FreeSat PVR - recommendations please

[David]

Considering ditching the Virgin Media TV service.
The total cost of the package is now over £100 per month.

We have FreeSat which we use upstairs with two old Humax boxes.
Pricing up installing a FreeSat recorder in the lounge to replace the Tivo
box.

Does anyone have any recommendations?
It feels as though FreeSat may be going out of fashion with streaming
being available for nearly all media.

Cheers



Dave R

[David]

Post by David
Considering ditching the Virgin Media TV service.
The total cost of the package is now over £100 per month.
We have FreeSat which we use upstairs with two old Humax boxes.
Pricing up installing a FreeSat recorder in the lounge to replace the
Tivo box.
Does anyone have any recommendations?
It feels as though FreeSat may be going out of fashion with streaming
being available for nearly all media.

Sigh.
Looks as though FreeSat own brand is all there is on offer.
No discounts anywhere.
Which is probably not a surprise for a market monopoly product.

Cheers



Dave R

[alan_m]

Post by David

Post by David
Considering ditching the Virgin Media TV service.
The total cost of the package is now over £100 per month.
We have FreeSat which we use upstairs with two old Humax boxes.
Pricing up installing a FreeSat recorder in the lounge to replace the
Tivo box.
Does anyone have any recommendations?
It feels as though FreeSat may be going out of fashion with streaming
being available for nearly all media.

Sigh.
Looks as though FreeSat own brand is all there is on offer.
No discounts anywhere.
Which is probably not a surprise for a market monopoly product.

There are third party boxes and open source software

Check out Enigma 2 boxes from World of Satellite. Not all boxes are
Enigma 2 in the following link but there are ten different manufacturers
with different specifications at different price points

https://www.world-of-satellite.co.uk/satellite-and-terrestrial/digital-receivers

Check out Openvix - Uk freesat/freeview well supported.

https://www.openvix.co.uk/

The software is well mature, written by hobbyist with a fairly active
user on-line community.

There is similar open source software for these boxes.

[Andy Burns]

Post by David
Looks as though FreeSat own brand is all there is on offer.
No discounts anywhere.

I use a linux PC with DVB-S2/DVB-T2 tuner card, that arrangement might
not be suited to everyone, but I know that the 7-day EPG is usable on
non-official receivers/recorders ... e.g.

<https://www.satellitesuperstore.com/receivers.htm>

[Jeff Gaines]

Post by David
Looks as though FreeSat own brand is all there is on offer.
No discounts anywhere.

I use a linux PC with DVB-S2/DVB-T2 tuner card, that arrangement might not
be suited to everyone, but I know that the 7-day EPG is usable on
non-official receivers/recorders ... e.g.
<https://www.satellitesuperstore.com/receivers.htm>

I am thinking about something similar, could be Linux or Windows.

Is there a way to control a home media server with a remote control or is
it down to a wireless keyboard & mouse?

I do have an app on my tablet but it is quite crude. When MSFT was pushing
its media centre they were available but may have died out?

[Woody]

Post by Jeff Gaines

Post by Andy Burns

Post by David
Looks as though FreeSat own brand is all there is on offer.
No discounts anywhere.

I use a linux PC with DVB-S2/DVB-T2 tuner card, that arrangement might
not be suited to everyone, but I know that the 7-day EPG is usable on
non-official receivers/recorders ... e.g.
<https://www.satellitesuperstore.com/receivers.htm>

I am thinking about something similar, could be Linux or Windows.
Is there a way to control a home media server with a remote control or
is it down to a wireless keyboard & mouse?
I do have an app on my tablet but it is quite crude. When MSFT was
pushing its media centre they were available but may have died out?

Have a look in your local Cash Converters - they often have Manhattan
Freesat receivers and recorders at silly cheap prices. They are
inexpensive and actually work very well.

[NY]

Post by Jeff Gaines

Post by Andy Burns

Post by David
Looks as though FreeSat own brand is all there is on offer.
No discounts anywhere.

I use a linux PC with DVB-S2/DVB-T2 tuner card, that arrangement might
not be suited to everyone, but I know that the 7-day EPG is usable on
non-official receivers/recorders ... e.g.
<https://www.satellitesuperstore.com/receivers.htm>

I am thinking about something similar, could be Linux or Windows.
Is there a way to control a home media server with a remote control or
is it down to a wireless keyboard & mouse?
I do have an app on my tablet but it is quite crude. When MSFT was
pushing its media centre they were available but may have died out?

