Some Freesat receiver advice please.

[Fatt McMissile]

We had a Humax Freesat receiver taken out in a thunderstorm `and I'm hoping that one of you guys can recommend a currently available (ie not Humax) Freesat receiver. Ability to record is not really necessary and it should ideally be under £150.

I particularly need to know whether a "4K" Freesat receiver will work with a conventional non 4K french-bought HD TV. ie is it "backwards compatible"?

Humax no longer make Freesat boxes it seems, and second hand ones are fetching more than their new price. I will be having it delivered to a UK address but won't be able to collect it until covid restrictions between the countries permit, so I am loath to buy a second hand box that I can't test quickly.
Thanks for thinking about it!

[sociopath]

There're hardly any 4k transmissions in the UK and afaik none on Freesat, so backwards compatibility won't be a problem.

Humax have been replaced as Freesat suppliers, so I think there is only the official supplier now.

[rdjohn]

These are the Humax boxes currently available for FreeSat

https://uk.humaxdigital.com/product-category/frees...

I have the recorder and its worked just fine for the last couple of years, but then my TV is not 4k. It also brings in online services except those that need a VPN like BBC iPlayer

[anonymous-user]

There are loads on eBay for < £100.

[Fatt McMissile]

rdjohn said:

https://uk.humaxdigital.com/product-category/frees...

Unfortunately OOS and as sociopath says, Humax have been replaced as Freesat suppliers so there won't be any new ones.

wormus said:

There are loads on eBay for < £100.

If I could get it and test it now I wouldn't hesitate but as I won't be able to collect it in the UK and bring it back to France personally (to avoid duty) yet, I wouldn't be able to return a faulty item in several months time. Likewise, getting an e-bay seller to send it here could mean quite a large customs etc charge, and returning a faulty one from here raises the same issues for the seller.

I've seen that Amazon UK have a non-recording official Freesat 4K box at £122, in the light of what sociopath said about 4K, I'll likely go for that.

[Mike-tf3n0]

I have an old Skybox which you can have if it helps, I inherited it from some friends who have gone home but have never used it as we had just bought a smart TV, I believe it is fine though. It should give you free to air which is effectively Freesat but much better organised, alternatively I believe you can buy a Freesat card from Sky.

[bristolracer]

If you don't need recording then get one of these

https://manhattan-tv.com/freesat/manhattan-sx

[rdjohn]

Fatt McMissile said:

rdjohn said:

https://uk.humaxdigital.com/product-category/frees...

Unfortunately OOS and as sociopath says, Humax have been replaced as Freesat suppliers so there won't be any new ones.

You can buy new ones from Currys, the hard part is getting it here anytime soon.

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/humax-tv-and-home-en...

[Fatt McMissile]

Mike-tf3n0 said:

I have an old Skybox which you can have if it helps, I inherited it from some friends who have gone home but have never used it as we had just bought a smart TV, I believe it is fine though. It should give you free to air which is effectively Freesat but much better organised, alternatively I believe you can buy a Freesat card from Sky.

That's very kind, but there's no urgency as we do have other Freesat boxes and only in the unlikely event of all our gites being occupied in the next few months would we ourselves be short of one.
The only urgent bit is to have an invoice to present to our insurer as it's holding up the rest of the claim.

bristolracer said:

If you don't need recording then get one of these

https://manhattan-tv.com/freesat/manhattan-sx

Looks good, thanks!

[Pitre]

rdjohn said:

You can buy new ones from Currys, the hard part is getting it here anytime soon.

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/humax-tv-and-home-en...

They are all Freeview, not Freesat.... won't work en France.

[rdjohn]

Pitre said:

rdjohn said:

You can buy new ones from Currys, the hard part is getting it here anytime soon.

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/humax-tv-and-home-en...

They are all Freeview, not Freesat.... won't work en France.

Dohh!

[Mike-tf3n0]

Well, we have a conventional Panasonic Viera smart TV hooked up to a large dish in the garden and we get Freesat! All the BBC and ITV channels plus C4, PBS America, Pick, Al Jezira, Bloomberg, loads of others including lots of +1 repeat transmissions and also France 24. Bad weather very occasionally causes minimal aggro but truly it all works perfectly.

[WyrleyD]

Panasonic are phasing out the Freesat tuners on their new TVs as I found out when looking for a replacement of my 3 year old Panasonic LED that I managed to crack the screen on, current busted one has twin Freesat tuners so can record and watch at the same time but new models have only a single Freesat tuner and a Freeview tuner. Be careful when looking at the specs on retailers sites as many say twin digital tuners but in fact are as above, one Freesat and one Freeview. Have resigned myself to move away from Panasonic and go with a separate Freesat box and a wider choice of TVs.