Installing French satellite tv in the Uk

TNT HD

The TNT group of channels recently expanded to a total of    channels plus a small number of free French channels.

TNT Channels There are now a number of good HD receivers available. Some are better than others and some are definitely not suitable if you want other channels, for example French and English, combined.

Cahors

Simple enough menu, totally inflexible when installing other channels and has a limited total number of channels, requiring you to load your required TPs ( frequencies ) individually.

Strong SRT 7402 and 7404

Excellent receiver and very compact. Simple menu system is obvious, so just following the on-screen prompts will get it installed, if its just the French channels required. There is a favourite group menu, so if you install “recherche globale” all the available channels from the Astra satellite, its easy enough  for example, to put the German channels, in a group for easy access. See my full review page

Strong7402_260

Diginova

From  the look of this box, it is probably made by the German manufacturer Technisat , who produce some fine satellite receivers. Having installed a few of these, they are easy to get on with, menus are big and colourful . The remote control is very well made. If you have difficulty with signal, the receiver may ask you to rescan.

Diginova

Aston

This respected French manufacturer produces some of the best TNT boxes ( and Fransat boxes ) but generally the higher priced ones. Aston is the only one ( as far as I know ) to make a TNT box with internal HDD, although most makes now have an external USB socket, which will take an external HDD.

Technisat

I have recently had a few problems with these, so , although they  are a respected name and are very well made, I cannot recommend their TNT product until the problems are cleared up.

Humax

The old TN5000 HD model was my main recommended receiver for quite a few years, it was robust and reasonably easy to set up. Versatile too with excellent diseqc control. So far I haven’t had a chance to review the latest model, the 7000 HD, looks good, it is priced fairly high, there are rumours though that the Humax company plan to get out of the French market. The Fransat model has been unavailable for some time now.

Humax 7000 front

When the TNT receiver is tuned automatically ( sometimes you have to choose the group TNT or TNT HD ) they all complete the set up, leaving the channels in the same order. TF1, France 2,3 Canal+…. are first from programme number 1 to 50, with all the regional France 3 channels available starting at programme number 300. Finally if you do use the “recherche globale” feature to tune in the rest of the free channels from the Astra satellite, these will be placed at 1000 onwards. In most cases you can save a small number of channels to a favourite group, for easy access.

In all cases, once installed, TNT usually updates the software from the satellite. Make sure you allow it to continue, DO NOT switch off the box, during the update or ‘Mis a Jour’ . In fact be very careful to ensure that the dish is properly aligned and plugged into the correct port on the receiver before applying power. There have been cases where the software has been compromised and the receivers have to go back to France for updating.

If you have had a TNT box for a while and suddenly start encountering problems, it is always worth restoring to its original ‘out of the box’ state, using factory reset in the main menu. I suggest you turn the box off for a good while before doing this, even overnight if possible. Once reset and rebooted, it will prompt to allow an update, which you accept and wait until it completes. After it reboots again, follow the prompts on-screen and you will in most cases, have eliminated any problems and the box will function correctly and with any new channels added.