New and Questions

confusedxx

Hello Everyone,

I am new here and new to Sat TV. I am a US citizen but I live in Switzerland. Therefore, I am posting here on the forums because the language will be easier to understand and the UK forums are more applicable to European SAT as compared to the US SAT forums

I am totally new to SAT TV and have been a bit disappointed with the Swiss TV. I think the costs of the cable here and the package you get for that cost is crazy. Though I can speak and understand some German, I perfer to see shows in the native language rather than dubbed (Swiss love to take all movies and force you to watch them in German).

I am building a house now and thinking it is now the right time to think about SAT TV. I am interested in making use of my HDTV and home theater system so it is either buying digital TV or a SAT.

So on to the questions:
1. There seems to be 10+ different Satellites that are providing TV to Europe. Hotbird 1, 2, .... Astra 1, 2, and more so. Further it seems the dish must be directed and tuned to a single satellite. Is this correct? Do you automatically switch the satellite the dish is tuned to without having to go outside and change something?

2. How many Sattellites do you typically need to get the best selection of English speaking shows (from Free Sattellite shows)?

3. With Sattellite broadcasts do you get digital quality? Do you get surround sound on the programs if you are watching a movie? Is the picture and sounds quality comparable to a DVD?

4. If I have more than one TV in the house, does each TV need a separate SAT receiver or can I have it all done via the cable installation in the house (for example with Cable TV each TV can control what it watches without needed a seperate box).

5. Do any Sat receivers have the TIVO functionality (not sure if TIVO is in europe yet, but it is a PVR with abiltiy to record hours of stuff, has program guides built into the box, has real-time recording without hitting record so if I step away for a phone call, I can just rewind and catch what I missed.

6. Are there any FREE HDTV Sat senders or is all the HDTV stuff still an extra subscription? I understnad that back across the pond all TV in the US is now digital and HDTV will soon become the standard for everything.

7. Who are good providers of pay Sat TV in Europe? I phoned DirectTV in US, but you cannot catch their SAT signals here in Europe (guess not possible to direct a EU dish to catch the US sat). Since for Pay SAt TV you need a decoder card, how many decoder cards to most sat receivers have?

8. I have seen recently this flat box sat dish (it looks more like a car radiator) and is not a dish at all. Is this a good as the dish? What size dish is recommended?

9. Do you have a list of recommended components for a Middle budget and High Budget SAT TV setup (Excluding TV and Home theater system).

Thanks for the help

dasteelman

1) yes the dish must be pointed to a single satellite at any one time, this can be done by a motorised dish or dish with dual,3,or 4 lnb's pointing at several sats.

2) well the number of free(FTA free to air) english channels are limited but the favourites are 19e,13e and 1w and 8w

3) all satellits broadcast in digital compression and a lot are in HD now, a lot of the channels use dolby ac3 as well

4) it will be simpler using a videosender

5) there are several with built in PVR cheapest i think is dreambox 600

6) most are encrypted and require sub

7) each country in europe has a decent quality broadcaster of which it will probably cost u upwards of 500 uk pounds to 1000ukpounds for 12 mth card
most receivers have slots for upto 2 cards

for usa stuff i reccomend 8west orbit package however i dont know how long this will stay there for

8) cant comment

9) you can get a decent linux receiver for around 100 pounds a 90cm dish and lnb for 70 pounds

8)

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Nice but Dim

rolfw

Crumbs, that is a lot of questions, best to address the basic ones initially.

In addition to what the last poster has answered.

If you want English language TV, then install a dish pointing at Astra 28.2, this will give you the BBC and ITV channels from the UK, plus the channel four channels in the near future. An 80cm dish should give you enough margin for bad weather, but if you want feeds in several rooms, you will need to install a multiswitch with a quattro LNB and possibly go a little bigger with the dish, as each room needs its own individual feed, two feeds required for most PVR receivers.

Now is the time to run the cables, whilst building is in progress.

Tivo has been in Europe for a long time, but many broadcasters offer their own dedicated PVR with similar features

There will be a few free HD channels in the near future on that satellite, so may well be worth investing in an HD model.

There are of course many packages available on nearby satellites, like Astra 19.2 and Eutelsat Hotbird at 13E, if you speak German, then Astra 19.2 may be the best one, as there are a lot of German free to air channels on there. http://www.satellites.co.uk/satellit...s-information/

All of the US birds will be below the horizon for you, unless you can get hold of a US forces pakage with dedicated receiver.

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HB13DISH

Hello confusedxx,

I am surprised that you find the Swiss TV disappointing. Could be because (if I understand correctly) that you have a cable subscription.
Are you sure that there is no hidden Bicanal function so that you can hear the original sound?

As you can see from this thread:

SRG SSR Switzerland Package

The SRG Satellite subscription is quite cheap and the TV picture and sound qualities are superb. Best there is on Hot Bird. I think that there is a new HD channel that was added recently.
Also, some of the films and series are broadcasted in dual languages, which means that you can select English audio instead of German, French or Italian. Certainly worth subscribing to.

