UK Freesat

[Shazell]

What I am interested in is if it is possible to grab the 7 day EPG from freesat for use in Mediaportal?

[mortstar]

Freesat launch is excellent news and it looks like they're anticipating channel 4 switch over by the end of the year.

I'm a bit gutted about the Blackgold 6 in 1 which I was going to purchase to drive this through MediaPortal. It seems that the card isn't DVB-S2 standard compliant as previously stated on the website.

BBC HD is DVB-S, however, BBC have said they want to move to S2. ITV HD trial has been DVB-S, but channel 4 HD is broadcast on DVB-S2, so when that comes to freesat who knows whether the 6 in 1 will be able to display it.

Still looking out for the perfect DVB-S2 tuner.

[revs]

Will i have to update anything in MP to get the channels? Or will it find them automatically if I scan Astra?

[SpudR]

It's the Black Gold card I was hoping to buy
I hope it works, this was going to be my Christmas pressie to myself!

[metropolis]

OK, ive been using a Technotrend S2 3200 with free satellite channels from the UK for some time now, using XMLTV for the EPG. Now freesat has launched, I deleted all the satellite channels from my TV server and done a fresh scan, not much difference really, maybe a couple of extra channels showed up. Can someone give us some solid info on how we can best utalise freesat within MediaPortal, EPG and all.

All help greatly appreciated.

Kev.

[Poko]

And also, if there's a relatively future-proof freesat USB capture card, please? One that supports HD, that is.
(Am using a Belkin network USB hub with a VMware VM as a MediaPortal server!)

Cheers

[mortstar]

Checking digitalspy forums...

Channel 4 and its sister channels have move over to freesat already - rather than having to wait for them in October when their contract with Sky (and therefore encryption) runs out.

e4, more4 and the all the +1s should show up on a scan.

I can see Freesat being the answer to 'free' television in the UK. So much bandwidth available, lots of free HD content. Freeview can only dream of this maybe 4 years from now.

[metropolis]

Hi, Just read this on the Wot Sat website:

"But ITV confirmed that it will be exclusive to Freesat for several months - because ITV HD won't be a traditional linear TV channel with its own channel number.

Instead, HD events will be simulcast and accessed via the red button on Freesat HD boxes.

An ITV spokesman said: "We decided on a service rather than a channel. To provide an entire channel of HD programming was simply not economically viable."

Any chance some MP developers could look into this please?

What Satellite & Digital TV

[gamejester]

So it looks like they are just transmitting these Freesat channels on Astra 2D without encryption now, they where always on this satellite but encrypted (some anyway) with skys encryption.

I have an old sky box, no sub or card and never bought the old one off payment Freesat card for it, so it could only pick up BBC and a few other channels. Just tired it now and it can get all the Freesat channels, E4, more4, etc... List has also been updated to show BBC HD, and others, put obviously cannot see these with a regular box.

When people say 'channel 4 has moved over.....' I do not belive there is an actual satellite for freesat, it is just an agreement (or service) that has been set up with Astra by BBC and ITV; Astra have no new satellite, they are still being beemed from Astra2D.

See attached spreadsheet to know what channel is broadcast on which Astra satellite.

metropolis - you should now be able to view E4, more 4 and stuff, where as before you would need a decoder, is that correct? Does your card to S2 streams, can you view BCC HD (duno if that uses it)

So I guess for the future proof question it is what transport are the newer HD channels going to use and which is the best card to get for these?


**UPDATE**
Found this info

Technical Information
Freesat broadcasts from the same fleet of satellites as Sky Digital, Astra 2A, Astra 2B, Asytra 2C, Astra 2D and Eurobird 1. Channels are broadcast using DVB-S. The Freesat programme guide will be broadcast from the Eurobird 1 satellite situated at 28.5° east.
All the channels broadcasting to date are broadcasting using DVB-S. Standard definition channels are broadcast using MPEG-2 for compatibility with Sky Digital receivers.
BBC HD is broadcast using MPEG-4 since it does not need to be compatible with Sky's non-HD boxes. Currently, BBC HD uses DVB-S since the channel shares a transponder with several Standard Definition channels. It is unknown whether or not this will switch to the newer DVB-S2 used for Sky HD when more HD channels are made available.

[mortstar]

Having said this yesterday....

Originally Posted by mortstar

I'm a bit gutted about the Blackgold 6 in 1 which I was going to purchase to drive this through MediaPortal. It seems that the card isn't DVB-S2 standard compliant as previously stated on the website.

BBC HD is DVB-S, however, BBC have said they want to move to S2. ITV HD trial has been DVB-S, but channel 4 HD is broadcast on DVB-S2, so when that comes to freesat who knows whether the 6 in 1 will be able to display it.

Still looking out for the perfect DVB-S2 tuner.

I got giddy and bought one this lunchtime!

At least in the short term it's gonna pick everything up and in the future if they do move to DVB-S2 signals, I'll upgrade.

...the curse of the technophile!!!