Freeview vs freesat

Tefal · 28 Nov 2016 at 18:12

So get my house soon and it doesnt come with an outside ariel fitted (wiring there though)

Looking at the cost its basically the same to have either a normal free view ariel fitted or a freesat dish fitted.

Which one is the best one to go for?

VincentHanna · 28 Nov 2016 at 19:07

We rent a house that only has a satellite dish and no aerial signal, so we use Freesat HD via a HUMAX box which is fine.

I'd say the new 'Freeview play' service is probably better though.

Ekim · 28 Nov 2016 at 19:42

I prefer Freeview to Freesat.

Just moved in to a new place and had the aerial socket moved so i could watch Freeview as opposed to Freesat.

I think the Freeview channel line up is better than Freesat and also the channels are organised in an order that makes more sense to me.

It's all personal preference though.

oHUTCHYo · 28 Nov 2016 at 21:09

I have both and repeatedly swapped to test both when I got my new Samsung 65" KS8000 to ensure I was getting the best signal.

For me, Freeview wins it despite using Freesat for several years on my old Panny G20 plasma.

Freeview has a (slightly) better selection of channels, including Dave and C4HD+1
Freeview allows live TV within your EPG, Freesat strangely does not

From a technical perspective, visually I cant honestly see a difference. From reading, I believe Freesat USED to have a higher bitrate due to Freeview having too many channels and less available bandwidth, however I then went on to read this is no longer the case. That said I can't seem to find a definitive comparison of bitrates between the two.

Tefal · 28 Nov 2016 at 21:51

Cheers guys whats freeview play not heard of that one?

TheLegendOfMart · 29 Nov 2016 at 07:41

It's Freeview's version of Youview, you can scroll back 7 days in the EPG and it links all the available episodes to their respective TV services.

I ended up going with Youview, it's also getting a big update 'soon' their Next Generation platform has been rewritten for HTML5 so it's even faster and more connected now. Youview has all of the catchup services as well as Netflix.

http://www.seenit.co.uk/youview-the-next-generation-whats-in-store-for-the-uks-smart-tv-platform/

I picked up BTs Ultra HD Youview 1TB box for £40 from a pawn shop, you can get them new on ebay for £80-100. It outputs 4K but obviously Freeview is only 1080p, you need to pay BT to get access to their streaming 4K sports channel, Netflix works in 4K however.

The UltraHD box is one of the fastest recorders I've used.