In article ,
Andy Burns wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:

Presumably there's some sort of fee from the box manufacturer to
'freesat' for use of the name and access to technical standards for
the EPG?

I don't see why there should be.
Certainly when I stuck a PC card in my PC and hooked it up to a dish,
there was no charge for downloading the EPG.

Ah, but you've not got a nice flowery freesat logo, have you?

And the free software certainly understood its format.

The EPG (unlike the now/next) is encrypted, but that was cracked.

Why would they charge for it?

Because it does take /some/ effort to develop the freesat EPG, to
support STV manufacturers, or in the case of freeview, the spec for the
"play" rewind feature, etc.

I think that is the main practical difference. Apart from only tuning in
the progs in its guide. With non FreeSat software, you can just download
everything on that satellite group then delete what you don't want - or
make a favourites list.

I've not played with it enough to find out if you can go backwards in time
on the EPG and view say yesterdays progs on everything. If so it will be
better than FreeView which is selective with this feature.

--
*Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle drugs.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.