Introduction to Freesat

One of the most significant is simply the lack of encryption; all the channels on Freesat are broadcast in the clear, including Channel 4 and ­ from sometime later this year ­ Channel 5; see the Freesat website for the full list.

Previously, both these channels relied on Sky to provide encryption and regionalisation and, although they were free in the sense that you could use a Sky box with a £20 one-off ‘Freesat from Sky’ card to receive them, a standard PC satellite card wouldn’t be any use (although some Linux-based PVR software could emulate the necessary Sky decryption software with a card reader).

Channel 4 is now broadcasting on Freesat, along with E4, More4 and Film4, and with Five coming soon, those who can’t get Freeview but want to build their own PC-based video recorder will find that doing so has become a lot simpler.

Eagle-eyed readers of PCW’s website will recall Hauppauge claiming its satellite product was suitable for receiving Freesat, only for Freesat to claim otherwise. So, what’s the story? It’s actually a little in between.

Freesat has a logo, and a specification for its receivers and a licensing programme. You can’t put the Freesat logo on something, or call it a Freesat receiver, unless it meets the specifications ­ and as explained in ‘Inside Freesat’ below, that includes some elements such as the interactive MHEG software, or software that understands the Freesat broadcast EPG, which you don’t get in the box with a PC tuner.

But if you put a satellite card in your PC, since all the channels are transmitted as standard DVB-S free-to-air broadcasts, you’ll be able to tune into them. You won’t get the ‘red button’ interactive stuff or, usually, the programme guide either. However, you’ll still be able to watch them. It’s not true, as some websites have claimed, that only Freesat receivers will receive the programmes.

There are a few things to be aware of. For example, at the moment, ITV HD is broadcast as an interactive data stream, rather than as a standard channel, so most software may skip past it when you tell it to scan for channels (see 'ITV HD on your PC' below for details). And since some software comes with tools to grab an EPG from the internet, you won’t need the one that Freesat broadcasts.

At the moment, all you need is a tuner card or USB module that supports the DVB-S (Digital Video Broadcasting ­ Satellite) standard, but we recommend you opt for one that can handle the newer DVB-S2 standard instead, as channels including BBC HD have indicated that they may move to this in future since it’s a more efficient way of broadcasting.

And if you’re prepared to forgo Windows in favour of the Linux-based MythTV media centre package, work’s already under way ­ thanks to some clever reverse engineering ­ to decode the Freesat EPG data. It’s also possible to decode some of the interactive elements, which means if the BBC iPlayer on Freesat is delivered as a ‘red button’ MHEG application, it might be possible to make it work on MythTV too.

But before you install MythTV, it’s important to realise that Freesat support is still experimental. According to David Matthews, who created the EPG patches, there’s quite a lot of work to be done and there are a lot of rough edges.

High definition
Besides the basic free-to-air channels, one of the other selling points for Freesat is high definition (HD) without a subscription. Technically, you can now receive BBC HD with a standard HD satellite receiver, a PC Card (see our 'Satellite TV through your PC' feature) or a subscription-free Sky HD box. But with the latter being fairly expensive without a contract, the majority of people viewing HD in the UK have tended to be Sky subscribers. And that’s one thing Freesat hopes to change.