[mythtv-users] [UK Question] Fed up with Sky!

[Charles Mason]

Just one thing to note. When you are reading about FreeSat (the
satellite equivalent of Freeview) there in fact two FreeSats.

FreeSat is a trade mark of one of the group behind Freeview (BBC, ITV,
Channel5 and Five). They are planning to launch a service very much
like Freeview on satellite, with all the consumer friendly info that
Freeview currently has. In reality its the Free To Air satellite
channels, just neatly packaged. The technology is the same. Not sure
what will happen with Channel 4 / Five.

In the mean time Sky decided to counter this and launched FreeSat from
Sky (how there's not a law suit I don't know). But basically its the
same as the planned official FreeSat, but sky does the install and
sells you the hardware. And no doubt asks you if your really sure you
wouldn't like a Sky subscription. With that, they provide you a
viewing card for the Free To View channels.

Of course if you use a DVB-S card and MythTV you will also get BBC HD,
assuming your TV can handle HD.

If you can't get Freeview post switch over you will unfortunately not
be able to get Channel 4 / Five. However they seem fairly committed to
switch to Free to Air on satellite so unless you live in the Borders
that will probably happen before switch over.

Charlie M