freesat, free to air etc

Damer

Hi All
need some advice and hope this is the right forum to post, i'm looking into buying an 32'' led high def tv (either sharp or samsung) at present i have 10+yr old tv and a free to air reciever about 4yrs old, it seems to make some sense to get a HD reciever but what to get? is freesat just HD free to air or is there a difference? will i need to change my dish or just plug and go?(hope that isn't a silly question!)
last thing seems it might a good idea to boost sound qualitly but i've limited funds so buying an all whistles and bells home cinima system is out of the question but i do have pair of small but good quality speakers is there any easy way to utilise these?
many thanks
Ruth

cnocbui

To get the benefit of HD, you need to be sitting close enough to the screen that your eyes will be able to resolve the finer detail.

For a 32" screen, you need to be viewing it from between 7 and 8 feet away to be able to see the HD detail: http://www.cnet.com/hdtv-viewing-distance/

So if your viewing distance is greater than that, it may not be worth your while getting a full HD TV.

When I upgraded our TV. I looked at the distance thing and realized the 42" I thought would be adequate would only have been marginal, so I went for a 50" against my wife's objections.

'Too big for the room, will look silly, make it hard to draw the curtains...' I had slight reservations myself.

She is absolutely sold on the result though, and so am I. So if your budget allows, it would probably be worth considering getting an appropriate sized TV, even if you might initially think it too large.

That said, it is only worth worrying about HD if you have HD sources to watch. A normal freesat/FTA box will not decode the couple of HD channels that are currently available - BBC HD and ITV on certain programmes. The other Sat channels are not in HD.

You can get boxes that will decode the HD - they need to have an MPEG-4 decoder in them.

Your existing dish, LNB and cable would work for HD and would not need to be replaced.

If you did consider HD and a larger screen size, be aware that for larger panel sizes, plasma screens are usually cheaper than LCD and yet give better picture quality. Panasonic is the brand to look at for Plasma.

ei3gqb

hi damer... freesat sd and hd is provoided by bbc/itv on astra 2d/eurobird
at 28 degrees east where sky digital comes from..you can view freesat sd on your sd sat reciever not a freesat reciever but you will not get the full e.p.g just whats on now and next.. examples pf fta recievers are fortecstar fs series am using a fs4500 usb/pvr ready with hdmi upscaled to 1080i sd... with a 50in sony bravia rear projection which is hd ready and 6 years old..you can use your 4 year old rec., to view freesat on astra 2 at 28 east.using your existing dish either a sky or other dish as long as you point it at this satellite where both freesat and sky digital come.
scan an all fta and scrambled tv and or radio chnlls.
you will see in the list fta channells/freesat and pay to view channells/sky digital.......you wil not be adle to view sky without subscribing to them
on any fta reciever sd or hd......how ever there is a way round this but you must have a current sky card or borrow one from a friend..you will not need a sky box sd or hd but will need to purchace some further equipment
ie. sat reciever with one or two c.i slots sd/hd....t-rex 4.1 cam/loader card,infinityusb or unfinityusb unlimited card programmer to load the t-rex 4.1 with preditor software.... now the t-rex cam once up and runnimg will read and allow a sky card to work in a reciever thats not a sky box.
you will need to put the sky card into a sky digibox from to keep it up to date etc.,and swop it back to your other rec., to continue viewing with your t-rex in your non sky reciever.... it works ,have done it on the t-rex and its precursser the dragon cam 3.1.... the cam both versions will read nds videoguard cards form sky and other servise provoiders that use this encryption system...however theres no way of cloning skycards so forget about that...n.b. its illegal to pirate cards on any encryption system...
but not to use valid cards like sky's in other recievers that are capable of doing so. as described above....hope this points you in the rite direction and i recommend sony bravia hd tv's lcd led...not a fan of plasma...
for your upgrade....humax fox freesat recievers and the p.v.r versio. are available from freesat.ie and satworld.ie online or at their shops. in dublin.
so login to them or call in person to get your recievers/upgrade equipment
i find the staff at both companies helpfull and their prices are competitive
too.so shop around...

ei3gqb......francis

ei3gqb

hi see your online interesing post on the viewing distances interesting...
am using same size tv but rear projection and am usualy 8 to 10 feet from the tv have not upgraded to a hd sat rec., yet but use a sd rec., hdmi out to 1080i mot 1080p
and the detail is excelent. for sd...on a non freesat satellite rec.,
another family membr., of mine uses a 40 in., sony bravie l.c.d eng3 with humax for hd
freesat rec., results es good as if not eq., to blueray disc..in comparisson....ei3gqb

Damer

thank you both for taking the time to respond, i'm good bit clearer now as to how to proceed. took a look at those two websites and might make a trip up to the Dub to visit one or both. also measured distance from tv to sofa and it's 8-9 foot, think a bigger tv will totally dominate the room so may have to readjust the furniture instead! want to go for a lcd/led tv cause less energy comsumption than plasma and looking at sharp and samsung cause they've better ethical (or more correctly less bad) credentials than other makers.

cnocbui

The extra energy consumption is near irrelevant in our climate, where we have to heat our homes for much of the year. The extra power consumption is given off as heat so it is not wasted money, just turn the rad down a bit.

The same goes for incandescent light bulbs, but that's another story.

The latest Panasonic plasmas do not use all that much power.

a 42" full HD is rated at 295w max with it being 175w typically.

A 42" full HD Panasonic LCD is rated at 180w max and 142w typically.

So that's a difference with typical usage of only 33w.