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I know this should be simple but I am technologically challenged. Background: recently moved house and treated ourselves to a new "smart" TV (first TV in 20 years) and paired it with a BT TV box (after 20 years plus with Sky satellite, and I'm already not sure we've made the right choice) to run over 150MB fibre and I have set up a mesh wi fi. The problem is this....as well as the wi fi the BT box wants an aerial input too for terrestrial channels, but the only input in the house I can find is the terminals from an inherited Sky dish (which is still there). At the moment I can only watch the app based channels, so how do I get the freeview channels - I can't see f-plug to coaxial as a way forward?. Do i need a coaxial feed or can I make use of the inherited Sky terminals, or is there a third way? I still have the Sky box from the previous house. I must admit I thought I could get all the terrestrial stuff over the web these days but apart from watching the BBC live through iPlayer, all the other apps eg ITVX, are catch up only without a live feed from the channel (even if, in the case of ITVX I can watch ITV live on the ITVX app on this computer but not on the TV). As for the number of times I have had to get permissioned for each app......I thought this was meant to be easy.
Your BT box is not going to be able to do anything with the feed from a dish. So I think you need to either a) get an aerial fitted and feed your BT box with that, b) get a Freesat box to get make use of the Sky dish for free-to-air channels, or c) stick with the apps.
What input has your TV got? Just Coax? Or coax and satellite?
LG are Freesat ready, so just plug in the Sat cable to the back (though it may need a new LNB, as Sky LNBs are not always compatible).
……I thought this was meant to be easy.
Nope - it gets ever more complicated!! The need to sign in for every app really does my head in.
As timmys says you either need an aerial fitting or get a freesat box to connect to the dish.
I got one of these and I really don't miss Sky. I went recordable so I could record stuff to watch later and fast forward the adverts...
https://www.freesat.co.uk/get-freesat/set-top-boxes/recordable-4k-tv-box?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIzLvXlIyegwMVa4tQBh0AIwpYEAAYASAAEgIPBvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
Live streaming is hopefully coming next year...
https://www.stuff.tv/features/what-is-freely-the-british-on-demand-service-explained/
or is there a third way?
You could try an indoor TV aerial and plug it straight into the back of the TV.
The TV will have a built-in Freeview Play tuner.
The thing with indoor aerials is they either work or they don't though depending on your location!
You could try an indoor TV aerial
?
Nope – it gets ever more complicated!! The need to sign in for every app really does my head in.
Indeed, and the variance in live vs not live, stream via Android/Google plugin doofer or not (etc) is a growing pain. That Freely may be good...
What Savoyad said. If you haven’t got an aerial you’ll likely find that installing streaming apps on your TV will be better than using the set top box. Less cables and remotes too.
What make is your TV?
As above, I'm not sure what the BT TV box is going to acheive or why you have it.
Live TV - either down an Aerial using the Freeview Tuner inside your TV, or down the Sky dish and cable and via the FreeSat tuner inside your telly.
On demand, netlfix, iplayer, discovery etc - just install the apps on your TV?
BT Box is primarily intended for Sky & BT sports channels and the terrestrial stuff in the main. The TV is a Sony Bravia all bells and whistles and I thought it would handle the terrestrial channels. It has a satellite input and I tried connecting that input to the Sky terminals I can see but got nothing from it. The BT TV box instructions - which are as sparse as you like - seem to imply it needs an aerial, which flies in the face of "all things over the net" IMO.
I also bought a 4K Freesat box - the quality of the picture seems to be a step above what I had from the Sky Q box, for some reason (could be Sky trying to persuade you to get their 4k service instead of HD).
Menu system is OK but not fast, but there is an app that I run on my iPad for a better experience of browsing and choosing what to record.
An ITV X subscripton could be worthwhile as it offers all the ITV stuff in HD without ads, and also all the Britbox catalogue (doesnt work the other way round with a Britbox subscription).
Time was, you could get a Freeview card to sit in a repurposed Sky box.
You can't turn a dish signal into an RF signal simply by swapping the F-connector for a traditional coax barrel, as I'm fairly sure you've recognised.
There are ways of getting terrestrial TV over IP without using iPlayer, ITV X and a supporting cast of a thousand apps, but none of which are legal.
No idea what this BT box is, sorry.
All the bells and whistles in the world on your TV isn't going to pick up terrestrial TV without an aerial. Do you actually have an aerial on the roof? Follow the cable. If not, well, if I were you I'd call someone to have one installed. All other things aside it's a useful fallback if whatever clever solution you come up with goes titsup.com one day.
I've got there or thereabouts - thanks to some comments above and a bit more thinking. I found the tuning page about the time Scaredy posted and now have something like 700 channels (!). And I now get the logic - under my old set up all channels, terrestrial and subscription, came through the Sky box, but now I have terrestrial on the TV and paid for, catch up and apps through the BT box. That was harder than necessary work
I’ve got a new Bravia, that replaced another Bravia that was nearly twenty years old, input is a Sky Q box, and I’ve still got an aerial on the chimney as well. There is a coax feed into the set, and a feed from my BT landline into the SkyQ box. Thing is, I don’t use any of the ‘Smart’ features built into the tv, so I can’t really help - everything I need I get from the Sky box.