Free to Air TV.

procus said:
Thanks for the reply. where can i buy a dreambox are they expensive and is it just a matter of plugging it in and inserting the card?
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ebay is the best place to get them.... but you will really need to know your stuff to get it working with sky...
 
Have looked at FTA in the past and done nothing about it but I'd be interested to know if I bought a second-hand Sky Digibox in Ireland and brought it out here to Romania would I get the FTA channels?

Bit hacked off with the local offerings and CNN is doing my head in
 
With the setup described, do you get channels like the history chanel, national geographic & any other educational chalels?
 
Now that Channel 4 has been added to the Sky digital package does that mean there is now a frequency that can be tuned in on a FTA system to also receive Channel 4?
 
We got the dish put up on friday. There are a lot of channels, too many to get around this soon. We connected it to the TV in the kitchen and left the TV in sitting room as it was with the local channels. The news channels are great and of course the shopping ones for anyone who likes watching the latest gadgets.
 
procus said:
Thanks for the reply. where can i buy a dreambox are they expensive and is it just a matter of plugging it in and inserting the card?
Click to expand...
Just be aware that using a Dreambox with a $ky card is technically 'dodgy'. It may be illegal. I am sure that $ky will find a way to block this at some point. You'd then find yourself looking for a firmware upgrade. There's a whole sub-culture of this on the net. Some of the offerings are very dodgy ^ certainly have no warranty. Probably not worth the trouble of getting involved in it. You'll spend so much time trying to do it illegally, that it would be simpler just to pay Murdoch what he wants.

But, general-purpose FTA receivers, including a DreamBox with no card will, legally, receive BBC, ITV, $ky News and lots of other channels (just not $ky ones or RTE, TV3, C4 etc).
 
In this month's Sky magazine they are offering a Sky package for a once-off fee of €99, you get to pick 2 out of the 6 mixes and you have these channels for 6 months, no 12 month subscription required. I presume the box is yours after that. They don't have it up on their website. I think it sounds really good for anyone looking for a FTA box. I'm sure it would cost more than €99 to get one installed whatever about the cost of the equipment.
 
The Sky boxes are primarily designed for Astra Satellites at 28.2 east. The best channels are on 2D which has a tightly focused beam See this map. See this list. In Romania, you should be able to get anything that's marked as 'fixed' but not anything marked as '2D'. So even with a sub card, in Romania, it would be physically impossible to get 2d (where BBC, ITV are). You would get able to get all of the shopping and dating channels though. You might get other channels with that box in Romania by pointing the dish at other satellites, such as HotBird but the Sky box may not have the ability to tune the channels you'd like as it's designed for the Sky service primarily. It's not a general purpose receiver. A FTA box is a much better option.
 
Hi technologist , no i'm not really interested in the dreambox for sky its only for channel 4 , i wouldnt even mind paying sky the money just for channel 4 if it wasn't that expensive. It's just that if i get rid of ntl , the wife will be left withot channel 4 and when big brother is back on and she can't get it , my life wont be woth living!
 
My posting was not intended to berate you for considering 'dodgy' hardware or piracy techniques, more to point out that using anything other than a Sky box to receive a channel that is encrypted so that only Sky subscribers can get it, is likely to be intermittantly unreliable or involve heavy technical ingenuity.

The DreamBox is a very good receiver for FTA as-is'. Additionally, It enjoys popularity with satellite hackers as it's very 'flexible'. But, I think it's mainly an enthusiast's receiver.

Easier to just pay Sky. But, I agree, it's terrible to have to pay for lots of channels you don't want.

But...there is speculation that C4 might eventually go FTA.
 
Thanks technologist for taking the time to reply , i really appreciate it. At least i know now that i need a sky box for channel 4.

I hope it goes free to air sometime in the near future, i think ill hold off on a dreambox till i learn a bit more about satellites , i have a lot of reading up to do. I wouldn't have a clue how to use it or set it up at the moment.
 
I have a Dreambox purchased from a dealer in Germany. The Dreambox has to be the coolest best receiver available. They are tricky to setup and it is helpful to know a bit of Linux (to get the best out of it). I have the 7020 model with a hard drive for storing recordings and also useful for mp3s. The latest model has dual tuners which is nice.
Mine is connected to a wireless network for software updates. I can control the Dreambox from a browser and even stream a channel in good quality to any PC in the house.
I can confirm that an FTV "house" card works fine on CH4 and CH5 with a software CAM.
 
Film Four not automatically tuning in

Hi ,
Just having a problem tuning in film four, decided to clear station list and do a complete scan on FTA decoder and sort them into some kind of sequence. For some reason Film Four wont tune in automatically or Film Four + 1. I can manually put in the frequency and it will pick it up , but was wondering if this dosen't tune in, would there also be other channels that the decoder is not picking up?. I have tried it a few times , its on 28.2 Astra . I have tried this a few times and tried it to include even the scrambled channels but each time Film Four never appeared in list.

Anyone any ideas?

Thanks
 
If that's with a Sky box, I think it's just they way they work. With a general-purpose FTA system, they come programmed with a list of frequencies and you can add more, which they'll remember even if you clear the channel list.
 
hi tecnologist , thanks for the reply , its a inverto 1000p . When I do a full scan it never pick up film 4, each time i have to enter it manually. I was just wondering if it was missing ouit on other fta channels
Thanks
 
If you take out the sky card & replace with a FTZA card... can you then pick up RTE, TV3, .. or do you still need to stick up an ariel for those channels?

ninsaga
 
Hi ninsaga, mine is not a sky box, but i know rte tv3 etc are not free to air. i'd say if you remove the sky card you wont be able to get these channels. I tried tuning in rte tv3 etc on the tv with a small arial and rabbits ears, and the reception was unwatchable. i purchased an aerial for 40 euro placed it in the attic , not outside and the reception on these channels is crystal clear, as good as if not better than they were coming in on ntl.
 
Recently got a communal SKY satellite installation in my apt block. I don't want to subscribe to SKY but there are about 40-odd FTA channels. To pick these up can I plug in any digital receiver or do I need a Sky box?
 
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