French & UK tv (again)

[Hereford]

We have read both the January thread and the recent one, but are duffers at this so are still not sure what we need to do.  We currently have a dish to receive Canalsat. We were "migrated" from TPS and are most unhappy with the loss of channels.  We are considering changing to TNT by satellite for the French channels and then the basic free channel digibox for UK - which we don't have at all at present.  The dish we have would become ours if we cancel.

We have looked on the ausene.fr site but it seems to us that he has shut?  What is a "visiostat" dish please? (We did say we were duffers...) and how much are they?  At a pinch we could presumably have two dishes, one for each "country". How do we then get whichever one we want to show on the TV?

We would get a professional to do any installation but we feel it would help if we are claear in our minds what needs to be done.

Many, many thanks

H.

[cooperlola]

Mr Watkins is better at this than I but I can answer the basics.  As the French channels come from a different satelite from the UK ones, you either need two dishes or one dish with a motor, which moves the dish across from one satelite to the other.  To my mind, the first option is the easier (if not the prettier) as it means that you can watch a programme from one dish and record from the other at the same time (this is the arrangement I have).

You have a box for each and both are "wired" into the back of your TV - provided it has at least 2 scart (peritel) sockets you should be OK.  If not, you can buy a box to switch between one or the other.

"Visiostat" - not a clue!

[Martin963]

One of the surpin Bros is here

http://www.surpin.net/catalogue/index.html?c277.html

I haven't checked but the Visiosat dish that covers two or three sats is the Bisat or Trisat G2 or G3 (I think).    It's sort of oblong in shape rather than round,  but allows you easily to place two LNB's (one for the TNT par sat box and one for the ordinary free to air box) on one dish.   I've never actually set one up and imagine that it's more fiddly than an conventional dish,  but makes up for it by being all-in-one.  

If you go for this option you do need to make it clear that you want Astra 2 at 28 deg E and Astra 1 at 19 deg E otherwise you might end up with the default "French" version which does a 6 degree separation rather than the 9 deg you require.

cooperlola has covered the rest perfectly.

Have a look at the link I've given while I see if I can find a better one - unfortunately I'm in Devon at the moment so don't have the French sat mags to hand.

[Martin963]

Have a look at this item some way down in the link I gave:

Antenne Visiosat TriSat G3 fibre 75 cm + 3 lnb uni 0.2db Résistance à la corrosion

BLANC OU GRIS RENFORCE garantie 10 ans livré avec les 3 tetes 0.2 db

Permet de recevoir:

- ASTRA 28.2°Est:

BBC 1/2/3/4 en clair / SKYDIGITAL

- ASTRA 19.2°Est: CANALSATELLITE / CANAL+ Numérique

- HOTBIRD 13°Est: TPS / ABSAT-

Haute-Qualité de Réception - garantie 10 ans

Plus d'infos ?

129.00 €

(846.29 FF)

référence article

[Martin963]

To be honest,  pondering it as the rain pours down on Devon,  as you have migrated to Canalsat already the dish you have can be used for the TNT par sat box.   As this is the case I'd simply go out and buy an €80 bog-standard dish-and-digital-box package and set that up on Astra 2,  assuming you have the space on a wall.   Cheaper than a Visiosat.  Then you just need the €139 TNTparsat box for the existing dish and possibly a SCART selector box and you're <<chez toi et sec>>.

[odile]

thought this thread would compare UK and French TV. UK TV is far far superior, or at least has been until recently- with too many voyeuristic reality shows. Let's hope the BBC will continue to produce amazingly high quality series, documentaries, etc. And even the advertising in the UK is of far greater quality, satyrical, funny, compared to the 'OMO lave plus blanc' style. And I shall never get used to watching great British film dubbed in French - unbearable. Hope (for once) some of you will agree with me!

[cooperlola]

About the only French programmes I watch (apart from the news) are British or US series dubbed into French, and that mostly to improve my language skills!

But the French commentary on Motors TV is invariably better than the English version, where the presenters talk about anything but what's going on in the race.[:@]

Sorry to go off topic Hereford, but I couldn't resist.  Odile, maybe this is a discussion for another thread?

[Hereford]

Thanks for all these answers.  Our thought was that perhaps two dishes is the simplest!  We have room on our chimney which is already disfigured by one dish so cannot really be worse with two! 

Not sure about €80 box + dish offers though. Our local "Expert" sells the box for around €100 but dish etc is extra,. They have an advertising leaflet with a list of the UK programmes you can get!  Where else should we look - does anyone know please?

