That seems a good offer Gary but no doubt there will be a charge for Setanta after the offer period ends - some long contract.

What I didnt realise until last night was that it seems that you can't watch live NRL games. I'm stunned by this. Broncos v Melbourne this Friday, I was hoping to be and running for the 9 -30am kick off. Setanta on Freeview only comes on at Midday! Rubbish.

Virgin XL TV package

Having just done a load of looking into this to get my own Setanta subscription on saturday, here's my 10pence.

(My requirements were a digibox that was cheap as it was to be replaced by sky HD at some point, that could recieve setanta (take a topup card) and could also record).

There are some major differences between Setanta on digital and Setanta on Sky and Virgin. Setanta on digital only starts broadcasting at midday. The games are shown, but not live, at 11PM on a friday, and 2AM on sat/sun. The footy show is on on thursday nights. On Sky etc then there are a few Setanta channels and they broadcast all day round and have the NRL games on live.

The boxes being sold at asda (the £50 ones) are reconditioned 'topuptv' boxes. It's widely agreed that these boxes (Thomson model) are awful, although there is a new firmware update that may make them ok. I was going to try one of these myself but they didn't have any down here in Cov and I didn't want to wait to order one direct from the topuptv website.

I was after a digibox that would allow me to use a tutv card to access setanta and have an in built PVR so I could record the Setanta NRL games as they're on at silly times and I wanted to avoid the Thomson box. I ended up going for a Bush box from Argos in the end. No the greatest of tech names but it came with 6 months free Setanta (subject to 20 quid connection fee) and it seem pretty ok from first impressions and will be replaced with Sky HD in the future when I move.

If you want to get the Card and CAM then get it direct from the Setanta site or try Comet as I've heard they often have them in cheap. If you want something that wont break the bank to record the NRL games on though try the BUSH digital PVR from Argos.

Setanta subscription is monthly BTW. So you shouldn't get stuck in a big contract once the trial offer ends.

Finbarr Saunders would explode.

Hehehehe. It's amazing what you can get in Argos these days.

You don't even need that. We have a basic package and get Setanta 1 & 2 free. We bargained for a couple of sport channels though so I think they may have thrown that in too.