A Saoirview box

RobitTV

Hi im getting Rid of SKy soon! so i need a Digital box that Would work on the Saoirview system, Saoirview guranteed if possible, But any good boxes that they might sell in Tesco,Argos?? or even amazon.co.uk?

watty

You need Freesat HD box for all the really good TV apart from the Irish Channels, connects on instead of Sky box. Or just use Sky box without Card for UK TV, but no recording possible.

Digifriendly

watty wrote: »

Or just use Sky box without Card for UK TV, but no recording possible.

Is this strictly true? Surely you can record using an external video/DVD recorder but you cannot record one channel while watching another.

Mr McBoatface

Digifriendly wrote: »

Is this strictly true? Surely you can record using an external video/DVD recorder but you cannot record one channel while watching another.

I'd say Watty is referring to a sky box record and sky+ functionality. These are lost when there is no valid sky card.

dave4565

saoirview works on mpeg 4 you can not use the UK box as it is mpeg 5

Anonymous111

Guys, I'm confused here. Been searching on the 'net but I'm not good at understanding this stuff.

If my TV doesn't have Freeview HD, I have to buy a box? And this box will give me free access to Irish (and other?) HD channels? Would it give me access to HD channels like Sky Sports, or would I have to order that through sky to get them?

And if my TV does come with freeview HD, what channels would I get for free?

Apologies for the very basic questions, hopefully someone can help me out.

The Cush

Anonymous111 wrote: »

If my TV doesn't have Freeview HD, I have to buy a box? And this box will give me free access to Irish (and other?) HD channels? Would it give me access to HD channels like Sky Sports, or would I have to order that through sky to get them?

And if my TV does come with freeview HD, what channels would I get for free?

Apologies for the very basic questions, hopefully someone can help me out.

A Saorview certified receiver, iDTV or STB, is guaranteed to work 100% with the Irish Saorview DTT service.

Before there were Saorview certified receivers people were unsure which receiver would work with MPEG-4 Irish DTT, some were only MPEG-2.

To assist people pick a receiver that would work with MPEG-4 Irish DTT they were recommended to look out for receivers that were MPEG-4 compliant, receivers that were certified to work with other countries MPEG-4 DTT systems such as TNT-HD (France) or Freeview-HD (UK). These receivers at a minimum will display the Saorview channels, audio and video, but may or may not give you all the bells and whistles such as digital text and they may have some other bugs also.

If you want to be 100% covered for all the services provided by Saorview, a Saorview certified receiver is required.

So to answer your questions, even if you do not have a Freeview-HD certified TV you may not require a separate box if the TV has an internal MPEG-4 video decoder or is Saorview certified, if it doesn't have an MPEG-4 decoder then you'll require an external STB.

If you live within distance of a UK transmitter and want the UK terrestrial HD channels as they launch (NI, late 2012) then a Freeview-HD (DVB-T2) certified receiver will be required. If you are out of range of a UK transmitter then a Freeview-HD receiver is not required.

The Sky HD channels are not broadcast terrestrially, satellite dish and receiver required.

A Freeview-HD receiver will display the channels transmitted from your local transmitter i.e. the Saorview channels from an Irish transmitter and if you live within range of a UK transmitter, the UK freeview channels also.

Ireland Saorview (SD & HD) = DVB-T/MPEG-4
UK Freeview-HD (& SD) = DVB-T2/MPEG-4
UK Freeview (SD) = DVB-T/MPEG-2

GerardKeating

dave4565 wrote: »

saoirview works on mpeg 4 you can not use the UK box as it is mpeg 5

Not exactly, most older UK boxes are MPEG-2, the newer Freeview-HD ones are MPEG-4, just like Ireland.

Both UK and IE boxes both support MHEG-5, which is the middleware to drivethe EPG and digital text.

The Cush

dave4565 wrote: »

saoirview works on mpeg 4 you can not use the UK box as it is mpeg 5

MPEG-5 = no such DTT standard.

As GerardKeating posted above you're probably confusing it with MHEG-5 which is currently used for digital teletext here and the UK and red-button services in the UK.

Neither Saorview nor freeview use it for the epg right now but there were 1 or 2 proprietary MHEG-5 epgs on freeview at one time, the last one closed last year I believe.