DanCarrigan

Hi Duffer I am moving to Vicenza in May, and I plan to get Sky TV, I am nopt so bothered about BB1, ITV etc, my main concern is the premiership and rugby, what do you recommend I should do?
Cheers, Dan

TestaRossa

Personally I would get Sky Italia if this is all you want. All the good prem matches are on Calcio and the Rugby was either on LA7 or SkySports. You won't get any cricket though !

It all costs in euros what you would have paid in pounds for Sky plus they have Calcio which is another premium channel just for football and other big sporting events, but mainly footie.

captinmorgan

Having been here 6 months Ive noticed ,Sky Italia, dont show as much rugby, and other sports ,that you get in the UK.everything here is geared around football

duffer

Hello Dan,

If you don't mind just a little bit of English football or occasional rugby matches then the hassle free option would be Sky Italia. They have offers, i.e. free dish and installation and maybe first 3 months for 10 euro or something like that. They show Premiership matches on the standard sports channel. If you want to watch Italian footy you'll need Calcio package as well (correct me if I'm wrong anyone). You'll also get BBC Prime which has the best shows from the Beeb.

If like me you want the Premiership, I suggest you get Sky Sports UK which, as it broadcasts from Astra 2A,B or C, you will not have any problems getting it using an 80cm dish in Vicenza. Added bonus is you get best live matches from Spain too plus champions league matches on Wednesdays. Of course they have some cricket and rugby. If you increase the size of the dish to 100cm you should have 24/7 reception of BBC who have the 6 Nations. The Beeb broadcasting from Astra 2D which has a smaller satellite footprint.

I on the otherhand have the paupers version: no Sky Sports but Setanta which costs £10 or €13,50 monthly. They show about 6 live premiership matches monthly but also live matches from the Dutch, French and German leagues. In addition they have some live boxing, Magners Rugby league live and the Liverpool and Arsenal channels. Again, you will have no problems obtaining this channel from Vicenza using standard dish.

On channel 4 you'll get the live cricket without any reception problems. On channel 5 you get live Italian football on Sunday afternoons. Just make sure you have a sky viewing card for these 2 channels. No need for a subscription - just an old card (blue with yellow house) is sufficient along with skybox.

Let me know if you have any other queries.

BTW the BBC, ITV and channel 4 + 5 are launching their new satellite service shortly called Freesat. they will have HD channels at no extra cost.

captinmorgan

Hey Duffer

Did you read my post on page 6 ,about contact details ,of your man who can get satellite dishes ,of any size ,I can't find any supplies here who have a 1.2m dish that I need

Thanks

duffer

oops...
I will PM you his number. He only speaks Italian...

captinmorgan

Thanks ,I will give him a call ,and let you know how I get on

TestaRossa

Has anyone got liveuktv, the subscription service for your PC? I'm trialling it for 7 days. If I take the monthly subscription it is about £25 a month for all the UK tv channels.

duffer

I had thought about that service too before I hooked up my satellite dish. It's £25 for just the digital terrestrial channels. Extra for Sports and movies. I suppose it's not bad. You can always connect your PC to the TV easily.

Another option would be for you to go halves with someone in the UK on a broadband service, e.g. from BT or Sky (so you would pay about £10pm total). Hook up the set top box in the UK to a Slingbox and then access it via any PC in the world...

TestaRossa

Having said that, watching Channel 4 and they aren't showing Dirty,Sexy Money yet which has been on FOX here for about 6 weeks. So I'll have to think about it. It would be worth it for Cbeebies though!! Cheaper than keep buying In The Night Garden DVD's - you have all this joy to come !

fast_eddie1971

Hello all. I got (British) Sky Digital back in 2000, not long before Astra 2D came into service, and at the time did lots of research about the size of dish required to obtain adequate reception. As my dish is on the balcony of my Milan flat, I didn't want to make it bigger than necessary!

I used to have an 85cm dish for Sky analogue reception, but had some problems when 2D start up, so soon substituted this for a 100cm dish. I don't think I have the most outstanding of LNBs, but except for in relatively heavy rain I get good reception of BBC, ITV etc. at all times of day. Re: the skew of the LNB, which has been mentioned, I think it does make a difference at the margin.

I gave the 85cm dish to a Scottish friend of mine, and he had reasonable reception most of the time, though he definitely had more problems than me (those extra 15cm evidently making all the difference).

'In campagna' (circa 25km south of Alba to be precise) I could probably have got away with an 85cm dish, but decided to go with the 1m diameter again, and have never had problems.

Re: Astra 2D reception in general, it's not just a question of how far south you are, there is also an east-west dimension. Piemonte definitely gets better reception than Lombardia, for example. If you study the footprint maps you can see what I mean.

Please see these links:

Official Astra 2D footprint map
http://www.ses-astra.com/business/en...ra2d/index.php
Wildly pessimistic (I suppose they have to do this for the same reason that food manufacturers are extremely conservative with their "sell by" dates!) If you click on the link to the PDF file you can see the map in larger size, which is more easily printable (for what it's worth...)

Unofficial Astra 2D footprint map
http://www.satcure.co.uk/2d/fprint.htm
This is based on actual reports so is much more realistic, albeit not as aesthetically pleasing as the official map.

There's also a whole site dedicated to Astra 2d
www.astra2d.com
which includes reports from various countries, including Italy:
http://www.astra2d.com/italy.htm

Hope this is useful......

captinmorgan

Duffer

Your man came good ,he gave me the details ,of the shop he buys his satellite stuff from ,
I have spoken to them and they carry a 1.2m dish in stock .so I will be watching UK TV soon

Thanks again for your help

duffer

Excellent. Let us know how you get on.

marky_mark

Nope.. SKY mustn't knowingly supply their service outside the areas where they have the TV rights.. quite a different thing !!

fast_eddie1971

Indeed. By watching Sky outside the UK one is breaking the terms of the contract between the subscriber and Sky. To be precise, the term that says that the card must not be taken outside the United Kingdom and Ireland is being violated. Breaking a contract term is not the same as committing an illegal act, or a criminal offence.

One might argue that by signing the contract whilst fully intending to take the card outside the UK one is committing the criminal offence of obtaining goods by deception. But clearly the DPP isn't going to press charges even, if it ever found out. (It might be a different matter if we weren't paying for our subscriptions).

The only people who might be upset would be the host country satellite broadcaster who are being denied revenues from people residing in their country who might otherwise subscribe to their service. I'm not sure what they could actually do even if they did judge it to be a big problem, which in the great scheme of things I'm sure it isn't. (I'm sure they have their hands full making sure bars and clubs pay the commercial rate for showing live sport, for example, and not the domestic rate). But as in our (Italian) case the local satellite broadcaster is also Sky, I don't think they're going to be all that bothered.

Basically Sky can demonstrate to whoever might want to take them to court about it that they take reasonable steps to stop people watching abroad (e.g. requirement to have a UK address, processes to block cards if customers phone from a foreign number -though I don't know how often this really happens in practice-, clearly-stated contract terms forbidding non-UK use) and that would presumably be enough.

Obviously lots of senior Sky UK executives holiday across the continent and will have watched their favourite British footie team in pubs and bars from Seville to Stockholm. They're happy to turn a blind eye....and I certainly am not going to lose any sleep over my little deception.