FREESAT is 5 years old today!

mike65

On this day in 2008 the joint venture between BBC and ITV to provide an alternative to Freeview which covered only 70% of the UK population when started. The most recent numbers suggest about 3.2 million Freesat EPG units sold so far in about 1.7 million homes and one imagines that number will climb as the income squeeze continues for so many and muiltroom viewing increases.

Freesat works perfectly in Ireland of course with a bog standard "sky type" 60 cm dish (maybe 80 cm needed in the far north west).

Ronnie Raygun

I wonder how many who hit the "yes" button will actually have epg-less FTA sat. boxes or combis?

excollier

A 60cm dish works well for Freesat in Donegal, especially since the new satellite went up.
Personally, I am getting faultless reception from a TD88 with 28.2e on a 12 deg offset (16e on centre)
Freesat is the best!!

Worple

Ronnie Raygun wrote: »

I wonder how many who hit the "yes" button will actually have epg-less FTA sat. boxes or combis?

Yer right there Ronnie, confusion abounds, brought on by lots of false and misleading info during the DSO,

I got stung by this https://www.freesat.ie/product-list.php?pg1-cid65.html

Freesat me arse

Qualitymark

Ronnie Raygun wrote: »

I wonder how many who hit the "yes" button will actually have epg-less FTA sat. boxes or combis?

No idea what that means. I have a box I bought around four years ago in Belfast; I think I was advised to give the address of Buckingham Palace in setting it up by the kindly staff in that area with its red-white-and-blue pavements, so I did.

Worple

Qualitymark wrote: »

No idea what that means. I have a box I bought around four years ago in Belfast; I think I was advised to give the address of Buckingham Palace in setting it up by the kindly staff in that area with its red-white-and-blue pavements, so I did.

Maybe a ' don't know' should be added to the poll for the ignorant

mike65

If the EPG has the Freesat logo its Freesat!

Qualitymark

Dunno what an EPG is (I'm allergic to acronyms, have been from a child) but the box has a Freesat logo, like that but in monochrome. Must be older http://b-static.net/vbulletin/images/smilies/tongue.png (that was meant to be a sticky-out-tongue emoticon, dragged in from the side, but instead is a URL).

Peter Rhea

Electronic Programme Guide.

If you entered a postcode, it's a Freesat box. For UK users, entering their postcode means the box automatically finds the right regional variants of the PSB channels. Most users in ROI are happy with the London versions.

St Senan

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=55948432
Them 5 years flew by. I haven't supplied a generic FTA box since then.

Qualitymark

When I bought mine you couldn't legally buy them in Ireland - first time I was in Norn for decades. After that I went across a few times to the Outlet in Newry, when it was good value; haven't been back for ages now though. Must take a drive up and have a look at Carrig-a-Rede some day.

Sam Russell

Originally got a Lidl comag receiver but replaced it with a Humax Foxsat HDR. Never looked back. Recently upgraded the 340MB drive to a 1 TB.

im invisible

+1 to the 'dont know/ care' column, its satellite, its free...

excollier

Sam Russell wrote: »

Originally got a Lidl comag receiver but replaced it with a Humax Foxsat HDR. Never looked back. Recently upgraded the 340MB drive to a 1 TB.

Did you install Raydon's custom firmware too? A brilliant, simple upgrade.

Sam Russell

excollier wrote: »

Did you install Raydon's custom firmware too? A brilliant, simple upgrade.

No, but I would like to but have not the courage.

I would like Freesat to allow a setting so that HD channels can be the default for BBC, ITV and Ch4. It is ridiculous that they do not do this.

I]We do get it all for free so I do not want to complain![/I

LordSutch

mike65 wrote: »

FREESAT is 5 years old today!

Shame, FREE TO AIR (FTA) isnt an option in the poll too . . .

I have FTA which is similar to Freesat, they both have their + and - points.

mike65

Well its Freesats anniversary not Free to Air which is as old as satellite

Muilleann

Used to have Free to Air satellite dish which we loved.

Could get ITV & BBC straight from London and no UTV or BBC Norn Ireland thank you!

Problem was we kept "losing" channels which was a pain.

