Lidl Silvercrest 80GB Dual-tuner sat receiver

server_girl

hey guys.. reading through this thread, being a total eejit wrt sat tv i still have a few quetions...

i currently have sky +, am sick of paying hideous amounts of money for it when i watch it about once a week and only really watch movies or the standard channels. so... i bought one of these 80gb Sat receivers from Lidl yesterday... i still have my receipt kept safely as it will go back if it doesn't do what i want it to do...

basically, i just want some free tv that i can record, not over fussed by HD or non-HD... would be happy with the number of channels availabe on the satelite.ie website... will this box provide these for me? will it pick up this freesat stuff? i see you guys mention something called a PVR box, is this what's needed for freesat? am going to the UK this weekend, so could pick up something different there if required. appreciate any info... cheers

mjsmyth

that box will allow you to do the following:

Watch the fta channels listed on satellite.ie
Record the fta channels listed on satellite.ie

What it will not let you do is:

Cannot link programs like you can do on Sky Plus for recording.
It only has a now and next epg (as far as watching fta uk channels anyway..) and therefore you do not get a 7 day epg.

The comag box you bought is a pvr (personal video recorder).

With regards to freesat... there is a Humax PVR coming sometime soon. As for what it will offer, I don't know apart from it will have the freesat 7 day EPG. Hopefully this will allow for series linking and so on.

mj

server_girl

mjsmyth wrote: »

that box will allow you to do the following:

Watch the fta channels listed on satellite.ie
Record the fta channels listed on satellite.ie

What it will not let you do is:

Cannot link programs like you can do on Sky Plus for recording.
It only has a now and next epg (as far as watching fta uk channels anyway..) and therefore you do not get a 7 day epg.

The comag box you bought is a pvr (personal video recorder).

With regards to freesat... there is a Humax PVR coming sometime soon. As for what it will offer, I don't know apart from it will have the freesat 7 day EPG. Hopefully this will allow for series linking and so on.

mj

That is so helpful - thanks so much, I would stupidly have assumed it could do the series link... cool - I think I'll return it and get one with EPG on it. Thanks again :-)

mill

hi

i live in an apartment block that has a comunal sky dish on
the roof there is also a freesat box avalibale.... would
this box be of any use to me???

any info thanks....

mjsmyth

If you have an active satellite connection to your apartment from the dish, then yes, the freesat box should work just fine. One would presume that the dish is pointing at the Astra 2 / Eurobird 1 cluster (most commonly known as, but totally incorrect, Sky)

mj

mill

mjsmyth wrote: »

If you have an active satellite connection to your apartment from the dish, then yes, the freesat box should work just fine. One would presume that the dish is pointing at the Astra 2 / Eurobird 1 cluster (most commonly known as, but totally incorrect, Sky)

mj

wot is the differance between astra2 and eurobird? which is better

snaffles

I bought one of the SL80/2 100CI boxes - purely on the basis that it was adevrtised as being able to watch one channel whilst recording another.

I assumed that it would be possible to put in place of an existing box, using a single LNB stream.

I have been thumbed through the manual for several hours now, and I'm getting more confused as i look at it.

It says the following in the manual on page 35...



A cable bridge is a coaxial cabel about 10cm in length, with an F-socket at each end. If the cable bridge is connected correctly, you can do the following with only one connected satellite feeder:

• During a recording, change to the channels on the polarisation plane on which the recorded program is present;
• Make a second recording within the polarisation plane of the first recorded channel;
• If there are two recordings, change the channel on the transponders of the recorded channels.

All the channels of one polarisation plane are also available to you throught the picture in picture.
High signal quality for each is essential.




Doesn't this second point mean that i can record one channel whilst watching another, OR are there lots of strings attached ?

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

mjsmyth

without being condescending... there is no need to worry. Both are in approx. the same area of the sky, so you receive from both satellites if your dish is aligned properly.

What you think of as Sky TV Channels all broadcast from either the Astra 2 or Eurobird satellites. That includes all the fta ones listed on satellite.ie

mj

byte

@ snaffles, yes, you can.

What the manual suggests you do is loop from the Output of Tuner1 into the Input of Tuner2 (assuming main incoming feed is connected to Input of Tuner1).

If the channel you record is Horizontal Low, then you can only watch channels that are also Horizontal Low, for example.

Of course, having two full incomign LNB feeds would be more versatile.

Zimmerframe

If you want to unconditionally record 2 channels, you need two feeds, that goes for whatever receiver you buy.
With a sat system, the channels are split into either vertical or horizontal polarisation, so if you use the patch lead, and you are watching a vertical pol. channel, then you can only record a vertical pol. channel. So if recording, you can't flick through channels etc. or you would change polarisation.
So in my opinion it's not much use without a twin feed.

snaffles wrote: »

I bought one of the SL80/2 100CI boxes - purely on the basis that it was adevrtised as being able to watch one channel whilst recording another.

I assumed that it would be possible to put in place of an existing box, using a single LNB stream.

I have been thumbed through the manual for several hours now, and I'm getting more confused as i look at it.

It says the following in the manual on page 35...



A cable bridge is a coaxial cabel about 10cm in length, with an F-socket at each end. If the cable bridge is connected correctly, you can do the following with only one connected satellite feeder:

• During a recording, change to the channels on the polarisation plane on which the recorded program is present;
• Make a second recording within the polarisation plane of the first recorded channel;
• If there are two recordings, change the channel on the transponders of the recorded channels.

All the channels of one polarisation plane are also available to you throught the picture in picture.
High signal quality for each is essential.




Doesn't this second point mean that i can record one channel whilst watching another, OR are there lots of strings attached ?

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

snaffles

Thanks guys !

