Pace used to be an excellent manufacturer of set-top things, so there’s hope that they haven’t gone downhill.
Arris were a US company that bought Pace and then incorporated in the UK. Arris were then bought in turn by Commscope, although the Arris name is still used for STBs.
Why thank you @NotALot , they have definitely gone downhill since I left 
. I was heavily involved with the first Pace Sky PVR units (the ‘brick’ and it’s successors from Pace) amongst many other. I left 3 years ago after working there for 30 years.
I have to say, the new Arris freesat box is sh*te, which is a shame as I know many who work or have worked on the box. Unfortunately, Arris only gave the hardware and driver layer development to the old Pace guys in Saltaire. The middleware was done in Linköping, Sweden, and the EPG by someone hired by Freesat. It’s the middleware that’s the problem, and it runs like a crippled hamster.
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Current Freesat boxes are pretty good - have been using one for about 12 months without problems. Also has dual input which then allows you to record 4 channels at the same ime. Mine remains connected to the internet via a vpn but you do not need to connect it to the internet.
Usually, if you are using a Freesat box or a digital satellite box, this would require you to have a double tuner.
Yes, that’s because the LNB has to be switched to horizontal or vertical orientation. If you are recording a vertical channel you can watch the other vertical channels (with another tuner) but not horizontal ones. I’m sure there is some logic to which channels are vertical and which horizontal but it seems a bit random to me.
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I’d guess the glory days of PVRs are past. Gone the way of VHS. The reality is that nobody under thirty really watches “push” scheduled TV now, so they don’t record. They all stream what they want, when they want. Which is why iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4 are so popular and why when one watches many scheduled programmes on the BBC, for example, they announce you can watch the next episode NOW on iPlayer. The day of the cliffhanger is over too 
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This 
with knobs on.
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Well, the new Arris Freesat box works, but its terribly slow. At times it can take up to 5 or 6 seconds to respond to a keypress on the handset, and is really never snappy in it’s response, which it should be. The previous Humax box was much more responsive.
The Arris box is also buggy. See my post above for the reasons it’s so bad.
Sorry, pedant’s corner…
To be strictly accurate you can only use one satellite feed per decoder. In other words a dual output LNB (therefore two separate feeds) can be used to feed a twin tuner decoder, which can therefore record two things at the same time, or watch one & record another.
By extension a quad output can feed two twin tuner devices, or one twin & two separate one, or 4 separate ones, etc., etc…
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I still use a PVR to fast forward through the advertisements. Unless you subscribe to ITV Hub, All4, etc you still bet advertisements. They also allow programme recordings to be kept indefinitely whereas there is usually a time limit on streamed programmes. Programmes for the first parts of a series have sometimes disappeared before the last of the series is shown.
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I sit corrected. Every day’s a school day on SF. 
As we mostly do Elsie, but my daughter and her husband don’t even have the “traditional” channels on their Apple TV. It’s all Netflix, Prime and AppleTV plus streaming from their iPads and Macs. So I guess the market for PVRs has shrunk considerably,
Best days of your life?
The original question was about watching and recording UK TV channels not streaming in general. There are not many options if you are outside the UK and want to view/record those. There is also a much wider range of programme subjects of potential relevance to UK viewers available. Using the online versions of the UK channels is complicated as they usually require a VPN and may have other additional requirements, possibly including a subscription. So some form of satellite receiver is probably the best option for most.
Does anyone know where ITV4 has gone? I like the cycling, and can’t find it anywhere!
The new Arris boxes are capable of using wideband LNBs (which cover a wider frequency range then standard LNBs) and have two outputs, one permanently vertical and the other permanently horizontal polarisation; they are then capable of recording up to four channels. The Arris boxes can also be used with standard LNBs but that limits recordings to two channels.
ITV4 is on channel 117 (and 118 for +1) on my Humax Foxsat.
Have you reassigned or edited the channel lists so those are no longer visible?
I still look at tvguide.co.uk (not .com) to find out what I’m missing.
On the left hand side against each channel name it will give you which channel numbers of Freeview, Sky etc.
Still there for us !