So got rid and got basic SKY package instead.

Would still prefer Free to Air though.....if it worked!

Macy0161

Currently watching on an early freesat sd receiver as it happens. We've one combi and two freesat receivers in the house.

Peter Rhea

Muilleann wrote: »

. . . Would still prefer Free to Air though.....if it worked!

It works just fine: surely it's not too much to ask that you'd learn how to retune your own receiver when channels change frequency?

The ones that move around often could be deleted & forgotten about anyway, for all the good they are.

Schorpio

Muilleann wrote: »

Used to have Free to Air satellite dish which we loved.

Could get ITV & BBC straight from London and no UTV or BBC Norn Ireland thank you!

Problem was we kept "losing" channels which was a pain.

So got rid and got basic SKY package instead.

Would still prefer Free to Air though.....if it worked!

Yet another example of someone mixing up FTA with freesat. Freesat boxes never lose their channels, and there's no need to retune. It works just like Sky, except it's free. You had FTA (free to air) which is not freesat. FTA operates on generic boxes, and requires retuning and setting up of customised channel lists.

Peter Rhea

Where do you see a mix-up? Muilleann doesn't mention Freesat.

Thread like this was always destined to fail, anyway.

Chrome Crusader

Stupid thread in the absence of any context. Lets all celebrate a UK tv initiative for some reason.

Play To Kill

Chrome Crusader wrote: »

Stupid thread in the absence of any context. Lets all celebrate a UK tv initiative for some reason.

Your first post on boards seems a bit agressive? I must have missed the celebrations in the thread!! It's hardly out of place in the satellite forum anyway to mention that Freesat has been going 5 years today is it?

snaps

Chrome Crusader wrote: »

Stupid thread in the absence of any context. Lets all celebrate a UK tv initiative for some reason.

and why not celebrate it? If your happy with 6 or so free channels, or want to pay hundreds of euro a year for channels then that's fine. Me? I'm glad we have all these free UK channels that has output which outshines a lot of the imported tripe broadcast by our media producers.

Schorpio

Peter Rhea wrote: »

Where do you see a mix-up? Muilleann doesn't mention Freesat.

Thread like this was always destined to fail, anyway.

Since she/he finished with 'Would still prefer Free to Air though.....if it worked!', it would seem that the poster doesn't know the difference between FTA, and freesat - which is what this thread is supposed to be about. Hence, the mix-up.

Anyway, I think we should celebrate freesat. It's a great system which we are pretty fortunate to get in the country. If only it had a bit more publicity in this country, I think it would have seriously taken off here rather than the bit-by-bit penetration it currently enjoys. I understand that any official freesat publicity was/is never going to happen, but it's a shame nonetheless.

Ronnie Raygun

OP could have done with a bit more background, e.g. could have mentioned the role Freesat must have played in getting some of these channels FTA in the 1st place.

Trevord

Sam Russell wrote: »

Originally got a Lidl comag receiver but replaced it with a Humax Foxsat HDR. Never looked back. Recently upgraded the 340MB drive to a 1 TB.

Me too.

The Lidl Comag box still gets a bit of use as a means of aligning a dish. The signal beeper feature is handy if you don't own a proper sat finder.

Can't believe that Freesat is 5 years old already. It's a fantastic service.

Still get people asking me if it's legal.

Clearly, Sky have done a great job in marketing themselves as owners of all things satellite in this country.

Willby

Sam Russell wrote: »

No, but I would like to but have not the courage.

I would like Freesat to allow a setting so that HD channels can be the default for BBC, ITV and Ch4. It is ridiculous that they do not do this.

I]We do get it all for free so I do not want to complain![/I

Sam, I installed it a few weeks ago and I am a pensioner. I had absolutely no problems whatsoever with the installation.

excollier

Trevord wrote: »

Clearly, Sky have done a great job in marketing themselves as owners of all things satellite in this country.

Which is a real shame, people could save a fortune if Freesat were higher profile.
It's all down to money, and we know who has most of that.

Schorpio

excollier wrote: »

Which is a real shame, people could save a fortune if Freesat were higher profile.
It's all down to money, and we know who has most of that.

