Freeview General help / advice needed

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › Freeview General help / advice needed

OnceBitten

535 posts

Ultimate Geek

#248223 15-Mar-2019 12:02

We have My Sky and Freeview at home - we have a sky satellite dish and a uhf aerial... the uhf aerial has a 'splitter' on it and one side goes to our neighbours place and one side goes to our place - it was like this when we bought the place 7 years ago (we are 1 of 2 townhouses) - don't ask me why or how it was done like this as I've got no idea!

Anyway we have My Sky in the lounge using the sky dish and I drilled a hole in the back wall of the lounge (that goes through to our bedroom) and have run the UHF aerial through there so we can use our freeview recorder / DVD player to watch TV on our older Samsung 24"? in the bedroom.

We are seriously thinking of ditching My Sky and going solely to freeview - but there is one sticking point... EastEnders - my wife loves to watch EastEnders and currently it is only on UKTV through Sky TV.

I've tried downloading the BBC iplayer? to watch it through the BBC site and I put in a UK address / postal code, but still couldn't get it to work - don't know why

my wife spoke to someone a few weeks ago who was English and they have downloaded something called 'expat tv' or similar and that gives them most of the TV channels from the UK - does anyone know about this / how much it costs to subscribe...etc. or does anyone know another way my wife could watch EastEnders online or stream it to the TV?

My next question is, if we ditch sky TV can we get a freeview box (that can record programs) that can connect to the sky dish? I've heard that it is better (better signal / picture) if they are connected to uhf? or would we need to get another uhf aerial installed solely for our place?

I had thought about upgrading to a new / smart TV but a friend said once you take the TV out the shop the apps will be out of date or something and you have to pay to update them? - I'm happy with our Panasonic 42" - even thought is it about 7 years old

Another option is to upgrade the bedroom TV to a 32" that has built in freeview and use the existing freeview recorder / DVD player in the lounge - but the freeview unit we have only has a uhf aerial connection on the back.

any advice would be helpful

trig42

5809 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#2198514 15-Mar-2019 12:08

Not sure about EastEnders sorry, but I do know of people that have got iPlayer to work OK here 9you'd also need some sort of VPN or DNS redirector so it looked like you were in the UK).

For Freeview in the lounge, you'd just need another splitter, so split the incoming off the antenna (inside your house) to both the bedroom and the lounge TV.

This would give you many more options for a freeview box with recording (as most of them are UHF, rather than satellite).

From my experience (we dumped Sky three years ago), we got a recording device, but I cannot remember the last time I recorded anything on it, as everything I would have recorded, I can get OnDemand (it would be even better if Prime had OnDemand, but if I miss something on there, too bad).

OnceBitten

535 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2198521 15-Mar-2019 12:22

thanks for the reply, but the uhf cable is already 'split' as there is a splitter in place before the aerial comes to ours and the neighbours place

so wouldn't splitting it again reduce the signal / picture quality further?

graham007

221 posts

Master Geek

#2198523 15-Mar-2019 12:25

bbc i player is working 100% with vpn, can u confirm u have tried with vpn

trig42

5809 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#2198535 15-Mar-2019 12:42

OnceBitten:

thanks for the reply, but the uhf cable is already 'split' as there is a splitter in place before the aerial comes to ours and the neighbours place

so wouldn't splitting it again reduce the signal / picture quality further?

It could, depends how strong it is to start with though. You can get amplified splitters.

jonathan18

7413 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#2198540 15-Mar-2019 12:52

Nowadays you do indeed need a BBC iPlayer account (a relatively new requirement) but, as covered above, you also need a DNS service or VPN - look at sites like Unotelly or Getflix for this. Apart from paying for that (VPN or DNS) there's no cost for accessing iPlayer (or Channel 4, or a wide range of other geoblocked content, eg PBS).

We use iPlayer a decent amount, and it works fine here (we're using Getflix's DNS settings in our router, so all devices in the house can access such content); it's usually a bit slow to start playing video, and we frequently get a 'something went wrong' error, but trying again usually fixes it.

