buying a sattelite

[alexbaker1983]

Im thinking of buying a sat box but im not sure how it works, how do i get the channels? do i just connect it to my pc? Sorry if these are silly questions but not looked into this previously?

do i have to pay any subsrciption fee's?


thankyou in advance

[C64]

I assume you mean that you want free satellite tv and are not interested in subscribing to Sky?

1st you'll need a dish, you're better off buying a motorised dish so that you can change what satellite you are looking at, then you'll need a receiver, loads to choose from, I recommend either the Dreambox or Technomate receivers. Once this is all setup this will give you all the free channels on all the satellites, you can modify the Dreambox and Technomate so that they will decode a few of the pay-tv channels, but you won't get Sky, if you want sky then you'll need to either use a real smart-card which has a valid subscription or start investigating something called card Sharing.

[alexbaker1983]

how would i connect that then onto my pc??? Also are these legal as if it was on the side of my house would it look suspicious?

[thommo]

sats are legal no different to having a sky dish on the side of your house and they dont hook up to your pc they hook up to your tv. basically your viewing euro sat and not uk sat.

[alexbaker1983]

great stuff, how would i then connect it to my pc? as i would watch programs whilst doing work on computer?

[thommo]

few options... first go for a sat card in the pc instead of a reciever (think im right in saying that) or you can buy a receiver and stream to the pc with your web browser or buy a slingbox and watch anywhere in the world from your receiver.


cheapest would be to stream via web browser though.

[alexbaker1983]

are the sat cards worth it? Would it have the channels the same as buying a reciever?

[thommo]

no idea mate never used one and dont know how they work, im sure you,ll get a reply from someone who does know.

id say receiver is best option then you dont have to watch on the pc only.

[alexbaker1983]

i suppose your right. but i will just weigh up my option and funds before making any decisions yet. cheers mate

[C64]

Sat cards are very poweful mate, they can do things that recievers can't but it's all pretty advanced stuff that you'd probably not be interested in.

There are plenty of applications to use with a PCI satcard and lots of emulators to decrypt pay-tv, you can also card share. If your main intention is to watch satellite on your PC then forget buying a receiver, jsut buy the pc card instead.

I used to own a Technotrend 2.1, it was a superb card

[alexbaker1983]

Is there a particular software you need to run the card or does it come with the software?? Silly question but im totally new to the whole sat stuff. I just like the idea of being able to do work on my computer and watching t.v in between with a whole load of channels.

[mez]

hi mate sat cards work as gd as sat reciever you could veiw pay tv from european channels and you could connect to more then 1 lnb and you could record tv show or movie in to your pc is greate I had one on the pass and it works fine

[mez]

it comes particular software and driver that you need to instal to your pc but you still have to download programme called progdvb wish you could fane on sat uploadcenter
and allows you to wach pay tv and record tv

[felix1]

i think what you need to do first is decide what you actually want from a system. ie what do you wanna try and watch? if its only one satellite then a very very cheap system could do. if its nore then say 2 satellites you need to look at a motorised system. (bit more more). are you gonna put up the dish yourself? can you actually recieve the satellites you want to watch? what are you gonna watch it on? (pc tv or hdtv) do you want it to record? all these things need to be taken into account as youre starting from scratch and new to this. if you have money to burn you may decide to go for a top of the range box. big difference in price and functions but not that harder to set up. (imho).have a look around and do a lot of reading before u do anything.

oh!!! and good luck.

[mez]

and i forget to say techni sat skystar2 usb is the best pc card small and nice shap