FREESAT HD TV QUESTIONS STILL TO BE ANSWERED.

FREESAT QUESTIONS STILL TO BE ANSWERED BUT ARE STILL SKETCHY.

In reply to John overseas,
we have broken your answer down to three parts for easy answering and every readers benefit if they are curious.
Your first question, was similar to what we have been asked many times now, how many channels will FREESAT transmit? and the second part of the section of the question can you pick channels up from other satellites with the same FREESAT receiver?
Domain-Holdings answers;
The initial line up suggested there would be eighty (80) channels with at least eight (8) of them being High Definition (HD), this figure looks positive to rise.
Depending on the channel storage ability of the new HD FREESAT BOXES, in theory it could be motorised to pick up thousands and thousands of free channels and all for the price of a motor to fix behind your satellite dish, and at the moment in U.K. the motor is an extra £70.
Your second part is rather controversial, and that is will ex-pats or military personnel be able to buy a box and use it overseas as U.K. taxpayers.
Rather than go into politics we will answer the best we can, again for the many ex-pats and military personnel who will be in range of the satellite footprint.
It is already in the public domain that the new FREESAT HD BOX will have inside it architecture to make the FREESAT datastream invisible to other receivers, this is designed so that it will not interfere with the already millions of Sky boxes. To clarify this, as is known, the datastream will be transmitted from the satellite to both the new FREESAT boxes and the existing Sky boxes, the jury are still out whether new channels will be added only to the FREESAT HD BOX and not the Sky box as and when they are released and added.
We have read reports that the signal sent out by FREESAT will be up to three (3) times stronger than existing targeted satellite signal, this makes it obvious that awful weather will have little effect to the datastream.
Finally the cost options; at todays prices the costs are approx.
FREESAT TV HD BOX......likely to cost approx. £180
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Seperate motorised system;
Free to air satellite receiver.....prices from approx. £30 upwards(Maplin)
Satellite dish....price approx. £25
LNB (low noise block...for the centre of the dish)...price approx. £5
Coax cable (CT100 or RG6)...approx. 30 pence a mtre.
F-connectors...approx. 50 pence for two.
Fixing bolts for your dish...approx. £5
Satellite mtre....not compulsory...approx. £10

Hope this helps John and many others.