My setup is probably not the simplest. I record programmes temporarily
to a hard disk on the Pi, which is shared as \\pi\recordings so it is
accessible on the network using Samba (SMB protocol). I can access this
using VLC on an Android phone or tablet, but I tend to use a package on
Windows called VideoReDo which allows me to edit out continuity and
commercials and I keep the edited recordings on a Windows PC. I watch a
lot of programmes on a Windows PC (I could alternatively use tablet or
Linux) and we also have a Roku box on the TV which can access the
recordings using Plex server package running on the Windows "TV server".

I'm sure I could do it in a simpler way, but this setup has evolved. It
works well for me. It would probably be horrendous for many other people!

It is a shame that AFAIK there isn't a Roku package which can directly
read and decode .ts files (MPEG for SD or H264 for HD) from a Samba
share; instead Plex is needed on the "server" which uses a lot of
processing power to transcode the recordings on the fly into whatever
format the Plex client on Roku is expecting: when watching an HD
programme, I can hear the CPU cooling fan of my PC whirring away as it
tries to keep the CPU cool :-(

[Andy Burns]

Post by Jeff Gaines
Is there a way to control a home media server with a remote control or
is it down to a wireless keyboard & mouse?
I do have an app on my tablet but it is quite crude. When MSFT was
pushing its media centre they were available but may have died out?

MCE remotes still seem to be available, the problem may be more about
getting an IR/RF receiver for the PC? Previously they would come
onboard the tuner card, and have an "eye" on a 2.5mm jack plug.

[NY]

Post by David

Post by David
Considering ditching the Virgin Media TV service.
The total cost of the package is now over £100 per month.
We have FreeSat which we use upstairs with two old Humax boxes.
Pricing up installing a FreeSat recorder in the lounge to replace the
Tivo box.
Does anyone have any recommendations?
It feels as though FreeSat may be going out of fashion with streaming
being available for nearly all media.

Sigh.
Looks as though FreeSat own brand is all there is on offer.
No discounts anywhere.
Which is probably not a surprise for a market monopoly product.

If you have the knowledge, you could do what I've done: a Freesat and
Freeview PVR using a Raspberry Pi, USB DVB-S and DVB-T tuners and
TVHeadend software.

It works very well.

Rather geeky user-interface, not exactly a "ten-foot interface" that you
get with proprietary PVRs (ie designed to be used by someone who is ten
feet away from the screen on the other side of the room, using a simple
remote control), but I'm OK with that.


It allows access to all ITV regions (useful if I want to watch an
out-of-region local news), rather than being tied to the region of your
postcode as with true Freesat.

[Andy Burns]

Post by NY
TVHeadend software.
It works very well.
Rather geeky user-interface, not exactly a "ten-foot interface" that you
get with proprietary PVRs (ie designed to be used by someone who is ten
feet away from the screen on the other side of the room, using a simple
remote control), but I'm OK with that.

You can use an Android device as a friendlier front-end ...

[David]

Post by NY

Post by David

Post by David
Considering ditching the Virgin Media TV service.
The total cost of the package is now over £100 per month.
We have FreeSat which we use upstairs with two old Humax boxes.
Pricing up installing a FreeSat recorder in the lounge to replace the
Tivo box.
Does anyone have any recommendations?
It feels as though FreeSat may be going out of fashion with streaming
being available for nearly all media.

Sigh.
Looks as though FreeSat own brand is all there is on offer.
No discounts anywhere.
Which is probably not a surprise for a market monopoly product.

If you have the knowledge, you could do what I've done: a Freesat and
Freeview PVR using a Raspberry Pi, USB DVB-S and DVB-T tuners and
TVHeadend software.
It works very well.
Rather geeky user-interface, not exactly a "ten-foot interface" that you
get with proprietary PVRs (ie designed to be used by someone who is ten
feet away from the screen on the other side of the room, using a simple
remote control), but I'm OK with that.
It allows access to all ITV regions (useful if I want to watch an
out-of-region local news), rather than being tied to the region of your
postcode as with true Freesat.

Loads of useful information in the responses.
However the FreeSat box also supports 4k and I wonder if any of the
available tuners for integration with PCs have that support.

My impression was that tuner hardware stopped development some time back
due to a shrinking market.

Cheers



Dave R

[Andy Burns]

Post by David
the FreeSat box also supports 4k and I wonder if any of the
available tuners for integration with PCs have that support.

Tuners doesn't know or care whether the programs are SD, HD or UHD.

Before the Astra and SES UHD test channels were removed I could watch
them ...

[NY]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by David
the FreeSat box also supports 4k and I wonder if any of the
available tuners for integration with PCs have that support.

