forums etc to get a feel for what the locals are using.. because you'll easily see the rants and raves about the available options.

Lennoxschips

Came across this one:

http://www.quelle.de/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/Quelle-quelle_de-Site/de_DE/-/EUR/Q_CustomerBanner-Start;sid=aur-tXFv6KD_tTdE6wF542XDX7u-wUqr0IeVQg9h?afPartnerID=2594413C1406547120&afServiceID=a001&ProductSKU=589911F&CategoryName=222567&AAID=200000692623&Linktype=N&Bannerreference=MTL221894

looks very stylish... and cheap!