Hi everyone. this is my first post so please excuse any newbie lack of knowledge. I have a question. My friend moved into a house which has a TV with internal freesat plus a dish on the:confused roof but no digital ariel. He has a Humax freeview Fox PVR. Can anyone advise me if there is any way he can record Freesat programmes from the TV onto the Freeview hard drive of the Humax, or even some other form of external hard drive?
Simply trying to make use of his new Humax plus not having to wire a digital ariel to his roof and also trying to avoid having to purchase a Humax Freesat PVR.

No

Freeview works with aerials, Freesat with dishes.

In fact even a Freesat recorder may not be usable because it would require separate connections with the dish.

Is there really no aerial on the property ?

There is no such thing as a digital aerial.

Depending on location, he may be able to get something from a set-top aerial.

No there is no arial (OK, I called it digital maybe incorrectly. I meant the type of arial that allows HD reception rather than the older analogue type. I had to change mine to receive freeview channels ....which are "digital").Looks like I will help him install a rooftop ariel and dispense with the freesat and just use the TV as a monitor. Seems a shame.

SLx 27884K 48 Element Digital TV Aerial Kit (cut and pasted from AMAZON) don't think they sell stuff that doesn't exist.

You can still use the Freesat on the TV after you install the Freeview stuff. Freesat has some channels not on Freeview.

Make sure you install the right type of aerial, there are people on this forum who can give good advice on this subject.

There is no reason why you can't to use both. Keep the TV connected to the dish for Freesat and get an aerial installed for Freeview PVR.

Dan

Cheers. That is exactly what I will do. Many thanks.

Just a thought. If the Freesat Tv is receiving the signal from the dish and there is an AUX output on the TV, why cant I connect that to the input aux of the Humax and record on the hard drive?

Most of the digital PVR’s, Freesat or Freeview don’t allow the input for recording from external devices.

There are a few exceptions like in the case of some Panasonic Blu-Ray recorders that let you do this. Not got any personal experience of these recorders but as I said most “don’t allow input for recording from external devices”

Welcome to DS BTW.

Because the Humax will only record a digital signal.

The Aux output is analog. You can only record from it using a VCR or DVD recorder.

Thanks a lot Skip Tracer. That was really what my question was about. And thanks for the welcome to the forum.

If the area your friend lives in has already gone through DSO then there may be enough signal for an indoor aerial, at least it won't cost much to try.

Only before switch over, and only in some areas. After switch over, any aerial which gave OK-ish analogue reception will bring in the Freeview HD channels just fine.

Cheers,
David.