French TV on Sky (newbie)

musicinmouth

Hi,

I'm new to satellites, so please forgive what is probably a silly question... but if I sign up to get Sky, is it possible to get French language tv stations?

I currently use Chorus / NTL but am considering switching to Sky and it would be great to be able to get a choice of French stations.

Thanks for your advice.

spuddy

musicinmouth wrote: »

Hi,

I'm new to satellites, so please forgive what is probably a silly question... but if I sign up to get Sky, is it possible to get French language tv stations?

I currently use Chorus / NTL but am considering switching to Sky and it would be great to be able to get a choice of French stations.

Thanks for your advice.

AFAIR the only French stations you'll get with Sky are TV5 Monde and France 24 (this channel is free anyway so you don't need a sub to watch)

Cheapest option is to pick up a SECAM analogue receiver and point a dish at 5'W (Atlantic Bird 3). This gives you TF1, France 2,3,5, M6 and a few others. For how long these analogue versions will continue to be available is anyone's guess however.

More expensive (& harder to acquire in Ireland) option is to pick up France's version of a Sky FTV system, called TNTSat, you need to point a dish at 19'E (Astra 1) for this. I understand the card you get with this is valid for 48 months, after which you must renew (I imagine you'll need a French address for this)

biologikal

I think the only channel (exclusively) on Sky is TV 5 Monde Europe, you need a sub. There is another channel, BritShorts, with some French short films, and World Movies, which might have the odd French film, both of which are FTA.

You could get a suitable reciever and pay a sub to get Canal+ from 19E, or if you want FTA, point a dish at 5W; there are other FTA french channels on the likes of 19E and 13E, but 5W probably has the best of the French channels that are free to air. If you want to see whats available on the different satellites, go to flysat.com, and get the sat list page, and check out the individual satellite pages, and search each page for "Fre" to fast-find any channels with French audio.

Fat_Fingers

Get FTA satellite receiver.
Point your dish to 19.2E

Free French channels on 19.2E:
RTBF Sat
Demain
NRJ Paris
BFM TV
Direct 8
KTO
France 24 Français
EWTN Europe
NRJ Hits
ARTE Français
TV 5 Monde Europe
EuroNews
LCP
NT1
Luxe TV
Liberty TV Français
Medi 1 Sat

dhaumi

musicinmouth wrote: »

Hi,

I'm new to satellites, so please forgive what is probably a silly question... but if I sign up to get Sky, is it possible to get French language tv stations?

I currently use Chorus / NTL but am considering switching to Sky and it would be great to be able to get a choice of French stations.

Thanks for your advice.

I'm french, I'm with Sky (not for much longer). Sky doesn't provide any decent french, european for that matter, channels. You WILL be disappointed if you get Sky (only) for french channels. TV5 regroups the most boring things you could watch on french/canadian/swiss/belgian channels (ex: Vivement Dimanche...).

I would/will go for TNTSAT. Easy to get in France (Fnac, darty...), if you happen to be in France or know someone there who could send it to you... You'd get 18 real french channels, great picture quality. You'd need a 80cm dish.

I wouldn't advise the analog solution. Picture is not great, 6 channels+TMC, the analog signal will be switched off in the next year or 2...You'd need a 80cm analog dish.

FTA channels are not great, not worth the investment in my opinion.

Hope it helped.

gqma0

Other point to specify.

From Oct 2008, TF1 and M6 will broadcast 80 to 100% of their programme in HD.

You will need an MPEG4 TNT SAT receiver (~€239 in fnac).
http://www.sateuropa.co.uk/product_overview.asp?id=1891&catid=1&subcat=8

Otherwise, to receive in SD, the receiver (SAGEN ISD94) costs ~€140

I'm french too and I'm switching from the analogur to digital soon.

Cheers.
Gaetan

RapidResults

To add to other suggestions,

LCP and France 2,3 & 5 are available FTA in digital on Atlanticbird 5w.

On 19.2, you can watch the German Arte with a French soundtrack in HD and it's FTA.

vsat

Go with 5 degs west, a number of FTA french channels.

regards,

musicinmouth

Thanks everyone, you all rock! I appreciate it!