Free to air vs. Sat4free

Henry Ford III

Are these the same thing?

Is there anything on these that I cannot get on an account expired sky box and dish?

Henry Ford III

Just seen elsewhere - epg, some HD channels and red button aside there's no difference.

kuro_man

search for freesat v. free-to-air (sat4free is an ireland-only version of freesat)

both can be HD or SD

Key feature beside EPG and interactive services is auto-tune. Sat channels get moved or dropped so you have to re-scan a FTA box or manually enter frequencies but not on a freesat/sat4free box.

Freesat+ boxes works like sky+ (pause live tv, series record etc) but carry no subscriptions. These boxes rely on an EPG to work and freesat has the only in-stream one for uk channels.

fitzgooble

Henry Ford III wrote: »

Are these the same thing?

Is there anything on these that I cannot get on an account expired sky box and dish?

To reset your expired sky box to the english set up(all fta ch)
1-make sure card is inserted into correct slot
2-switch to sky news ch 501 and press red button for interactive services
3-wait 20 seconds for all menus and txt to appear, remove sky card and press 'back up' on the remote TWICE
4-'searcing for channel' should appear on screen and bbc1 should come up as ch 101
5-go to favourite ch under services and bookmark all fta channels

DO NOT REINSERT SKY CARD OR YOULL FUDGE IT UP.

fitzgooble

ps. the english freesat box with N Ire area code is the way to go for FTA boxes

Mossy Monk

fitzgooble wrote: »

ps. the english freesat box with N Ire area code is the way to go for FTA boxes

I would have thought the West Country. No UTV and ITV1 in the Westcountry has the highest bit rates of all standard definition ITV channels.

petronius

either get a Freesat box or freesat+ box up north
or one of those Lidl silvercrest boxes, or Grundig boxes, used to be available in Power City and Atlantic etc.

sham69

apologies for jumping on this thread.
I am recently moved to a new house that has a sky dish, I have an old pace sky box that I plugged in, have no viewing card whatsoever and am getting bbc1 as my first station and some others, itv 1,2,3 etc.
Problem being some of the encrypted channels are in between the free to air ones.

2 question if I may.
1. Do I need to enter any codes to get all the free channels available (have a good load of them already it seems)

2. Is there a way of sorting the channels in the order of only the ones I can recieve (i.e not encrypted).

Thanks
Sham

VERYinterested

No you don't need to enter any codes, you should be seeing all of them automatically.

You could sort the 50 channels you watch mostly into 'Favourites' as there is no other way of sorting them.

sesswhat

sham69 wrote: »

2 question if I may.
1. Do I need to enter any codes to get all the free channels available (have a good load of them already it seems)

2. Is there a way of sorting the channels in the order of only the ones I can recieve (i.e not encrypted).

Thanks
Sham

See Paddy_C's excellent TUNING GUIDE sticky for extra channels.

Rick_

Mossy Monk wrote: »

I would have thought the West Country. No UTV and ITV1 in the Westcountry has the highest bit rates of all standard definition ITV channels.

For now, as it is feeding an analogue transmitter, but when the digital switchover completes in the Westcountry this month it will not be required to be so good so will more than likely revert back to the crappy bitrate and resolution of all the other ITV channels on satellite.

sesswhat wrote: »

See Paddy_C's excellent TUNING GUIDE sticky for extra channels.

Oh, you... :rolleyes::o

Are there Sat4Free+ boxes that allow recording?

If the EPG and menu etc. are supposed to be a Freesat only thing, I wonder how Sat4Free can get away with it. Are they a legal subsidy of Freesat for ROI or just some company that basically ripped the whole thing off?

I would have imagined they best thing about Freesat/Sat4Free was getting the 7 day EPG as a FTA box will only give you now and next. The bonus for a FTA box however if that you can put the channels in on any order you wish and rename them if necessary/desired, there are also no limits really on the tuning parameters.

Dony

fitzgooble wrote: »

ps. the english freesat box with N Ire area code is the way to go for FTA boxes

Nice post fitzgooble! Didn't realise you could do that. I've always had to get the FTA channels on a redundant sky box by pressing services, other channels, etc etc

Mossy Monk

Paddy C wrote: »

For now, as it is feeding an analogue transmitter, but when the digital switchover completes in the Westcountry this month it will not be required to be so good so will more than likely revert back to the crappy bitrate and resolution of all the other ITV channels on satellite.

That would be a shame.

sham69

sesswhat wrote: »

See Paddy_C's excellent TUNING GUIDE sticky for extra channels.

Thanks for the reply.
I am also trying to find out the cheapest package for the premier league footie this season, its a bit of a pain with Sky, Setanta and ESPN sharing the games.
Sky works out at 54 euro a month but I don't think that includes ESPN or Setanta.
UPC works out a bit dearer, anyone got any suggestions?

Thanks for the tuning guide, will check it when I get home.

fitzgooble

Dony wrote: »

Nice post fitzgooble! Didn't realise you could do that. I've always had to get the FTA channels on a redundant sky box by pressing services, other channels, etc etc

no bother, just keep it under your hat, trade secrets!!!

gcdwebmaster

Sat4Free / Freesat and Freesat+ is best(better than skyfta) for the beebs and recordablilty and using the redbutton etc.

I think a NON-Freesat/Sky Free-to-Air receiver is best, if you want to point your dish at other Satellites than Astra 28.2 and channels in other languages!