Newbie introduction - channel advice

bigjules

Hi there everyone

Just wanted to introduce myself as a newbie on the forum. After nearly 10 year of having no TV whatsoever in my house (out of choice) I decided to "bite the bullet" and change all that. I'm looking for some advice firstly on choosing channels / packages, and then I guess on the necessary equipment I'll need. All opinions and guidance gratefully received! I hope I'm posting in the right area here, but please guide me to wher eI should be if not! A bit of background....

As I said, I've not had a TV in the house for nearly 10 years now. That was out of choice - I lived in a flat where I was prohibited from installing a satellite dish or additional aerial, so could only get BB1,2, ITV and C4. And given the rubbish programming that was available at the time I decided to give up my TV licence and make do without. I'm not a huge TV watcher anyway so it wasn't a difficult choice.

Having moved house 4 years ago I carried on without TV. I am in the middle of a full renovation, with a whole-house automation system for lighting, blinds, security, etc. plus whole-house A/V distribution. I do enjoy my films, so I have a projector-plus-DVD-player-plus-6.1 setup in my main living room. but nothing else yet apart from the basic infrastructure for A/V distribution.

Now I'm looking to add some equipment on the end of all that to allow multi-room TV and video. Having just had a Fr**view aerial installed (am I allowed to mention that word here?) :-) and realised what a right load of old pap is being transmitted on those channels most of the time, I think I need to supplement that with some sort of satellite feed. I'm looking at a multi-decoder setup to allow different channels to be viewed in different rooms, so one size doesn't have to fit all.

I've had a quick search through some of the old posts here and from what I can gather, one way to begin identifying what kit to buy is first of all to decide what sort of programmes you want to watch and therefore what channels / packages to go for. This is really where I'm kind of stuck - there seems to be so much choice that I don't really know where to start! So... to the first question

My main interests, and therefore what I'm looking to get out of this, are motorsport (MotoGP, BSB / WSK, BTCC / DTM, NASCAR, WRC, F1...) and I also enjoy athletics, rugby, anything unusual. Golf / Tennis are OK, but NOT football!! (that seems to exlude 99% of all sports programming then, LOL!) I'm not interested in subscribing to film channels - I'd like the FTA ones like Film4 but I would normally choose to watch films on DVD / HD-DVD / Blu-Ray rather than subscribe. Also, general entertainment that's not entirely based around US sitcoms (although I have enjoyed watching things like 24, Heroes, etc.), and of course the rise of HD channels is of interest too. And don't forget the good old Discovery channel!

From your experience, which channels or packages, especially the sports ones, fit best with that list? I know that's a million-dollar question, but I need to start somewhere! I've only ever seen British Eurosport before (at other people's houses) so I don't know how the others compare.

Oh, one other thing. I'm not keen on subscribing to Sky, as I have a major objection to paying loads of money for loads of channels I'm not interested in, just to get one or two that I am. So the more FTA stuff, the better. However, I'm not averse to buying into some sort of package as long as it fits my needs. The problem is, I don't understand a lot of the things I've seen on KingOfSat - I had a quick look, but a lot of the packages seems to be based oustide the UK. Does that mean it's not possible to subscribe? Sorry if that's a stupid question, but it's all new to me! Do other subscription services allow more flexibility in terms of channel choice than Sky?

Should I be thinking of getting a combination of things, like for example, a basic (non-subscription) Sky box for the FTA stuff, then supplementing it with other services? Would one dish be sufficient to so the job, or do I need multiple dishes for accessing different satellites (presumably multiple if the satellites are in very different locations)? Am I right in thinking it's possible to have multiple LNBs per dish?

Sorry - that's turned out to be a bit of a marathon. Hope you're still with me. All advice or links to other resources would be much appreciated.

Jules

Yorks

Welcome to the forum Jules. That's some first post.

Many of your questions are down to personal choice, and what is available at any one time. But to give you the best option and if your budget is not a major constraint then I would recommend that you go for a motorized system, with a dish of a minimum dia of 90cm and a non-Sky receiver. In this hobby channels/packages come and go and this way you can better keep abreast of the changes. I'm sure you will get plenty more advice from other members.

Yorks

Life's a bitch ................ and then there's S*y (No change there then)
Wurdoch ist ein Manker. (Mank being a city in the Austrian Alpine foreland)

HB13DISH

Hello Jules and welcome to the forum.

I am sorry that you have made this decision. Hope that it is not too late.

I can't remember when I read a decent novel or a bestseller.
The only things that I read now is the receivers manuals and the TV schedules.
All my free time over the past years goes on watching TV using the satellites.

bigjules

Cheers Yorks!

I take on board what you say about personal preference - one man's meat being another's poison and all that. It's just that I have very limited experience of most satellite channels (virtually everyone I know has Sky in one flavour or another - it's almost as though Sky IS satellite if you ask them!). I've no real idea what else is available outside the "comfort zone" of the Sky Sports package. Are there channels that focus more on non-football?

My perception (rightly or wrongly) is that most of SkySports is based around the premiership, or some other country's permiership, and that doesn't interest me in the slightest. Hence the reason for asking for other people's experiences.

If I go for a 90cm dish or similar, would I be able to receive the FTA Sky service (inc. the Beeb, etc.) as well as a possible subscription package from someone else? I'm a bit confused about all these CAMs - my understanding is that I would potentially need a reciever with more than one CI slot so I can add multiple CAMs, depending on what services I wnt to subscribe to. Is that right? I'm guessing then that something like Sky+ / SkyHD boxes are effectively pre-packaged decoders with just one CAM, designed purely for the Sky service. Am I on the right lines? If I can get my head around this then hopefully I can work out where I need to be going!

Jules

Yorks

Yes. The Sky receiver has a built in NDS decoder. It will not decode any other packages, nor has it the facility to accept cams for any other packages - or the ability to drive a dish. You can get most of the FTA stuff on Sky with a none Sky receiver, with the exception of C4 and Five, which are FTV (free to view). You need a viewing card and Sky receiver for these - a one off payment of £20 I think.. They are however available on Freeview.

Life's a bitch ................ and then there's S*y (No change there then)
Wurdoch ist ein Manker. (Mank being a city in the Austrian Alpine foreland)