Satellite boxes with good EPG and HD.

[ericmark]

I have satellite boxes galore, most not HD and the EPG is rubbish, the sky + HD is very good, but thinking of getting rid of Sky, the IceCrypt box receives both satellite and terrestrial with HD and will record to external hard drive, but the EPG is rubbish. Same with new TV, has both terrestrial and satellite input, but half the satellite programs are missing and EPG rubbish.

So I think it's time to get a new box, I would prefer external hard drive then I can watch stuff down loaded or transferred years ago, I know some boxes want you to reformat the drive to a system which will not transfer to PC, that's no good for me.

I basically want a box to get free satellite and terrestrial channels in HD with a program guide like sky's. Can you get such a box?

 

[winston1]

Freesat boxes are the only ones with a full UK EPG apart from $ky boxes. No Freesat boxes include terrestrial but your TV should do that.

 

[foxhole]

Have a humax freesat box with external hard drive ,only drawback is it's a single tuner so records one channel at a time, but my TV also allows recording so its not a problem, both have bbci player etc so the need to record anything is very much reduced.

 

[ericmark]

It does seem I need "Freesat" not "Free to Air" however adverts seem to be written to trick one, they say will receive "Freesat" but they are not freesat receivers, so it seems Humax is the way to go! Seems £50, £100, or £180 with cheap one no record so the Humax HB-1100S seems to be what I need. The more expensive one has hard drive built in, but I would prefer to be able to swap hard drives.

I have one question, can I delete programs watched from the satellite box, or do I have to transfer hard drive to PC to delete watched programs.

 

[magicmushroom666]

I've had the older Humax HDR-1000S freesat for years now (built in hdd) and its been excellent in use and still going strong. Can plug an external drive into it as well but I dont know if you can watch the recordings on a computer afterwards. I can only imagine the new box is just as good if not better.

 

[foxhole]

It does seem I need "Freesat" not "Free to Air" however adverts seem to be written to trick one, they say will receive "Freesat" but they are not freesat receivers, so it seems Humax is the way to go! Seems £50, £100, or £180 with cheap one no record so the Humax HB-1100S seems to be what I need. The more expensive one has hard drive built in, but I would prefer to be able to swap hard drives.

I have one question, can I delete programs watched from the satellite box, or do I have to transfer hard drive to PC to delete watched programs.

You delete from Freesat box , you can use powered hard drive or larger capacity usb memory stick .

 

[ericmark]

Chimney is being re-pointed, so terrestrial aerial is going to be refitted, I hope then I will get good freeview, the guy tried to re-program TV for me, he seemed to think problem was not tuned to Astra 2 (28. 2E) and once that has been done it would be OK, however Talking Pictures and UK Drama still missing.

I have read another post about missing channels, so thought next step is clean re-install. Since no aerial will only get satellite, but never seem to get more than 400 channels, I wonder if there is a limit to how many channels it can store in memory? The satellite box has over 1000 channels before I start deleting all the repeated BBC and ITV channels, sex channels and god channels.

I found a list of channels with the details, however not a clue how to program that into the TV. A scan without aerial, dish only did hit 500 mark, tried including encrypted, Talking Pictures and UK Drama still missing, some are called freesat other astra, some have odd names like Astra:___4109 the totals are shown while scanning of over 400 but when finished shows 245 channels 216 being TV.