Hi everyone
I am moving to Portugal in approx 2 months time and wondered if someone could help me with a query about TV/freeview.
We have been told we have to buy a television in Portugal but are not clear about whether a freeview or sky box purchased in UK will work ok. We use Sky here but would prefer Freeview in Portugal if it works ok as it is cheaper.
We would assume the necessary satellite dish is also needed.
appreciate your help

We brought our sky box with us,it works fine,and the dvd and video players,infact everything you can think of except the tv.
small electrical items over here a very expensive,ie kettles,toaster blah blah,bring everything!!!
We have upgraded to a 1.4 dish now,used to have a 1.3,larger one is much better

hi you just need to bring sky receiver which will get freeview at no cost ie bbc1234 itv1234 4and 5 availble with freeview card if you need anyfurther info email
Pm for details

Hi
Thanks for that really helpful info, you have just saved us a good few pounds. Really appreciate your help.
thanks

We bought a flat screen TV in the UK 6 months before we moved and it works perfectly well here.

OK - here we go again . . .

1. You cannot get UK Freeview here in Portugal. Freeview is digital TV received from an Earth transmitter through a decent TV aerial, using a special Freeview box (now built into new TVs) to decode the signals. This is what the UK is switching over to as part of the big "digital switchover". The signals simply do not get to Portugal because the transmitters are not powerfull enough and are Earth-bound. As the name suggests, you don't have to pay to watch the programmes (apart from a TV licence of course ).

2. Free-to-view, or - more correctly - Free-To-Air (FTA) is digital TV received via a dish from a satellite where you don't have to pay a subscription to watch the programmes. Sky is the most common provider here. You can receive FTA programmes with an FTA card in your Sky box - but you need a dish and Sky box (which decodes the signals). The card tells your Sky box what programmes you are allowed to watch. If it's an FTA card then that's all you get to see. With the various Sky subscriptions the card is programmed to let you watch the appropriate selection of programmes (Sport, Films, etc.) according to your subscription package. You can change your package as necessary.

3. Bring your Sky box and card and it should work - after you have installed a much bigger dish than is necessary in the UK. This is because, even though a relatively powerful satellite transmitter is used, we are at the fringe of the Sky signal reception area here in Portugal and need a bigger dish to get a decent enough signal.

In the UK 0.8 metres diameter is the normal size for a Sky dish. Here you generally need between 1.3 and 1.8 metres, depending on where you are and whether you want HD etc.

You can get Sky boxes, dishes and FTA / subscription cards over here without a problem.

Good luck.

Graeme

we moved over here in jan i brought over all my media appliances box, dvd players and my lcd t.v which i bought last summer they all work absolutely fine i put a portuguese plug on a uk four gang socket to save rewiring or buying adapters works good, you need to check if your t.v is pal europe or has a switch to cross it over to pal europe but t.vs seem to be fine.
if you need to buy here as a comparison the new 30" samsung lcd t.v is around €600, i last looked in uk and it was around £500.
the best sky box to bring over is the old panasonic sky box(on of the first that came out) we have the new amstrad one nut had to make sure we had a bigger dish and better quality LMB reciever.
hope this helps.

Thanks
that is all really great info, much appreciated

When you're advised to buy a TV in Portugal it's because the majority of UK TVs use a different system than in Portugal. In as much the same way as USA uses a system called NTSC and France uses SECAM, we in the UK use PAL. So does Portugal, but it's a slightly different version and because of this you can't use it to receive conventional old style (analogue) broadcasts.
When you use DVD players, video players, Sattelite receivers etc. you bypass the tuner and 'hard wire' into the TVs playback system, which isn't governed by the PAL thingy.
This means that you can't tune a UK TV into Portuguese broadcasts but, if you buy a TV in Portugal you can stick any UK DVD/video player or Sattelite receiver into it and it will work fine (and vice versa).

Thanks very much, more super info, appreciated. I'm not very technical with this type of eqipment and your explanation was really easy to understand, thank you

Ok, any suggestions for where to buy a dish on a stand? Similar to the camper van ones.

We are not allowed to mount one on our apartment but have a nice green space to put a dish up on a temporary basis.

Any suggestions peeps? TIA.

A.

Have you tried http://www.sattelitedishesforcamperv...rtmentlawns.pt I found them very good.

That's odd - that website redirects to http://www.hahahaaintifunny.pt

Just bought place outside Tavira , and stripping out own place for van load to set-up home in PT.

Happy to buy dish & card locally in PT, but (embarrassed to say) we have 3 flatscreens, all different, and we would like help, to know which one to bring with us !??

(1) Big flatscreen Panasonic with no built-in Freeview
(2) Toshiba with in-built Freeview
(3) LG with no built-in Freeview

My guess from earlier thread....Freeview doesn't work, so leave (2) in UK, yes ? And bring either (1) or (3) and plug-in to local receiver/card. OK ?

Thanks !

Hi Big Ant,

You'r quite right in the sense thar "British" freeview will not work Pt is just too far away fom the signal masts in UK. However you will be able to get all those programmes as Free to Air programmes via a satelite.

I understand that Pt dishes are the best so I would certainly buy that down there. It matters not which TV you use since the decoding of signal will be done by the sat digibox.

If the Panasonic is a plasma then that should give you the best picture with no smearing of fast action so that might be the one to bring for the main TV. The others could be used in bedrooms.

If you have a sky box which is now yours you could bring that and best of all your own card.If you want to keep sky and you can pay via a uk bank/address that is the best solution since thousands of cards in Iberia have been switched off by sky as being not in conformity with their rules about use outside GB and Eire. If you cease the subsciption to sky the card will default to Free to Air programmes about 220 at the last count.

Regards,

John.