Sky Q or Freesat boxes or Freesat TVs?

[kaktus]

This is beginning to bug me now.

I'm trying to find a way to get satellite signal into guest bedrooms without installing receiver boxes in the rooms themselves.

Option 1. TV's with built-in freesat tuners. This seems like the most logical option and would eliminate the need for any additional remote devices/control mechanisms. Except I can't find any TV's with built-in freesat that aren't absolutely ancient or fugly

Option 2. Buy good TV's and separate freesat tuner boxes - that will really suck for the whole integrated, minimalist look and if I try to mount the boxes behind the TV's I won't have line of sight to actually control them. This is the absolute resort I think

Option 3. Sky Q? I don't know much about this but from what I've read, I can basically use 1 Sky Q box and have the main feed plus 2 other 'streams' to other TV's. Does that mean I can effectively serve 3 TV's from one box, as if they all had their own dedicated sky boxes?

Option 4. Any other options that might work?

 

[kaktus]

Yes and no..

I have Sky Q since Wednesday last week and feed three TV's.

You have a main box to which the satellite cables plug into.. this is your Sky Q silver box..

What you then have is mini boxes which plug into the other TV's. These feed channels from the main box by the way of Wifi (this is created by the main box and does not effect Wifi you may have set-up)

I think the max right now you can service with one main box is 2 extra mini box's and one tablet / Ipad

Thanks for that - sounds like it could be a potential solution. I can replace the cables which are currently going into my main freesat box and put them into a Sky Q box instead and then get 2 extra mini boxes and feed two other TVs with their own dedicated WiFi.

Quick question - do those mini boxes have to be visible or do their remotes control them via Bluetooth like the Sky Q box? Are they small enough to be mounted behind the TVs?

 

[kaktus]

If you are going to have a separate Freesat TV/box per room, you are also going to have to remember that you will need a dish with enough LNBs to feed all of the boxes (1 per TV for viewing, 2 per TV for recording).
Otherwise you would need some centralised system like they have in big hotels.

Yep that's definitely part of the equation which kind of makes Sky Q a bit more attractive since I can keep the Quad LNB and not have to upgrade to a Quattro LNB.

The Quattro LNB and splitter will be about £100 plus independent boxes about another £45 each at a minimum (eliminated if I can find TV's with built-in freesat tuners with EPG)

 

[kaktus]

There are actually quite a few current sets with built-in Freesat but many aren't advertised as such. The reason is the lack of an EPG - they've basically left the freesat tuner in there but, because there's no EPG functionality, they don't advertise it. Whether that's a deal-breaker for you or not I don't know.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but without an EPG I think one cannot tell what they're watching unless they physically scroll to each channel one by one? And there's definitely no recording or future scheduling capability either. I'm not sure this would be a highly desirable or enjoyable viewing experience? Do you know of any 1080p 38-46" TV's that have full freesat tuners with the EPG?

If you give in and decide a box is necessary then the Q ones are fairly svelte but I don't think the system is suitable for "guest" rooms as all content is centralised with no user profiles available, so everyone will have access to all recordings and so forth which is often undesirable.

It's only friends and family who would be staying over so content sharing shouldn't be too much of an issue.

The supplied remotes are IR and need line of sight but the main Q Silver touch remote is bluetooth and doesn't. You can buy additional touch remotes for the minis which would then use bluetooth.

Yes they're thin enough to fit behind most TVs although they can get pretty warm so make sure there's decent ventilation.

As above though, I think the centralised content issue is likely to be a stumbling block for you.

Got it, thanks.

I think given the home setup as it is currently, the integrated freesat TVs make most sense if I can find one with EPG because I still need to find a way to get the TV's to access content from my NAS and that's either going to be :

Option 1. An Intel Nuc mounted behind the TV (yay, more stuff to mount)

Option 2. Amazon Fire TV

Option 3. Perhaps an all-in-one mini HTPC that can receive freesat signal and have kodi installed on it? basically a Nuc with a coax-in port? Does such a thing exist?

 

[kaktus]

Only issue with an HTPC would be finding one small enough but with a freesat tuner as these are usually PCIe cards which thus necessitate an enclosure which can take them.

Why not centralise it?

Set up a PC with several DVB-S2 tuner cards in it running Argus TV. You could then use a Raspberry Pi 3 in each room running Kodi with the Argus TV addon. This would give you access to live TV and the ability to record/timeshift with the main PC handling it all, including EPG functionality. The Pi could easily be tucked away behind the TV, using Wifi for connectivity and even drawing its power from one of the TV's USB ports potentially.

That does sound like a good option but in reality I just don't have the technical capability to setup Argus TV. It's way too fiddly for me plus thinking about the maintenance hurts my head.

