Looking for a Saorview/Freeview set up

ricko187

hey,

Looking to get Saorview and Freeview set up in the family home, the mother is currently with Virgin Media and is sick of the high bills.

I have a LG smart TV in the house at the moment, I have done a little research and figure I would need a antenna (saorview) and a satellite (freeview). I am hoping to be able to pause live tv and record shows and watch other shows as well so would need a box to be able to do all that.

Is there anything else I am missing here?

What is the best box and satellite for my needs and where is the best place to get them?

Many thanks for the help!

philteare

I just got an Edision OS Mega from here: http://www.freetv.ie/edision-os-mega/. It's running Enigma2 (and I guess the cons below probably apply to any enigma2 type box.)


From my few days with it:


The Good:

Awesome box - fast and smooth
One box that does everything - Terrerestrial and Satellite in one, 7 day EPG (electronic program guide), can record shows, pause tv, watch one channel and record another etc.
Freetv we fast and great to deal with.


The Bad

It's a linux box, which I'd not used before, and it cost me a decent chunk of my remaining hair trying to get it working. It's not at all plug-and-play, and if you've not used them before it can be hard to workout where to start. Now I know what I'm doing I love it, but was a right pain working out where to start.


Hope that helps!

ricko187

thanks, so this box as well as a satellite and antenna is all I should need?

philteare

That's all I have (an old ski dish, normal aerial and this box) and it works. Having internet access as well helps (e.g. then it'll download a 7 day program guide for all the channels). It has WiFi built in to connect to your broadband.

I'm very much a newbie though so take all I say with a pinch of salt. I mostly wanted to share the fact that although a box like this can do everything wonderfully, you need to be prepared to put in the hard slog to work out how to use it and set it up....

Gerry Wicklow

ricko187 wrote: »

hey,

Looking to get Saorview and Freeview set up in the family home, the mother is currently with Virgin Media and is sick of the high bills.

I have a LG smart TV in the house at the moment, I have done a little research and figure I would need a antenna (saorview) and a satellite (freeview). I am hoping to be able to pause live tv and record shows and watch other shows as well so would need a box to be able to do all that.

Is there anything else I am missing here?

What is the best box and satellite for my needs and where is the best place to get them?

Many thanks for the help!

Be careful with the terminology. FreeView is the UK equivalent of the Saorview terrestrial service using a conventional aerial and is only available here near the border or parts of the East coast.
FreeSat are branded satellite boxes for the UK but they do NOT include terrestrial Saorview tuners so no Irish channels. However they are plug and play. It would be possible to use one and the terrestrial tuner in the Tv but this would involve switch inputs between the 2 which can be cumbersome.
There are many combo boxes available which combine both terrestrial and satellite in one unit and one list of channels. The cheapest of these have very limited functionality such as now/next epg. Linux (enigma) based boxes offer far more but there is a certain amount of initial setup required.
The current favourite is the Formuler F1 which records to an external, USB HDD. You also need to order the optiional terrestrial (DVB-T) tuner.
This box was spotted by STB which uses an internal HDD but we have yet to get any feedback on it.

john_doe.

philteare wrote: »

I just got an Edision OS Mega from here: http://www.freetv.ie/edision-os-mega/. It's running Enigma2 (and I guess the cons below probably apply to any enigma2 type box.)


From my few days with it:


The Good:

Awesome box - fast and smooth
One box that does everything - Terrerestrial and Satellite in one, 7 day EPG (electronic program guide), can record shows, pause tv, watch one channel and record another etc.
Freetv we fast and great to deal with.


The Bad

It's a linux box, which I'd not used before, and it cost me a decent chunk of my remaining hair trying to get it working. It's not at all plug-and-play, and if you've not used them before it can be hard to workout where to start. Now I know what I'm doing I love it, but was a right pain working out where to start.


Hope that helps!

This looks like excellent box.
I'd love to be able to watch Netflix on it but I guess that's not possible?