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| British TV & Radio |
Welcome to the Astra 2D website, for information news and advice on everything connected to British television and radio. With the BBC at its core, the UK produces some of the worlds best television, exporting programmes and films worldwide.
Most British TV and radio channels broadcast on satellite, many including the five main terrestrial channels are free-to-air (fta). It is now posible to watch your local or regional channels where ever you live in the British Isles and now with live streaming potentially worldwide (most UK channels require a UK ip address).
There are three main platforms for free tv in the UK:
Sky (BSkyB), the largest subscription satellite service in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, offering the largest HD lin-up, the best sports coverage and the latest films. There are many fta channels on Sky.
Freeview is the UK's free-to-air digital terrestrial platform, with up to 50 TV channels without a subscription. Freeview has recently started broadcasting channels in HD using DVB-T2 and MPEG4. |
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Freesat is a digital satellite TV service from the BBC and ITV which launched in May 2008, to watch you will need a Freesat or Freesat+ receiver, a satellite dish and ideally an HD-ready TV. It's basically the satellite equivalent of the digital terrestrial TV service Freeview, though not all channels on Freeview are on Freesat.
Once you have paid for the receiver, dish and installation there are no more ongoing monthly subscription costs. |
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| British TV & Radio Overseas |
The Astra 2D satellite positioned at 28.2° east, has a footprint focused tightly on the British Isles, making reception difficult in large areas of mainland Europe.
Most of the transponders are used to provide television services available on the Sky and Freesat platforms to the British Isles.
Although the satellite's footprint is tightly focused on the United Kingdom and Ireland, surrounding countries have the ability to pick the signal up (dependent on suitably sized satellite dishes).
The BBC broadcasts all of its domestic television channels, including BBC HD from the Astra 2D satellite, the only exceptions being the BBC News Channel BBC Alba and BBC Parliament which broadcast from Astra 2A.
All domestic BBC channels have been Free to Air since 29 July 2003.
ITV also broadcasts all its television channels (including regional variations of ITV1, as well as STV and UTV) from the Astra 2D satellite.
All ITV channels have been Free to Air from 1 November 2005, although some regions reverted to Free-To-View encryption in 2008 when their lease on one 2D transponder could not be renewed. ITV1 HD is expected to use the satellite when it launches as a simulcast of ITV1 on April 2nd 2010.
Most of Channel 4s channels are free-to-air and on Astra 2D, these include Channel 4, Channel 4+1, E4, More4 and Film4 along with their timeshift variants. 4HD (Channel 4 HD) is encrypted and currently only available on Sky+ HD and Virgin Media. |
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Five transmits a free-to-air version of its main channel (Five), on Astra 2D, they use borrowed space on one of the BBC transponders, allowing them to be on the Freesat platform.
Five continue to broadcast other free-to-view encrypted versions of their main channel (Sky receiver and card required) and additional spin-offs Fiver and Five USA which currently remain unavailable on Freesat due to lack of capacity on the Astra 2D satellite. |
Irish channels RTÉ One, RTÉ Two, TV3 and TG4, along with Irish radio stations are available use the Astra 2D satellite, all TV channels are encrypted and only available with a valid Irish Sky subscription. With a Sky card from Northern Ireland viewers can also see RTÉ One, RTÉ Two, and TG4, TV3 is not available.
All the Irish radio stations are free-to-air and are listed on both the Sky and Freesat Electronic Programme Guide (EPG). |
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| The Astra 2D Forum |
The Astra 2D Website also has its own Forum, here you can discuss everything related to British TV and radio.
There are also country specific boards, making it easier to find information, or obtain advice and real local knowledge and advice from other forum members.
The Forum also has specific areas covering digital platforms, equipment, and reception overseas.
Sky, covering standard Sky receivers along with Sky+ and Sky+HD
Freesat, the free-to-air public service platform from the BBC and ITV, get help and advice on receivers and reception.
Freeview the free-to-air digital terrestrial platform.
TV & radio on the Internet, both in the UK and overseas.
Registration is free and is required to post on the forum, though you can use the Guest section.
Click HERE, to go directly to the Astra 2D Forum. |
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| Sky, Sky+ & Sky+HD |
Sky (BSkyB), is the largest subscription satellite service in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. With over 9 million subscribers, Sky delivers more than 200 channels of programming to homes and businesses that have digital satellite equipment supplied by Sky; this equipment includes a small satellite dish (minidish), and a Sky receiver.
There are currently three types of Sky receiver available, the basic digital receive, Sky+, which will enable you to record and store programmes and Sky+HD, which is also a PVR and will allow you to view High Definition (HD) channels available on Sky. All new subscribers will be offered a Sky+HD receiver as standard equipment.
Sky also offers packages that include broadband services, interactive content and has the largest HD offering in the UK and Ireland.
