Should we be getting excited about FreeSat HD?

[bartley9]

The short answer is No. When you change channels the digibox or pci card send signals up the wire to the LNB to select a different signal.

However you can run another wire from the dish to the PCI Card if your LNB has a spare connector.

[brewston]

I see - thanks for the reply. It was the dish that comes when you pay Sky for freesat so I suspect it won't have a 2nd connector but I'll take a look at it...

Cheers

Tim

[doc]

When I used Sky+ and multiroom, I had 3 seperate cables going to the LNB.

I now use one for each sky box (set up as freeview) and the other to go to my nova-s2-hd card.

My friend in NZ has satellite, and she has a splitter that enables her to use 2 set top boxes and 2 pci cards through the one cable from the LNB. One of the connectors on the splitter has a DC pass-through.

The link below shows a similar item to what she has.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Electronics...-149802991.htm

I don't know if these are compatible with UK satellite or not.

[mickm]

Brewston: Even if your dish only has one connection, you don't need to replace it to add a second or more connections. You only need to replace the LNB with one that has more outputs. There are loads of places that you can buy them online but Maplin will sell you a Twin for £30 or a Quad for £40.

Doc: That splitter will only allow you to watch the same channel in both rooms. You need an LNB connection for each receiver to allow you to watch different channels on each of them.

[doc]

ahhh... yes, I didn't give you the whole story did I.

I had to dig into the braincells a little harder and the box in question I was thinking of was a multiswitch, like this, though there is the other box that then splits it after going through a diplexer.

I'm guessing it works In NZ as all their channels are horizontally polarised.

http://www.freeviewshop.co.nz/input-...itch-p-51.html

I've spent the morning reading up on multiswitches (don't tell my boss!) and now my head feels like its going to explode.

The web page below has a good explanation, though I'll have to read it a few more times to understand it properly.

http://www.satellites.co.uk/satellit...iswitches.html

For home use though, it definately looks easier to get a multi-output LNB, a quad costs about £20, an 8 one is about £50. The only disadvantage is the 8 cables running on the outside of the house.

Oh yes, the satellite freeview box she's got has a loopthrough on it, something I'd never seen before.

[brewston]

Thanks - so which channels are FTA again ? ie I can run a cable directly into a capture card and which of them would be HD ? I assume I'd need to beef up my PC to capture HD ?

Tim

[doc]

You don't need a beefed up pc to capture HD, but playback is a different matter completely. I used to have an Athlon XP3200 and it captured HD fine, as its just a digital stream your copting straight to the hard drive. I played it back on my Athlon x2 5600 which just about coped, though I'd prefer an HD extender - which means buying a new TV aswell.

The channels I have set up for free over satellite are...

BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, Film4, Film4+1, Flaunt, Channel 4 & BBCHD

There may well be others, but the ones above were the only ones I was interested in when I set it up (apart from Ch4 which I added today)

[jaminben]

Just been reading about freesat and it appears to be launching on Tuesday 6th May at 12.30pm. The list of channels is a little poor as I was expecting ITV HD and a few more Ch4 channels but I guess they will be here soon enough.

http://www.joinfreesat.co.uk/index.p...t-epg-listings

Edit: A few more links

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=752204

http://www.ukfree.tv/fullstory.php?storyid=1107051366

And maybe ITV HD will there at launch in some form.

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/9895/itvhdtesthj9.jpg

[doc]

Now that the live date has passed, I was wondering if anyones done a channel scan and found any more unencrypted channels.

I checked on Monday but nothing had changed.

I'd like to see more unencrypted channels so that I can throw out the sky digibox's and use another couple of Nova-HD-S2 cards instead. It'd be nice if they bought out a dual-tuner card too.

[jaminben]

I think more4 and E4 are now unencrypted and thats about it.

[Whitey]

Yes More4 and E4 (and the + channels) are now fta. I can also receive ITV HD test with DVBViewer but sage throws up a decoder error when I tune it (using the DVBViewer network encoder). It would be nice to get access to the freesat epg for sage aswell.

Whitey

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by Whitey

Yes More4 and E4 (and the + channels) are now fta. I can also receive ITV HD test with DVBViewer but sage throws up a decoder error when I tune it (using the DVBViewer network encoder). It would be nice to get access to the freesat epg for sage aswell.

Whitey

I dont believe you will be able to get the freesat epg as its exclusive to freesat tuners only However if you subscribe to digiguide you can use their data via an xml epg setup and that will give you all the channel info you require.

Search around http://www.digitalspy.co.uk for more info.

As for ITV HD, its using a very strange codec for its streams (h.222 or similar) which maybe the problem your having with sage, but you could try the cyberlink codecs to see if they work.

Is their any chance you could attach your DVB-S .frq file so I could pinch the info for my setup as I dont fancy rescanning and messing up my current setup.

[Whitey]

Thanks.

I already the digiguide importer for my epg. But it still has data missing for some channels. It would be nice to use the freesat epg along with the digiguide info. AIUI the freesat epg isn't encrypted just compressed so it won't be long before someone works out how to access it.

ITV HD use H.264 video just like all other UK HD channels. The H.222 you refer to is the stream container which DVBViewer can handle no problem. Like I said, I can view it fine in DVBViewer.

My .frq file will be no use to you since I use the DVBViewer network encoder.

Whitey

[jaminben]

Ah, I guess your more upto speed about this than me

Which other channels do you get that digiguide doesnt provide data for as I get all the data I require for the channels I have.

[doc]

Has anyone tried the

PCTV Dual Sat Pro PCI
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSit...BPro%2BPCI.htm

or the

Pinnacle 7010i
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=808585

I've always used hauppauge, but wouldn't mind knowing what these dual-tuner dvb-s cards are like.

The latter is about £30 from www.scan.co.uk which makes me wonder if they're not that great!

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by doc

I've always used hauppauge, but wouldn't mind knowing what these dual-tuner dvb-s cards are like.

The latter is about £30 from www.scan.co.uk which makes me wonder if they're not that great!

I'll stick my neck out and say that their old hat as they dont have the newer DVB-S2 tuner capabilities.

HDTV Compatible: X

[doc]

Originally Posted by jaminben

I'll stick my neck out and say that their old hat as they dont have the newer DVB-S2 tuner capabilities.

HDTV Compatible: X

I think you're right about that, I was thinking of having 2 dvb-s2 cards and maybe 1 dual dvb-s, and a dual dvb-t.

Living on my own though I can't really justify all of the tuners. 2 dvb-s2's should do me fine once enough channels are available and I can then put the Sky digiboxes in the loft with a some mothballs.

[jaminben]

I've managed to manually tune ITV HD by adding an extra line to my .frq file.

CH:61 onid:0 tsid:2315 sid:10510 frq:11428000 rate:27500 mod:20 pol:1 fec_rate_in:2 sat:0 ctrl:1 #:ITV-HD

It doesnt however work with live tv but does work if I record for an hour then playback via recorded tv which seems strange. I also tried taking some screen shots but I just end up with a black screen where the video should be.

I've also tried manually tuning some radio stations but they just thow up an error.

[doc]

I couldn't get ITV-HD to work with the above setting, I just get no signal, but I managed to get:

Men&Motors, Movies4Men, ITV2+1 & ITV3+1.

I can't see myself watching any of those channels, but its a start I guess.

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by doc

I couldn't get ITV-HD to work with the above setting, I just get no signal

Thats exactly what I get "No Signal" But if you record the channel for a while then play it back via recorded tv you will be able to see ITV HD in all its glory. The PQ does look good and is proberly just as good as BBC HD its just a shame theirs nothing to watch except the recorded loop of Crystal palace and a country house somewhere.