Kind of A noob - looking for that perfect Setup

Chrizfitz

Hi,

Gonna be moving into my new place soon and I am fed up of my off on relationship with Sky Sports. My plan is to install or get a dish installed with a sports package. Spent the last 2 days reading through a load of posts in the Foreign Sats Section all the way back to 2006, lots of good info and reviews but I seem to have hit a bit of a brick wall. I usually prefer to find answers on my own but I keep seeing the same names helping people in this section so I'm hoping some of them will come to my aid.

Heres what I have planned:

4 rooms with FTA channels.
After having sky and chorus I know FTA and RTE will be enough for me and the better half.

1 of these rooms will have my sports package as well.
I am a sports fanatic and will eat up any sport bar racing. Football, Rugby, golf, NFL are the big ones.

Im not going to say money is no object but I also know the more I put in now will save me in the future. I have a 46" full HD tv and want to get the most out of that. SD in the other rooms will be fine.

I have a bit of knowledge in installing dishes and FTA reciever but that was 2-3 years ago. So I'm looking for help for some help from boards on what you would do.

The dish/receiver setup for the 4 rooms to have FTA channels, 3 in sd and 1 in HD. The setup for my sports package and the best card to get.
I have seen:

digitalb - I heard good and bad thing s about this - good price - might not have EPL next year - weak signal

sky italy - great selection but crazy expensive

Cyfra +- Not in English?

Al Jazeera - No EPL, not in English?

All help will be very much appreciated and taken on board.

Regards,

Pal

Chrizfitz wrote: »

Hi,



Al Jazeera - No EPL, not in English?

All help will be very much appreciated and taken on board.

Regards,

Al Jazeera is almost completely in English.
They even use Sky commentary sometimes !
8 Sports channels.
Usually if its on Sky, they have it and a lot more too.

You have lots of options for a set-up but here's a suggestion which will be somewhat cost effective.

I would go with an 80cm dish.
3 x Sats on it , Astra1 Astra2 Hotbird

Get a quad LNB for Astra2 to feed your other rooms.

Use Freesat TVs in the 3 other rooms so no need for 3 extra sat boxes.
plus you get BBC and ITV HD too.

In the Sports room , you will need a box with a card reader to which you add an ART card.
Then you will get at least 5 EPL games a week on Showtime (in French) as well as 8 x Al Jazeera Sports.

If you really are a noob, then keep it simple in the beginning and build up your system over time when you get the hang of it.

Chrizfitz

Pal wrote: »

Al Jazeera is almost completely in English.
They even use Sky commentary sometimes !
8 Sports channels.
Usually if its on Sky, they have it and a lot more too.

You have lots of options for a set-up but here's a suggestion which will be somewhat cost effective.

I would go with an 80cm dish.
3 x Sats on it , Astra1 Astra2 Hotbird

Get a quad LNB for Astra2 to feed your other rooms.

Use Freesat TVs in the 3 other rooms so no need for 3 extra sat boxes.
plus you get BBC and ITV HD too.

In the Sports room , you will need a box with a card reader to which you add an ART card.
Then you will get at least 5 EPL games a week on Showtime (in French) as well as 8 x Al Jazeera Sports.

If you really are a noob, then keep it simple in the beginning and build up your system over time when you get the hang of it.

Pal,

Thanks for replying, its very much appreciated. Sounds like a good setup and with some googling I found all parts needed relativity cheap. The freeview tv idea would help a lot so I might invest in a small one for the bedroom. I have a micky mouse silvercrest receiver that I can use with an old crt tv.

I think for value for money the ART Card is the best and with what your saying about showtime I think it would be a great package if I could even get english subs. I have seen some more posts in this section mentioning sub packages. Can you tell me more about this?

I'm guessing you have experience with the ART card. Do you feel there is anything it is missing, for a sports fan?

redout

I wouldnt buy an ART card at this stage. I am sure the middle-east rights are on offer again after this season so no guarantee they will still have Premiership football. Same with Digitalb.

