Free Sat - High Def TV

[B.J.W]

Some advice appreciated here.

I decided that my Sky subscription was not worth the £46 a month that I was paying for a load of channels that I never watched. I had the old box, no Sky +/HD and no contract.

I own a 1080i Panansonic TV and fancied watching some regular channels in HD.

I cancelled my Sky Subscription and bought a Humax HD freesat box yesterday after seeing it recommended in What TV and HiFi. Looking forward to watching a few channels in HD, I plugged it in yesterday and......

The only HD channel I have got is BBC HD. All of the other channels are broadcast in 560i.

The box cost me £150 and I also bought an uprated HDMI cable as well. All in, the whole project has come to £220. The box will have paid for itself in 3 months time (3 x cost of old Sky Subscription), but I am a little annoyed that I have forked out this much for an HD box, only to have just the one HD channel to watch (which admittedly looks and sounds fantastic)

Have I been done up like a kipper? My area is fully HD live (I checked). It is an expensive purchase relative to the non HD boxes, but is it the same for everyone who has Freesat HD, and if this is the case, is the situation likely to change anytime soon?

Thanks in advance.

P.S - it is now 24 hours since ASS (After Sky Sports) and I am already having withdrawal symptons.

[cs02rm0]

B.J.W said:

I also bought an uprated HDMI cable as well

For when a digital picture could be just that little bit better?

[B.J.W]

cs02rm0 said:

B.J.W said:

I also bought an uprated HDMI cable as well

For when a digital picture could be just that little bit better?

Off topic slightly, but the uprated HDMI cable I bought for the PS3 has made a difference when I compared it to the old cable.

So your saying I have been done up like a kipper twice

[mackie1]

You should be able to get ITV HD too but I think it's available only via the red button.

Out of interest what improvement did your new HDMI cable offer? We you getting picture breakup or sparkles with the old one?

[cjs]

Only BBCHD and ITVHD available on Freesat. The later is via the red button as already mentioned. There is a comprehensive list of available channels on the Freesat Website. There will be more in the future, maybe C4HD.

So you have not been done up like a kipper, you just didn't do enough research. I would take the £70 HDMI cable back for a refund and get a £5 one from Tesco.

Your box will up-scale SD pictures.