Whats on Satellite??

eoinhmckenna

Hi Lads,

I'm thinking of buying a motorized dish and box to get more channels, I bought "what satellite" magazine the other day to see just what was available. And I found that most all the English speaking channels are already aired with my ntl package.

My question is if I do go ahead and get a motorized setup, what are the good channels? are there a bunch of really cool channels that cant be got any other way??

Also, Is it worth stretching to a 2 metre or 2.4 metre dish? will i have access to even better channels?

Finally, what subscription channels are worth checking out? Is it worth getting those cards?


Many thanks for your help, really appreciate it. New to the world of satellite!!

GerardKeating

eoinhmckenna wrote: »

Hi Lads,

I'm thinking of buying a motorized dish and box to get more channels, I bought "what satellite" magazine the other day to see just what was available. And I found that most all the English speaking channels are already aired with my ntl package.

My question is if I do go ahead and get a motorized setup, what are the good channels? are there a bunch of really cool channels that cant be got any other way??

Also, Is it worth stretching to a 2 metre or 2.4 metre dish? will i have access to even better channels?

Finally, what subscription channels are worth checking out? Is it worth getting those cards?


Many thanks for your help, really appreciate it. New to the world of satellite!!

Most English language FTA stuff is at 28E, the only other english language FTA i found of interest not on 28E was CNBC which is FTA on 19E..

watty

There are about 22 satellites you can get.
Above 1.1m dish you need a 36V motor system and adaptor, a cheap 100 Eur motor won't do bigger dishes.

At 2.4m you can "feed hunt" and get some C-Band too.

Most of the decent channels on NTL are free on 28.2E.

The best english on other sats is maybe BBC World TV.

It's a bit like Short Wave Listening. The channels are not of value just because it has a rerun of Mutant X in English with Arabic subtitles but a window to the world.

TRT i
Arriang
DW TV, TVE and TV 5 free (pay channels on Sky)
Polish TV drama with english subtitles
Nile TV
VOA / CSpan TV
Cuban, Vietnam etc TV
Over 3500 free channels, about 12 worth regular watching unless you learning one of the 114 languages I counted.

Over 2000 free radio... Jazz/Classical/Oldies/Pop International English News etc...

Live News and Sports feeds.

Some people used to subscribe to Albanian TV for Football. It all depends on your interests.

You'd want a receiver that does HD, 4.2.2 and Blindscans (It will downsample for regular TV) and connects to PC for transponder updates. Or a PCI card for a PC (then recording).

A PC card needs an external adaptor as few will supply power even for a basic DISEQC motor.

byte

Moved to Foreign Satellite, as I think it might be better suited in there

Pal

Window on the world as Watty says.

I watch crazy sports that I don't know the rules of like some billiard type games from Russia. No matter how much I watch, I cannot figure out what is going on !

Other more conventional stuff like Chinese table tennis, baseball or beach soccer can be excellent.

Satellite is also brilliant for football and at the same time improving your foreign language skills while you watch. I use Spanish and French commentary when possible but have even picked up some German from scratch. You gets lots of football that Sky just doesn't have.

Most of the time its just fun. There are plenty of basic systems at entry level so you dont have to go motorised straight off. More than enough to see on Hotbird and Astra 1.

If its English language you are after then foreign sat is resricted. Some channels can be manipulated (alter the PIDS) to change content to original English version but mostly its not worth the bother. This works well on pay channels so you would need a subscription.

The receiver box is important. Go with something that is mainstream and well supported. I use Technomate but there are plenty of good others.

Once you are connected, there are so many channels you won't get through them all anyway.

(Forgot to mention, theres some very naughty stuff too so learn how to lock the box from the kids)

watty

Er.. Spanish air bags etc... You might want to pull curtains and lock door while checking out and deleting channels after a scan. Some of the foriegn FTA "shopping channels" sell stuff not in Tesco or QVC.

Fat_Fingers

Hahahahaha, oh this reminds me of time when my wife had her friend over so naturally she starts flicking music channels ( that was the group she was in). First comment was "Hey this is **** remote, its not like Sky" so i said that is correct since its not a Sky. She asked "why would younot have a Sky" , some people don't understand you would want anything else. Sky's brilliant advertising brainwashed them! Anyhow the point i'm trying to make is that she was channel surfing music group but as you know some channels share frequency so what is music during the day, at night is..... And eventually she hit one of those "shared" channels...
Uh-oh.. there was no easy way of explaining that one!! Wife was not too happy..