football on Astra/Hotbird??

[suiko]

Apologies for posting what I'm sure has been posted a thousand times before, but I'm thinking of getting a cheapish (about £200) system for receiving foreign TV. I already have Freeview.

My main motivation is football. From what I can see there's football available on Hotbird on RAI, but not much else. I'm interested in Spanish, Italian or English football mostly, but anything else too (within reason!) Speak these languages well.

Thanks!

 

[Satslut]

Apologies for posting what I'm sure has been posted a thousand times before, but I'm thinking of getting a cheapish (about £200) system for receiving foreign TV. I already have Freeview.

My main motivation is football. From what I can see there's football available on Hotbird on RAI, but not much else. I'm interested in Spanish, Italian or English football mostly, but anything else too (within reason!) Speak these languages well.

Thanks!

On hotbird the SKY ITALIA sports channels are encrypted with NDS, so forget them, they do however screen some footie on other channels.
MULTIVISION on TPS show footie on the weekends, some UK matches.
The Spanish matches are shown on Taquilla and C+ desporte on Astra 19 degrees so best thing you could do is go motorised with an H to h motor and have it all.

 

[T_G]

Yep, what Sats*** is saying is correct. What seems to be popular is a dreambox with a motor, but there are many other receivers you could use.A DB 5620 cost less than 200 squid, and you can get a motor for about 42 quid. Dishes are quite cheap as well in case you need to get one.
Have a read through the stuff in the Dreambox section, there are a couple of threads with prices.

 

[Rob]

If it's a nice cheap little sat system your after check out E-Bay and see what they have on offer.
Sometimes you can pick up a complete system for about £100-150, worth a look.

 

[suiko]

Yes, I knew I wouldn't get to see Sky for free! But surely Canal + is also on a subscription basis only? I must say I find all this techno stuff a real turn-off - I've got a guy who says he'll put a dish + receiver in + set it up for about £200 - what else will I get with the dreambox + motor? Not really interested in ebay - too much hassle and dodgy experiences previously!

 

[Satslut]

Yes, I knew I wouldn't get to see Sky for free! But surely Canal + is also on a subscription basis only? I must say I find all this techno stuff a real turn-off - I've got a guy who says he'll put a dish + receiver in + set it up for about £200 - what else will I get with the dreambox + motor? Not really interested in ebay - too much hassle and dodgy experiences previously!

You can use which ever receiver + motor you like, but to be safe it needs to have at least 1 slot to take a cam (CI slot) and have diseq control (method used to control dish motors via the signal coax cable).
Everybody has a favourite box, mine is Technomate or Force, but you will have to decide which is best for you. All I suggest is that you read as much as you can understand and ask all those you know with systems about theirs. With this type of system you will get all the football you want. By the way the word "subscription" is a swear word.

 

[T_G]

Another thing Suiko: It will take time to get started with all that. One way of getting started is even cheaper: Get yourself an SS2 TV card, and a motor+dish. That way you can start to watch football and learn about the whole disecq and motor stuff. There is a way of connecting your TV to the computer, so you might watch football through your computer on your TV. (more info on that you can find in the PC card forum.
This is what I did some time ago. Once I felt confident I bought a dreambox...The SS2 card is still in, useful for recording stuff...

 

[suiko]

God, thought of myself as a technophobe, but I must say all this is putting me off. Presumably what my bloke is proposing for £200-£250 doesn't include all this stuff (motor, card...)?

 

[T_G]

I am not sure. But again: An SG 2100 cost about 59 Euros on ebay. Dishes are pretty cheap as well, I for instance found a brand new 1.2 for less than 50 Euros, you just got to be looking in E bay.... An SS2 card is available from about 47 Euros, but cheaper can be bought on e bay. Then you need a bit of cable and there you go, free premiership football....Don't give up without trying.

 

[wolsty]

Have a look at this site: http://www.kooora.com. It will show you what football is available on all satellites. Most transmissions are in encrypted format. A few are free to air. You'll be able to work oout which channels can be opened with existing card/cam/patch combinations. Then you can decide what hardware you need.

I have a patched Hummy 5400 with a 1.1 metre Triax on a DiSeqC motor. With a bit of planning I can usually find my Manchester United game each weekend, although the commentary might be in Polish, French or other European language. Total cost of setup is about 150 UK pounds for the dish/motor plus whatever a patched Hummy costs nowadays. A cheaper option for Astra/Hotbird is to mount two LNB's on the same dish. The satellites are close enough and the signals are strong enough to allow you to receive both on a fixed mount.

 

[suiko]

That's what "my man" is intending to install, a dish to recieve Astra + Hotbird. So then I need a card of some sort?

 

[suiko]

Nice site! But how do I know what card/patch etc I need?

 

[T_G]

Nice site! But how do I know what card/patch etc I need?

If you get a dreambox, you don't need a card. All you need is to download a new "improved" program, and most of those have automatic downloading of keys etc from the internet directly.

If you want to know more read the Idiot Guide at the beginning of the dreambox section.

 

[suiko]

Thanks again! But does the dreambox need to be connected to a computer? If so, it isn't much good for me as my PC's on the other side of the house.

Or maybe what I need is an Idiot's Idiot's Guide....

 

[suiko]

I notice the dreambox 500 is much cheaper than the 7000 - so what are the advantages of the 7000?

 

[T_G]

Thanks again! But does the dreambox need to be connected to a computer? If so, it isn't much good for me as my PC's on the other side of the house.

Or maybe what I need is an Idiot's Idiot's Guide....

Lets say it this way: If the dreambox is not connected to the computer you could go and connect it every tim,e you need an update by taking it to the computer. But this is a very unsatisfying way of doing it. Maybe a wireless LAN connection woul dbe what you need. There is a guide that Stick wrote about this, have a look there. Very elegant solution...

 

[suiko]

Thanks - do you have a link? Or alternately, how about these encryption card thingies?

 

[suiko]

I think the LAN solution means another phone line, no? Sort of like broadband? I have a painfully slow Internet connection and don't really want to spend money on this, so maybe I should forget about the encrypted channels (but then that doesn't leave much?) Or are there any cards available?

 

[T_G]

The link is in the Dreambox section , one of the sticky posts at the beginning.
If you have questions about this why don't you start a new thread there in the Dreambox section?
And no, I don't think you need an extra phone line. As far as I know it is a wireless connection between your computer and your dreambox. If your computer is connected to the dreambox then whenever you go online you could play.

And just to keep you relaxed: I have a 56K modem, what I do is I download the really large image files at work and put them on a USB stick, and then at home I transfer it to the computer and into dreambox. The keys and EMU stuff is not very large, these I download direclty. Only takes a few.