DVB-S and FreeSat from Sky

lotas

Good morning all.

I have been reading a few things on this forums, but i am not sure about a couple of things. I am trying to replace my Sky HD box with a Media Center (given the recesion, i decided paying Sky EUR69 per month was a bit overkill). i have the dish, and 2 cables running down from it, and have been looking at a few different DVB-S cards. Questions though:

I see FreeSat (www.freesat.co.uk) and FreeSat from Sky (www.freesatfromsky.co.uk). any advantages of one over the other? if there are extra channels on the sky offering, could i use a sky card to get these with a DVB-S card? i know there was talk about it on this page (http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/skymceintegration.html) but 1) that seemed to be a full subscription, and 2) if i am reading it correctly, there is only 1 tuner... could i use both and decode with one CAM?

Sorry if these are stupid questions...

8kvscdpglqnyr4

If you're trying to save yourself 69 euro per month, then why do you want to still have Sky Channels that you're going to have to pay for?

I don't have a setup that allows me to watch any sky channels (only free satellite channels and irish terrestrial channels). From what I have read on it, you can use a CAM to stick you Sky viewing card into. But you still need a viewing card! And I think this this only works for one feed from the LNB. If you want to watch one subscription channel and record another, then you need 2 CAMs and 2 viewing cards.

Freesat and Freesat from Sky are very different from using a DVB-S card in a HTPC. With a DVB-S card in a PC, you are using your PC as the receiver. With Freesat and Freesat from Sky you are purchasing a receiver and feeding the output of that into an s-video input of a TV card in your HTPC and using an IR blaster to change the channels on you Freesat receiver.

lotas

Thanks for the reply. i think i may have said the wrong thing here... i dont want to pay sky anything, but i heard that they offer this freesat from sky thing, which is a one off payment (unless you already have the equipment and viewing card, which i do) that allows you to watch some extra channels (by the looks of things, the Discovery channels, which would be a nice to have). even if you have to buy a second card, they are cheap (about 20 quid i have read) and that is all. so no monthly outgoings will be spent...

if your right about the 1 CAM per card, thats annoying, but its doable...

CHW

If your current Sky viewing card is an Irish sub card, I don't think it will become a freesat from Sky (FSFS) card when it expires, so I don't think it would be able to get some of the newly added channels (such as Five, and C4 family perhaps). The Discovery channels are not FTA.

If you're talking about STBs, and need an EPG to organise your viewing, a Freesat box would be better than a Sky box (IMO). Some boxes will have PVR and DiSEqC, so with EPG/PIDs auto-updating (on 28.2E), a Freesat box would be best if you want more flexibility. Also, Irish channels NOT FTA (need sub), so you'd need another way to get these if you want them (STB with DVB-S and DVB-T; DVB-T tuner through your HTPC; or plain old analogue).

If you want to use your HTPC to view FTA channels on satellite, it's as divil says, but you won't get EPG (other options available though, but maybe not as comprehensive; MythTV, Mythbuntu, XMLTV), plus whenever any PID changes, you'll need to scan or manually change PIDs/TPs to get the channels.

lotas

Right, well, i have 30 days or so to figure this out... Just canceled my Sky HD subscription... now to build a machine and get some tuners...

Thanks for the info lads. will be back with questions once i find roadblocks...

mediacentre.ie

if you use mediaportal you will get a full 9 day epg via freesat. I use it.

8kvscdpglqnyr4

I hope you have better luck with Media Portal that I did. I have tried to install Media Portal on XP and Vista and both times it failed to work.

I even tried it again last night on my Vista HTPC and the install failed!