Extra TV

Sorry for all the questions, but we only have Currys in the town who have very limited tech knowledge.

We currently have sky using our own dish with two cables.

We want a small TV in the playroom for the grandchildren that we can play Netflix on as well.

If I buy a smart TV with Free-sat built in, can I just split the cable before the Sky box and connect in to new TV. Does it matter which cable I split? (know I will not get Sky without additional box) I don't want to put up another aerial.

Will i get BBC1 with free-sat?

If not, can I access this via player as I do on the laptops?

Is it worth getting the Amazon fire stick (we use that for netflix and amazon on our other [old, not smartTV]?

Thanks in advance.

To partly answer your question - no you can’t split a satellite cable in the same way that you could with an aerial cable.

I presume the LNB on your satellite dish only has two outputs. If it has more, currently unused outputs then you can connect an additional cable and use that for Freesat.

If not, your options are to get a new LNB with more outputs, install an extra dish or tv aerial, or only use streaming services with the new TV. We have an LG TV with Freeview and Freesat which can run an iPlayer app as well as Netflix and other streaming services.

In addition, depending on where you live, an indoor aerial may be enough for Freeview.

Many thanks

The reason for the two cables is that satellite channels are transmitted in two polarisations, and in two bands - so four different sets of channels, effecitvely, and you can only get one set down a cable. With two cables, you can guarantee that you can watch one channel and record another (and, if the other channels you want to record at the same time are in either of the two currently selected sets, you can record them, too, which is why you can sometimes, but not always, record more than one other channel). The Sky box sends signals up the cables to the LNB on the dish to tell it which set of channels it wants on which cable at any particular time.

You could send one cable to the new TV and leave the Sky box with just one cable, but then you'll only be able to record while watching another channel if the recorded channel is in the same band and polarisation as the one you're watching.

Some satellite dishes have a quad LNB (four connectors) with which you could "fully" (as in watch and record one other channel) serve two TVs/boxes or a distribution box (which has its own switching hardware to act like a satellite's LNB).

Great - thanks

Yes - some platforms in other countries have limited their transponders so that they are all in just one of the 4 bands - meaning you can split the LNB feeds and feed multiple tuners from a single LNB feed. This only works if you have a small platform, but if you do this makes a lot of sense.



Though worth pointing out that Sky Q doesn't work like this in either of the two ways it can be installed.

Sky Q regular installs use a Wideband solution - so rather than the two LNB cables each carrying a feed for a single tuner (and each feed being switched between one of the 4 bands - HiH, LoH, HiV, LoV) - the two feeds carry either the Wideband horizontal LNB output or the Wideband Vertical LNB output (Hi and Lo bands carried together). This means that you can feed as many tuners as you like from the two cables - unlike the previous solution which would have required 4 cables from the LNB to feed unlimited tuners.

Sky Q also supports a Unicable II solution - which is far more complex (and requires the LNB to do a lot more processing).

So do I need an aerial or sat dish for Freeview or is that on wi fi?

Freeview is terrestrial television so you need an aerial

But you can use the tvplayer app to get a roughly similar selection of channels via wifi

Thanks all - looks like quality smart TV with Amazon stick is the way to go.

You may not need the Amazon Fire TV stick if the TV has the requisite Smart TV apps.

Really disappointed. Bought the Toshiba model which, on the advert photo shows apps along the bottom, including ITV hub and More 4. However these are not available via wireless connections as they require Adobe which is not supported. Does anyone know of a manufacturer who produces a TV that will support these Apps?

Thanks