Wouldn't be amazing if Sony did an W805c with built-in kodi and freesat tuner? Problem solved

 

[kaktus]

Freeview was my first thought for a guest room it's not like visitors are going to be spending hours in there room consuming hours of media but like you I assumed Freeview must not be an option!

Not entirely sure if Freeview is an option or not. I'll explain the setup.

I've got a Dish with a quad LNB. This dish is one of the larger ones to be able to receive Freesat / Sky signals. From this dish, I have four coax cables going into a server room in the centre of the house.

2 of these coax cables go directly into a Freesat box, 2 are free and available.

I also have 4 coax cables going from the server room to each bedroom. These are currently not plugged into anything.

So I'm not sure if by having freesat, I already have access to freeview. To split the signals I would need to upgrade to a Quattro LNB and get a Triax MultiSwitch. Again, no idea if this automatically translates into having a freeview signal and in any case, wouldn't the EPG still be missing?

I agree that it's only guest rooms but these rooms are set to be occupied for a long time as we have my wife's sisters who will be studying in London universities and will be living with us each in their own room.

 

[kaktus]

No, Freeview is terrestrial digital TV via an aerial, not a dish.

Umm, you say you have a larger dish - are you outside the UK?

nope, North West London!


So, I think the Freeview thing is out of the window because I'd have to spend the money on the infrastructure anyway (multi switch, quad lnb, freeview tvs and still no EPG anyway).

It's still either a Freesat tuner / freesat TV setup or something like Sky Q.

Now...speaking of Sky Q it got me thinking....and it turns out that there may be a device out there called a Network Tuner which can take a satellite signal like Freesat and make it available to any client on the network...crucially in Kodi as well.

So in theory, a network tuner (such as HDHomeRun but this is currently freeview only) plus raspberry Pis on each TV and I've got a complete setup.

I just need to find a network tuner that works with Freesat AND Kodi.

Have any of you come across this?

 

[kaktus]

Freeview just needs an aerial with a coax run to each location. All current TVs have a freeview tuner and will show the EPG. Still not seeing how this isn't a massively simpler solution.

err I don't see how this would be a simpler solution tbh.

I don't have an Aerial installed so that would need to be installed.
I'd then need to buy an amplifying multiswitch
I'd then need to buy TV's which have freeview

And this provides a solution which gives 3 TV's with lesser content then Freesat and no solution for accessing content from the NAS/home network other than built-in crap media players on TVs

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So if I'm going to do the above, I might as well keep the dish I have, upgrade to Quattro LNB and buy a multi-switch.

Now you can see that even this solution is very limited and doesn't really help unless I manage to find full Freesat TV's in 40-42 inch, 1080p

Neither this, nor the solution above, address serving content from home NAS

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The more research I do, the more it seems to me that this is going to be a cost/benefit analysis between :

Option A. Sky Q box + 3 Mini Q boxes (only 2 can be active at any time) + 3x Raspberry Pi with Kodi. Cost £56 per month plus £350 upfront

Option B. "Freesat Infrastructure" + 3x Raspberry Pi with Kodi £0 per month £250 upfront (and lacks EPG)

Option C. Satellite Network Tuner (Vbox appears to do one) and 3x Raspberry Pi with Kodi. Again, due to the satellite in-feed, I am limited to two active satellite clients at any one point in time. £275 upfront (and lacks EPG)

 

[kaktus]

Wetek Play, has kodi installed choice of freesat or freeview tuners

I don't see this working. It's a centralized solution, not a local one for each TV where the kodi player needs to be and where the satellite network tuner shouldn't be.

The Network Tuner needs to be centralized, the kodi player needs to be localized to each TV client. The Satellite playback is via Kodi's uPnP...

The Wetek is also Android based so I imagine it suffers from the same 24p playback issue as all android players do

.

 

[kaktus]

2016 LG Tv's do offer Freesat models

http://www.lg.com/uk/tvs/lg-40UH630V for example

But any UH630 / UH661 / UH750 / UH770 models all have Freesat built in

And historically LG TV's are pretty good at DLNA stuff if you want to stream from a NAS. Not tried on the new models though

Only issue with those is they're all 2016 models, 4KUHD and some are curved.

If I'm going down the Freesat-direct-into-TV-route ideally what I'd like is 3x 40-42 inch Sony W829B style TV's with freesat. In other words, black or dark very thin bezels, great picture quality in 1080p (no need for 4k and therefore the premium).

I know with it being 1080p I'm probably looking at 2015 models - and will probably be contained to Samsung or LG (possibly Panasonic) as they are the only ones that integrate Freesat afaik. Do you know which 2015 models would fit the bill ? (Black / Dark very thin bezels, great picture quality, no bells & whistles needed)