Getting Foxtel in NZ

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pantsless

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#21514 29-Apr-2008 15:01

Hi, this thread is 99.23% hypothetical and was inspired by a mate recently telling me when he lived in Switzerland, he took his SKY UK decoder from England and was able to watch SKY UK from Switzerland. I don't know the details though.

Provided I had the following things:

1. A big enough dish
3. A Foxtel decoder

Would it be possible receive the Foxtel signal or is the distane between NZ and the satellite used by Foxtel too big?

I know I can look at Lyngsat but it's all a bit double dutch to me....

Cheers...

gehenna

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#127071 29-Apr-2008 15:23

The saturn decoder is the same type they use for Foxtel in Australia. Or rather, the one I have for Saturn now is the same as the one I had for Foxtel in 2005....might be worth looking into?

wellygary

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#127073 29-Apr-2008 15:24

pantsless: Hi, this thread is 99.23% hypothetical and was inspired by a mate recently telling me when he lived in Switzerland, he took his SKY UK decoder from England and was able to watch SKY UK from Switzerland. I don't know the details though.

Provided I had the following things:

1. A big enough dish
3. A Foxtel decoder

Would it be possible receive the Foxtel signal or is the distane between NZ and the satellite used by Foxtel too big?

I know I can look at Lyngsat but it's all a bit double dutch to me....

Cheers...

According to this, there are transponders on optus C1 that do both NZ and AUS,(NANZ beam) but I cannot see why Foxtel would pay the extra to use them, when they have no subscribers here,

http://www.apsattv.com/gallery/optusc1misc/Brochure-C1-Satellite-Final.zip

But, Lyngsat say that foxtel are only using the NB beams, which are OZ only,

http://www.lyngsat.com/optusc1.html

So I think you are out of luck.

pantsless

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#127074 29-Apr-2008 15:24

I should have also said the decoder would be one with a smart card...like when you take your decoder to your bach that also has a dish..etc..etc...

cyril7

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#127076 29-Apr-2008 15:26

Potentaily you could, figures I have seen indicate a 3m+ dish is required, and a couple who have tried have found a figure closer to 10m to get reliable reception.

Unlike the European scene where the Astra fleet the SkyUK uses have beams designed to cover large parts of Europe but centred on UK the Optus fleet have several spot beams, there are those that centre their power on various parts of continental Australia and one that are focussed on NZ. Output splitters in the transmit path can select which beams are used, however all the Foxtel muxs are on Australian only beams not split between Aus/NZ, similarly FreeViewNZ and SkyNZ are only on the NZ spot beam although currently there is one Vpol SkyNZ mux on dual NZ/Aus which is soon to go. The Optus Aurora service is on a dual NZ/Aus beam and can be easily received here on a 65cm dish.

So the answer is, you could, however the size of dish would be pretty pricy for the average chap, you then need to get a Foxtel NDS box and card.

The saturn decoder is the same type they use for Foxtel in Australia. Or rather, the one I have for Saturn now is the same as the one I had for Foxtel in 2005....might be worth looking into?

Foxtel have never used ADB DVB-S or DVB-C boxs, sounds like you are refering to the analog cable service, Foxtel turned that off about a year ago, it in places used the General Intruments analog boxs that TCL uses here for the analog service.

Cyril

tonyhughes

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#127078 29-Apr-2008 15:28

Never heard of this in New Zealand, and I have trawled around various home entertainment forums over the last few years.

If anyone is doing it, they are keeping it quiet.

pantsless

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#127080 29-Apr-2008 15:35

This Aurora service you speak of...

Ebay says I can buy a smartcard and decoder for Aurora...does this mean I can bring it back to NZ and plug it into the Sky Dish...would I need to point the dish elsewhere...what else would I need?

It's all hypothetical BTW

cyril7

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#127081 29-Apr-2008 15:41

The optus Aurora service is on C1 at 12407V sym 30,000 2/3. And yes can readily be seen here, infact if you go to the C1 test channel on a Sky box (ch 800 or is it 880 cant remember) then you will find a test card from that mux. You obviously need a dish pointing at C1 or a Sky dish with a dual throat LNB which will look at C1 if 22kHz is applied.

To decode it you need a standard DVB-S decoder that will accpet a Irdeto 2 Card, and obviously a card.

Needless to say to access the service in NZ is not legit, but often done.

Cyril

Edit: just check channels 800 and 880, no longer there, so they must have removed it.

Cyril