What's the catch with FREESAT

MJ Ray wrote:
Mario [email protected]
Apologies if this is the wrong group, but on the face of it, Sky's
freesat looks like a good deal...? [...]

It's not a good deal because:
1. the dish is custom-made and awkward to upgrade;
2. the receiver is custom-made and awkward to upgrade;
3. many of their installers seem to bodge it (dish not quite aligned,
insecure mounting, or just unnecessarily inaccessible most often);
4. you're buying from Murdoch, who dominates UK satellite broadcasts;
5. and standard sets are cheaper - can you drill 5 holes and connect
two wires? If so, don't buy Sky, unless you really can't wait for C4 and
five to become proper broadcasters and go free-to-air like BBC and itv.

You make perfectly valid points.

However, the Sky Digibox is ideal for non technically minded people.
Each channel is accessed by Sky's EPG, and more importantly if a
channel changes frequency there's no fiddling about required to find it
again, the EPG transparently re-maps the box to that channel.

To say a non Sky box is better, is rather like saying DOS and command
line prompts are better than Windows. It depends upon the user.

Secondly, perfectly good Sky boxes can be picked up on ebay for around
40 quid, sometimes less. I've bought three.

MJ Ray wrote:
Mario [email protected]
Apologies if this is the wrong group, but on the face of it, Sky's
freesat looks like a good deal...? [...]

It's not a good deal because:
1. the dish is custom-made and awkward to upgrade;
2. the receiver is custom-made and awkward to upgrade;
3. many of their installers seem to bodge it (dish not quite aligned,
insecure mounting, or just unnecessarily inaccessible most often);
4. you're buying from Murdoch, who dominates UK satellite broadcasts;
5. and standard sets are cheaper - can you drill 5 holes and connect
two wires? If so, don't buy Sky, unless you really can't wait for C4 and
five to become proper broadcasters and go free-to-air like BBC and itv.


I really do thank you for this excellent information and the helpful
link. Thanks!!

The group may be interested in my reasons for thinking this way...

We went with DTT in the early days and were initially impressed. Then we
noticed that:

1. ITV channels getting more and more aggressive in advertising --
slipping adverts in mid-sentence sometimes. And the number of adverts
became intolerable. We reverted to videotaping films in order to watch
them and get a tolerable viewing experience.

2. We also dislike intensely the advert banners that pop up even before
the program has ended. People who permit such things must be out-and-out
philistines IMO.

3. Sound quality pretty awful although typically not noticed by the
conditioned (MP3) listener. (I play back through a good hi -fi.) Even my
wife who is not musical noticed the difference when we switched between
BBC2 (analogue) and BBC2 (DTT) when some classical music was playing.

4. The cavalier way in which channels are dropped without a
bye-you-leave. That's *really* a very off-hand way to treat the viewer.
I subscribed to this group to find out what had happened to m & m, for
example. (We were particularly enjoying the repeats of Auf wiedersehen Pet)

Well, i could go on but that's probably enough. It'd be nice to get to
other European channels and bypass Sky completely (if that's possible);
so, yes, I'll be looking into it.

Mario//

"Mario" [email protected] wrote:

MJ Ray wrote:
It's not a good deal because: [snip]

I really do thank you for this excellent information and the helpful link.
Thanks!!

The group may be interested in my reasons for thinking this way...

We went with DTT in the early days and were initially impressed. Then we
noticed that:

1. ITV channels getting more and more aggressive in advertising --
slipping adverts in mid-sentence sometimes. And the number of adverts
became intolerable. We reverted to videotaping films in order to watch
them and get a tolerable viewing experience.

As far as I am aware ITV and BBC transmit essentially the same material via
digital satellite as they do via DTT (and analogue).

2. We also dislike intensely the advert banners that pop up even before
the program has ended. People who permit such things must be out-and-out
philistines IMO.

3. Sound quality pretty awful although typically not noticed by the
conditioned (MP3) listener. (I play back through a good hi -fi.) Even my
wife who is not musical noticed the difference when we switched between
BBC2 (analogue) and BBC2 (DTT) when some classical music was playing.

BBC sound via digital satellite is less compressed (and therefore higer
quality) than BBC via DTT

4. The cavalier way in which channels are dropped without a bye-you-leave.
That's *really* a very off-hand way to treat the viewer. I subscribed to
this group to find out what had happened to m & m, for example. (We were
particularly enjoying the repeats of Auf wiedersehen Pet)

Men & Motors has not been dropped from digital satellite. It has been
dropped from DTT and replaced with something else because of bandwidth
restrictions.