Tuners doesn't know or care whether the programs are SD, HD or UHD.
Before the Astra and SES UHD test channels were removed I could watch
them ...

My DVB-S2 tuner could receive the SES test transmissions on 12442 MHz
which were almost-4K (*) - 2x HD in each direction, so 3840x2160. Sadly
those tests (loops of promotional videos - pop concerts, waterskiers,
aerial views of waterfalls etc) stopped a coupe of months ago.

AFAIK all the other 4K transmissions are encrypted and so you need a
card and a subscription. I've not gone down that route.


(*) The official definition of 4K, at least for cinema films rather than
TV programmes, is apparently a very slightly higher definition in one
direction, maybe to support a wider aspect ratio than 16:9. I got told
off in a newsgroup for referring to the TV version as being "4K" ;-)

[Andy Burns]

I got told off in a newsgroup for referring to the TV version as being "4K"

Hence I called them UHD, rather than 4K ...

[NY]

Post by Andy Burns

I got told off in a newsgroup for referring to the TV version as being "4K"

Hence I called them UHD, rather than 4K ...

Very wise! Half the problem is that many TVs etc use "4K" to refer to
the UHD resolution. It's a great shame that TV and movie couldn't have
agreed on a common format, even if pixels might be stretched slightly.

Resizing 4096 × 2160 to 3840 × 2160, when a cinema film is shown on TV,
might produce nasty artifacts for detail at a certain spacing.

I remember from when I wrote some image-processing software once that
the resizing algorithms tend to produce worst results when you resize an
image to be only a few pixels larger or smaller than the original, in
terms of blurring and repetitive anomalies if there is detail which
reoccurs at exactly the wrong spacing. I imagine some algorithms are
worse than others for this.

Interesting that the Wikipedia article refers to both resolutions as 4K,
qualifying both resolutions: "4K UHD" and "DCI 4K", rather than avoiding
the use of "4K" altogether for the TV resolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4K_resolution.

Are there any commonly-used terms to describe resolutions such as
544x576 (as opposed to 720x576 or 704x576) and 1440x1080 (as opposed to
1920x1080). I tend to call them "sub-SD" and "sub-HD". Sub-SD is used by
some of the lower-budget Freeview channels such as Drama, Yesterday and
Talking Pictures TV. Sub-HD seems to be used for some channels in the USA.

[alan_m]

Post by David

Post by NY

Post by David

Post by David
Considering ditching the Virgin Media TV service.
The total cost of the package is now over £100 per month.
We have FreeSat which we use upstairs with two old Humax boxes.
Pricing up installing a FreeSat recorder in the lounge to replace the
Tivo box.
Does anyone have any recommendations?
It feels as though FreeSat may be going out of fashion with streaming
being available for nearly all media.

Sigh.
Looks as though FreeSat own brand is all there is on offer.
No discounts anywhere.
Which is probably not a surprise for a market monopoly product.

If you have the knowledge, you could do what I've done: a Freesat and
Freeview PVR using a Raspberry Pi, USB DVB-S and DVB-T tuners and
TVHeadend software.
It works very well.
Rather geeky user-interface, not exactly a "ten-foot interface" that you
get with proprietary PVRs (ie designed to be used by someone who is ten
feet away from the screen on the other side of the room, using a simple
remote control), but I'm OK with that.
It allows access to all ITV regions (useful if I want to watch an
out-of-region local news), rather than being tied to the region of your
postcode as with true Freesat.

Loads of useful information in the responses.
However the FreeSat box also supports 4k and I wonder if any of the
available tuners for integration with PCs have that support.
My impression was that tuner hardware stopped development some time back
due to a shrinking market.

Most (all?) the Enigma2 boxes latest models are 4k. A few boxes have
Full Band Capture (FBC) satellite tuners, either fixed or plug in tuners
modules that have dual inputs but with effectively 8 tuners in total.
This means with a unicable LNB you can simultaneously tune into 8
satellite transponder and with running something like Openvix (which is
free) you can record a minimum of 8 programs whilst watching a recording.

Unicable LNBs can simultaneously send the information for typically 32
transponders down a single cable and with the use of cheap splitters
can feed 32 tuners/boxes.

Although well supported for the UK market third party boxes and
associated software (Enigma2/Openvix) is not limited to the UK market
and worldwide technology development moves on.

