"David Hansen" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 21:28:41 +0100 someone who may be Dave
wrote this:-

I have just done a google to try and find out what channels the basic
buy and plug in sky box has on it. This is not the one that you pay £17
and upwards per month, but I can't seem to find anything about the
channel info. Can anyone tell me or point me in the right direction
before my wife makes a complete balls up of communications in this house?

To add to what the others have said.

1) Freesat from Sky and Freesat channels are broadcast from the same
group of satellites. In fact the BBC2 Scotland or whatever that you
see on both is exactly the same transmission from the same
satellite.

2) There is a third way of seeing the same programme, a standard FTA
(free to air) satellite receiver as one would buy on the mainland.

3) I assume that you don't have an existing dish pointing at the
Astra 2 group of satellites.

4) Freesat from Sky involves someone fitting the gubbins. With
Freesat you can either get someone to do all that, or you can just
buy the receiver and DIY the dish.

5) With a FTA receiver people generally buy all the gubbins and
install it themselves, though you can pay someone to do some or all
of it.

6) What you get depends on which of the three ways you have chosen.
Note that all three sorts of receiver can be used with the same
dish. Freesat from Sky has one particular electronic programme guide
(EPG). It tries to lock you into "Sky" channels, though there are
limited facilities to add some others. It has Channel 5.

7) Freesat has another particular EPG. There are facilities to add
"non-Freesat" channels. The receivers have an Ethernet socket, ready
for television on demand (not working at the moment). At the moment
Channel 5 is not on it, due to a contract they signed with Sky, but
the last I heard it should be there by Christmas.

8) FTA receivers will get any channel that Freesat receivers will
get. It is also much easier to view other channels. There are not a
lot of these, but what some like is to watch the local news for
other locations. This is easy on FTA, more difficult on the other
two. There is not a proper EPG on a FTA receiver, only now and next
information. Channel5 will appear at the same time as it does on
Freesat.

9) If you have a HD television then there are other considerations.
HD receivers cost more, but the pictures and sound are a great
improvement. The BBC do several hours an evening now and special
events on their HD channel (there is a programme guide for BBC HD on
the BBC web site). ITV HD is a rare event at the moment. It is not
available on Freesat from Sky, is available on Freesat and can be
picked up on some FTA receivers with a degree of difficulty ranging
from easy peasy to fairly hard, depending on model. Channel4 HD is
only available on Freesat from Sky, no idea if this will be on the
others soon or even later. Is it worth it at the moment? You have to
decide. HD signals use the same dish as SD (standard definition)
signals, so you can buy an SD receiver now and only have to change
the receiver to get HD in the future (assuming you have an HD
television) when things are a little more settled.

10) Which option you prefer is a matter of your personal
preferences. Time/skills to DIY against the cost of having someone
else do it.

Remember FTA is free to air, i.e. not encrypted.
There are FTV free to view channels too, ATM ch5 is FTV.
You need the decoder to get the FTV channels, only available from sky.

You can buy used sky boxes, make sure they have a card if you want the FTV
channels.