I'm going to be using an UK TV, which I am lead to believe won't decode the sound properly from the usual cable offering in our house. Alongside this, I am getting a free to air Sat receiver which will bring oodles of free channels. My question is, can I get similar or the same swiss regional channels on satellite (covering such as Züri news, and swiss resort information) that I get on cable ?

thanks
dave

Yes; www.sataccess.ch - a card will cost 60 francs. You need a Viacess card reader or emulator though.

Yes this is an important point for importers of TV sets from the UK. Though it's PAL here, the sound is on the same frequency as the picture in CH, whereas in the UK the sound is shifted to avoid so called 'caption buzz'. This applies to cable and from air (remember that one?)

This means you can get the picture, but not the sound here on a UK TV. Buying a video/HD recorder here and watch though this (ie using the videos TV tuner) will get you sound and picture.

Also consider that Scart connection from satellite receivers will work - the issue is the TV tuner, of course...

Or if you want a workaround you can love, a stereo DVD recorder with HDD will give you timeshift and Kanal Zwei (original language, usually, when available).

There is a lot up there on Hotbird; I'd consider getting signals from 13/19/28 east with a proper receiver and then delving into the "pay-TV evaluation" world

Interesting angle this thread. Of course to get the Swiss channels via satellite (if you already have one) is the perfect excuse to tell cablecom where they can put their cable and the 21 francs a month for the analogue channels...

Lob - this card thingy - I presume that it won't work if you just have one LNB pointed at astra. I presume this would need a second LNB and another decoder in addition to a skybox?

You need a second LNB [pointing at Hotbird, 13 degrees east] and if you had a proper satellite box, you could use DISEqC and connect both LNBs to one box and enjoy.

You'd also need something to read Viaccess cards - and do beware, SRG Suisse are rolling out new cards in the next 6-8 months because they're open on all emulators and keysets all the time

www.sataccess.ch

Ok, so for those of us who are using sky digiboxes the answer is "no".