We have a sky box, but it’s limited to the free channels, boring, it’s capable to record, but with the £20 Sky card, it won’t. Does anyone have anything that I could replace the Sky box, that would give me more Channels, with a possibility of some French and is able to record. Any improvement would be welcome, lastly, there are two cables to the dish.
Hi Mick, have you thought about Canalsat, over 300 channels and a streaming service where you can hire films in VO. Or Netflix France which has a good choice of films and tv series from home an abroad with subtitles. Or Amazon Prime on Amazonuk if you have a friend or family member who will let you use their address - It’s a reasonable price and you get a fantastic choice of film and tv. Or NOWTV offers great streaming deals including all the stuff on SKY including sport but it’s a little more expensive and you will need a UK address to register.
Hope that helps
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Thanks Dan, I’m rather looking for something that I can pay a one off, rather than another monthly charge, I already have one for the iPad.
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I don’t think you can get a one off solution if you want both French and U.K. TV.
You may consider using a humax freesat box to watch and record from the same satellite as your Sky box. It will need 2 cables from the lnb at satellite dish.
It is free and gives all the free channels that you get with Sky and radio channels. The dish size required will depend on where you are in France
If you have 2 cables you can record 2 programs and watch a recording at the same time.
If you have a 3rd cable from the lnb you can connect it to the satellite plug on the back of a smart tv and use it to connect to the internet or connect it to a cable from the French sat to get the French channels.
The French channels are on another satellite and you would need another dish.
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We have a humax box which carries Freesat channels - OH bought it, so not sure about price, but if you google it, you’ll see it comes in at about £200 on Amazon UK depending on what features you have on it. If you want UK channels, buy from UK, if French, buy from France. That’s all you pay, no monthly charges. We also have a smart TV which carries Netflix, Amazon prime and French channels, but if you want to watch those you have to pay a monthly subscription. Try doing a search on “humax” on here and on google. There’s loads of info.
(sorry: overlapped with John)
Edit: Further thoughts: The point about the smart TV is that you don’t need another satellite dish, as the channels are coming via the internet. We only get about 2mb of download but that’s still fine for viewing Netflix, Prime etc. And because they know we are in France quite a lot of the content is French. Also, you can watch Arte for free (French/german channel) and they have some very good programmes.
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If you want French TV without having to pay for it, see if you can get TNT (Télévision Numérique Terrestre I believe) which requires an aerial linked to a box you can buy in supermarkets or DIY stores and provides the main French channels free. I can’t get it due to the hills between us and the transmitter so I have to pay for Canalsat alongside the Humax Freeview i.e. two satellite dishes.
Thanks Sue some interesting information. I’m in the same position as you but I have never known how to pick up the French German channel you were talking about. Can you advise me please?
The easiest way to get French TV, including Arte, as stated is through a TNT connection and a conventional aerial. If you are lucky even an internal aerial will work. I have also watched French TV, including catchup, through my tablet cast to either a Chromecast or a Smart TV. The TV boxes supplied by the Internet providers work with even a poor connection.
You can watch a lot of English language series and films in English through a TNT connection a good number of them being on the aforementioned Arte. One of the places that we stayed in had a great system with one satellite dish and one box supplying both UK and French TV.
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This is what I’ve got, a satellite dish pointed at Astra with a decoder for all my UK channels and for my French TV a normal Smart Telly HD and TNT ready, connected to my antenna (digital/numerique) on the roof. (Analogue arial / antenna reception, just like in the UK was turned off and does not exist now)
The Free TNT service covers 97% of France Metropole.
All new HD Smart tellys can receive this (mine is over 3yrs old) they will have this symbol on their info /box (shown in red)
Here are the Free TNT channels…
Summary
Hello Janet, where you find Arte may be different for your smart TV. We have a Samsung and when we turn on the TV a blue band comes up along the bottom of the screen with several pre-loaded websites - Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc, etc. In addition there is a “button” which says “Apps”, click on that and various headings come up, “my apps” “what’s new” etc. Arte is to be found under the “most popular” heading. There’s also a search facility within “Apps” (just type in Arte in the box and press the magnifying glass symbol).
Otherwise, you probably have a web browser on your TV. In that case, simply type Arte into the web browser (it’s a bit laborious with just a TV remote) and it will take you there.
Humax box. Don’t have uk tv myself just Netflix but there will be a lot of advice on groups like ‘Expat life in France’ on Facebook etc
This must be what I have then.
Dish on the roof stopped working so I put the decoder away, & plugged in the ariel. I’ve since lost 5,6,7,9 , & 22…they make a brief re-appearance if this weather is really crap, & lots of low cloud (?!)
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That’s crazy!! 
I know…got me stumped
Is your aerial (still) pointing the right way? How old is the cable from the aerial? Coaxial cable degrades really quickly if moisture gets in to it at all.
The low cloud may be reflecting a signal from a distant transmitter, but more often moisture in the air actually attenuates the UHF tv signals. So some people in marginal coverage areas lose their terrestrial signal in summer when there are leaves on the trees and get it back when the trees are bare in winter.
The ariel was here when I moved in, in 2002. I had the dish installed in 2005-6, & stopped using the decoder (UK FTA channels) about 3 years ago, maybe a bit longer.
Hi.We live in France, and have large satellite,with two cables running from it,one for the English tv in the living room,and one for the French tv in tge bedroom.
For the English tv we have on old Sky set top box which gives access to only mainstream channels,but at least is free.
What can we do please to have much wider choice still using the satellite dish?
To start with I would define “wider choice”.
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And how much you are willing to pay 
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What’s on offer?