It seems that I can connect our new LG TV directly to our dish, which is pointed at the Astra 27e satellite. When we first got the TV and were working through the setup it mentioned Freesat. I thought that odd, 'cos I hadn’t connected the Humax box.
Now I read that you can indeed get Freesat like this (without a ‘box’) although you do miss a box’s features, like recording …
Does anyone have any experience doing this? We do have a 1 metre dish, usually 100/100 signal strength/quality.
I assume it’s a UK set otherwise it might not understand the Freesat EPG even if it can pick up the channels.
We have a Samsung with satellite tuner. Works perfectly but you have to choose between satellite and terrestrial, can’t do both at the same time (because the EPGs are incompatible) - as it would not understand the French DTT EPG we leave it on satellite.
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Thanks for reply. TV was bought here, in France. It did mention Freesat during setup, when it wasn’'t connected to anything other than the mains.
I’ll give it a go …
It needs patience to arrange the channels (as it finds hundreds), and then some of the channels move transponders frequently, so they disappear from you channel list and you have to retune to find them again. If you keep up with the changes it is fine.
This site will help you see which channels are where: Astra 2E/2F/2G at 28.3°E - LyngSat
This forum pages tracks changes: 28.5/28.2° East & Non-Freesat Mode Changelog 2025 — Digital Spy
Actual Freesat, or just free to air satellite transmissions? It would be odd for a French market TV to include the Freesat EPG.
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I am surprised that you can buy a tv in France with an integrated Freesat tuner. Please tell me where you bought it as the LEDs in my Samsung are letting go and think it time to get a new one. Since brexshit it is not easy to get a Freesat tv sent over, so please tell me where…
As for connection, if your tv has the correct tuner, simply connect the cable of the dish into the satellite connector of the tv. With the dish correctly pointed at the Freesat satellites, the tv will find the stations. As said, you will not have an option to pick up French satellite brodcasts. To watch French tv, you can only do so through the terrestrial aerial.
Sometimes you can put a usb stick into the tv to record onto.
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We have that with the Samsung - it’s not as flexible as most of the satellite receivers which can also record. Good for pausing live TV though (leave it 15 mins and you can fast forward through adverts).
A tuner is a tuner and everything else is done in software. Sometimes it’s as simple as choosing the UK as your location in the setup stage, though if mine is connected to the internet during setup then it insists on setting itself up as French.
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I have an AYA branded Chinese TV purchased here in France at the local BUT which came with an internal satellite TV decoder.
Just had to set it for Astra 2E - 28.2°E and run a channel scan to get all the usual Freesat channels using the already installed 90cm dish.
We’re the same. We bought an LG with an inbuilt tuner last year. The Humax is now redundant.
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We have a LG SmartTV with Freesat satellite connection. It is how we watch British broadcast Free-over-The-Air programmes.
There should be a satellite feed inlet at the back of the TV into which you simply plug your satellite coax. If you already have a satellite feed, then it takes a standard female F-coax connector.
When setting up the SmartTV, I seem to recall that it asks you to indicate the language and a valid UK postcode for the Freesat feed. It isn’t particularly picky though.
We got ours (LG SmartTV) in our local Carrefour in the sale last year.
W1A 1AA 
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Does anyone have a 65" LG that they bought in France that has the Freesat tuner (yes, ok, whatever it is called - the ability and facility for the tuner to latch onto Freesat soon to be Freely…)? Will you give me the model number please? Thanks!
That’s only so you can get your local stations
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This is our LG TV OLED55C35LA which has a satellite tuner. I don’t know if it’s Freeview or not. It’s got BBC etc. We don’t use it too much because reception this far down south is patchy. Better than the old Humax, but occasionally annoying (and the murderer is… Bzipp), especially in the rain.
Sorry to be pedantic - what you have might work with FreeSAT.
FreeVIEW is the terrestrial broadcast service in the UK & not accessible in most of France.
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Yes, you are quite right.
When they changed the standard recently our built in sat receiver stopped working and we needed an external receiver