I currently access the free UK channels via a Sky+ box and discontinued card, but am interested in receiving free HD channels as well.
It looks like that will require an HD satellite receiver. As my dish is pointing at the Sky satellite (Astra 2?), would I only be able to get BBCHD (in addition to the normal channels minus Channel 4 and 5) on such a receiver? Or are there any others?
A second option - my cable company is offering five free HD channels (BBCHD plus some German ones like PRO7HD and SAT1HD, I think) and I have been told that there will be a Swiss one later on this year. Clearly, I would need to get a cable HD receiver.
Are these HD channels beamed from the same satellite that Sky uses? In other words, would I need 2 HD receivers to receive all of these channels (one satellite and one cable), or just the satellite one? This is purely hypothetical at the moment...
German stuff comes off Astra1 at 19 east
Swiss stuff comes off Hotbird at 13 east
There is not that much HD content out there and the best free one is BBCHD (at times).
Premiere does have some HD content but costs.
You'll get only BBCHD from Astra2 - the rest cost.
Yeah with a (non Sky digibox) FTA HD receiver costing about 400chf from Mediamarkt you can get BBCHD as well as about 7 or 8 other HD channels, and the thousand of banal TV channels from around the world. At least two of the HD channels are demo channels.
Its all worth it cos I can be sermoned by Teachers-TV and then round off my evening with some old duffers on WineTV whinging about the old days when all this was green fields and corks were cork. Bliss.
dave
Does anyone have the list of FTA HD channels?
I found this list:
HD Channels
Sky One HD Sky Arts HD Sky Movies HD 1 Sky Movies HD 2
Sky Sports HD 1
Sky Sports HD 2
Discovery HD
National Geographic HD
SBO HD1
SBO HD2
The History Channel HD
PremPlus HD
BBC HD
The Sky HD digibox is the flagship of Sky's service, with more channels planned, the following are rumoured to be coming soon.
MTV HD
Rush HD
Ultra HD
ITV HD
Five US HD
Five Life HD
8 further Sky Box Office HD screens
Does that cover it?
www.lyngsat.com/hd/index.html drill in per satellite. Your list is not FTA bar BBCHD - five channels should be FTV though.....
I think they are the Sky HD channels. I don't know if they are free with a digibox, but I cant see them. I will post a list of completly FTA HD channels when I go and write them down from the tv listing...
dave
Thanks, drilling in on " H D Eurobird 1 & Astra 2A/2B/2D at 2 8. 2 °E" seems to only give the non FTA channels too though?
Thanks DaveA!
Would have included the quote but I just got called a "bandwith killer" on another forum for always quoting...
OK using the wonders of modern technology aka a pencil and paper, when I scanned Astra2,Hotbird and Astra1 with a FTA-only (ie no encryption) filter I got just the following which I can actually watch without Sky eqpt or any viewing card :
ProSieben HD
Sat HD
SMD HD
Anixe HD
Astra HD 01
Astra HD+
Astra HD
BBC HD
HD Retail
The Astra one and even the BBC are mainly preview.
Check on the lyndsat link that Lob gave you for more detail.
dave
lyngsat marks the free ones with just DVB MPEG-4/HD as the encryption and not the pretty
Another good site is www.kingofsat.net
The Kingofsat site seems to just be one of these nasty "sponsored sites" and "top sites" portals?
.net not .com - oops. Corrected.
Many thanks for the comments so far - it's been very interesting.
One more thing: I understand that Sat1 and Pro7 are "simulcasting" some of their programmes in HD. Is there a listing of these HD programmes somewhere? As far as I can tell, the listings on the websites for both stations don't seem to differentiate HD and SD.
Sat1 and Pro7 are acknowledged to be low quality on the HD channels - plus for movies (for example) they will be shown DUBBED with no additional audio channel - something that Premiere HD does well.
BBCHD is the best free channel right now - but with patchy programming (but Heros tonight for those who are interested).
Thanks for the quick response, Lob Rockster.
For anyone interested, here is the listing of what's on BBC HD currently: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/whatso...ervice_id=2075
And here is a description I found of some of the programmes to be shown on BBC HD later in the year: http://www.definitionmagazine.com/20...autumn-on.html