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Chowmain - Freesat Channels Driver


alanchow

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Chowmain - Freesat Channels driver

Freesat is a British free-to-air satellite television service, provided by joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc. The service was formed as a memorandum in 2007 and has been marketed since 6 May 2008. Freesat offers a satellite alternative to the Freeview service on digital terrestrial television, with a broadly similar selection of channels available without subscription for users purchasing a receiver. 

The Chowmain Freesat Channels driver is designed to replace the existing RF_CABLE cloud driver to automatically get the latest channels from Freesat including channel numbers, names, icons, currently playing information and more. 


Features

  • Updates data every 10 minutes 
  • Channel Numbers, Channel Names, Channel Logos, Currently playing data for each channel, Synopsis, duration, ratings for each channel 
  • Ability to choose channel logo or now playing artwork for browse view 
  • Ability to turn off synopsis for quicker playback 
  • Selects the first unused Freesat box or compatible TV available in that particular room or if a Freesat box or compatible TV is in use in that room will send the channel to that box. 
  • Programatically select a channel for playback in a particular room. 


FAQ 

Can you give us some examples of how we could use this driver? 

  • Channel surfing is now easier than ever with Control4. 
  • Programatically select a channel. Tie the programming to a keypad on the wall, schedule or more. 


What Freesat driver will this work with? 

This driver is designed as a replacement RF_CABLE driver and will work with any Freesat box or compatible TV driver with a RF_CABLE binding. It is recommended that you obtain a compatible driver from the Control4 online database. 

What hardware will this work on? 

This driver has been tested to work on the following navigators 
 

  • Onscreen Navigator 
  • SR-250 
  • SR-260 
  • T3 
  • MyHomePC 

How do I find out more information about the driver? 
Please see the links below for more information about the driver. 

Chowmain Website 

Installation Guide 

How do I buy the driver? 
This driver can be purchased from our distributor driverCentral. 

Download Driver / Purchase Licence 

Who do i contact for technical support? 
We have two support desks. One in Australia and one in the US. Click on the link below for details. 

Support 

Do you provide trial licences? 
All Chowmain drivers for Control4 come with a 7 day trial. 


Freesat+Control4.gif 

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I think this driver will be really helpful for me but I am trying to figure out best practice.

We will only have two TVs initially (projector in home cinema to come later...), both of which will be IP controllable by C4 and we watch:
1) Freesat (we don’t want enough TV such as Sport to warrant Sky)
2) On demand, particularly iplayer but some Amazon Prime and 4OD, etc
3) Movies from our Kaleidescape system (with a player connected to each TV)

I have not installed video distribution but have the cabling in place should it be worthwhile in the future.

We would like to have the C4 navigator on the TV with access to CCTV, etc.

Should I have a HDMI switcher which can be controlled by C4 and connect an EA3 and Kaleidescape player to the switcher and then will a combination of C4 control of the TV, the switcher, Kaleidescape and the Freesat driver allow seamless control of all the TV we use? Or would another input be helpful for on demand TV (eg through a Roku) if the Sony, LG, etc TV drivers do not allow for control over the built-in TV apps?

Or is there a better solution?

Thank you!

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On 1/18/2019 at 3:38 PM, Andy said:

Hi Alan,

Is there a driver fir just standard UK "FreeView"?

Many Thanks

Andy

+1

 

I'd say 80% of my installs are Freeview 20% Freesat

 

If Alan made a driver for YouView /Humax PVR's comparable to his Sky Q driver I would get very excited, although I think the implications / model variants in that field are too much for it to ever be a thing. 

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Thanks for the feedback.  At this stage we only have channel drivers for Virgin Media, Freesat and Sky.  We may integrate other channel services in the future but don't want to promise anything as we may not be able to deliver.

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