nova in edinburgh,scotland

[martini5]

Hi guys, so far this forum seem fantastic!
i've got a bit of a long post so please be patient.

I'm 21 years old, my father is Greek. I visit for for a month every summer but unfortunately that is when sport is at a minimum!)(-red
I'm a huge fan of Greece and Panathinaikos and am desperate to gain access to Nova in order to watch all the games live.
I first looked into it a couple of months ago but was dubious as i couldn't access enough informative information, now i hope i can! I gathered it would cost in the region of 600-800 sterling for a 12-13month prepaid subscription, quotes from various sellers on ebay! i don't believe this to be too outrages as i currently subscribe to sky and costs me just under 50 a month. If nova was to cost lets say 600 it works out an a par!
However i would like to know what a good dish and set top box would set me back??
Furthermore in another thread i read that the quality is not too great?? is it not a digital feed similar to sky? indeed, in comparison to sky how is the quality??
Finally, where is best to purchase the card, dish, box and what roughly do you think supply time would be?
Anyway any help would be much appreciated. thanks a lot!

 

[Analoguesat]

The best place to get the card from is Greece next time you are visiting - if you source the card in the uk you are always paying the middle man cut as well.

 

[Topper]

The best place to get the card from is Greece next time you are visiting - if you source the card in the uk you are always paying the middle man cut as well.

As is often the case their cut is substantial, follow AS's advice and buy in Greece

 

[martini5]

cheers guys, lets say i get someone in my family to purchase the card from Greece next week, is its simply just a case of them sending it to me, and me then purchasing a box and dish and getting started?

 

[Topper]

As long as you have got a south facing wall to mount the dish on should be a piece of cake, and we are all here to help however I suggest you read the Howto's in the dish setup section

 

[martini5]

thanks a lot, been very helpful. I'm going to get on the case this weekend!! 2 last quick questions, is it better for me to get the box, remote and dish direct from nova when subscribed for in Greece?? lastly is it a digital satellite as is sky in the UK? its appears so on the nova site but i'm unsure if that changes when used in the UK? cheers

 

[kitsi80]

I have recently completed what you are trying to achieve after starting as a complete 'know nothing' in the satellite world. About 3 years ago we got the details of a local installer out of the yellow pages and mentioned we wanted to access greek channels. He set the dish and box to receive all channels from hotbird, however we didn't realise until the equipment was installed that most are scrambled so our equipment has laid doing not much for 3 years. My mother-in-law is visiting for a few months so we decided to take this opportunity to purchase a subscription to NOVA. The card came on Saturday and works perfectly - the card was on order for a month.

We did need to buy a CAM though so make sure you buy a box that can accomdate a NOVA card without a CAM to save on the additional expense. We bought the card from a dealer in the UK but as mentioned above it is alot cheaper to buy the card in Greece but as a complete novice I was concerned that we have help here in case it did not work. Next time we will definetly buy through family in Greece, but I am led to believe that you should not inform NOVA you will be using the card abroad as they will not provide it to you - i.e. give a Greek billing address.

Cannot really comment on quality as not had Sky.

Good luck

 

[DonnyGuy]

I've had Nova for quite some time and I did the following:

1. During a trip to Greece, I went into a Γερμανός (Germanos) store and bought a Nova pack which contained the decoder, remote, and a Nova Smart card. I paid 129€ at the time, now it costs 99€.

They sell this pack (everything except the dish) and it's aimed at people who already have a dish. They aslo sell another pack (slightly more expensive) which includes the dish but I don't see the airline letting you take a satellite dish as hand luggage.

2. When checking out at Germanos, they have Nova contracts to sign, you need a Greek billing address. The contract just has to be completed before you can activate the Nova smart card. It just states you accept their terms and conditions.

3. Upon returning to the UK, I called a local fitter who came and installed a dish pointing to Hotbird 13 degrees East.

4. Connected the box and it tuned into the channels but of course they were scrambled.

5. Called Nova in Athens and activated the card, gave them my name, Greek address details and the number from the top of the contract I signed in store and my credit card details.

It was active within 5 minutes and they take the payment of 57€ automatically from my card each month.

They've even gave me a month free recently inline with a promotion they had running.

 

[martini5]

I've had Nova for quite some time and I did the following:

1. During a trip to Greece, I went into a Γερμανός (Germanos) store and bought a Nova pack which contained the decoder, remote, and a Nova Smart card. I paid 129€ at the time, now it costs 99€.

They sell this pack (everything except the dish) and it's aimed at people who already have a dish. They aslo sell another pack (slightly more expensive) which includes the dish but I don't see the airline letting you take a satellite dish as hand luggage.