Well, i could go on but that's probably enough. It'd be nice to get to
other European channels and bypass Sky completely (if that's possible);
so, yes, I'll be looking into it.

If you go to Freesat you ARE virtually bypassing Sky because most of the FTA
channels are from broadcasters not affiliated to Sky. They do, however, pay
Sky to have their programme schedules incorporated into the excellent Sky
Electronic Programme Guide.

Mario//

"Malcolm H"
"Mario" [email protected] wrote: [...]
Well, i could go on but that's probably enough. It'd be nice to get to
other European channels and bypass Sky completely (if that's possible);
so, yes, I'll be looking into it.

If you go to Freesat you ARE virtually bypassing Sky because most of the FTA
channels are from broadcasters not affiliated to Sky.

Huh? You'd be buying a Sky box, Sky dish and Sky card while giving
your personal details to the Sky marketing attack squads. That's a
virtual bypass only in the sense that driving along Whitehall is
virtually bypassing central London!

They do, however, pay
Sky to have their programme schedules incorporated into the excellent Sky
Electronic Programme Guide.

Sky's EPG seems better than that on other boxes mostly because Sky do the
Service Info encoding and don't encode full Event Information Tables (EIT) for
standards-compliant non-Sky receivers. The Sky EPG tax should be abolished.

That is the UK choice today, really: more flexible and cheaper standard
receivers, or three more channels and the Sky EPG/interactive functions.
I hope the BBC/itv freesat sets will use EIT and MHEG or MHP, rather than
Sky's system.

If you want a multi-satellite set, there's not much doubt, even today.
The English-language offer from other satellites isn't as good as it was
a few years ago, but it's still excellent for polyglots.

--
MJR/slef
Sat FAQ: http://mjr.towers.org.uk/comp/astefaq.txt

"MJ Ray" wrote in message
reenews.net...

If you go to Freesat you ARE virtually bypassing Sky because most of the
FTA
channels are from broadcasters not affiliated to Sky.

Huh? You'd be buying a Sky box, Sky dish and Sky card while giving
your personal details to the Sky marketing attack squads. That's a
virtual bypass only in the sense that driving along Whitehall is
virtually bypassing central London!

A one-off payment of between £50 and £150 to equip yourself with the de
facto standard digital satellite system in the UK is, I would contend,
excellent value for money. Are you aware that the number of people watching
Sky digital satellite now exceeds the number of homes watching TV on any
other platform, including analogue terrestrial, according to new figures
from Ofcom. I will ignore the paranoia about attack squads.

Sky's EPG seems better than that on other boxes mostly because Sky do the
Service Info encoding and don't encode full Event Information Tables (EIT)
for
standards-compliant non-Sky receivers. The Sky EPG tax should be abolished.

Sky's EPG doesn't just seem better, it IS better. How it works is irrelevant
as far as the viewer is concerned. I have Freeview and multi-satellite
systems as well as Sky and find that the Sky system is a joy to use compared
with available alternatives.

That is the UK choice today, really: more flexible and cheaper standard
receivers, or three more channels and the Sky EPG/interactive functions.
I hope the BBC/itv freesat sets will use EIT and MHEG or MHP, rather than
Sky's system.

It is not just a question of three more channels. For those willing to pay a
subscription there is a large extra choice of very worthwhile channels NOT
available on any other platform. e.g. Discovery, National Geographic,
Performance, Artsworld, Biography etc.etc. as well as numerous movie and
sports channels for those so inclined. Detractors will point out that there
is also a lot of dross. Quite true - but you don't have to watch it any more
than you have to read the dross available in your local newsagent.
Incidentally the Sky EPG allows you to eliminate any channels which you do
not want so that they are never displayed in the EPG.

If you want a multi-satellite set, there's not much doubt, even today.
The English-language offer from other satellites isn't as good as it was
a few years ago, but it's still excellent for polyglots.

I have had a multi-satellite system since the 1980s and can receive
virtually everything available in this hemisphere. There are abundant
channels in German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Russian,
Turkish etc. for those who are interested. For those interested in the
English language virtually the only worthwhile channel not available on the
Sky platform is BBC World - and most of this content is also shown on BBC
News 24.

--
MJR/slef

Malcolm H wrote:
snip
Incidentally the Sky EPG allows you to eliminate any channels which
you do not want so that they are never displayed in the EPG.
snip

That part of your post simply is not true.
--
Adrian

Adrian A wrote:
Malcolm H wrote:
snip
Incidentally the Sky EPG allows you to eliminate any channels which
you do not want so that they are never displayed in the EPG.
snip

That part of your post simply is not true.

