hello all,

as I dont know much about hd tv I have got to ask this question, firstly my tv setup is a toshiba regza 37" with built in free veiw tuner and is hd ready, along with a humax 9200 t and sony surround sound etc,
The question is that I keep seeing channels advertised on tv such as ITV HD and BBC HD, what do I have to do to be able to pick these channels up and are they worth picking up, I gather that although my tv is hd ready and has a card slot in the back that I would have to update my humax or something, is this correct.

steve

You need a satellite dish and a Freesat HD receiver - it's satellite only.

Thank you for the info Nigel, is it worth having as I am not sure I want to go down the route of satellite again.

There aren't a huge number of HD channels available on Freesat. About 10 I think? Even then, they don't all show 100% HD material. Some of them are a mix of HD and upscaled SD.

There are additional subscription channels available through Sky HD. About 6 film channels and 3 sports channels.

Is it worth it?

Sort of.

It could do with more channels, I must admit. (I have Sky HD)

But ..... once you've watched a few HD programs, a lot of SD stuff does look pretty crappy in comparison. I have 5 HD sports channels now though so I'm happy.

I will give it some thought, sounds like sky would be the way to do it.

If you want Sports (and movies) channels, Sky is deffo the way to go.

Unless you can 'top up' with them on Freesat? Dunno. Had Sky HD installed a good while before freesat appeared so I dunno what the options are with it ....

Three


The rest are encrypted which means a SKY+HD subscription expect for CH4HD which only requires a SKY smartcard (ex-sub, freesatfromsky or subscription) in your SKY+HD box.




Nope, Freesat hardware is not capable of receiving SKY HD channels or any PAY content unless there is a major change by offering CI support on new boxes and even then SKY won't support the service.

Regardless of the lineup or potential lineup there will be a price to pay to add broadcast HD to a current SD only setup.

Really?

Didn't realise it was soo few! I was guessing all the stuff like Rush HD, Nat Geo, History etc would all be available on Freesat. Guess not!

Actually not really three - there's only ONE HD channel on Freesat - BBC HD, and that's only four hours per night. ITV HD isn't a channel, it's a very occasional interactive data stream, and Luxe HD isn't on Freesat, although you can tune it in on non-Freesat mode if you like.

It's likely that CH4 HD will be appearing in the not too distant future, but that has less HD per night than BBC HD.

Freesat HD is really more a future hope than anything else, but ti will have more than Freeview HD, and before it as well.

with a virgin media v+ box you'll get bbc hd plus free on-demand hd & hd on demand pay-film's but your v+ plus box will upscale all other (cable) channels to near-hd and to be hounest it would be very difficult to tell the diffrence between full hd & near hd,depending on the quality of your t.v. ( mine is a £550 bush 42" from argos, the quality of upscaled t.v. is sh*t hot, many time's better than dvd,trust me,) and with virgin v+ your not paying an arm an a leg to get it, and a one of pament of £100 maens no v+ monthly charge's & full free service not to mention every thing eles a v+ can offer, (far superiour to sky +), it all really depends on what other sevices you've got/want from the same supplier ie. t.v. , phone, broadband ,(moble) ect. one thing's for sure ,you wont go back to basic screen tht's for sure, best of luck ,mate