Can somebody explain how this works?

[Le Pop]

Humax PVR, two coax inputs from satellite dish, recording two channels but i can watch a third, live. How is that possible?

...and no, I'm not watching a recording.

[V8covin]

Are you watching freeview off an aerial ?

[Podie]

Channels are bundled together in terms of frequencies (as far as I understand it) - so,2 channels must be in the same group (google "mux")

[CubanPete]

All the signals that are transmitted are received by the aerial and transmitted down the cable. It is the box that then filters what programme (frequency) it wants to see. It is having multiple tuners in the box that enable you to access multiple channels at the same time, not the number of cables.

[Le Pop]

V8covin said:

Are you watching freeview off an aerial ?

No, freesat.

[VEX]

Podie is the closest in the description, assuming that we are talking about Freesat.

If it is Freesat, then there are to many channels to fit down the cable, even two cables. So the Satellite Receiver sends a control signal up the coax to the dish and the electronics on the arm of the dish chooses one of four groups of bundles (Called polarisations)

In the case of other satellite in the sky, there can be only two polarisations, so the whole channel line-up could be being received over the two cables.

V.

Edited by VEX on Tuesday 4th March 10:28

[ASK1974]

Here you go, some useful fella over on the Humax forum has done a good job of both explaining and providing some tools to leverage it.

http://myhumax.org/forum/topic/what-can-i-record-a...

As noted above it's all about 'groups' of channels using the same transponder (frequency), your satellite box is able to use this to provide access to a third channel. Of course it only works with certain channel combinations.