PEAK ELECTRICS

Domestic Electrical Services

How do I get digital?

There are 4 main methods of receiving digital TV:
 
1.  via a TV aerial, just as one used to, but with an additional decoder
2.  via a satellite dish and decoder
3.   via "Cable" and a decoder
4.  via a BT Vision Broadband decoder

1.   Terrestrial digital TV is known as Freeview (formerly known as ON Digital and ITV Digital) and is free to receive through your aerial (apart from the TV licence), but in order to do so you will need a Freeview decoder (a "set-top box") or a Freeview TV (a TV with a Freeview decoder built-in).  A set top box can be bought  in supermarkets and electrical stores for £25.00 - £100.00 and can now be extremely small.   Alternatively see PVRs below.  Freeview provides about 40 TV channels at present (until more space is freed-up, see above) and a number of radio stations. 
     Older set-top boxes from ON Digital or ITV Digital might still work as Freeview decoders.
      Some older TV aerials might be incompatible with all or some digital channels and require replacement.
 More information on Freeview click here:   http://www.freeview.co.uk/home

2.   There are now 2 satellite services: 
The original service is operated by Sky TV and requires a satellite dish installed on a wall, facing south and a Sky set-top decoder.  Sky offers over a hundred TV channels, including numerous Sky Movie and Sky Sports channels, and many radio stations, but you will have to pay for the dish installation and a monthly subscription for the "package" of channels you have chosen.   Alternatively, Sky offer a reduced "package" of free-to-air channels (sometimes known as Sky Freesat) for a one-off fee plus the cost of the dish installation.  More information here:  http://packages.sky.com/see/

There is now another satellite service from BBC/ITV called Freesat.  This is free to receive and provides around 80 channels (it is also broadcast in "High Definition").  All you need for this service is a Freesat decoder (currently around £120.00) and an installed satellite dish.  (A Sky satellite dish should be able to provide an adequate signal.)  More info here:  http://www.freesat.co.uk/

3.   Cable TV services are mostly only available in larger conurbations, but for further information on Cable operators in Hampshire click here:  http://www.cable.co.uk/regions/south-east/hampshire.html

4.   BT Vision is a service which receives TV through the Broadband telephone network (which you will need to have installed).  Further information is available here:  http://www.btvision.bt.com/vision/index.htm

Sky, Freeview, Cable and BT Vision are totally incompatible systems, but they all provide the main channels, such as BBC1, BBC2,  BBC3, BBC4,  ITV1,  ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, Channel 4, Film4, E4, More 4, Channel 5,  Fiver, 5US, and Sky Three (other Sky channels generally being limited to the Sky Satellite service).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Digital TV & the switch-off