It's partly that, but it's also to do with the fact that the owners of freesat (BBC and ITV) don't care about the Irish market. We don't pay them a license fee and their ads aren't targeted towards us. Hence they don't aim or market the service in Ireland. People aren't aware of it, and as you said, satellite tv = Sky in this country (at least in the minds of a lot of people).

Peter Rhea

Schorpio wrote: »

Since she/he finished with 'Would still prefer Free to Air though.....if it worked!', it would seem that the poster doesn't know the difference between FTA, and freesat - which is what this thread is supposed to be about. Hence, the mix-up..

Freesat here is a brand name, & not particularly original either. 'Freesat from Sky' predates it by a few years, if I'm not mistaken. Search this forum & you'll find the word 'freesat' in threads dating back 10 years, when BBC went FTA.

If I'm giving advice on satellite receivers & I reckon Freesat is the way to go, I always use the term 'Freesat branded receiver', & link to the Freesat site.

Schorpio

I completely agree with you, it's a relatively unimaginative brand name which isn't marketed over here, and this often leads to confusion.

What's annoying is that so many people pay for basic Sky when they don't know that freesat exists, or how easy to use it is. Also, there are people who have been put off free satellite services thanks to cumbersome software on generic FTA boxes, and they've turned to Sky when freesat would meet their need perfectly.

Macy0161

"Freesat from sky" was a reaction to the news of the launch of "freesat" - they'd actually stopped issuing free to view cards for a while after the BBC stopped subsiding them iirc. They then launched freesat from sky to try and scupper freesat.

We've had a few FTA receivers since the time it was only really the BBC channels - it's not THAT much of a pain in the arse to retune the rare changes.

I'm not sure why anyone would have a problem with freesat to be honest. It being a relative success is great for us. I think penetration could pick up again with high speed broadband roll out, with other options for premium content, freesat for UK content.

livEwirE

Apologies for any dumb questions in advance, I'm no expert on satellite systems I would really like to ditch sky and stop paying subscriptions. Is it possible to get a Humax Freesat+ combo receiver which combines an aerial and satellite feed into one box and would allow me to get the Irish & UK stations? Would this box also allow series link recording and include a 7 day EPG incorporating the Irish channels? Having the Irish channels integrated is critical for me as I wouldn't mind getting rid of sky but the switch would need to be as seemless as possible without losing too much functionality of Sky+.

excollier

No. Freesat make no such box, they have no need to.
Others on here will suggest options for you, that can maybe do what you want, not cheap, but not Freesat.

livEwirE

Cheers for the info mate, its a pity. From looking elsewhere there are zero "freesat HD" tuners with ANY terrestrial tuner. So even if I got my nice shiney new Freesat+ box I would still need a crappy aerial sticking out the back for the Irish channels

Peter Rhea

Aerial sticking out the back of what? You won't pick up terrestrial broadcasts without the correct receiving aerial, doesn't matter if the tuner is in a receiver that also handles satellite broadcast.

um7y1h83ge06nx

3 cheers!

I started off with the Grundig GUFSAT01 SD receiver about 4 years ago or so. Then when I bought my new Plasma I sold that and got the Manhattan HD-S.

I would have loved to have gotten a Freesat box for my parents (in order to be completely parent proof ) when they ditched Sky and wanted free to air. Unfortunately they require a Saorview combo so a Ferguson 150 Combo from satelite.ie had to do. Great box for a generic combo though.

Best things about Freesat:

* 7 day EPG
* No re-tuning when frequencies move

My advice to people that are confused about their free to air options - unless you need a box that can also receive Saorview (because you don't have a digital tuner on your TV or have or want a separate Saorview receiver) get a Freesat branded solution. Well, well worth it over a generic box.

excollier

That's what I do, the Humax Foxsat HDR when modded is a brilliant bit of kit.
I use a generic DVB-T HD receiver for the Irish channels recording onto a usb stick, works well.

ted1

Worple wrote: »

Yer right there Ronnie, confusion abounds, brought on by lots of false and misleading info during the DSO,

I got stung by this https://www.freesat.ie/product-list.php?pg1-cid65.html

Freesat me arse

I'd look for my money back,

Trevord

excollier wrote: »

That's what I do, the Humax Foxsat HDR when modded is a brilliant bit of kit.
I use a generic DVB-T HD receiver for the Irish channels recording onto a usb stick, works well.

