[access-uk] Re: Cable, Freeview or Freesat

  • From: "Ibrahim Gucukoglu" <ibrahim_gucukoglu@xxxxxxxx>
  • To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:26:56 -0000

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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