In article , David Hansen
scribeth thus
On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:44:49 -0000 someone who may be "Mungo \"Two
Sheds\" Toadfoot" wrote this:-
Now that we've had a completely new Sky installation I find myself with a
brand new dish and a working Sony VTX S750U receiver going spare. Anything
interesting that can be done with them apart from selling, sculpture or
wierd perversions? Should I set-to pointing it at a furrin satellite wot
has English stuff on it or something similar?
Any Sky branded receiver will be a pain to use with real satellite
television, due to the crippled ("easy to use") menu system. Better
to buy a new receiver and use it with the "brand new dish".
On the mainland you could go into a supermarket and buy a receiver.
The Sky near monopoly of the UK market prevents this in the UK,
though sometimes there are sensibly priced receivers on offer in
shops based on the mainland like Lidl and Aldi. Alternatively
various suppliers do a range, one of the better known suppliers is
Maplin who offer them from £35 upwards
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?...3&MenuN ame=S
ateliite%20Receivers
If your dish remains pointed at the Astra 2 set of satellites then
you won't get any more stations than can be found in the recesses of
the Sky menu system, though it will be easier to use them. However,
your "brand new dish" could be pointed at Hotbird or Astra for more
channels, though not that many are in English.
Nope.. not many at all but there is some bl**dy good radio from "over
there" listening to Bayern Klassik 4 at the moment from Germany a
classical music station as it ought be. France Musique is good to and
there are a few Jazz stations
..
You could experiment
by watching the Astra channels for a week and then the Hotbird ones.
There are other satellites, which can be found out about on the
Interweb thingy, but these are the main two for most people.
It is possible to make a dish point at Hotbird and Astra without
moving the dish, by installing a dual LNB.
Not a dual LNB .. a Monoblock LNB..
This assumes that the
dish takes standard LNBs (in other words it is not most of the Sky
branded dishes) and also that the receiver can control a dual LNB
(in other words not a Sky branded receiver). A larger dish is useful
for such tricks, though in the south I am told that smaller dishes
work reasonably well.
I wouldn't like to set up one of those on a Sky dish as their quite
frankly not big enough, a 90 cms dish is much more like it. The Sky
region one dish is designed to receive Sky and sod all else can't think
quite why;!..
If you want to watch encrypted channels, for example on Hotbird or
Astra, then you will need a receiver with slots for standard viewing
cards (in other words not Sky branded viewing cards). The cheapest
receivers don't generally have such slots, more expensive ones have
one or two slots. The cards are purchased (usually for 6+months) and
fit into a holder called a CAM. None of this monthly subscription
crap. The whole ensemble then fits into a slot and allows viewing.
CAMs provide particular forms of decryption, the card provides
access (a very simplified description). Some channels come in more
then one flavour of encryption, ensure the card and CAM are both
using one form of encryption and this matches one of the forms of
encryption the channel is in, otherwise it won't work. If you have
two cards of the same sort then they can be swapped in the CAM. This
is easier to do than describe.
If you can wait a little then the BBC/ITV will releasing high
definition services officially any time soon. This will be under a
brand name, I forget what it is but it is something like Freesat.
The BBC are already transmitting in HD and the sound/vision is a
dramatic improvement on ordinary television (provided you have a HD
television and home cinema set up properly). The new service will
have a different (to Sky) Electronic Programme Guide. I have no idea
if it will use the standard format for such things (in other words
the Sky one) or whether it will use yet another standard. Ideally it
will use the standard format, so that standard receivers can get
more than the now and next guide. However, in many ways the BBC/ITV
service is more about marketing hype and making things "easy to use"
so they may well take the stuff the rest approach of Sky.
Lets hope its worth the wait
...
--
Tony Sayer