Chrizfitz

redout wrote: »

I wouldnt buy an ART card at this stage. I am sure the middle-east rights are on offer again after this season so no guarantee they will still have Premiership football. Same with Digitalb.

Thank you redout. Just for my piece of mind can you tell me what you would do in my situation.I'm planning on having my setup ready for the start of next season so I would be going with whoever I can get the largest amount of sport for a reasonable price.

redout

If you dont wanna break the bank I think Digitalb is the best card to go for but only after they confirm the rights for the next 3 seasons (should be around the summer)

The have English comm for most games including all PL games.

They show Premier league, Bundesliga, Serie A and La Liga.

They also have boxing, Champions league, Uefa cup, Internationals and NBA.

One of the 5 sports channels reverts to the AC Milan channel at times and one reverts to Eurosport when not in use

If you decide on the full package then you get movies, documentaries etc.

They also have a HD option if you are that way inclined.

I use a 1m dish and pick up 16E (Digitalb) fine.

I have heard people with smaller dishes especially further west having difficulty/losing picture in bad weather.

Chrizfitz

redout wrote: »

If you dont wanna break the bank I think Digitalb is the best card to go for but only after they confirm the rights for the next 3 seasons (should be around the summer)

The have English comm for most games including all PL games.

They show Premier league, Bundesliga, Serie A and La Liga.

They also have boxing, Champions league, Uefa cup, Internationals and NBA.

One of the 5 sports channels reverts to the AC Milan channel at times and one reverts to Eurosport when not in use

If you decide on the full package then you get movies, documentaries etc.

They also have a HD option if you are that way inclined.

I use a 1m dish and pick up 16E (Digitalb) fine.

I have heard people with smaller dishes especially further west having difficulty/losing picture in bad weather.

What I also heard was that with digitalb something would be scheduled and then something else would be on, or sometimes lose signal altogether due to probs with the satellite. Have you ever had these probs? See I would pay for sky if it had that much choice so digitabl was my first way to go. I guess it will be mid summer before we know who has the PL?

redout

Chrizfitz wrote: »

What I also heard was that with digitalb something would be scheduled and then something else would be on, or sometimes lose signal altogether due to probs with the satellite. Have you ever had these probs? See I would pay for sky if it had that much choice so digitabl was my first way to go. I guess it will be mid summer before we know who has the PL?

There was a problem with the satellite Digitalb broadcast on about 3/4 weeks ago but that was beyond their control. It was the actual satellite in orbit that had the problem. Things were just moved over to another satellite so there wasnt much down time tbh. The problem was actully rectified within 3 days I think it was but as I said the channels were available during this time if you just done a rescan of the satellite or else moved over to 9E.

Chrizfitz

Thanks again pal and redout. If ye or anyone else has anything to ad I'd be glad to hear it. Especially about hd receivers and opinions on the sports card.

Pal

Chrizfitz wrote: »

Pal,

The freeview tv idea would help a lot

Not Freeview

FREESAT

Big difference.

Pal

Chrizfitz wrote: »

Pal,

I'm guessing you have experience with the ART card. Do you feel there is anything it is missing, for a sports fan?

Its great for Champions League, Europa League, Serie A, La Liga, SPL, FA Cup,
English Championship, Carling Cup and more.

Its poor on Premier League but does show
5 or 6 live games a week with French commentary.

Theres a dedicated NBA channel on it and it also shows golf and stuff but mostly the channels show football.

The big attraction is it is very cheap. About €12 a month.

As a bonus you will also get a good few free sports channels on hotbird too like DSF, Eurosport, RAI Sport and others........

Finne1993

Don't buy any subscription card yet, a lot of premier league tv deals are yet to be settled with the overseas broadcasters, no doubt more details will filter through in the next few months but wait until July when you will definately know exactly what options are available to you.
Showtime Magreb on Art/Al Jazeera are likely to lose the Premier League coverage from next season so whatever you do don't get one of those cards yet anyway.

redout

Finne1993 wrote: »

Showtime Magreb on Art/Al Jazeera are likely to lose the Premier League coverage from next season so whatever you do don't get one of those cards yet anyway.

