Setting up new system - recommend a system or a provider?

a148pro

Doing total refurb of house in Dublin 8

Will be buying brand new high end Smart TV so hoping that will do most of the work for me - in the sense that TV will presumably be Saorview and UK channel compatible (?), and will presumably have netflix and other apps for watching internet directly on TV

Going to get 360 broadband but not wasting money subscribing to TV channels I don't watch. I generally only watch the traditional channels, Irish ones and BBC 1 -4 and Channel 4.

Will have netflix and internet also directly wired to TV.

Would like the above channels in HD though

Couple of qs:-

1. Can anyone recommend a saorview / free to air installer, there seems to be loads in the market, maybe its against forum rules to recommend? As I understand it I'll need satellite and aerial. I know it can be done yourself but I just don't have the head for it.

2. How HD are the Irish and UK channels, are they as good HD as say sky would be? Bearing in mind I'll prob be buying a 4k TV.

3. Can anyone link to a Youtube video showing a good example of what the interfaces are like, I'm a bit concerned about having (potentially) different systems for the Irish channels and for the English channels, don't like the idea of switching between them, it all seems fiddley. Similarly I don't like the somewhat manual nature of recording series.

I like the interface with the Humax stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgLxDcplVuw

Presumably in order to watch Irish channels I'd have to go back to the TV menu and go to Saorview?

Does anyone know if you can successfully geounlock the box here to access the on demand stuff? The way the menu automatically links to on demand / player streams is really impressive.

4. Are there easy solutions to having more than one TV in the house? I'm rewiring the house so am going to have CAT 5 TV connections anywhere I'd need a telly. Do I need another separate box to watch the Saorview and or UK stuff or can a modern telly do it itself?

5. What about an android tv box as an alternative? Can I watch Irish channels live, in HD? Can I then find whatever content in terms of series etc on a on demand basis?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts

PabloAndRoy

I think the reason nobody has responded is that you asked for a lot of information ... I can answer some of your questions:

Caveat: I am a "roll you own" type guy, using tvheadend as a backend and then running RPi (or S905 boxes) running LibreELEC on each TV in the house. Because of this I have little knowledge of combi/freesat/saorview boxes. You are putting Cat5e ethernet in every room and if it were me I would roll my own IPTV platform across that.

1. I have no idea of installers in your area.

2. All the FTA HD channels are full 1080 (same as Sky). There is no FTA 4K channels at the moment and I am not aware of any plans for any.

3. The main reason I roll my own is that I have the ability to combine Saorview and Freesat into a combined EPG. As I said above, I am not very familiar with the Satellite/Combi STBs. Plenty other people here know about those. I don't think we can discuss the "geo-unlocking" here as it is against the rules AFAIK.

4. The easiest way is over IP. Alternatively, coax to each room.

5. Not legally. Most Android TV boxes are rubbish (due to poor android builds that are not designed for 10-foot UI) and certainly don't function as decent Live TV boxes. Many of these boxes are S905 boxes and these can be installed with LibreELEC which runs brilliantly on these things (faster than an RPi 3 in fact).

Android TV OS is a different thing and is much more stable and useable for this type of application. Many smart TVs (Sony, Sanyo .. ) have Android TV OS and also some media boxes such as NVidea Shield and Xiaomi Mi Box.


.....
If it were me, I would get a satellite dish with a quad LNB for FTA on Astra 28.2 and an outdoor aerial for Saorview, both wired to a central point where I have ethernet and set up a backend from there. Then each TV can hook into that over IP using Android TV Live Channels functionality or LibreELEC on S905 or RPis. Some us were discussing how to do this over in the satellite forum (http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057760378).

a148pro

Thanks a million for taking the time to reply Pablo, your answers are very helpful

What you've managed to do on the other thread is also really impressive. I'd love to have something similar but am not tech friendly and don't have time either. I think I'll just try and engage a provider armed with what I know can be done and see if they can do it for me. I don't mind paying for a good system to be put in. Also, user friendlyness is massively important for me and the family.

It does seem to me that the latest humax box and maybe their espresso box could be the easiest solution for me, albeit I could prob do all of that for less with a smart tv and DIY stuff.

Also going to look into IPTV but it seems to do it legally I'll have to pay subscription so no real attraction to me.

Thanks again for your help.

FRIENDO

If I was starting from afresh I would possibly get:

Saorview and Freesat installed

Sony Android TV and a Humax Freesat box

Netflix €9.99 per month

Amazon Prime €2.99 per month

Now TV, Roko box €40.00 with 2 months subscription free, will give a wider option for entertainment or sports, contract free.

I would advise using a recommended installer, possibly an installer from Irish Satellite Aerial association

Best of luck

a148pro

That sounds good Freindo

Do you know offhand if Sony Android TVs support wireless connection and streaming with android phones as the Samsung TVs were attractive to me for that reason?

Also, if I have android TV is there a necessity to get a freesat box also? The interface looks so good it'd almost be worth getting for that alone if the TV only had its own fiddley interface. Maybe you still need a freesat box?

a148pro

a148pro wrote: »

It does seem to me that the latest humax box and maybe their espresso box could be the easiest solution for me,

I think the espresso thing only seems to work with free to air actually

a148pro wrote: »

Do you know offhand if Sony Android TVs support wireless connection and streaming with android phones as the Samsung TVs were attractive to me for that reason?

