Any alternatives to Sky/Virgin for UK TV?

andyjreid

andyjreid

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1,773
Well the title says it all really,

When I was on holiday last year I was surprised at the amount of different Satellite tv companies there were out there. The "standard" packages appeared to be free although from what Im lead to believe, the Installation/Setup fees are quite high.

However I am interested to see what the real options are out there.

My guess is that maybe HM might know a bit about this.
 
Well...

There's FreeView & FreeSat - those are the two official subscription-free models.

Freeview - through your regular terrestrial aerial - which depending on your cabling to the aerial & distance from the transmitter can be prone to break up.

FreeSat - any dish pointed at 28.2E (the same group of satellites as Sky) and you get all the free-to-air FTA stuff (apart from Sky News that you can tune in via "other channels" usually). You can buy a dish for £20, spend an hour installing it and be ready to rock.

Beyond that if you're looking for non-UK stuff, you need a "Pornlord" dish (defined by one of my pals as "any satellite dish not pointed at 28.2E) pointed at either 19.2E (mostly German, and mostly FTA, but encrypted soundtrack (unless you speak German :lol: ) or 13E (there's French, Italian, Dutch...) and if you're that keen, you can buy the "proper" receiver and subscribe... I can recommend TPSFoot (or whatever it's called now) because they show all the FAPL/FA Cup & a lot of SPL with English commentary (you have to tell the receiver to give you the English track if it's available) and that incluses 3pm Saturday kickoffs.

Hardest part of installing a dish is pointing in the right direction - Satellite Finders can be had for well under a tenner. I installed our dish here, longest part was drilling the wall mount bolts... installed it low down on purpose (why anyone thinks installing a sat dish 10m off the ground is going to make an appreciable difference when the satellites are 22000 miles away is beyond me - the only reason to mount high is to get over any obstacles - trees, neighbouring houses, etc). It's hidden to such an extent that Sky doorknockers still come and ask if we want Sky (as the terrestrial aerial is also hidden)
 
I have a motorised "Porn Lord" system but apparently I'm more jester than lord or so I've been told.

Hunny is right, you can point a dish at freesat for specific UK channels (and superior radio quality) although subscribing to a foreign provider from the UK (TPS is probably Canal +) might be tricky and quite expensive now.

The dark arts of avoiding subscription meant you used to have to muck about with programmable cards and modules (amongst other methods) to overcome encryption, they (European broadcaster's) have now tightened up security and moved to more sophisticated encryption so to bypass that you can now purchase specific linux receivers that connect to servers via your broadband. (Google Spiderbox or nanoXXProtek receivers)

It can give you all the sport & films you could possibly want but ideally you'd need a motorised or multiple lnb satellite system to fully utilize what's available. (as mentioned with many of these channels there is an English audio option). Initial start up cost for such a system is moderate if you install it yourself but once you have it, you have it.
 
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