A few pointers

[oldtimer]

Hi i thought I would share this with you as it helped me greatly when trying to sort out the telly,
1. There is 4 ways to recieve digital TV
Freeview
Freesat
SKy
Cable

Freeview is through your aerial and the channels are transmitted in sets of MUX ie 10 channels a MUX hence if you use an old aerial you may not get some Muxs
Freesat is the same as SKY and yes the obvious is that it is free one thing to remember is there is about 300 Free To Air channels from 28.2 (sat positions) so you will get the 30 regions of ITV and BBC which is great when the footy is on in England but not Scotland Also you get BBC and ITV HD for free as long as you have a HD reciever box. If you have Freesat + then like SKY you need 2 cables wired to the dish for each channel reciever. Remember there is 2 Free sat receivers one is Free To Air the other is Freesat the differance is with a FTA box you will not get C4,M4,E4 or C4HD because they are signed to SKY / Freesat with encryption but you will get Film 4
SKY offers their subscription channels on top of the Free To Air channels you can get for nowt (hence Freesat) Also you can use a SKY dish for Freesat or the reverse because both are pointed to the same spot ie 28.2 in the sky.
If you have SKY or Freesat then you will have one cable going from the reciever to the dish (onto the lnb) or if you have + then you need 2 cables wired to the dish with a quad LNB.
I have SKY+ SKY multiroom and a Panisonic HD freesat tv wired to my dish ie 4 cables to one dish with a quad LNB
Cable well thats easy its a fibre optic that can supply hundreds of channels plus broadband into your home

 

[mhar]

Two minor points
Freeview. Age of an aerial is largely irrelevant as long as all the bits are still there and cable entry seals are ok. There is no such thing as a 'digital' aerial, however a decent new aerial will incorporate a balun (impedence matcher) to aid the transfer of signal from the dipole to the balun with as little noise introduction as possible. The poor reception of some multiplexes can be down to the method of transmission (bit rate, QAM) or things like lack of a south coast licence until switchover is completed, but frequently (esp on high frequency transmitters) poor cable. My pet hate is wall sockets, I view them as an unecessary and troublesome connection but customers seem to like them even though they are hidden behind the tv
Freesat, strictly speaking is not the same as Sky. There should be a fifth category of Free Sky which is such a pain as you rely on Sky's epg which displays hundreds of channels which you can;t get and doesn't tell you which ones you can. Additionally, not all the fta (free to air) channels come from the Astra 2 satellites. Some come from Eurobird at 28.5E which is why quite a few people have 'iffy' reception on a few channels - reception relies on the fact that the smaller the dish, the less directional it is (one reason why Sky's dishes are wider than they are tall in order to reduce unwanted noise from neighbouring high powered satellites).

 

[oldtimer]

I think you will find that in England SKY promote their "mini dish" as the signal strength is stronger but as you move north into Scotland you need to use the 60cm (bigger dish) because the signal gets weaker as the sat footprint is mainly over northern Europe hence why when watching Eastenders in say Turkey there is a 4 metre dish on the roof some chanels are also transmitted on a narrow beam
You also say that Freesat is strictly not the same as SKY yet wether it is a SKY or Freesat or Free to Air sat receivers they all receive the same signal from the birds or sats it is just that SKY overlay their "sky guide" over the channel also an FTA sat receiver will pick up SKY channel but like Freeview it will tell you that "This service in encrypted"

 

[mhar]

Wasn't saying you post was wrong (it's very helpful) I was just adding a bit more detail.
My comment about dish shape was not confusing dish sizing. With fec (forward error correction) interference from neighbouring satellites on small dishes is not nearly so much of a problem as it was in analogue days, but it still is a consideration hence the shape. I have rectified quite a few reception issues having this knowledge and now always 'bias' my installations ever so slightly towards the left of 28.2E to take into account the different geostationary position of Eurobird at 28.5E - I live in the west and have a very expensive spectrum analyser!
I am not a fan of Sky at all, the way they treat their exixsting customers is diabolical - free kit for new subscribers, existing pay through the nose. Sky launched their freesky service a good while back but it is limited to broadcasters who pay to be included in their epg, the downsides are an epg full of stuff you cannot get plus the difficulty of manually adding channels not in the epg. Freesat is also a brand, I believe there was some bbc involvement in setting this up. Freesat is very user friendly and 'out of brand' channels can be added easily, albeit not in the freesat mode. Non Freesat receivers (ie FTA receivers and sky boxes) are unable to take advantage of the freesat epg so, in my opinion, for the majority of users are not as good. I make these comments purely because of posts on this forum about non subscription sky box problems and the increasing number of fta systems being sold in orange warehouses, screwfix, supermarkets etc. So many people do not fully understand what they are getting.

 

[steve_has_prob]

You view seems to be the new thing using broadband and an aerial