Freesat or Freeview instead of Virgin

[GavChap]

I'm thinking of ditching VM's TV offerings (I'm currently on M+) for Freesat or Freeview, mainly to save money, are there any Freesat or Freeview boxes that support VoD like iPlayer, 4oD, etc?

[Chris]

You can get iPlayer and ITV Player on any Humax Freesat PVR and AFAIK on several other models now too, but I don't believe 4oD is available on any PVR whether on Freesat or Freeview.

In general I think Freesat has the better long-term prospects than Freeview does because there is vastly more exploitable bandwidth on satellite than on terrestrial, so if you're able to make a choice between them at this stage I'd go for sat. There's every chance the C4 and C5 catch-up players will appear on Freesat boxes in the short to medium term anyway, the negotiations have been subject of much rumour and speculation for many months now.

[v0id]

Iplayer, 4OD and Five on Demand are available on the Xbox

[LexDiamond]

There is far gteater choice of PVR on freeview however, as Chris mentioned, Freesat has more long term potential.

The Humax Foxsat HDR and Echostar PVRs are a great choice for Freesat.

[nodrogd]

The best option, if you can, is to have both, as channels like Really and Yesterday, are available on Freeview but not Freesat. Conversely you have channels like CBS Drama and Horror Channel on Freesat but not Freeview.

[danielf]

I can't believe I used to pay VM (or Telewest actually) for TV. When I moved out of a cabled area (4 or 5 years ago), I decided to go Freeview and buy a Humax PVR instead. Best money saved ever... I spent £200 on the PVR on nothing on TV subscription since.

I'd probably go Freesat if I had to choose now, but it would be Free for sure.

Then again, I never watch Really, Yesterday, CBS Drama or the Horror Channel, but in fairness: if you do, you want to have your head examined :) :angel:

[mark1234]

Iplayer, 4OD and Five on Demand are available on the Xbox

4oD and Demand5 need a chargeable Gold Xbox Live subscription though. Only iPlayer is available without paying extra.

[GavChap]

4oD and Demand5 need a chargeable Gold Xbox Live subscription though. Only iPlayer is available without paying extra.

It would also help if I owned an xbox. :dozey:

[Chris]

A point often lost on some of our members who seem to think every household owns every gadget going :D

Gav, what are your thoughts regarding Freesat vs. Freeview? Is your house completely without either sat or terrestrial reception equipment?

[Kymmy]

Never owned a game console since my last SNES (no-one could ever beat me on Mario Kart battle mode :D )

If you're that worried about all the on-demands then go for a media centre, you can plug in tuners for freesat/view, record what you want and use it for email/streaming/on-demand/tv/pvr/gaming/business and anything else you want..

[GavChap]

Gav, what are your thoughts regarding Freesat vs. Freeview? Is your house completely without either sat or terrestrial reception equipment?

We have a dish with quad LNB, but it needs re-cabling as the previous tenant chopped off the cable when virgin was installed which is easy enough, we also have a terrestrial aerial which does work with most freeview channels (except the mux with Dave on it), I assume we can get HD as it's in band for our aerial. I already have a Humax 9200T, which isn't HD unfortunately, so I'd want a new PVR to do HD.

So I have a choice of anything really, freeview, freesat, VM, sky, BT. :D I'm currently on XL BB, L phone and M+ TV with VM.

[LexDiamond]

If you're happy with your 9200 but want HD then you won't be disappointed with Humax Foxsat HDR for freesat or the FoxT2 for Freeview.

[Pbryanw]

I just recently made the move from Virgin TiVo to a Humax Foxsat PVR. Luckily the previous residents had Sky so no additional outlay was needed.

I do miss some of TiVos features, like Wishlists and Search, but find I'm not missing the extra channels (I was on TV XL) as most of them I never watched. Another thing you might miss is Flimflex.

Worth taking into consideration is whether to wait for YouView (http://www.youview.com/) enabled Freesat boxes, which would give you all the Catch-up TV services, though it's release date (in time for the Olympics) is prone to slippage.

For someone who doesn't watch a lot of TV like me (and sticks to the five terrestial channels), and doesn't use VoD or Catch-up, I can say it's worth making the move to Foxsat.

As to buying the box, I bought mine as A-graded stock off the Humax web-site. It worked out cheaper then Amazon, and the one I've got seemed like new. Here's a a link (http://www.humaxdirect.co.uk/prodCat.asp?cat=factory&type=sat) to the Manager's Specials on Humax's site.

(EDIT: Didn't realise the thread was four days old - hope it's al-right to post one more to the end)

[LexDiamond]

According to alot of the respected websites it is unlikely that Youview will launch with a Freesat PVR. It is more likely to be Freeview based to begin with and the Freesat variant coming later on.

[GavChap]

Youview sounds like a good option, when it launches. However yesterday I phoned retentions and they gave me a nice enough deal to stay with them for another 12 months.

[Pbryanw]

According to alot of the respected websites it is unlikely that Youview will launch with a Freesat PVR. It is more likely to be Freeview based to begin with and the Freesat variant coming later on.
That's a shame - I've also read that Freesat's next generation boxes might go with HbbTV (common in Europe), and miss out on YouView altogether.

Anyway glad that the OP managed to get everything sorted out - it's great how a call to retentions can often do this :tu: :)

[LexDiamond]

That's a shame - I've also read that Freesat's next generation boxes might go with HbbTV (common in Europe), and miss out on YouView altogether.

Anyway glad that the OP managed to get everything sorted out - it's great how a call to retentions can often do this :tu: :)

I'm no expert on this kind of thing but do usually follow a couple of forums.

It is interesting that Freesat have decided to launch G2 spec STBs which suggests they are trying to diffrentiate themselves from Youview stbs. I think its confirmed now that G2 will be using HbbTV and apparently Freesat have not even confirmed compliance with Youview yet so Youview will probably be a DTT platform at launch and for quite a while afterwards.