And the other advantage of this set up is that you can record three channels at once (1 terrestrial and 2 sat)

Sam Russell

livEwirE wrote: »

Apologies for any dumb questions in advance, I'm no expert on satellite systems I would really like to ditch sky and stop paying subscriptions. Is it possible to get a Humax Freesat+ combo receiver which combines an aerial and satellite feed into one box and would allow me to get the Irish & UK stations? Would this box also allow series link recording and include a 7 day EPG incorporating the Irish channels? Having the Irish channels integrated is critical for me as I wouldn't mind getting rid of sky but the switch would need to be as seemless as possible without losing too much functionality of Sky+.

The nearest you will get to that is a Samsung TV with built-in Freesat. It is not the easiest to work, but it has one remote and has an EPG for Freesat and another one for Saorview. However, I would consider its operation to be like having two seperate receivers in one box. Picture quality is great though.

livEwirE

excollier wrote: »

That's what I do, the Humax Foxsat HDR when modded is a brilliant bit of kit.
I use a generic DVB-T HD receiver for the Irish channels recording onto a usb stick, works well.

Apologies again for my ignorance:o Does this mean you have 2 physical boxes under your TV?

excollier

Yes indeed.....actually, no, I have a dvd player too. And a whole clutter of remotes, but it suits me fine and works perfectly.
That's the only drawback to an evolving system, (and the spaghetti of cables behind the tv) but, like I said, it works well.

livEwirE

Cheers for the info mate

Sam Russell

If you have a Saorview TV, and a Freesat box, then you only have one box under your TV. The Humax remote will also work your TV so you will only have one remote.

Peter Rhea

Trevord wrote: »

. . . Clearly, Sky have done a great job in marketing themselves as owners of all things satellite in this country.

Sky have done the same in the UK. Going by this thread, some people seem to think we're still part of the union as far as broadcast tv goes anyway.

Any free UK tv available in ROI, satellite or terrestrial, is just incidental overspill, we're in no way entitled to it. If it was costing UK broadcasters much wrt ROI broadcast rights, Freesat would never have happened. See the 'opposite' scenario with RTE & Saorsat.

Schorpio

Peter Rhea wrote: »

Sky have done the same in the UK. Going by this thread, some people seem to think we're still part of the union as far as broadcast tv goes anyway.

Any free UK tv available in ROI, satellite or terrestrial, is just incidental overspill, we're in no way entitled to it. If it was costing UK broadcasters much wrt ROI broadcast rights, Freesat would never have happened. See the 'opposite' scenario with RTE & Saorsat.

Very true. And because our population is so small in comparison with the UK.

I never really got the need for every channel in one box. I know some people aren't at all technically minded, but (initial upfront expense aside) I never saw it as a big deal. As generic boxes go the 150 and 250 are among the best I've used (and the boards community for updating and maintaining channel lists when frequencies change is great). But I personally I think you can't beat the functionality of a fressat box and a separate Saorview box. And if you get the PVR boxes then you get superior recording options (at least 2 channels recording whilst watching a third).

enfant terrible

Schorpio wrote: »

Very true. And because our population is so small in comparison with the UK.

I never really got the need for every channel in one box. I know some people aren't at all technically minded, but (initial upfront expense aside) I never saw it as a big deal. As generic boxes go the 150 and 250 are among the best I've used (and the boards community for updating and maintaining channel lists when frequencies change is great). But I personally I think you can't beat the functionality of a fressat box and a separate Saorview box. And if you get the PVR boxes then you get superior recording options (at least 2 channels recording whilst watching a third).

Is it not annoying having to change inputs constantly to watch the Irish channels as opposed to just pressing 101 on sky?

excollier

enfant terrible wrote: »

Is it not annoying having to change inputs constantly to watch the Irish channels as opposed to just pressing 101 on sky?

Yeah, really annoying but substantially cheaper.......those remote control buttons are so heavy, they really tire me out, I have no energy left for anything else.