There are also many free-to-air (fta) channels available on the Sky platform, these include all the main terrestrial channels from the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. Sky also offers a non subscription service called Freesat from Sky, some channels on this service are encrypted, requiring a card to open for the free-to-view (FTV) channels such aas Five and Sky3. |
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| Freesat & Freesat+ from the BBC & ITV |
Freesat is a free-to-air digital satellite platform which is a joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc. The service was marketed from 6 May 2008 and offers a satellite alternative to the Freeview service on digital terrestrial television, with a selection of channels available without subscription for users purchasing a receiver. The service also makes use of the additional capacity available on digital satellite broadcasting to offer a selection of high-definition programming from the BBC and ITV.
Freesat broadcasts from the same fleet of satellites (Astra 28.2°E and Eurobird 1) as Sky Digital. Channels are broadcast using DVB-S. The Freesat electronic programme guide is broadcast from the Eurobird 1 satellite situated at 28.5° east. Freesat's role is not broadcasting or availability of channels (although the BBC and ITV are substantial broadcasters in their own right), instead providing a platform for receiving the channels and the EPG.
All the channels broadcasting to date are broadcasting using DVB-S. Standard definition channels are broadcast using MPEG-2, while high definition channels are broadcast using MPEG-4. Currently, BBC HD uses DVB-S rather than DVB-S2 since the channel shares a transponder with several SD channels. Since the channels are broadcast in-the-clear, they can also be received by non-Freesat receivers. |
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Interactive television uses MHEG-5 rather than the proprietary OpenTV platform used by Sky.
The specification for Freesat boxes includes having an Ethernet socket on the back. This is to allow future on demand programmes provided by the BBC iPlayer to be viewed directly on the customer's television. This feature is expected to become operational in the future. |
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| Freeview, Freeview+ & Freeview HD |
Freeview is a British free-to-air digital television service broadcast from terrestrial transmitters using the DVB-T standard. Launched on October 30, 2002 at 6am, it took over the DTT licence to broadcast on four multiplexes, three of them from the defunct ITV Digital (originally called ONdigital).
Unlike ITV Digital and the cable and satellite digital TV services, it offers no premium or pay-per-view channels, and no subscription channels.
A set-top box costing around £30 to £100 or a new television with an integrated digital tuner is needed to receive the Freeview service. |
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The Freeview consortium's founding members were the BBC, National Grid Wireless and British Sky Broadcasting. They were joined by ITV plc and Channel 4 on 11 October 2005. The service broadcasts free-to-air television channels, radio stations and interactive services from the BBC, Sky, and various other broadcasters.
High Definition (HD) services are expected to be available on Freeview from December 2nd 2009, using MPEG4 and DVB-T2. |
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| TV & Radio Online |
Most of the UK's television and radio channels are available online, there are many ways to watch and listen, through your computer, directly on your TV or in the case of online radio stations, through an Internet radio.
The BBC and ITV broadcasts all of their television channels (with the exception of BBC HD), on live Internet streams, these broadcasts are only a few seconds behind the terrestrial and satellite broadcasts. Watch BBC TV live on BBC iPlayer. Watch ITV's channel live at ITV.com. |
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The quality is not perfect, though it is quite watchable either on your computer screen, or through you television via a HDMI, SCART or other A/V cables.
Most computers have some option to connect to external devices, see you computers and TV's user manuals for more information.
All of ITV's channels are available as live streams, all the channels are restricted to UK IP addresses only. Picture quality is quite good even on a large screen. Many more channels are streamed for free through various sites such as Zattoo or TVCatchup. |
All of the BBC's national, local and regional stations along with the BBC World Service, are available to listen to live on the internet (rights permitting), with appropriate media player software. Listen live on BBC iPlayer.
It is also possible to listen to BBC Radio services via the internet without having to log on to a computer. The easiest way to do this is via a WiFi or Internet Radio |
| Most of the UK's national, regional and local commercial stations offer live streans on their websites. Since 2006, many of the UK's commercial radio stations have been restricting live stream access to users from the United Kingdom only. |
Video On Demand (VOD) or audio video on demand (AVOD) systems allow users to select and watch/listen to video or audio content on demand.
VOD systems either stream content through a set-top box, allowing viewing in real time, or download it to a device such as a computer, digital video recorder, personal video recorder or portable media player for viewing at any time. |
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| British Radio |
The BBC today runs ten national domestic radio stations, five of which are only available in a digital format: via DAB, the Internet on Freeview and on digital satellite, on both Sky and Freesat.
There are over 270 independent local radio (ILR) analogue services and 46 local digital multiplexes carrying over 200 radio services.
The UK currently has the world's biggest digital radio network, with 103 transmitters, with two national DAB ensembles and forty eight local and regional DAB ensembles broadcasting over 250 commercial and 34 BBC radio stations across the UK. In London, there are already more than 51 different digital stations available.
In addition to DAB, radio stations are also broadcast on digital television platforms, Digital Radio Mondiale on FM, AM, LW and SW.
Almost all radio services are free-to-air, and most online stations are not restricted to UK IP addresses, so you can listen wherever you are.
On satellite, most services are easily received in most areas of mainland Europe, BBC Radio 1 is even available across Canada and the United States. |
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