To answer re programmes:  we did not really want Uk tv as we are not great tv watchers but are fed up with no English language entertainment channel on Canalsat (we used on TPS to get BBC Prime).  We are paying €26.90 a month to watch a little French tv (quizzes to improve our listening skills) and BBC World for news. This we object to..

Thanks again, especially to Martinwatkins.

H.

[cooperlola]

http://www.astra2d.com/freesat.htm

Click on EPG listings in the first section, for a full list of channels.

[Gyn_Paul]

Hereford, you rather imply that you would be getting-a-man-in, as opposed to doing-it-yourself.

In which case you are stuck with the cost option you outlined. However if you *are* up to it, you will find that somewhere like Brico Depot (for example) sell 80cm dishes and perfectly suitable free-to-air digital receiver boxes for well under the 100 Euros mark for them both. Not only free UK TV, but gazillions of radio stations as well.

Personally, on a scale of loss, I'd lose French TV with hardly a shrug (true, my language would suffer a bit), then UK TV would go, accompanied by a few tears (much more work would be done around the place however), and only *very* reluctantly would I part with the radio channels. Access to Radio 4 was one of our guiding principles when we looked for somewhere to live: this was before satellite, of course. And now it's available online it's less of an issue, but even so, I'd hate to think of it not being on Astra.

paul

[Hereford]

We insist on radio 4 too!  Just about to get a laptop for use when cricket on radio 4 longwave - aaaah.  Our computer is in a study above the (totally separate) garage so cannot listen from there into the house. 

No question of doing it ourselves, the house is quite tall and no way are either of us going up there.  In any case it would be hard to find any two people quite so untechnological. (We are accountants so that says a lot...).

Only one, final question: why the statement about TNT box and charge lasting for "at least 3 years"? Is this because it will be switched off then or just change please?

Thanks

H.

[Martin963]

You should get four years out of a TNTparSat box from the moment you put the card into the slot.

The reason - bouquet operators who are reliant on encryption have to "keep moving" in order to keep piracy at bay.   This is where TPS went so hopelessly wrong,   they didin't issue new cards to go with their proprietary boxes in more than eight years and their system (Viacess then TPScrypt) was wide open.

Canalsat have kept very quiet about any sort of guarantee as to what happens at the end of the four years,   but with more than half a million boxes already sold I'd be amazed if they didn't arrange for cards to be re-issued in some way.     But it's not definite....

[Thebiga]

Sorry to go off thread slightly, But the sat dishes and boxes you find as a pack in the brico's can these pick up free to air uk or are they only capable of picking up french tv.

[Tim]

If the boxes are digital they should be able to made to work on the fre to air UK channels - BBC etc - I've done a few for friends over the last few years.

Some of the packs still available are for the French analogue so don't make a mistake and get one of those as I saw a chap about to do in a brico a while ago.

Tim

[Fridgeman]

Hi Hereford

Where abouts are you, I may be able to help.

 

 

[Hereford]

Fridgeman:  We have pm'd you.

H.

[babcock]

Can one of you intelligent bods please confirm or correct my understanding of our sat dish situation.

We have UK freeview from one dish which I believe is set up on Astra2

We have another dish which received TPS. It was already on the (high) chimney and the installer did not fancy going up and moving it. This I think will be pointing at Hotbird 13° E. I believe that TNT uses Astra 1 19°E as TPS/canal+ will do by the end of the year. Does this mean that it is unusable for receiving TNT ?

 

 

[Martin963]

In essence yes.   To be strictly accurate,  your Astra 2 dish picks up free to air channels from Britain,  "freeview" is something else.   But I split hairs!

Your old TPS dish is indeed pointing at Hotbird at 13 deg E and unless you were "migrated" by Canalsat to Astra 1 it will still be pointing at Hotbird (and you'd know,  someone would have gone up on the roof!)

So sadly,  it's no good (at the moment) for TNTparSat.

Don't forget however that conventional TNT is broadcast by ordinary UHF terrestrial transmitters,  and provided you live within an area which has been activated then a conventional roof aerial (un rateau UHF) will pick it up,  using an ordinary (non sat) TNT receiver.

However,  it depends on where you live and how good a signal you get from the transmitter concerned.

If you need further help please ask!

http://www.tnt-gratuite.fr/carte.aspx

http://www.matnt.tdf.fr/sources/mapview.php?rnd=8254871