Freesat HD and HD Ready TV

[admin_exported]

My question is, is it worth getting freesat for the HD content to view on a HD ready TV?

I have just got a Pana TH-37PX80B. As this is not full HD I was wondering if HD on freesat would give a big/small improvement in quality over the built in freeview.

I dont want subscription TV, so SKY, Cable is out of the question for me!

 

[John Duncan]

Where do you live? (Bear with me, I'm going somewhere with this..........)

 

[Anonymous]

Bolton in Lancashire (Winter Hill Transmitter area)!

 

[John Duncan]

OK - your only options for HD without subscription are Freesat and Freeview (I'm conveniently ignoring 'Freesat From Sky' since I don't know if it's HD). Winter Hill is set to switch to digital-only Oct/Nov 2009 - in which case this is the earliest possible date you would start receiving HD through Freeview, as bandwidth is freed up. Note my italics.

There is no guarantee when or if Freeview HD will happen, or at what bitrates it will be transmitted (the terrestrial spectrum is congested and finite). Freesat is transmitting HD now (only one channel, like, but ITV will follow shortly and Channel 4 and Five would, I speculate, join later in the year as their contracts with Sky expire).

So if you want free HD broadcasts (and I would, personally, having seen SD on your telly) and you want them now, Freesat would strike me as the way to go.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info John.

So I could wait until later in the year for freeview HD or get freesat now and wait for more HD channels to appear, hmmm!

You seem to be saying SD on this TV isnt very good. And even though my telly is "HD ready", are you saying HD broadcast over freesat or freeview would give an improvement in picture quality over SD?

 

[John Duncan]

I'm saying that SD broadcast isn't very good upscaled on any telly, tbh. The more HD content you can get, the happier you'll be, I expect. This is all dependent on viewing distance of course, and you may be fine with SD, but it doesn't bear close scrutiny.

 

[Raniator]

Sorry to go off on a slightly different angle here, but does anyone have any accurate release dates for recordable FreeSat HD boxes?

I'm keen to dip my toe into FreeSat, but it would make sense to wait and grab a PVR (is that the right abbr.?) HD box.

The FreeSat website has announced a couple of extra boxes will be available 'this weekend'... but makes no mention of any of them being recordable.

 

[nigpd]

All I have read so far is that Humax are due to have a Freesat PVR out in the next couple of months

 

[Anonymous]

We're currently testing the new boxes and waiting on an official launch date for the PVR versions from Humax...more on this as it happens!

 

[Raniator]

Excellent, that is exactly what I wanted to hear...

 

[PJ1200]

Me too!
I'm only holding off Freesat because of the PVR issue!
By the sounds of things (and maybe I'm reading too much into Richard's post) it will not be long before they are released!
Look forward to the review Richard!

 

[Raniator]

So how is the testing going guys?

Any news on a PVR box?

Now that Euro '08 has started and Wimbledon is on it's way (along with the rest of the HD content) I'm chewing my fingers off in anticipation of picking one up... we've got to be close, right?!