Melissajrg

Can anyone tell me what's the minimum sized dish needed for a skybox in Portugal? Thanks in advance

EMR

It all depends where you are.
As you will probably be aware there are major changes in Satellite TV taking place which from later this year " could " mean that a large part of Portugal will not be able to receive the free to air UK TV channels. BBC, ITV etc.
Those same channels which are also carried on the SKY platform may also not be able to be received.
It is thought that these channels will still be able to be received north of lisbon but as yet nothing is known.
I would wait until later this year before buying anything until those who live in Portugal report what they can or cannot receive from the new satellite.

Melissajrg

Thanks for the info, is there anything online about this, I can't seem to find anything when I google it. My dish got damaged 2 days ago so I need to replace it, up til then I could get all the free view channels just fine. Hopefully I can get a technician to sort it out

EMR

There are pages and pages on this. on almost every expat forum in Europe.
We have been waiting for over 12 months for the changes to be completed.
The new sat launches this weekend and is expected to be on line and all the changes made by Christmas.
I take it you mean FREESAT there is no Freeview.
It is FREESAT that is expected to be affected most but you may be luckiy and far enough north not to lose all the UK beam channels.
To be honest I would wait before I spent a euro cent on new equipment.

liveaboard

EMR is correct; on the other hand, a replacement sat dish is quite cheap.
You could replace your old one with the same type if it's worth it to you, just know that it's quite possible that it will only work for a couple of more months.
After the beam changes are made you will be able to figure out if your receiver is worth upgrading or not.

Some stations will [supposedly] still be receivable, but not the popular ones.

Melissajrg

Thanks for the replies, it's a shame if this happens! I got a replacement dish and the technician is having trouble fine tuning it, I don't think a bigger dish is going to work where I am either EMR, I was referring to the channels, freeview are the basic BBC, ITV and Channel 4 I live just south of Lisbon so maybe it's too far down to get the channels. There are Internet options for UK TV subscriptions but it's pricey, maybe it will be the only option soon. Thanks again

peterfc

Hi All

On almost every other Forum talking about the loss of channels other options have been mentioned and were to get UK TV on the internet.

Peter " Dreams can come true "

EMR

There is no Freeview in Portugal , it will be FREESAT you get.
Again I would not sign up to any internet TV agreements either.
You do not have to spend much or anything at all depending on what you want.
the most important thing you need to check is the reliability and speed of your internet signal.
Be prepared for a real drop in picture quality compared to the TV sat signal.

peterfc

Hi All

I have said many times the service i use and perhaps the OP does a search and finds other help that has been offered in the past.

My speed has dropped due to line problems that PT promise me they are going to sort soon. My speed is only 0.85mbs now that's realy slow. On my normal speed of 1.75mbs i could watch TV use the Internet and download anything i wanted. As i type this i have the TV service i use and i have on More4 on my TV via the computer. Also i am using my laptop now i can do all that " WITH NO DROP OF PICTURE QUALITY "

So original poster do some reasearch on this and other Forums where you will find you can get away from using a Satelite dish the size of Jodrell bank in fact just plug in your computer.

Peter " Dreams can come true "

Mike

If everyone started to watch IPTV the network will not cope in certain areas. It just is not geared up for it. Even MEO cannot supply their service in certain areas.

Interesting times ahead.....

carvoeiro

You need either a 1.3 or 1.6 metre dish at the moment depending on location

EMR

At the moment but even 4.00mtr may not be big enough as has been found with Freesat channels on Astra 2f sat which was launched last year and carries the C5 network.
( This is in the Algarve, further north the dish size may vary )
The post reagrding internet TV is 100% right, we had a call from MEO promoting their new high speed service and they soon agreed that unless your property is connected to the fibre optic network what they are selling cannot be supplied.
This is something that others selling an IPTV service are not telling their customers.

liveaboard

I have MEO tv via a copper line, in a rural area.
Technically, it works fine; I can watch HDTV while simultaneously recording another channel.
The main problem [for us] is the program guide is in Portuguese, and they translate most of the movie titles, so it's hard to figure out what's on.
And there is very little new programming at all.
You don't need fiber optic to the house to watch TV over IP.

EMR

Meo have a new service offering high speed broadband + their TV service + phone.
The sales person admitted that they were targeting UK expats as they know many of us will have to watch TV over the internet in 2014.
They admitted that this service which can reach 35mps ( some say ) is only available with fibre optic broadband.
As Mike posts the existing copper wire slow speed networks will not cope with any signifcant increase in traffic.
You only need to read reports from some areas of the UK to confirm this.

liveaboard

In order to offer the TV service, MEO had to upgrade the infrastructure a lot. Where there is MEO TV, there is a dedicated local fiberoptic connected server. There has to be fiberoptic to the local server; after that point, everyone has their own individual copper wire pair. There is a maximum distance from the server in which it will function well, about 4KM they told me.
The low internet speed suffered on the MEO service is due to the length of the subscriber's wire, and the intentional throttling down to the paid-for speed.

I suppose if there are dozens of users trying to stream UK TV through a single server, something might get saturated. Time will tell.

The tech guys told me [a few years ago] that the home fiber optic offer is just a publicity gimmick. In reality, virtually no one has [had] it. and then it was only in Porto and Lisbon.
There's a fiber optic line passing only a hundred meters from my door, and I can't get connected.