Using Virgin cable to see Freeview channels??

[iampaddyboy]

Hi. I have just moved into a house that has existing Virgin cables coming into a few rooms. I am on Sky however and they have been and connected the Sky up in the living room. I do not have a Virgin contract.

I want to find out if i can use the existing Virgin cable that comes into the other rooms as soom sort of "freeview".

Can i use either an old Sky box, or a Freeview box with the Virgin cable to get any channels?

Surely the free to air channels can be picked up on a Sky/Virgin set top box, without having a Sky/Virgin contract?

Thanks for any advice!

[Kymmy]

Freeview can only be recieved via a freeview box connected to an antenna.
Freesat can be recieved two ways, one via a new freesat box connected to a dish pointing to the astra sats or second by a sky box with a freesat sky card pointing to the same sats. The cable coming into your house can only produce tv pictures via a VM box with a valid M/L/XL subscription and card.

The difference in technology makes it impossible any other way
Freeview = DVB-T
Freesat = DVB-S
Cable = DVB-C

Also on a final note it's against the VM terms and conditions to attach anything to your cable that isn't supplied or approved by Virgin Media

[demented]

Originally Posted by iampaddyboy

Hi. I have just moved into a house that has existing Virgin cables coming into a few rooms. I am on Sky however and they have been and connected the Sky up in the living room. I do not have a Virgin contract.

I want to find out if i can use the existing Virgin cable that comes into the other rooms as soom sort of "freeview".

Are you in a an analogue or digital cable area though as there will be different answers to that question. If you are in a digital area you can get size M tv which approximates to those freeview services if you take other virgin media services.

Originally Posted by iampaddyboy

Can i use either an old Sky box, or a Freeview box with the Virgin cable to get any channels?

No. Satellite and Freeview both use different methods, they are not compatible with the cable standard.

More info. If you look on the list of freeview channels and fta channels you will see that they are different (but not as different as they used to be). For example, Five(still? should change soon), FiveUS and Fiver are not on freesat but are encrypted on satellite (you can get them with a ftv card and no subscription though). There are other changes too. Sky News isn't on freesat and I think it's still on freeview. On the other hand fta has some +1 channels and more music channels.

Originally Posted by iampaddyboy

Surely the free to air channels can be picked up on a Sky/Virgin set top box, without having a Sky/Virgin contract?

Thanks for any advice!

Perfectly true of satellite of course. You can use a sky box to do this, a freesat box or other fta satellite receiver. Not true on cable apart from a few weird areas like the new towns that have legacy analogue systems in and contracts to supply the terrestrial channels.

[iampaddyboy]

Thanks for the replies.

So what (if anything) can I do with the Virgin cables that are in the other rooms? Can I connect anything to them and be able to view TV (free-to-air, etc.)

Cheers!

[Kymmy]

You can get more than one box from VM (not sure of the costs) you could also upgrade to a V+ box and put the old box in the other rooms.

As far as anything else no as per VM's T&C's

[demented]

Why not just put in another fta/ftv box off the same satellite in one of the other rooms? Or if the aerial is in good nick run a cable to another room?

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by iampaddyboy

Thanks for the replies.

So what (if anything) can I do with the Virgin cables that are in the other rooms? Can I connect anything to them and be able to view TV (free-to-air, etc.)

Cheers!

You might be able to pick up some FTA channels on the cable plugging it directly into a TV, however this isn't a service Virgin offer unless you're in a very few specific areas so you may be stealing signal hooking up to the VM network like this.

[the-cable-guy]

heres some info that i added to wiki on this subject:

Also the five terrestrial tv channels are carried FTA on Virgin's analogue cable tv network along with BBC News, CNBC Europe (Ex-NTL)/Bloomberg UK (Ex-Telewest) time shared with E4, Disney Cinemagic (Ex-NTL) & Hallmark Channel (Ex-Telewest). However to view these feeds you need to have a tv that is capable of tuning frequencies used for cable tv.

[Freesat-Box]

Originally Posted by Broadbandings

You might be able to pick up some FTA channels on the cable plugging it directly into a TV, however this isn't a service Virgin offer unless you're in a very few specific areas so you may be stealing signal hooking up to the VM network like this.

You might receive signal right up to the point where a tech cleans a cabinet and pulls out the cable ...

[eth01]

Originally Posted by Freesat-Box

You might receive signal right up to the point where a tech cleans a cabinet and pulls out the cable ...

which hardly ever happens... :-)

[Fatec]

Originally Posted by the-cable-guy

heres some info that i added to wiki on this subject:

The Full list of channels are.

Cartoon Network (To 9pm)
TCM (9pm onwards)
VH1
MTV2
BBC1/2
ITV
CH4
E4
Five
Nickelodeon
UKTV Documentry
National geographic (this seems to be area dependant, here its on, others it isnt )
BBC News 24
Sky News

Of course, as others say, hooking the cables up and scanning is not allowed its upto you if your willing to take the risk though...but VM wont ever catch you out


Once analogue goes off...however

Originally Posted by iampaddyboy

..So what (if anything) can I do with the Virgin cables that are in the other rooms? Can I connect anything to them and be able to view TV (free-to-air, etc.)

1/ You can get analogue channels 1,2,3,4 & 5 straight off the cable

2/ You could use analogue cable box and get loads free to air channels

3/ you could get a digital decoder from VM for next to nothing and get all free stuff