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Three are three flavours of set top box.
1) Free to air these will receive all free channels of standard resolution but often the electronic program guide will only give you now and next. There is often just a 1 to 500 numbering system which does not line up with any numbers given in the papers.
2) Freesat these will give you the sky 7 day program guide there is a standard number system so you can look up number in the TV papers. These are better than sky boxes if your not paying for TV as there are more channels.
3) Sky box these will work with a card to give access to encrypted programs.
All the options also come as HD option although not that many programs are free to watch in HD.
The non Sky boxes can have loads of extras including connection to motorised dish systems to receive more satellites and taking signals from two dishes my son-in-law has standard UK and Turkish dishes as an example.
All boxes can also have extras like internet connection allowing you to watch down loaded programs but the non sky can have more options than the sky and when using a sky+ box if you stop paying the hard drive recorded programs become unavailable.
Some of the non sky boxes have the option to plug in a memory stick or hard drive but often record in a special format so you can't watch recorded programs on a PC.
As to the cable yes you can buy adaptors to change from F type to normal TV
but unless you have an aerial it will not help you.
Freeview has one or two programs which you need to pay for to get with satellite I think Dave and Yesterday are now the only two left but not sure. However free to air has many programs not on freeview things like films for men. Out of the Freeview channels although over 100 I will only watch around 20 the same with free to air although 500 channels you will likely only watch around 100 rest are rubbish.
The problem with satellite is TV papers don't list even the 100 programs you will likely watch so you can forget buying TV guides. So having Freesat with a 7 day program guide is really something you want. It seems it is the program guide capability which is the main thing when reviewing boxes they all receive the programs but the guide varies with the free to air boxes.
Some boxes have some odd extras one of mine has a sounder to assist aiming the dish designed for caravan use. The twin cable allows recording one channel while watching another.
With sky boxes in order to get program change information the LNB is always powered so on stand by still uses around 15W but the free to air boxes use less than my power meter will measure a fraction of a watt on stand by. I would say you need one box in the house with 7 day program guide but not really required with extra boxes.
You would be better on the Audio visual part of this forum for questions on TV.
1) Free to air these will receive all free channels of standard resolution but often the electronic program guide will only give you now and next. There is often just a 1 to 500 numbering system which does not line up with any numbers given in the papers.
2) Freesat these will give you the sky 7 day program guide there is a standard number system so you can look up number in the TV papers. These are better than sky boxes if your not paying for TV as there are more channels.
3) Sky box these will work with a card to give access to encrypted programs.
All the options also come as HD option although not that many programs are free to watch in HD.
The non Sky boxes can have loads of extras including connection to motorised dish systems to receive more satellites and taking signals from two dishes my son-in-law has standard UK and Turkish dishes as an example.
All boxes can also have extras like internet connection allowing you to watch down loaded programs but the non sky can have more options than the sky and when using a sky+ box if you stop paying the hard drive recorded programs become unavailable.
Some of the non sky boxes have the option to plug in a memory stick or hard drive but often record in a special format so you can't watch recorded programs on a PC.
As to the cable yes you can buy adaptors to change from F type to normal TV
Freeview has one or two programs which you need to pay for to get with satellite I think Dave and Yesterday are now the only two left but not sure. However free to air has many programs not on freeview things like films for men. Out of the Freeview channels although over 100 I will only watch around 20 the same with free to air although 500 channels you will likely only watch around 100 rest are rubbish.
The problem with satellite is TV papers don't list even the 100 programs you will likely watch so you can forget buying TV guides. So having Freesat with a 7 day program guide is really something you want. It seems it is the program guide capability which is the main thing when reviewing boxes they all receive the programs but the guide varies with the free to air boxes.
Some boxes have some odd extras one of mine has a sounder to assist aiming the dish designed for caravan use. The twin cable allows recording one channel while watching another.
With sky boxes in order to get program change information the LNB is always powered so on stand by still uses around 15W but the free to air boxes use less than my power meter will measure a fraction of a watt on stand by. I would say you need one box in the house with 7 day program guide but not really required with extra boxes.
You would be better on the Audio visual part of this forum for questions on TV.