You'll also need to ensure you have a way to display this on your TV; we use Amazon Fire TVs with the iPlayer app loaded and a bunch of similar media players will no doubt support iPlayer; I imagine you can also Airplay from an iPad/iPhone to an Apple TV, or Chromecast from an Android device, or simply plug your laptop in.

OnceBitten

535 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2198547 15-Mar-2019 13:06

graham007:

bbc i player is working 100% with vpn, can u confirm u have tried with vpn

I know what vpn is but don't know if I have one already or where to get one - how would I find out if I have one?

graham007

221 posts

Master Geek

#2198603 15-Mar-2019 13:55

vpn is a paid subscription service like sky or spark, you have to get a company, and pay them money monthly or yearly and buy it

express vpn and nord are 2 good companies, i am on NORD, no issues so far.

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

OnceBitten

535 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2198765 15-Mar-2019 15:04

graham007:

vpn is a paid subscription service like sky or spark, you have to get a company, and pay them money monthly or yearly and buy it

express vpn and nord are 2 good companies, i am on NORD, no issues so far.

oh ok thanks - I thought the BBC iplayer would just be like TVNZ on demand or something - I didn't realise you had to pay for a VPN

how much is one for a year?

graham007

221 posts

Master Geek

#2198768 15-Mar-2019 15:06

OnceBitten:

graham007:

vpn is a paid subscription service like sky or spark, you have to get a company, and pay them money monthly or yearly and buy it

express vpn and nord are 2 good companies, i am on NORD, no issues so far.

oh ok thanks - I thought the BBC iplayer would just be like TVNZ on demand or something - I didn't realise you had to pay for a VPN

how much is one for a year?

Nord has a special going on - 158 nzd for 3 yrs, 6 devices, i can confirm that all countries are working well.

jonathan18

7413 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#2198798 15-Mar-2019 15:21

OnceBitten:

oh ok thanks - I thought the BBC iplayer would just be like TVNZ on demand or something - I didn't realise you had to pay for a VPN

As I mentioned earlier, BBC content is geoblocked, ie it is set up to only be accessible by those who live than that location. (I think TVNZ On Demand is geoblocked so only those in NZ can use it).

Unless you use a VPN or a DNS service, which fools the VOD service into thinking you're in that country, you'll not be able to watch such geoblocked services.

While you're following a line of questioning regarding VPNs, I suggest you do some research into DNS services as well.

fe31nz

1228 posts

Uber Geek

#2199266 15-Mar-2019 23:43

trig42:

OnceBitten:

thanks for the reply, but the uhf cable is already 'split' as there is a splitter in place before the aerial comes to ours and the neighbours place

so wouldn't splitting it again reduce the signal / picture quality further?

It could, depends how strong it is to start with though. You can get amplified splitters.

Freeview is a digital signal - unlike the old analogue TV signals, the picture quality does not degrade in proportion to the signal quality. So if the signal level and quality is enough, even if it is only just enough, you receive a full quality programme. If it level or data quality is too low, you will generally not receive anything at all. In between, there is a very small range of level and quality where you may receive something, but the programme will drop out and restart all the time. TV tuners normally work over a very large range of signal, so if you split and split again an aerial, so you have only one quarter of the signal level, it may well work just fine. It depends on just how much signal the aerial is receiving. If a second splitter does not work, an internal splitter/amplifier might, but it is not guaranteed to. An off-the-shelf one with four outputs cost me about $110 a few years ago and works fine for me.

In your case, since the aerial is working with one splittter at the moment, if a second splitter or splitter/amplifier does not work, then you can always replace the first splitter with a multiway splitter/amplifier (say 4 or 6 outputs) and it is almost certain to work. If the first splitter is outside, then it would be best to get professional help with that, as the new splitter amplifier needs to be chosen carefully and it will need power. And you will need to feed the split signals inside to the right places. A good aerial installer will always have test equipment that can tell them the level and quality of the signal and they can then calculate what is needed.

OnceBitten

535 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2201193 18-Mar-2019 21:48

thanks for the replies - I'm not that keen on getting another splitter or a 3/4 way splitter - as the splitter is high up (2nd level) and would need an expert to changer it over

Wife is looking into ways to watch Eastenders online, so we will see how she goes with that before making any decisions