Good news if so as 7W is near on impossible in Ireland.

Who do you think will get them ?

I am hoping it will be Al Jazeera but expect the cost of the cards to shoot up if they do.

byte

http://www.digitalproductionme.com/article-1486-abu_dhabi_tv_bags_english_premier_league_rights/

Would love to know what will happen here...

Chrizfitz

Thanks for all the comments guys. Right now I am going to start buying bits and pieces for my setup. I think the receiver and card will be the final 2 buys. Will definitely wait until mid-late July for the card and will keep an eye on these threads. First things first tho, a good dish and bracket bundle.

snaps

My thoughts:

Cyfra+HD multipaket (160€ a year) 3 sports channels now and 1 HD. NO English, They have EPL till 2013.

Al Jazeera Sports 75€ a year, 10 channels, NO HD but 90% English, NO EPL.

I wouldn't touch digitalb as if you want HD, you have to get one of their kaon receivers married to your card.

Also Digitalb are being told what they can and cannot show on their channels by the FA/EPL, so there are a lot of disappointed faces sometimes on matchday when a game is not shown.

Cyfra+ is my choice, they have shown a lot of sat 3pm games as well. SD picture is one of the best ive seen and their HD picture is even better! Plus you get Canal+ films in HD which is in English.

Im off around Europe this summer and one of my stops is the Czech republic. Im going to look at one of the Czechlink prepaid cards for 23 east, seems to have a 3 year life and includes Nova sports. Price seems around 80e. Ive a friend in Plzen who if need be i can use his address. There is a maximum of 3 customers per household.

Ronan|Raven

Im going to Prague on Monday... these prepaid czechlink cards intrigue me...

Finne1993

byte wrote: »

http://www.digitalproductionme.com/article-1486-abu_dhabi_tv_bags_english_premier_league_rights/

Would love to know what will happen here...

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100310/BUSINESS/703099917/1005

They're showing all 380 matches live anyway. Strong rumours persist that its going to be on 7.2west or 26.0east.
Both satellites are near impossible to receive here in Ireland unless you've a large dish. No chance of receiving 7.2west but a 1.8metre dish could pull in 26.0east

azzeretti

snaps wrote: »

My thoughts:

Cyfra+HD multipaket (160€ a year) 3 sports channels now and 1 HD. NO English, They have EPL till 2013.

Al Jazeera Sports 75€ a year, 10 channels, NO HD but 90% English, NO EPL.

I wouldn't touch digitalb as if you want HD, you have to get one of their kaon receivers married to your card.

Also Digitalb are being told what they can and cannot show on their channels by the FA/EPL, so there are a lot of disappointed faces sometimes on matchday when a game is not shown.

Cyfra+ is my choice, they have shown a lot of sat 3pm games as well. SD picture is one of the best ive seen and their HD picture is even better! Plus you get Canal+ films in HD which is in English.

Im off around Europe this summer and one of my stops is the Czech republic. Im going to look at one of the Czechlink prepaid cards for 23 east, seems to have a 3 year life and includes Nova sports. Price seems around 80e. Ive a friend in Plzen who if need be i can use his address. There is a maximum of 3 customers per household.

A mate of mine is heading over to Czech next week, where would he pick up the Cyfra+ cards, do you know?

Ronan|Raven

Cyfra is Polish.

azzeretti

Ronan|Raven wrote: »

Cyfra is Polish.

:o

snaps

You'll get Cyfra+ at face value from a polish supplier. Just 7e for postage. The www address is in these threads.

Cant see the point of buying now, as you'll have to renew during the season next year?

byte

Ronan|Raven wrote: »

Im going to Prague on Monday... these prepaid czechlink cards intrigue me...

Czechlink does look intruging, now that I know 23E is very strong!

Another one that catches my attention is ITV Partner (Diema) on 16E (can't get Bulsatcom) but I'd be concerned about these channels, as some freqs on 16E seem to be quite weak for me since the W2 failure.