Sky Television in North America

Galen

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Nov 25, 2004
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I know I've asked this before in a thread, but I was hoping for a bit more response from those in the know.

If you flip your teleboxes to Fox News right now you will see Sky News. This is one of many FTA (Free To Air) UK channels that I'd love to be able to pick up (to include BBC1, BBC2, BBC News 24, Channel 4 etc.). Seeing as Fox News are able to pick up and broadcast this signal, it must be possible. I've also heard of equipment here being able to pick up Romanian Television networks, which further reinforces that I don't require the type of setup that Fox News quite obviously have.

Anyway. I can pick up a dish and whatever else as required. Do I need to have a special form of decoder to be able to pick these channels up? i.e. Something I'd have to buy online or whatever..

Anyway, before I further embarrass myself with lack of Home Theatre knowledge, I will leave you these links for any additional understanding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Sky_Broadcasting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_to_air


Thanks in advance!


Oh look, terrorists.
 
you guys operate off completely different satellites over there...communications satellites are geosynchronous
you can't get sky news over the public airwaves here and I don't think even with a dish, etc. can you get stations from Romania, though I could be wrong there
 
Sky is not available through the standard US commercial outlets. Fox has access to Sky because they're owned by the same parent company. FTA is a much more widespread thing in Europe and the Middle East than it is here.

That said, if you want to watch FTA in the UK&EU, all you need is a dish and a decoder / decoder card (for your PC). Hopefully, that answers your question.
 
Thanks for the replies guys

As I will be in Canada for the forseeable future, I was hoping I'd be able to pick up even a few of the channels. Sky News tends to be the quickest with breaking news and has a format that is enjoyable, the BBC's have amazing programming etc.

Really unimpressed with Satellite TV here as it's mainly just the same channel in a different timezone. I've seen dishes operating from the Astra satellite (Which provides Euro and Romanian TV) just up the road from here, which led me to make this thread. I was aware that if you wanted to watch Euro/Mid East/Far East channels in the UK you needed the satellite and a specially made decoder which you could program the frequencies etc. into from online. Is there no similar thing here?

Again, thanks
 
Galen said:
Thanks for the replies guys

As I will be in Canada for the forseeable future, I was hoping I'd be able to pick up even a few of the channels. Sky News tends to be the quickest with breaking news and has a format that is enjoyable, the BBC's have amazing programming etc.

Really unimpressed with Satellite TV here as it's mainly just the same channel in a different timezone. I've seen dishes operating from the Astra satellite (Which provides Euro and Romanian TV) just up the road from here, which led me to make this thread. I was aware that if you wanted to watch Euro/Mid East/Far East channels in the UK you needed the satellite and a specially made decoder which you could program the frequencies etc. into from online. Is there no similar thing here?

Again, thanks
Here in North America? No, you're basically screwed. Its not going to happen. There is some FTA stuff, but its not worth watching by and far. In your home country, you could simply buy http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_novas.html and a dish. You'd probably want to get a stepper motor control to re-point the dish as you jump from satellite to satellite.
 
theacoustician said:
Here in North America? No, you're basically screwed. Its not going to happen. There is some FTA stuff, but its not worth watching by and far. In your home country, you could simply buy http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_novas.html and a dish. You'd probably want to get a stepper motor control to re-point the dish as you jump from satellite to satellite.
Ah well, was worth a try. I paid next to nothing at home for Sky's full package with their TiVo service and it was about a million times better than the service I get at the minute (Starchoice) and their full package.

Anyway, thanks for the help. Answers that question.
 
I work with a guy who picks up fta shows that I can ask him about sky. I do know that is is at least possible to pick up some channels from that general direction (hes from Bangledesh) but I do recall him meantioning that it requires a pretty funky positioning to get it.
 
haha. hes not my roomate, its just Fakrhul in the SOC!

Anyway, he says its possible but you'll likely need a 4 dish setup, or a setup that allows the dish to move to different locations. In other words it will likely be hard to do.
 
Well, I should be able to get a remote control dish no problem if they're as abundant here as they are in the UK. There's a satellite business just up the road from here, guess I'll give them a call in the morning and see if it's at all possible.

Oh, and thanks for finding out for me. You have given me hope.