From the blurb it seems its only Sony Xperia phones, hopefully there's a platform which allows 3rd party developers move into that space and allow general stuff for all smart phones, though given that I saw a doc which suggested PS3s were sold below cost with a view to cornering the bluray market, maybe I'm being naive in that view

Gerry Wicklow

From my experience I would never get another Sony android TV. The software is far from user friendly and unreliable. I have several HDMI inputs in use. If I switch between them more than 2/3 times a night it stops responding and needs a hard reboot. You can't get RTÉ player on it. You MUST agree and sign up to both Sony and Google* who monitor what you watch and when. It also uploads this info to twitter. When you try to switch channel it is more interested in showing you what twitter has to say about the programme rather than actually showing you the show. I ended up blocking it from web access but that then generates all sorts of error messages because 'xyz has stopped working'.

*(If you don't agree to Google's T&Cs you cant install it.)

a148pro

Wow, that's an eye opener, I would HATE all of the above. Hate bloatware as it is.

FRIENDO

Thanks Gerry, I didn't know that

Think I'll stick with the Android box, fingers crossed the 2007 Panasonic 50" plasma lasts

FRIENDO

a148pro wrote:

Also, if I have android TV is there a necessity to get a freesat box also? The interface looks so good it'd almost be worth getting for that alone if the TV only had its own fiddley interface. Maybe you still need a freesat box?

I use a freesat humax hdr
Record two stations at the same time, built in hard drive, serial link etc.

A great piece of kit, have a humax since 2009, bullet proof, a great box

Gerry Wicklow

Sorry to go OT again but in the interest of fairness... Sony have just released a firmware update which (so far) seems better behaved.

Capt'n Midnight

FRIENDO wrote: »

I use a freesat humax hdr
Record two stations at the same time, built in hard drive, serial link etc.

A great piece of kit, have a humax since 2009, bullet proof, a great box

+1 For the Foxsat HDR

Because it's a genuine Freesat box things like series link just work.

https://www.avforums.com/threads/media-file-server-bundle-for-the-foxsat-hdr-release-4-part-5.1829374/
Install the custom firmware and it's stupidly flexible for what it is.
You get a web interface and can download or stream recordings ( 0.TS is the current channel )

Yes it is slow, the big tip is to use Schedule, RED to get to the EPG quickly.



I've a Linux box too for foreign sat , more configurable but nowhere near the same ease of setting up.

a148pro

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

Sorry to go OT again but in the interest of fairness... Sony have just released a firmware update which (so far) seems better behaved.

Are you using it Gerry, because two things are important to me 1 - a good tv with a good and intelligent interface, 2 - not having bloatware crap or a tv telling me hat to do. Just do your job tv!

Gerry Wicklow

a148pro wrote: »

Are you using it Gerry, because two things are important to me 1 - a good tv with a good and intelligent interface, 2 - not having bloatware crap or a tv telling me hat to do. Just do your job tv!

Sadly no noticeable change. Still crashing / hanging.
It's a real shame as it has a great picture and good sound. Just crap f/w. Earlier this year Sony released a major update which bricked a lot of sets. I had to get a new motherboard and still have issues. While it was off being repaired I had a lend of a Samsung. Not quite as good a picture but much more user friendly and totally stable. Mine's a 4K Bravia model. Don't have exact model number to hand.

a148pro

Samsung would suit me as I could cast direct from my s7, which would be cool. But the scaremongering is that they're watching you, including as I recall, that the camera on the device can be manipulated and hacked to they can see into your house. Which is clearly scaremongering but the gathering of data so they can bombard you with ads kind of stuff annoys me.

In an ideal world either the TV or the humax box would also support 3rd party apps like soundcloud and mixcloud so I can stream music directly into my hifi out the audio jacks. Use a squeezebox as is but no reason why all these things can't be put together. I see the humax unfortunately doesn't support FLAC, I don't actually have any FLAC but would like to ultimately build a library of high quality audio with a view to being able to play it wirelessly.

Anyway, for the moment Humax and some kind of smart tv seems a no-brainer, the q is which smart tv.

PabloAndRoy

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

Sadly no noticeable change. Still crashing / hanging.
It's a real shame as it has a great picture and good sound. Just crap f/w. Earlier this year Sony released a major update which bricked a lot of sets. I had to get a new motherboard and still have issues. While it was off being repaired I had a lend of a Samsung. Not quite as good a picture but much more user friendly and totally stable. Mine's a 4K Bravia model. Don't have exact model number to hand.

This is very disappointing to hear. I was looking to get a Xiaomi Mi Box which runs Android TV OS. I mainly want one place where I can access Live TV, Netflix, Amazon Prime, All4 etc.

Do you have any experience of the Live Channels functionality on Android TV? I know there is a tvheadend client that makes use of it and this would make my preferred setup all contained on one platform. Your experience of the Sony Android TV have a little worried about the stability of the platform in general. Or is it the Sony TV version of Android TV that is the issue?

Gerry Wicklow

PabloAndRoy wrote: »

...

Do you have any experience of the Live Channels functionality on Android TV? I know there is a tvheadend client that makes use of it and this would make my preferred setup all contained on one platform. Your experience of the Sony Android TV have a little worried about the stability of the platform in general. Or is it the Sony TV version of Android TV that is the issue?

No idea, sorry.

Capt'n Midnight

a148pro wrote: »

Anyway, for the moment Humax and some kind of smart tv seems a no-brainer, the q is which smart tv.

Or use a smart box instead of relying on the TV, you might have to anyway when they stop releasing updates for the TV.

Things to watch out for.

Infra red remote controls , Sharp use a proprietary 2.4GHr RF - incompatible with everything.

CEC - allows you to control stuff using the TV remote, handy for BluRay player or simple functions on Satellite.

Dual tuner or somesuch , so you can use the TV to record Saorview while watching another input. Far too many TV's fail this test and only allow you to record what you are watching.

Some TV's have proper Freesat with EPG and so forth. Not sure if you can mix with Saorview EPG but if you can check that you can mix numbering of channels between different sources, saves having to change mode to jump from RTE1 to BBC or whatever.