One box for both saorview and freeview?

PMC999

From searches on this forum I realise that the UK use MPEG 2 for Freeview and Saorview uses MPEG 4.
My parents live near the border and currently get both British and Irish analogue channels from a rooftop aerial.
If I get them a Saorview box will it also pick up the British channels? Are MPEG 4 boxes backward compatible with MPEG 2?
I've used the search function but can only find reference to combi boxes that use a combination of satellite and aerials.
thanks for your help!

PogMoThoin

PMC999 wrote: »

From searches on this forum I realise that the UK use MPEG 2 for Freeview and Saorview uses MPEG 4.
My parents live near the border and currently get both British and Irish analogue channels from a rooftop aerial.
If I get them a Saorview box will it also pick up the British channels? Are MPEG 4 boxes backward compatible with MPEG 4?
I've used the search function but can only find reference to combi boxes that use a combination of satellite and aerials.
thanks for your help!

Yes, Freeview HD is Mpeg 4, same as Saorview

PMC999

Thanks Pog.
Would you recommend any particular brand or model of set top box?

The Cush

PMC999 wrote: »

If I get them a Saorview box will it also pick up the British channels? Are MPEG 4 boxes backward compatible with MPEG 4?

Yes, a Saorview receiver (MPEG-4/DVB-T) is backwards compatible with the MPEG-2/DVB-T Freeview channels.

Also from the 24th Oct next, Freeview in NI will launch 4 HD channels (epg no. 50-54) and will use a new standard DVB-T2/MPEG-4 (Freeview-HD). DVB-T2/MPEG-4 is backwards compatible with DVB-T MPEG-2 & 4 but not the other way around.

No current Saorview box that we know of has a tuner to receive these Freeview-HD channels but some Saorview TVs have. UK Freeview-HD boxes should have no problems receiving the Saorview channels but people have posted here some niggles with certain boxes such as displaying regular teletext, summer time setting, subtitles.

If the Freeview-HD channels aren't a priority for your parents a standard Saorview approved box will get the rest.

watty

The Sony & Humax "Freeview HD" are only partially incompatible with Saorview as mentioned above, they seem the best choice for Freeview + Saorview. The Technisat doesn't work! Panasonic maybe suspect.

No-one sells a box certified for both. I think some TVs are certified for both.

excollier

If you arent overly fussy about the epg then Tesco in NI and Asda are both selling their own branded Freeview HD receivers for £40, they are ideal if you want a cost effective solution.

Digifriendly

I have Sony Freeview HDT 500 which receives both Freeview and Saorview. However it has one or two problems:
(1) Recording from both systems can only be done manually/directly and not from epg as timer seems to get confused with both epgs.
(2) Saorview epg does not display full programme information.
(3) Saorview channels appear in strange order with RTE 1 being last and you can't reorder them.
Otherwise this is a good box and manual recording is very easy with advantage that you can extend time considerably. While I live in NI where Saorview signal is nulled somewhat I am getting breakup free Saorview signals so tuner must be quite good.