I was beginning to get a headache from all the jargon.

Looks like a new LNB is the only way to go.

Thanks again.

byte

Yeah, best job in the long run.

DERICKOO

is this any good at lidl 14/12 can one recieve bbc hd or itv hd with this.

HDMI Digital Satellite Receiver

• Can be connected to LCD/plasma appliances with HDMI digital transmission for high quality audio and video
• Free to air: receives all unencrypted digital TV and radio programmes via satellite
• With HDMI connection and lead
• Includes remote control with 2 x AAA batteries
• Connections: 2 x euro scart, F lead(in and out; loop-through), HDMI lead, audio out (cinch L+R; stereo), AC 3 coaxial digital audio out & RS-232 lead
• Encoded channels such as Sky cannot be received
• Features: Multi-language menu, Optical and acoustic signals help when aligning antenna, Save up to 4500 channels and 800 pages with super-fast videotext8-way multifunction timer and EPG(Electronic Programme Guide,Software update via satellite Astra, 19.2° east, Sleep-timer
• Price per item

tomslick

DERICKOO wrote: »

is this any good at lidl 14/12 can one recieve bbc hd or itv hd with this.

HDMI Digital Satellite Receiver

• Can be connected to LCD/plasma appliances with HDMI digital transmission for high quality audio and video
• Free to air: receives all unencrypted digital TV and radio programmes via satellite
• With HDMI connection and lead
• Includes remote control with 2 x AAA batteries
• Connections: 2 x euro scart, F lead(in and out; loop-through), HDMI lead, audio out (cinch L+R; stereo), AC 3 coaxial digital audio out & RS-232 lead
• Encoded channels such as Sky cannot be received
• Features: Multi-language menu, Optical and acoustic signals help when aligning antenna, Save up to 4500 channels and 800 pages with super-fast videotext8-way multifunction timer and EPG(Electronic Programme Guide,Software update via satellite Astra, 19.2° east, Sleep-timer
• Price per item

No HD channels. HDMI out is the same as saying SCART out. It is only a connection nothing else. The picture is ment to be slightly better than normal but I have my doubts.

Trevord

You have to wonder if people are being conned into thinking they are buying a HD bargain with these SD products LIDL are selling that have a HDMI connection.

They had a "HDMI" tv a few weeks ago. No mention anywhere in the ad that it was only SD.

tomslick

Trevord wrote: »

You have to wonder if people are being conned into thinking they are buying a HD bargain with these SD products LIDL are selling that have a HDMI connection.

They had a "HDMI" tv a few weeks ago. No mention anywhere in the ad that it was only SD.

I know of a few people who have bought the hdmi "HD" equipment from LIDL. They are not too pleased when you actually explain to them what it really is. The same thing happened years ago when scart came out. Salemen where saying you get a digital connection. Nobody seemed to care it was all being fed from an RTE arial.
Don't think its really a con but a bit sneaky

ellie2

I am in no way techy so please bear with me.

I currently only have RTE, have never had a satellite.
Will this box give me the satellite channels eg BBC ITV,

and is it difficult to install?

Thanks for any help

polyfusion

It will indeed give you BBC1234, ITV1234, and other free-to-air channels.

But you will also need a satellite dish and LNB, cable, and the means to attach the dish to an outside wall and point it correctly at the correct satellite. If you're in no way techy, it will be difficult without understanding how the thing works and doing some research.

Also, the offer coming up in Lidl (on 14/12/09) isn't the same as this thread originally implied. Main differences is that it's only single tuner and has no hard drive.

Toft

For clarification will it pick up any free HD channels but simply not give you the full HD quality? or does it just pick up SD channels and connect via a HD connector.
Also I've an old Sat dish on my house and I'm stuck out in headford,Galway so am I too far away from civilization to get any use out of it ?
Should we just wait for something better to come down the line?

breaux

also charging €10 extra this time than they did when they had it for sale previously. Need to get with the program that everyting is heading downwards on price - not up.

tlaavtech

Toft wrote: »

For clarification will it pick up any free HD channels but simply not give you the full HD quality? or does it just pick up SD channels and connect via a HD connector.
Also I've an old Sat dish on my house and I'm stuck out in headford,Galway so am I too far away from civilization to get any use out of it ?
Should we just wait for something better to come down the line?

It is not a high def box, so will only decode SD signals - Using HDMI as a SD connector. Assuming that the Sat dish was working in a past life as a sky dish, you should have no problem picking up the freesat uk channels - All the beebs and ITV's but no Irish channels.

Kiniska

Toft wrote: »

Also I've an old Sat dish on my house and I'm stuck out in headford,Galway so am I too far away from civilization to get any use out of it ?
Should we just wait for something better to come down the line?

Headford isn't too far away from civilization. In actual fact, Satellite is perfect for those too far away. If the old Sat dish is still good and pointing towards Astra 28, all you should need is a Sat box, the one from Lidl's for about 50 euros should do the job, except you won't get HD. HD is great, but there isn't that much in HD. If I was to reccommend a Sat box, I'd say either go for the real low end like the Lidl's box or an HD PVR like the Humax Foxsat.

firemaster

bought one these receivers and it works fine - one problem thou! sometimes when your watching tv it loses picture, the tv screen goes blue and 'ASH' appears on the cover of the box. switching the power off and on sometimes rectifies the problem. Is this happening because i temporarily lose coverage??

adds

tomslick wrote: »

No HD channels. HDMI out is the same as saying SCART out. It is only a connection nothing else. The picture is ment to be slightly better than normal but I have my doubts.

I bought one yesterday for €50, I'll take it back today , after what I have read on this post about receiver , better I spend my money on something that works ,thanks lads for all good advice,