Any exciting Freesat boxes?

[cable_guy]

Hi all,

I have a satellite dish and an NTL feed and I want HD content and/or as much free content on my TV as possible.

I'm on the verge of getting a cable solution (Eurovox) which would service the free content dilemma, but I am aware that a freesat box would get me BBC HD and ITV HD.

1) Are there any Satellite boxes that can serve Freesat HD channels, and provide extra content ()

2) Am I best just getting any old Freesat box for the HD and the Eurovox for the extra content?

[Robbo]

Hi,

Yes the Technomate TM6800 or the TM6900 can receive the HD freesat channels once patched. There are a few others that can too.

To get any extra content, you would need to fit a motorised dish or use a multi-LNB dish setup, so that you could receive from other satellites.

Robbo

[cable_guy]

Thanks very much - how come you have to patch them?

[Robbo]

If it isn't patched it won't get ITV HD, because ITV HD was only meant to be used on Freesat HD boxes using the RED button when tuned to normal ITV.

I believe it is to do with the mpeg4 standard used, the standard is h.264, but ITV HD uses h.222, but don't quote me on that.

A bit of manual editing/messing about will also enable the reception, but patching is far easier and quicker.

[cable_guy]

oh right! interesting! never even heard of h.222.

While i've got you - whats the cheapest way I can test if this sky dish I have inherited still works? Could I buy a standard sky box from eBay for a fiver to test?

[Robbo]

Yeah sure you can

Although if it doesn't work, it is pretty cheap and easy to fix. Sky LNBs are dirt cheap on ebay too.

Also southern satellite was selling bigsat receivers for £30 in one of his posts.

[cable_guy]

Wow great, I might look at testing my dish by buying a cheap Sat receiver from eBay then, would I need to make sure it comes with some kind of viewing card or could I get round that

[Robbo]

No, you don't need a viewing card for a Sky dodgibox for the Free to air channels, nor to use it to check the dish. Any ex-subs card becomes a FTV card and gets you a few extra channels like Ch5 etc and Sky 3, not much really.

Sky is secure and thus there is no way of circumnavigating the encryption, so it's not even worth trying.