FreeSat and Sky reception

[CeeJay]

Please forgive my ignorance, but technical I ain't!

At the moment we have a Panasonic TV with FreeSat built in and a Sky box. When I want to watch the HD broadcasts on FreeSat I reconnect the lead from the dish to the Sky box to the television and vice versa. If I put in a splitter and connected both parts to the Sky box and the television could I receive the signals merely by switching to AV on the remote or TV?

Secondly I am in the market for a smaller TV for my little space I call an office. I would like to receive French television and FreeSat and Sky! Hedging my bets here for football! But at the moment the criteria is to get a set that receives both Secam and Pal, however, come the digital revolution is this relevant. If I get any old digital television and connect up a quad LNB to receive both Sky and FreeSat for the two televisions and also a terrestrial ariel with a TNT set top box just to connect up to the tv in my room, will this work. Therefore my question is really what standards should I be looking for in this second television, still PAL and SECAM, or a Digital standard.

Hope this makes sense, my brain hurts now!

[Martin963]

[quote user="CeeJay"]Please forgive my ignorance, but technical I ain't!

At the moment we have a Panasonic TV with FreeSat built in and a Sky box. When I want to watch the HD broadcasts on FreeSat I reconnect the lead from the dish to the Sky box to the television and vice versa. If I put in a splitter and connected both parts to the Sky box and the television could I receive the signals merely by switching to AV on the remote or TV?

Secondly I am in the market for a smaller TV for my little space I call an office. I would like to receive French television and FreeSat and Sky! Hedging my bets here for football! But at the moment the criteria is to get a set that receives both Secam and Pal, however, come the digital revolution is this relevant. If I get any old digital television and connect up a quad LNB to receive both Sky and FreeSat for the two televisions and also a terrestrial ariel with a TNT set top box just to connect up to the tv in my room, will this work. Therefore my question is really what standards should I be looking for in this second television, still PAL and SECAM, or a Digital standard.

Hope this makes sense, my brain hurts now!

[/quote]

To the first Q - not a simple splitter.   You might well end up with "expensive smoke".   You would ideally need to run a second cable up to the dish and instal a dual LNB. 

However....

You could buy a special switch which would split the feed,  and manually switch

from one to the other (but not both simultaneously) as required.    Make sure it's the right switch

for the job otherwise expensive smoke again - sat boxes do NOT like

finding another boxes' voltage already on the line

Or - if the TV has two satellite sockets  it's just possible one of them is an "IF out".   If you daisy chain that to the Sky LNB input then if you turn the Sky box OFF the TV should take control of the dish,  and when you turn the Sky box ON then it should seize control.   You can't do it the other way round,  I don't think Sky boxes EVER have an IF out.    DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS UNLESS YOU ARE CERTAIN that the socket concerned is an output.   Ask further here if necessary.  

SECAM becomes irrelevant once you move into the realm of TNT boxes.   If they do o/p SECAM you can always change it to PAL in the menus,   and most are PAL only in my experience.   In any case chances are that a good SCART lead will carry RGB/RVB (red green blue) signals,  and that really does obviate the SECAM problem.   SECAM is only still a problem for analogue roof aerial reception and analogue sat reception of French channels on Atlantic Bird 3.

If you can afford an HD TV (and most are anyway now) then it will have HDMi sockets on it,   and should have built in TNT HD as well.    In which case you can plug a Sky or freeat box in via Scart,  or if it's an HD box use an HDMi lead.

Please ask further if necessary.

!

[pachapapa]

Not on topic but a splitter can be used with a french TNT using a conventional UHF horizontally polarised antenna; only problem is a 6 db signal loss at the split.

[Martin963]

 Or even a vertically polarised UHF aerial.   (Well, some are,  even here in France).

[pachapapa]

True but rare; territoire de belfort springs to mind.

[CeeJay]

Martin

As ever, thanks for the comprehensive reply, just what I wanted.

My television has only one sat connection so the idea of splitting the Sky and FreeSat for me is a non starter, but at least the bogey of Secam and Pal has been laid to rest.

One other point I am not sure of, is it possible to buy a TV with built in TNT Sat, similar to English FreeSat TV's?

[Martin963]

No,  at least not at the moment (as far as I know).

Because both TNTsat and Fransat use encryption their respective providers seem not to be interested in over-liberalising the job of manufacturers in terms of licensing of the decryption hardware.   "freesat" - being free to air - is somewhat less of a problem.

