Re: sky free to view cards help!
 

Because Freeview is UK only coverage and satellite coverage covers many other countries.

So on Freeview the channels are very limited to the UK and UK only by the strength of the freeview transmitters - and satisfying the requirements as per contracts and rights holders.

On satellite they limit availability of channels by either weak signals (and the need for big dishes) or encryption and only available by the use of a viewing card.

Also, channels get a small share of subscription from sky for being part of a package.

Re: sky free to view cards help!
 

So freeview and freesat are slightly different, quite different or very different in terms of channels covered?

Re: sky free to view cards help!
 

Hi

I bought a new white card and had it sent to a UK address; it was forwarded to me and I verified the details using Skype.

It all works fine for me

Davexf

Re: sky free to view cards help!
 

The local TV (SKY / Brit TV suppliers) will no doubt get a supply of the new cards soon, and then you can all pay upward of 80/100€.

But there is another way, just buy yourself a Freesat box( Dont mix this up with a freetoview box which is for TDT). Which you can buy off most online suppliers, then you just set it up on your existing dish, When installing use either your own postcode or a post code which gives you the strongest signal ( IE Manchester/Granada region). and Bobs ur brothers best cousin and your uncle if it suits, and more importantly no more shit with SKY, SKY cards, is it legal, resetting the box etc etc, or the The Guy formerly known as Prince.
You should also note that you will lose a few channels with the Freesat box, IE Sky 3, and a few other of Ruperts ripoffs, Freesat boxes are about 90 GBP, which is about what you will be charged for a new SKY FTV card I guess,

And Yes I have three units including one Freesat hd unit which works perfect although I have to watch Granada region to get CH 5,.

Re: sky free to view cards help!
 

Over the last two weeks or so, these cut-off messages have been appearing on our screen. We have been informed that the cut-off is to be completed by the end of December 2009 and this is when certain channels will disappear. One can add channel 5 manually.

We researched on another subscribed forum - Digital Spy and found that eventually all blue sky cards are to be changed over to white cards and Sky are doing certain regions at a time. We know our card which was a Scottish registered card and along with London and a either north-east or north-west region are being changed at the moment.

In our research, we found out that a house can have up to 4 FTV cards, so we have arranged with a friend of ours to obtain one of the new cards. £20 compared to 80€, which is what we would have paid, if we could not get a friend to order a card.

We were told, once the card has been activated, it can be used in any sky-box. Whether this is true or not, we are not sure. We should receive our new card tomorrow and hopefully it will work. Our sky-box is an old Pace box, about 6 years old, which we brought over from the UK.

One other thing we did find out about the changeover of cards and it is something to do with Channel 5 and Fiver channels. Cannot remember the actual reasons, except to say it is connected with these two channels.

Regards

Re: sky free to view cards help!
 

Bush Freesat HD boxes at Tivoli World market 75 €`s.

Re: sky free to view cards help!
 

freeview and freesat are very different in terms of system and reception.

and quite different in channels received.....vigin1 sky sports news, history and a few others are available on freeview but ony available as a sub on satellite.

freeview channels
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/terrestrial/epg/

freesat channels
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/satellite/freesatepg/

Depends on if you want to watch FIVE or not... as in my area you lose freesat five the same time as BBC2, at around 6pm and dont get it back until about 4am...not ideal if you want to watch FIVE and have a freesat box....and thats where having a fsfs card helps. its only £20 if you do it yourself.

so reception of that channel depends where you are in Spain.

and you will also lose access to Fiver Five USA, and those nice and stong ITV1 regions on 12408 and C4s on 12480 that you should be able to pick up on a small 80cm dish - ideal if you cannot have a big dish!

not too sure how to take that
considering I was answering a post about sky freesatfromsky cards and how to go about getting a new fsfs card, why have a go at me when I am answering the question?
if it was a question about freesat i would have answered that also. but it wasnt. so i didnt.

if people have a sky box, and dont want to pay for or want a fsfs card, then they will get the same channels as per a freesat box.
if people have a sky hd box, and dont want to pay for or want a fsfs card, then they will get the same channels as per a freesat hd box (although freesats do allow you to use HDD for free where as you must pay sky something per month for access to their HDD)

if you want deals in the uK for freesat boxes look at joinfreesat.co.uk, where they list the places with the best freesat deals and internet discounts.

The change over of cards is a contactual thing between Sky and their card provider NDS, as it allows them to deploy a more secure version of their encryption. They do this approx every 5 years. So all old cards need to be replaced as they will not be compatiable with the new encryption. All pay tv / satellite providers do this at regular intervals, to make sure their system is as secure as possible and to limit the impact of "hacking " and "card sharing" their channels for free.
And the cards unlock other channels aport from the Fives, like 6 ITV1 regions, Sky 3, C4HD, E4HD.

Nothing to do with Five at all.
Although the change has promped more regions of the UK to be allocated over to the freesat version of sky (depending on the postcode of the sky card), and as mentioned htis freesat version of five is on a weaker (ie BBC2) frequency compared to the sky card version of five.

Yes at the moment this is correct, and will continue to be correct unless Sky and NDS have a few more tricks up their sleaves when they fully deploy their new encryption.

Re: sky free to view cards help!
 

Thanks for this very useful advice. Thanks too to all you other postees.

Re: sky free to view cards help!
 

I had a Blue Card and decided to replace with a new card with Sky for £20. Card arrived (in UK) and to activate it you phone Customer Services who ask for the card number plus the Serial Number and the Version Number on the Digi Box . You can get to these using the remote and press Services etc.
I presume that each box has its own Serial & Version Number.

Re: sky free to view cards help!
 

correcto.
and the new white cards will work on sky basic boxes whos software is 3.6.14 or 3.7.6. as these are the software versions with the new card actiavtion stuff on them

Re: sky free to view cards help!
 

sheesh, all this information, hard to digest,head spinning. and got a message on my telly this morning, gotta get a new card etc....
so i took my existing sky card out of my digibox to see what would happen and found i would only lose channel five,five usa,fiver and the liverpool football channel funnily enough. nothing to worry about there i hope. can get most of what i want over the net now anyhoo.