dilemma which box to buy, please help!

[rulesok]

hello everyone,
i am new to all this. i want to purchase my first ever box. now, ive been doing a little research. i am currently with virgin media and have their broadband, i used to be with sky so i have the dish on side of house and still got the 2 cables laying behind the tv.
the zgemma h1 has inlets for both. i can get "free gift" for both. so my questions are:
which one should i go for?
is there more channels available on a particular one and hd channels?
if i buy a bare box, am i able to install software easily myself and "sky skin and "virgin skin" easily?

also, i just watched a video from a guy selling zgemma s2. it is for satellite receiver but he had sky skin and virgin skin installed,is this a better box to buy.
can i use a usb on the h1 to pause rewind and record like the s2.
any help would greatly appreciated
thanks

 

[MisterB]

I think more than one make of receiver can do both sat and cable - so you will be better off looking around first? I would make a list of 'must haves' and 'would like to haves' and see which receiver best meets your needs

 

[Running out]

Let me no where you get your "Free gift" been looking for one for about 10 yrs

 

[mortmaru]

Sat offers more channels but only a few hd channels.

If you want hd for the main Sly channels then VM is the only option but these subs do tend to cost more as well.

If you want to record you will need twin tuner box s2 is a twin sat box the h1 is a single sat and single cable tuner so if you wanted to watch then record a different channel you would need to connect it to sat plus cable also have a sub for each service.

 

[rulesok]

thanks for the reply. just to try and get my head around this. so if i go for the VM sub, i use my vm cable and i can pause rewind and record etc using this one cable?

 

[bees]

Have a read here

 

[mortmaru]

thanks for the reply. just to try and get my head around this. so if i go for the VM sub, i use my vm cable and i can pause rewind and record etc using this one cable?

You need twin tuner box to do this unless you only do those functions on the channel you are watching.

I would suggest if you have the two cables coming from sat dish then just go for twin tuner sat box like zgemma 2s (new version is out might be worth waiting for it to hit uk market) only loss is hd channels.

 

[biggit666]

I'd recommend z Gemma s2 excellent box twin tuner and a good starting point. Open box are very basic and can't record. All down to budget as well.