[pachapapa]

I have a TV with three digital tuners; a TNT HD tuner; a Cable tuner; and a Free to Air HD tuner. The TV also has a card slot for Canal + subscription, in principle this could be used for TNTSAT or FranSat but this would cost something. As the 18 TNT channels + 4HD channels are available on terrestrial transmission at no extra cost, other than the "redevance", I cant see any reason to bother with Fransat et Al.

Incidentally the Sat HD Tuner has Disecq 1.2 capability and can navigate a motorised dish if required.

A great step forward I now have an empty shelf with Zero set top boxes.[:)]

[Martin963]

...  but you have adequate TNT terrestrial reception.

Probably near 1 million houses won't after switch-over (or only by spending a great deal of money upgrading their aerial supports) and Fransat/TNTsat is a far cheaper alternative than a man-on-a-roof-with-a-long-pole.

And great for those of us who want to take it outside l'Hexagone,   thus cocking a snook at those oh-so-precious rights holders.

At present I don't think Canalsat would sell you a CAM and TNTsat card for your set up.   They are deliberately very strict about this.

Horses for courses,   it'll be a pain when that all-in-one TV goes wrong.  

[pachapapa]

[quote user="Martin963"]...  but you have adequate TNT terrestrial reception.

Probably near 1 million houses won't after switch-over (or only by spending a great deal of money upgrading their aerial supports) and Fransat/TNTsat is a far cheaper alternative than a man-on-a-roof-with-a-long-pole.

And great for those of us who want to take it outside l'Hexagone,   thus cocking a snook at those oh-so-precious rights holders.

At present I don't think Canalsat would sell you a CAM and TNTsat card for your set up.   They are deliberately very strict about this.

Horses for courses,   it'll be a pain when that all-in-one TV goes wrong.  
[/quote]

It already was on fire up an 8 pixel wide vertical stationary trace on the screen; local Samsung SAV at Tours phoned me to push the guarantee claim forward indicating that they would pick up the faulty TV when the new "dalle" had arrived; nearly a month later there is no "dalle" in view; perhaps something to do with "just in time" inventory and tidal waves [:)]

The TV was manufactured in january 2011 in hungary.

If as the OP suggests Analogue was or is available then the same aerial will probably serve for TNT.

Last week I put up a 6 metre mast with an aerial purchased at a car boot, by myself, and aligned by eye with several existing aerials that have been there since I arrived in 1997; result perfect reeption after scanning of 57 channels. A quick check the next day using a couple of telephones showed that the sensitivity with regard to direction is of the order of 10° left and right before any serious degradation of the signal.

I feel that the future of Canal + reception is via the TNT network on the basis that only 22 of the 57 channels are not "brouillé".

In my own case with the Analogue Dish directed towards AB3, it was very simple to rig the TNT antenna on the same chimney at a much higher elevation and just swop the sat cable over. The TNT antenna even had the same IF screw connection.

[pachapapa]

Of course the TV apart from having an onboard DVB-T and DVB-S facility, it must also be what is called in french CANAL READY

http://static.lesoffrescanal.fr/canal_ready/listeTV.html.

[IMG]http://www.lcd-compare.com/images/pages/35/ciplus-triplette-tv.jpg[/IMG]

Lecteur de cartes intégré : PCMCIA, compatible CI+ (sécurisation du port PCMCIA) et Canal Ready
Explications sur le CI+ / Canal Ready

http://www.lcd-compare.com/tv-canal-ready-news-35.htm

I commend you to scroll down to the third section which, I think, covers the reception of Canal + via TNT.[:-))]

[Martin963]

Yes,   but the original question was about TNT reception (possibly by satellite),  not about Canalsat reception.

I still don't think you'll be able to buy a TV with integrated TNTsat (as opposed to integrated Canalsat).

Maybe I'm missing something,   we seem to keep being pushed off topic.

[Jako]

[quote user="pachapapa"]

 The TV also has a card slot for Canal + subscription, in principle this could be used for TNTSAT or FranSat but this would cost something.[/quote] Not in an official manner, TNTSAT and FRANSAT are only available on propriety boxes just like Sky UK.

[pachapapa]

[quote user="Jako"][quote user="pachapapa"]

 The TV also has a card slot for Canal + subscription, in principle this could be used for TNTSAT or FranSat but this would cost something.[/quote] Not in an official manner, TNTSAT and FRANSAT are only available on propriety boxes just like Sky UK.

[/quote]

In principle but not in practice; after all the "container" which slips into the PCMCIA slot is in fact a decoder compatible with the Viaccess, Irdeto,Mediaguard,Nagrivision, Conax, etc , etc card.

If TNTSAT or FRANSAT wished they could commission the manfacture of a CAM and CARD.

Off topic so last post!