Help me escape from N*L Hell!!

BigFish75

Hi all,

I'm Dublin based with a basic N*L cable feed into my house. I have a nice Panasonic Vierra full HD TV and want to take advantage of it as much as possible, especially coming into the winter months but having looked at the cost of installing SKY HD with the movies, sport and kids programmes + multi room for the other 2 TV's in the house I'm looking at over €90 a month which I just can't afford.

I'm sure this is a dopey question to those of you with experience in this area but are there any real alternatives to SKY which will deliver similar content including HD? Can I buy a satelite dish and pick up free channels and if so what would the list look like? Are there any "Free" movie and sports channels giving similar content to SKY?

I'd give myself a 6 out of 10 in terms of tecnical ability. I'm pretty good at getting to grips with software and systems etc but am rubbish at DIY so installing the dish, running cables to the TV's etc would have to be done by someone else.

If there is an alternative to SKY out there what are costs likely to be?

Really appreciate any helpful input you can give me.

Regards,

Fish

John mac

free hd channels are bbchd itvhd and luxehd.

(if you want to use the panny properly get a blu ray player) or ps3;)

there are quite a few movie channels on sat (not the best quality though)

you will get bbc1, 2,3,4, cbeebies,cbbc itv1,2,3,4,citv and the +1 of itv stations ch4 ch5 and loads of others. including kids ones .

freesat you can also add others.

a humax hd box is a well regarded freesat box (richersounds ) records also.

You wont get RTE.. you will need an aerial for that.


.for installers you could look at the sticky thread, lots of people posting here also.

tomslick

If your poor with DIY you'd better give this a miss. The cabling required is one from each box to the dish. Mounting the dish can be risky with ladders etc and the alinement of the dish is fun also. If you were to go down the route of non sky boxes better than the lidl ones a good knowledge of computers would be an advantage as the learning curve can be quite steep.
Using european tv channels is normally only used for football but the are endless tv packages out there.
The cost of all this gear is normally more expensive than skys offering and the purchase of foreign cards are normally on par with sky for a total package that you require.

LoveHiFi

Don't cast of ntl yet to spite your face , they only real alterntive is new HD pack from them http://www.upc.ie/television/digitalplushd/ having said that Sky HD is great , especially if you like your sport

kuro_man

You have to do DIY and make mistakes to get good at it; just don't fall off a ladder. Most DIY mistakes can be fixed, polyfilla is great stuff!

If you are happy to live without Sky sports, discovery channel, living tv, Dave etc. then go with freesat + aerial for RTE/TV3. For freesat channel list see www.freesat.co.uk. With a quad lnb you can run 4 receivers or 2 receivers + 1 pvr like the humax fosxat hdr. For more, you need a octo lnb or a quattro lnb + switch box.

Up front cost excluding installation are:
Dish = around €25 - €35 for a solid 60cm (www.satworld.ie as a nice cheap one)
LNB = titanium quad is around €27 on ebay
Standard dev freesat receiver: around €70 each (sat4free in powercity is good local value is you pay on-line and collect)
Humax foxsat HD receiver: €120 - €150
Humax Foxsat pvr - €250 from richer sounds
Aerial for RTE - €20 - €30 depending on location
Installation gear (cable, brackets, diplexers etc) - allow around €50 - €75

After that, no more payments.

Kashkai

kuro_man wrote: »

You have to do DIY and make mistakes to get good at it; just don't fall off a ladder. Most DIY mistakes can be fixed, polyfilla is great stuff!

If you are happy to live without Sky sports, discovery channel, living tv, Dave etc. then go with freesat + aerial for RTE/TV3. For freesat channel list see www.freesat.co.uk. With a quad lnb you can run 4 receivers or 2 receivers + 1 pvr like the humax fosxat hdr. For more, you need a octo lnb or a quattro lnb + switch box.

Up front cost excluding installation are:
Dish = around €25 - €35 for a solid 60cm (www.satworld.ie as a nice cheap one)
LNB = titanium quad is around €27 on ebay
Standard dev freesat receiver: around €70 each (sat4free in powercity is good local value is you pay on-line and collect)
Humax foxsat HD receiver: €120 - €150
Humax Foxsat pvr - €250 from richer sounds
Aerial for RTE - €20 - €30 depending on location
Installation gear (cable, brackets, diplexers etc) - allow around €50 - €75

After that, no more payments.

+1

I was a complete satellite newbie but I didn't want to/couldn't afford to, pay SKY €40+ a month for a few channels that I'd watch and a few dozen I wouldn't so I went ahead and did my own satellite installation similar to what Kuro Man outlined above. I now have FREESAT tv in 3 rooms, a Humax HD PVR in one room, and all the terrestrial channels as well.

The best bit is that after the initial outlay of approx €270 for the hardware (dish, cable, receivers, terrestrial aerial) and the €250 for the Humax HD recorder, I will no longer have any more bills for my tv viewing. You might think that I splashed out €520 on this gear but if I'd gone with SKY, one years subscription at €40 a month for the programmes I wanted would have cost €480 so the way I see it is that my Freesat installation will pay for itself in 13 months time.

kuro_man

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

+1
...my Freesat installation will pay for itself in 13 months time.

That's why you're called "Prosperous Dave"

BigFish75

Thanks a, especially Kuro and Prosperous Dave!!

NTL confirmed I'm not in an area where I can get their broadband or their new HD service so it's SKY or DIY. (I feel a poem coming on!!)

SKY with HD, all the movies and sports etc + 2 multi room charges will be over €120 a month after the initial "special" offer on multi room finishes and there is no way I can afford that.

The DIY or "independent" route using an experienced installer is probably the way to go. I'll do some more homework on the forums and make a decision.

Thanks again everyone.

Fish

Martin_F

If you are considering diy - have a good think about the dish location - it doesn't have to be up high on the chimney etc. I got mine up on the side of the house as high as my ladder would reach (it's a good 1-2m short of the roof line) - just high enough to peek over next door.

And also considerany existing cabling - I was able to link my sat feeds into a lot of the existing cables that were carrying NTL around my house. I put a larger aerial in the attic - rather than climb on top of the house.

Kashkai

A ready reckoner for deciding on where to place your dish is to see where the sun shines on your house at approx 10.30 in the morning which is approximately where the "SKY/Freesat" satellite (Astra 2) is in the sky. You can place the dish on any wall that gets the sun at this time. As the other poster said, the dish doesn't need to be sited as high as possible, just so long as it has a clear view of the sky at an angle of approx 23 degrees above the horizon. If you had your own land and there were no hills/trees in the way, a dish can be placed almost at ground level. My own dish is only about 12 feet off the ground as it just needs to clear some trees at the boundary (which I gave a haircut to have a clear line of sight for the dish).

Try doing it yourself, it is not hard to do and you'll save a few hundred quid that you'd pay an installer. The hardest part is aligning the dish but there's loads of advice on how to do this.