FreeSat Vs FreeView

[stoofa]

I'm going to be an Ex Sky Q customer within the next month or so. Looking at my Sky planner over the last few months, I find that I've recorded about two Sky Exclusive programs over that time - may as well just get a NowTV pass occasionally and binge.

Anyway - I have the Sky Q dish & LNB on the wall. I've been reading that was an issue with FreeSat, however the new Generation 3 boxes are fine and would literally just plug in as a direct replacement.
Is there actually much difference between FreeSat & FreeView?
In my mind, the satellite dish should give me a stronger signal than our aerial - saying that, when I have used FreeView directly through the TV in the past it hasn't been "bad"......
Quick check on the FreeView website and it tells me the most likely to be used transmitter is 69km away and doesn't offer great coverage - strangely the transmitter 42km away and offering what they say is "good coverage" is the last one on the list of alternative transmitters....

Just wondered if there was really much in it these days. Do you get the same number of channels on both services. Is the quality much of a muchness?

 

[stoofa]

Thanks for the replies.
I don't watch that much live TV I'll be honest. I do watch a fair bit on terrestrial channels (looking at my Sky Planner right now there is just a single item from Sky Showcase, everything else right now is BBC & C4).
To be honest, I could probably more than survive with my AppleTV box - it has all of the catch-up services, I tend to always have a Netflix & Prime subscription and then periodically take out Disney/AppleTV subscriptions when I want to binge something (and I'll do the same with NowTV going forward).
Mainly for the wife to be honest as she will just settle down and watch something as it is being broadcast. I know the Gen3 FreeSat boxes aren't cheap, but again my thinking is initial outlay and then it'll just keep on working, no further costs etc.

 

[stoofa]

Replying specifically to this as you mentioned that you already have an AppleTV:

I ditched sky years ago and based on recommendation on this forum swapped to an Apple TV combined with Channels app and an HDHomerun - it is fantastic and now serves all of our TV. The HDhomerun is a device which sits on your LAN, has 2 tuners and feeds all of the freeview channels into IP bundles. You then install an Apple TV app called "Channels" which has a lovely EPG. I bundled the biggest aerial i could find from screwfix (about £20 ) into our loft and tore down the ugly dish which i didnt technically have planning permission for anyway.

https://getchannels.com/apple-tv/

Wouldnt want to move away from this, but then i love Apple UIs.

Added small bonus is that plex and apps like VLC can also dial into the HDhomerun separately, so my PCs and things can all watch live freeview if they wanted to, over our LAN.

Thank you for that post - very interesting.
I'll have a read up about all of that.

 

[stoofa]

Full disclosure - I do work in the broadcast industry, albeit on the smart TV/software side...

Aside from increased HD channels I find choice between satellite and terrestrial usually comes down to signal availability. If you've got an antenna and dish already that's a great position to be in - you could test the terrestrial experience on your TV and go from there.

Out of interest did they reclaim the SkyQ box and/or does it work without a subscription? I know older Sky boxes can be used effectively as Freesat boxes.

I've been told the SkyQ box will have to be returned - it's one of the nice 2TB HDR boxes, but despite everything I paid at install time, it was only ever mine for as long as I had the service. I'm not convinced they still offer the option to keep (even with a cost) the old Q box.
The dish is still there and I was very much hoping that if I went the FreeSat route it would be unplug SkyQ box, plug in replacement FreeSat box and rescan. I also got the impression that as long as it is a Gen3 box, all "should" just work and I'd also get three record one live (If I wanted to record stuff).