Yes, you can only remove the porno channels from the EPG, and nothing
else.

"Adrian A" wrote in message
om...
Malcolm H wrote:
snip
Incidentally the Sky EPG allows you to eliminate any channels which
you do not want so that they are never displayed in the EPG.
snip

That part of your post simply is not true.
--
Adrian

Apologies, I agree not strictly true. What you can do is select up to 50 (I
think) 'Favourite' channels and use a 'Favourites' EPG which displays only
the selected channels. This does effectively prevent display of unwanted
channels in the EPG.

"Malcolm H"
A one-off payment of between €50 and €150 to equip yourself with the de
facto standard digital satellite system in the UK is, I would contend,
excellent value for money.

Yes, it is, and you don't need to buy Sky to do that.

Are you aware that the number of people watching
Sky digital satellite now exceeds the number of homes watching TV on any
other platform, including analogue terrestrial, according to new figures
from Ofcom.

Are you aware that non-Sky satellite viewers were deleted from the Ofcom
figures over a year ago and it was always an undershooting estimate anyway?
Their figures are ******** and they should farm them out to the Office
for National Statistics to correct.

I will ignore the paranoia about attack squads.

You've not spoken to those on the receiving end of Sky's Freesat
conversion marketing, then.

Sky's EPG seems better than that on other boxes mostly because Sky do the
Service Info encoding and don't encode full Event Information Tables (EIT)
for
standards-compliant non-Sky receivers. The Sky EPG tax should be abolished.

Sky's EPG doesn't just seem better, it IS better. How it works is irrelevant
as far as the viewer is concerned. [...]

Sky's EPG is better for Sky-linked channels. Far from being an irrelevance,
this is almost entirely due to how it works and the suppression of receiver
competition. All viewers should be concerned by Sky's dirty digging.

That is the UK choice today, really: more flexible and cheaper standard
receivers, or three more channels and the Sky EPG/interactive functions.
I hope the BBC/itv freesat sets will use EIT and MHEG or MHP, rather than
Sky's system.

It is not just a question of three more channels. For those willing to pay a
subscription there is a large extra choice of very worthwhile channels NOT
available on any other platform. e.g. Discovery, National Geographic,
Performance, Artsworld, Biography etc.etc. as well as numerous movie and
sports channels for those so inclined.

Performance is free-to-air at 28 east. Discovery and National Geographic
were free-to-air at 16 east, last I saw. There are numerious other sports
and movies channels available without a subscription, although things like
the Fox-Sky link seems to limit their range.

Incidentally the Sky EPG allows you to eliminate any channels which you do
not want so that they are never displayed in the EPG.

Since when? The inability to do that is a long-standing complaint from
people with strong religious beliefs and a reason why faith groups offer
standard (non-Sky) receivers.

What you are describing is very different from the Sky I've seen.
Do you work for Sky marketing or do you just believe all they tell you?

[...] For those interested in the
English language virtually the only worthwhile channel not available on the
Sky platform is BBC World - and most of this content is also shown on BBC
News 24.

CNBC shows some NBC shows, some of the CBS stuff is out there too, while
DW-TV and arte have shows in English, and so on. Small pools of English,
which is very good if it fits your interests, given the relative rarity
of specialist programming on UK channels today.

There's also quite a lot in English FTA from stations aimed at south-eastern
Europe and the middle east, but getting schedules can be difficult.

--
MJR/slef
Sat FAQ: http://mjr.towers.org.uk/comp/astefaq.txt

"MJ Ray" wrote in message
reenews.net...

[snip]
Incidentally the Sky EPG allows you to eliminate any channels which you
do
not want so that they are never displayed in the EPG.

Since when? The inability to do that is a long-standing complaint from
people with strong religious beliefs and a reason why faith groups offer
standard (non-Sky) receivers.

Since a recent software upgrade! What you can do is select up to 50
'Favourite' channels and use a 'Favourites' EPG which displays only
the selected channels. This effectively prevents display of unwanted
channels in the EPG.

What you are describing is very different from the Sky I've seen.
Do you work for Sky marketing or do you just believe all they tell you?

I do not and have not ever worked for Sky. I have been interested in TV
since I built a couple of TV receivers from post WWII surplus radar
components and completed a post graduate apprenticeship with the BBC some
(many) years ago. As a professional engineer I have always kept up to date
with latest developments and currently have Freeview, a multi-satellite
steerable dish system with 1.5m dish and Sky+. My new HD system is due to be
installed on 22 May.

[snip]
--
MJR/slef
Sat FAQ: http://mjr.towers.org.uk/comp/astefaq.txt