Smart TV with Satellite

Just a bit of advice please.

Have just bought a new smart TV with satellite receiver built in - I was surprised to find it supported Freesat.

So there were 2 options when installing. Either a standard Sat scan (Free To Air) or Freesat.

I opted to choose Freesat because of its features.

All seems to work but I am finding quite a bit of menu lag when navigating the Freesat EPG. Our previous setup didn't support Freesat just FTA, and the menu seemed to be much quicker.

Googling seems to confirm that smart TVs can be a bit sluggish when navigating menus and apps, especially feature rich EPG such as Freesat.

So is it better to persevere with Freesat or try basic FTA?
Also, are there issues with using Freesat in Spain?

Thanks for any tips.

If you go to FTA then you'll find channels will come up in no particular order. Mine tunes in all the channels and not just FTA ones and have things like BBC1 on channel 007, ITV on channel 081, Ch4 on channel 096 and so on. Very awkward to navigate. Plus the EPG is only today and tomorrow, not 7 days like Freesat.

It also comes up with all channels like Sky etc which have a lock sign next to it but very difficult to navigate through.

And no issues with Freesat providing you have a big enough dish. I do lose the odd channel at certain times of day but that's the same on the non-Freesat tuner as well.

marcliff wrote:If you go to FTA then you'll find channels will come up in no particular order. Mine tunes in all the channels and not just FTA ones and have things like BBC1 on channel 007, ITV on channel 081, Ch4 on channel 096 and so on. Very awkward to navigate. Plus the EPG is only today and tomorrow, not 7 days like Freesat.

It also comes up with all channels like Sky etc which have a lock sign next to it but very difficult to navigate through.

And no issues with Freesat providing you have a big enough dish. I do lose the odd channel at certain times of day but that's the same on the non-Freesat tuner as well.

Thanks.
Actually I was just looking at another Post of yours and it raised another question...

When installing my new TV it gives me the options to enter:
Broadcast Country - I've put UK
Post code - I've put 03170 (it doesn't recognise a UK code - probably because of the next option, LG service area)
LG service area - Spain (seemed to be the default)

For Freesat, would it be better to put UK for all 3 options? Apparently if I change the LG service area, it says it resets the TV

Thanks again.

If you're using Freesat then you need to set it up as UK as it will ask for a postcode (enter it with no spaces as in LE51JJ) and you can then have the ITV and BBC regional programmes set up as default.
Mine accepts UK postcodes when tuning in Freesat and Spanish postcodes under Terrestrial TV.

The default service area may well be because it has identified the IP address as being in Spain, simple to prove by disconnecting it from the internet and trying the setup again.

If that is successful then it will remain setup like that unless you actively reset it.

There is a table on the BBC website which will tell you if your TV is compatible with the iPlayer however if it is you will still need to use a VPN to access it. Maybe that's why marclff's works?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/television_iplayer

Thanks.
Just to clarify. LG Service region is set to Auto - so the fact that it shows Spain could well be down to IP address.

As far as the other two settings: It allowed me to specify Broadcast Country as UK. But with Postcode, I had to specify a Spanish one (probably because of LG Service region).

That said, my Freesat works ok even though a couple of things may be 'missing' - namely the EPG picture preview and some regional customisations.

This is my first experience of using Freesat. Although more convenient, I find the EPG sluggish compared to FTA. Some of this may be because it's integrated into the smart TV and not a dedicated receiver. I am interested to see if there are any circumstances when someone would choose FTA over Freesat?