[Indy Jess John]

Post by David
Considering ditching the Virgin Media TV service.
The total cost of the package is now over £100 per month.
We have FreeSat which we use upstairs with two old Humax boxes.
Pricing up installing a FreeSat recorder in the lounge to replace the Tivo
box.
Does anyone have any recommendations?
It feels as though FreeSat may be going out of fashion with streaming
being available for nearly all media.
Cheers
Dave R

If you want a cheap and cheerful solution, I have been using a Manhattan
Freesat PVR for a long time. They are no longer available new but used
ones turn up now and again on ebay. Do a search on manhattan plaza
hdr-s and see what turns up. Used ones will normally have plenty of life
left in them.

As a standard they came with either a 320Gb or 500Gb disc, but I
experimented and you can replace the disc with any size up to 1Tb which
is what I am currently using in my box. It boots from a chip on the
motherboard, so the disc when you put it in doesn't need anything
pre-loaded onto it. You don't have to use the record function - you can
just watch the broadcast if you want to. To record, you need two
connections from your LNB.

The only thing to watch out for is using the "channel up" or "channel
down" functions. After each use, wait for both picture and sound to come
through on the next channel before using the key again or else the sound
changes to the next channel and the picture doesn't, and then you have
to turn the mains off for a minute or two to fix it.

Jim

[David]

Post by Indy Jess John

Post by David
Considering ditching the Virgin Media TV service.
The total cost of the package is now over £100 per month.
We have FreeSat which we use upstairs with two old Humax boxes.
Pricing up installing a FreeSat recorder in the lounge to replace the
Tivo box.
Does anyone have any recommendations?
It feels as though FreeSat may be going out of fashion with streaming
being available for nearly all media.
Cheers
Dave R

If you want a cheap and cheerful solution, I have been using a Manhattan
Freesat PVR for a long time. They are no longer available new but used
ones turn up now and again on ebay. Do a search on manhattan plaza
hdr-s and see what turns up. Used ones will normally have plenty of life
left in them.
As a standard they came with either a 320Gb or 500Gb disc, but I
experimented and you can replace the disc with any size up to 1Tb which
is what I am currently using in my box. It boots from a chip on the
motherboard, so the disc when you put it in doesn't need anything
pre-loaded onto it. You don't have to use the record function - you can
just watch the broadcast if you want to. To record, you need two
connections from your LNB.
The only thing to watch out for is using the "channel up" or "channel
down" functions. After each use, wait for both picture and sound to come
through on the next channel before using the key again or else the sound
changes to the next channel and the picture doesn't, and then you have
to turn the mains off for a minute or two to fix it.
Jim

Thanks.
"To record, you need two connections from your LNB."
This could be a problem.
I have a quad LNB with three ports in use, but I had other plans for the
fourth port.
Our two Humax boxes can record from a single connection (with the
restriction IIRC that you can watch and record as long as both programmes
are on the same ?mux?).
Also the cables were run in prior to the last round of building work so
running a new cable to that location could be a problem.

Cheers



Dave R

[Woody]

Post by David

Post by Indy Jess John

Post by David
Considering ditching the Virgin Media TV service.
The total cost of the package is now over £100 per month.
We have FreeSat which we use upstairs with two old Humax boxes.
Pricing up installing a FreeSat recorder in the lounge to replace the
Tivo box.
Does anyone have any recommendations?
It feels as though FreeSat may be going out of fashion with streaming
being available for nearly all media.
Cheers
Dave R

If you want a cheap and cheerful solution, I have been using a Manhattan
Freesat PVR for a long time. They are no longer available new but used
ones turn up now and again on ebay. Do a search on manhattan plaza
hdr-s and see what turns up. Used ones will normally have plenty of life
left in them.
As a standard they came with either a 320Gb or 500Gb disc, but I
experimented and you can replace the disc with any size up to 1Tb which
is what I am currently using in my box. It boots from a chip on the
motherboard, so the disc when you put it in doesn't need anything
pre-loaded onto it. You don't have to use the record function - you can
just watch the broadcast if you want to. To record, you need two
connections from your LNB.
The only thing to watch out for is using the "channel up" or "channel
down" functions. After each use, wait for both picture and sound to come
through on the next channel before using the key again or else the sound
changes to the next channel and the picture doesn't, and then you have
to turn the mains off for a minute or two to fix it.
Jim

Thanks.
"To record, you need two connections from your LNB."
This could be a problem.
I have a quad LNB with three ports in use, but I had other plans for the
fourth port.
Our two Humax boxes can record from a single connection (with the
restriction IIRC that you can watch and record as long as both programmes
are on the same ?mux?).
Also the cables were run in prior to the last round of building work so
running a new cable to that location could be a problem.

You could of course get an octo LNB?