Received my decoder today, just as promised, and found it easy to connect and set up but am not finding it easy to find the channels I want regularly. It seems to be programme centric raher than the channels themselves.
I found BBC Sounds and from there Radio 4 but trying to find BBC TV channels is proving a problem. Channels 4 and 5 are on the home page (which is not always easy to find my way back to).
I have a switcher so I can change from that to the sattelite decoder (at the expense of French TV) but it is a long way round to find a programme guide so I can set up what I want to watch later and I’m not sure it has one.
The reason I bought it was because for an hour or so first thing in the mornings i get almost no signal at all. I don’t need TV till the evenings but at €16/month it seems a bit expensive just to listen to the Today programme each day.
€16 a month? Blimey for the equivalent of 2 to 3 months you can get all manner of channels from all around the world, plus various other add-ons such as films, TV series on demand, etc…
I did think it was rather expensive but I do need something to get my radio fix and, in any case, I thought I could offset it by cancelling my €11 a month Netflix account, so much on there is crap anyway.
all manner of channels from all around the world, plus various other add-ons such as films, TV series on demand, etc…
But I don’t need all of that or what @Nigel-at-BUF-House mentioned. Just a few UK channels and
Radio 4.
I may not keep it anyway, not very user friendly and is a bit of a bind to operate, at least I got some accurate advice within an hour of asking pertinent questions to the supplier but I really miss the Freesat EPG.
No, but even if you ignored all the other stuff and just used it for UK TV and radio it would be significantly cheaper… €35 p/year versus €16 p/month is a big difference.
I’ve just had the Netflix message that I’m not part of the recognised household and would I like to pay extra to use the account. I’ve warned the daughters that, if they block the workaround I have, then I’ll be closing the account as I don’t watch it enough to justify the payment.
Ha ha! Guess what I did yesterday, I called into the Presse to get a copy, I know they used to sell it but that might have been only on order, but this time, a sad shake of the head. Obviously Brits at least in this area are a dying breed.
It was nice first thing this morning to be able to get radio 4 on the go, although rather more button pushes than before, and even though I had immediately to mute it because of all the religious stuff (I do like the hymns but hate being preached at) and at least one short period when the internet went down, but I was prepared for that knowing as I do that that happens less often than a satellite disappearing.
Regarding the EPG though, I can still get it later in the day (the only time I need it) by pushing the button on the switcher to go over to Freesat.
Well the honeymoon period is over and I have decided not to renew the monthly subsubscription when it comes due on the 5th of Frebruary.
It is way too clunky, just changing a channel needs half a dozen button pushes sometimes, especially if going from radio to tv. Also several times it stopped working even though I know for a fact that my internet connection is good and once, a dire warning, it refused to change to Channel 4 tv ‘because it detected I was outside of the permitted region’.
It did seem a bit daft. I would try the satellite for Radio 4 first thing each morning. If it merely said in large letters on the screen ‘No Signal’. I could get round it by going up to BBC 6 Music, where there was almost always a signal and then back down to Radio 4 which would then work. But if, and this was getting to be more often, the screen said in smaller letters with a red triangle ‘No Signal’ I knew that I would get nothing, so then I went to the internet.
Round about midday that would suddenly cut out so I would switch back to the satellite, then off at the mains and back to reboot and for the rest of the evening it was ok, no need for the internet.
As for the loss of the channel planner, the EPG, I got round that by checking Radio Times online, but it was getting a bit of a pain writing down my preferences each day.
I will keep the system in reserve though, I can end the pause and start paying again if necessary but the good thing is I can re-connect my 2 way switcher to French telly, Fransat, and have that on in the morning if it is too much trouble to get UK radio back again
I have been using Roku for a number of years. First of all we don’t pay to use it so I have no idea why you are paying 16 per month. We connect via Nord VPN setup on our router and it works perfectly for all U.K. catch-up channels. When we first set up/registered for an account with Roku it was done via our VPN so that we registered with Roku in the U.K, and not Roku France. This gave us access to the U.K. channels list. We are based near Nice and also have Freesat. Apart from C4 HD we get reliable reception of all channels - you just need a quality 1.3m dish and LNB, with high quality coax cables to get a reliable service.
I have a separate VPN router that advertises a SSID for the VPN service. The Roku connects to this SSID only and so it’s always connected to the VPN service. Hope this helps.
I don’t know why we had to pay either but, to be fair, it was advertised as such when it came to my notice. As a committed non-techie person I admit to being totally bemused by all the terms you use although of course I have heard of them.
I have an 80 cm dish in the north of the Dordogne which has always been adequate for many years 'till the last 6 months or so. I got it for free with all the bits after finding it in the skip at the dechetterie so am loath to replace it with something larger especially as the problems I have do not seem to me to be due to that.
I simply can’t understand why (and several on here have produced no solution when I have previously mentioned it) the No Signal sign, which used to be occasional and only for tv reception, suddenly started to effect the radio and Radio 4 in particular. Like the tv, I can usually recover the signal by going up and down the adjacent channels. The worst time is in the morning. Around lunch time I may have to reboot, but not always. Bizarre.
Not suggesting this is causing your issue but thought I’d share it as it’s a funny story of how the broadband in a Welsh village went down every day at 07:00 for 18 months (apologies if I’ve already posted this previously)…
Have you considered that maybe your satellite receiver could be to blame, David? I appreciate it works the rest of the time but I wonder if it’s worth trying a new satellite receiver to see if the problem disappears. It sounds to me like the Roku, Firestick and all the other new things you’ve tried haven’t been as user-friendly as your current satellite setup. As you’ve seen, returning things with Amazon means you needn’t be out of pocket if you find it doesn’t resolve the problem.
I have heard that story before but had fogotten it. I tried again this morning, after rebooting I managed to get 6 music, but just for 2 minutes then the dreaded red triangle re-appeared.
I had thought it might be the Manhatten, but once I tried the Humax which I also have and the result was the same. I could check with Amazon FR to see if they sell them, but another tack is that, since I bought a new tablet for my bedtime music, I could bring the now largely unused internet radio into the salle since I only need radio in the daytime and don’t bother with tv till the evening.
It could also be that your Satellite dish is slightly out of alignment so that it is only receiving some channels. It’s quite common for high winds to knock the dish out of alignment. This can cause signals to drop during the day based atmospheric conditions. Maybe it’s best you get a Satellite company to pop round to tune your setup?
