Freeview Decoders - Can these be purchased overseas?

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Bosch

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Wannabe Geek

#15249 12-Aug-2007 10:29

I have inlaws in Europe at the moment. They asked me if the freeview decoders that are sold there are able to be used in NZ.

I understand that there are only 2 certified decoders that are used in NZ, however does anyone know what the frequency
range is of the Hills and Zinwell settop boxes are?

Also can UK decoders be used here?

Any help would be appreciated...
Cheers

openmedia

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#82076 12-Aug-2007 12:08

Bosch: I have inlaws in Europe at the moment. They asked me if the freeview decoders that are sold there are able to be used in NZ.

I understand that there are only 2 certified decoders that are used in NZ, however does anyone know what the frequency
range is of the Hills and Zinwell settop boxes are?

Also can UK decoders be used here?

Current freeview boxes here are DVB-S, where as the UK FreeView boxes are DVB-T, so no they won't work here.

Also when freeview NZ launches its terrestrial service they will be using H264, and the existing UK boxes will only do MPEG-2, so again you won't be able to import UK boxes.

Boxes that support H264 will be appearing in the UK some point soon. Also watch out for Sweden as they have have just launched a HD terrestrial service that used H264.

Steve

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

andrewcnz

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#82077 12-Aug-2007 12:13

I believe any standard satellite receiver will get freeview in NZ (the EPG may look different but should work). UK freeview is terrestrial based and does not use the same system we will be using next year for our terrestrial freeview service.

cyril7

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#82086 12-Aug-2007 13:11

There is a ready supply of FTA DVB-S boxs in uk that can be obtained at various online and brick and mortar shops at similar prices to what you pay here. They will work with the FreeView DVB-S (satellite service) here in NZ as will any FTA DVB-S box. Obvioulsy due to the much larger market you can get DVB-S boxs for very competitive prices if you hunt around, but by and large the survey I have done did not come up with pricess much below 50quid for essentially the same box you can get here for around $130-$150 (ie the Coship type boxs).

If your inlaws are in continental Europe rather than the UK then they will most certainly be using a standard old DVB-S FTA satellite box that will work here just dandy.

All the BBC and ITV channels that are part of SkyUK are acutally uplinked by the BBC and ITV (independant of SkyUK) to the Astra Fleet at 28.2degE and are not encrypted but are the same streams that SkyUK maps their subscribers to.

In the UK you can also purchase a Sky FreeSat card which comes at a one off 20quid cost that can be put into a SkyUK STB that gives you access to those same BBC and ITV channels as well as Sky3, Ch4 and Five and no ongoing cost. Dont forget that in the UK you purchase your own Sky box, not rent it for ever as in NZ. Dont bring a SkyUK box back to NZ, as it will not work with SkyNZ and just like the SkyNZ boxs you cannot configure the transponders and channels it picks up yourself.

As the others have said dont bring back a UK DVB-T(DTT) FreeView box as it wont support Mpeg4 that the NZ service will use.

Cyril

streamer

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Inactive user

#84057 28-Aug-2007 05:03

Hi guys, thanks for your comments on this - very interesting.

I'm looking at a unit in the UK and I can't find references to the mpeg encoding or the other formats you mention in the specs - does anyone know if this unit would also be unsuitable for nz?

http://www.superfi.co.uk/index.cfm/page/moreinfo.cfm/Product_ID/3398

Many thanks in advance.