2. When checking out at Germanos, they have Nova contracts to sign, you need a Greek billing address. The contract just has to be completed before you can activate the Nova smart card. It just states you accept their terms and conditions.

3. Upon returning to the UK, I called a local fitter who came and installed a dish pointing to Hotbird 13 degrees East.

4. Connected the box and it tuned into the channels but of course they were scrambled.

5. Called Nova in Athens and activated the card, gave them my name, Greek address details and the number from the top of the contract I signed in store and my credit card details.

It was active within 5 minutes and they take the payment of 57€ automatically from my card each month.

They've even gave me a month free recently inline with a promotion they had running.

Thanks very much for your info. I'm actually leaving for Greece in 10 days, I will be out there for a couple of months but will be looking to subscribe to nova for sure before i come back. I know the shop (germanos) you speak of, did you cover up the fact you would be taking nova back to the UK with you? When you called them to unscarmble the channels did they make you do anything technical while on the phone? I.e go the the menu, push 5 etc... Reason i'm asking is my Greek is pretty poor and I'd probably get someone from my family in Athens to call them. You think this will be fine? Cheers

 

[HB13DISH]

Thanks very much for your info. I'm actually leaving for Greece in 10 days, I will be out there for a couple of months but will be looking to subscribe to nova for sure before i come back. I know the shop (germanos) you speak of, did you cover up the fact you would be taking nova back to the UK with you? When you called them to unscarmble the channels did they make you do anything technical while on the phone? I.e go the the menu, push 5 etc... Reason i'm asking is my Greek is pretty poor and I'd probably get someone from my family in Athens to call them. You think this will be fine? Cheers

If you get a satellite dish setup in the UK, you will see all the encrypted channels (black screen) and few FTA channels like the mosaic promo.
You can then try to get the card activated few days before your journey home.
Just insert it in a box with an irdeto cam and then call them up and get it activated.
This way you can see that you don't have any problems and you lose just few days worth of subscription, which might be just the cost of international telephone calls.
When you are back in the UK, just insert it in your already made setup.

 

[DonnyGuy]

Thanks very much for your info. I'm actually leaving for Greece in 10 days, I will be out there for a couple of months but will be looking to subscribe to nova for sure before i come back. I know the shop (germanos) you speak of, did you cover up the fact you would be taking nova back to the UK with you? When you called them to unscarmble the channels did they make you do anything technical while on the phone? I.e go the the menu, push 5 etc... Reason i'm asking is my Greek is pretty poor and I'd probably get someone from my family in Athens to call them. You think this will be fine? Cheers

I didn't tell anyone that I was planning on using it in the UK. When filling out the contract form in Germanos, I just used my cousins address, the same when I spoke to Nova to activate the card.

The contract in Germanos is in Greek so take someone with you if you need help. Also take your passport with you if you don't have a Greek id card (I'm pretty sure they needed to see it).

Don't activate the card before you're ready to use it because (1) you'd be paying for something you're not using and (2) they asked me over the phone if the card was in the box before sending the signal to activate it.

Just as a sidenote, when you call Nova, they do have an option for English so you could set this up yourself without the need for Greek. When speaking to them, they'll take your credit card details (for the recurring payment), the number from the smart card and also the number of your decoder (it's on a label) if you do what I do and buy their own branded equipment.

I hope this helps, feel free to ask if I've missed anything

 

[martini5]

I didn't tell anyone that I was planning on using it in the UK. When filling out the contract form in Germanos, I just used my cousins address, the same when I spoke to Nova to activate the card.

The contract in Germanos is in Greek so take someone with you if you need help. Also take your passport with you if you don't have a Greek id card (I'm pretty sure they needed to see it).

Don't activate the card before you're ready to use it because (1) you'd be paying for something you're not using and (2) they asked me over the phone if the card was in the box before sending the signal to activate it.

Just as a sidenote, when you call Nova, they do have an option for English so you could set this up yourself without the need for Greek. When speaking to them, they'll take your credit card details (for the recurring payment), the number from the smart card and also the number of your decoder (it's on a label) if you do what I do and buy their own branded equipment.

I hope this helps, feel free to ask if I've missed anything

Thats absolutely superb mate, most helpful. I will be purchasing for sure, looks like you've covered all that i was unsure about. i'll no doubt end up posting some daft questions after i've purchased everything! Thanks again

 

[EllasDevil]

Did you purchase the system in Greece? I noticed on commercials that they dropped the price to only 49€ this summer for the digibox and card.