Hi Carol.
I recently had to buy a new TV for my mum, that is to say
I had to make the purchasing decisions and get the whole
thing set up where she just coughed with the money
"smile". Basically, we when for freesat because there is
an overwhelming choice of free to air channels out there,
far more than there is on Freeview. If you go to
www.wildsat.com, you can get an idea of the scope of
choices on freesat as compared to the alternatives.
Secondly, a dish will usually go up on a wall, so long as
its got a clear view of the sky and the satellites you
should be fine. Freeview depends on an Arial, and if
your sharing for instance in a block of flats or have a
wire antenna as aposed to a powerful loft or roof Arial,
you may get reception issues. Also, as you point out,
it'll also depend on where you are in the country you are
as to the quality of your reception and the number of
channels available to you.
Finally, last but not least, if you have Freesat or
Freesat HD, you can always upgrade that to a sky
subscription at any time, simply by replacing the viewing
card. That isn't an option with Freeview, at least
you'll only have access to top-up TV, a vastly inferior
alternative with far fewer channels and split channel
scheduling where one channel shows two separate channels
at differing times throughout the day.
All the best, Ibrahim.
-----Original Message-----
From: Carol Pearson
Sent: Friday, March 25, 2011 12:32 PM
To: Access UK Mailing List
Subject: [access-uk] Cable, Freeview or Freesat
Hi all,
We've been Cable customers for ages but are considering
moving either to Freeview or Freesat and would be
grateful if you could help us to look at these
alternatives as we don't know a great deal. The cost is
obviously going to be one benefit, since we're only going
to have one initial layout, presumably? Primarily,
though, for various reasons we're tired of being tied to
Cable and just a few, rather unknowledgeable engineers
who visit.
This has all recently come to a head as, with various
movings around, our workable setup has gone wrong once
again and no current Cable engineer seems to be able to
put it right and we have no knowledgeable friends who can
either. I should explain that our setup to date has been
that our TV has retained the terestial channels for our
use primarily so that we could continue to use our analog
video, with Cobolt's handset. In addition, Cable was
tuned to another channel so we didn't miss anything there
we wanted, plus audio description, of course. This gave
us real flexibility. Now, however, nobody has the
knowledge to retune the TV and it's considered it could
be a TV fault anyway.
If we're going to purchase a new TV then we may as well
think possibly Freeview enabled.
OK, here are a few questions to get us started:
1. Are the channels on Freeview the same as those one
would get on Freesat?
2. Has anyone yet found a good and reliable way to
record programmes in our absence as a totally blind
person with either of these two alternatives?
3. How good is the freeview coverage across the
country these days?
4. How high does the dish need to be seated
(generally) for good reception using Freesat? (We only
have a bungalow, so no second floor ...)
Any help on the above would be much appreciated. Thanks.
--
Carol P
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