The link that rolfw gave about packages can be very helpful.
I can recommend :
Canal Sat (France)
Premiere (Germany)

You might find it easier to subscribe to Premiere in Switzerland than in the UK. You just need to ask if this is possible.
Canal Sat smartcard can be purchased from the internet at reasonable price at the moment.

confusedxx

The Swiss TV (Free Swiss Cablecom Cable TV) is disappointing for the most part. They took off BBC, they took off most of the good stuff. They have House, CSI and a couple English language shows, but they only broadcast in German (I tried to switch the language but only German is available). Funnily enough, it is the Italian stations and sometimes the french stations in Switzerland that will show the original dialogue in addition to the dubbed version. The German stations do not typically broadcast the orig dialogue language.
As for the Quality of the picture, that is true it is good.

With regards to the Canal Sat Smartcard, does Canal Sat broadcast often in English? Their website is only in French and I am clueless with French.

A couple more questions:

1. What size dish would be best for a dish with 4 IBNs (or is motorized a better option than 4 different ibns?

2. Is there like a SAT wiki that does not go so much into Sat wave technology, but gives me an overview of the pros and cons of IBN vs motors vs dish size and a comparision of the sat receivers and pvrs?

3. Since I am building the house (cellar should be dug out in next few weeks) what type of wiring do I need? Can I just have the sat put on the roof and have the SAT cable spliced into the cable TV cable?

HB13DISH

Obviously cable TV is not as flexible as satellite. So you are on the right track considering putting up a dish.
You should be eligible to subscribe to the SRG package (check first if it is only to Swiss citizens). It should give you 6 excellent channels at a very good price.
Then look into Premiere.
The Canal Sat has several channels that can be switched to the original sound. Most important is the Cinema option. The sports are always in French.
Look into the lyngsat link that I gave above, then at the far right under APID you can see which channels have "orig" = Original sound in the audio data.

What is IBNS?

As for your other questions, I will leave it to more experienced members to reply.

pgh13

I think you mean LNBs. What you choose depends on what you want to achieve. You can get what is known as a quad LNB. This is 4 independent LNBs in one housing so that it can be fed to 4 separate receivers, so you can watch in different rooms.

If you have several LNBs pointing at different sats you can select which one to feed down 1 cable by using a disecq switch.

The main satellites of interest for europe are positioned at 13, 19,2 and 28 degrees East and these can all be accomodated on 1 dish, but if you want to go beyond that (or just want to explore) you'd need to go motorised. The problem there is that if you are feeding more than 1 receiver you may be unpopular if you move the dish while Mrs confused is watching her favourite soap in the other room - maybe someone else can comment on size for Switzerland? Also, a motorised dish takes longer to change satellites than a multi LNB setup.

Take a look at Lyngsat.com to see what satellites there are and what channels they carry . It also gives an indication of dish size for different satellites and locations

As you're building the house, you have the opportunity to put cable where you want it


Just my opinion

confusedxx

Hi there pgh13

You wrote: "If you have several LNBs pointing at different sats you can select which one to feed down 1 cable by using a disecq switch."

I think this is exactly what I had in mind - just do not have the vocabulary or understanding to express is yet

This would allow me to get hundreds of channels all sent to the HDTV SAT receiver in the living room and to have those hundreds of channels all coming from 4 different satellites (by using a Quad LNB).

If I can still have one fixed sat (without motor) and get reception to 4 sats via the quad LNB, that sounds like just want I had in mind. I can sit in the living room watching one channel and the kids somewhere else watching another channel and NO fighting needs to be happeneing over where the dish is pointing.

rolfw

OK, if that's the way you are thinking of going, you will need a good dish for multi LNB setup, perhaps something like the wave frontier and you need to decide which satellites you wish to receive, let's perhaps say, Astra 28.2 E, 19.2 E, 13, E, plus one other.

How many separate satellite receivers do you want to feed? You will need a quad LNB or Octo LNB for each satellite, feeding as many four way DiseqC switches as you have receivers. You will need two feeds for the HD PVR receiver, so a quad LNB on each satellite would only feed teo other rooms with single tuner receivers.

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confusedxx

Ah wow I see where you are going with that. I guess I would have 2 TVs to feed. The main one should be the Living Room TV and I cannot really see ever more than 2 in the house.

So a quad should be OK. That would enable me to feed 2 TV that wanted to watch different sats, right?

rolfw

Yes A quad LNB for each satellite you require, feeding into a four DiseqC switches, you could then have a PVR on both TVs, giving you some viewing flexibility.

So cable wise, you need to send two satellite quality coax cables to the two rooms requiring the feeds and terminating at the location of the dish mount, then possibly future proofing with some feeds to other rooms as well, terminating in the roof space, or AV cupboard.

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