The four main digital LNB types used in homes today are: Single LNB, Dual LNB, Quad LNB and Octo LNB. As the names imply they have one, two, four and eight feeds respectively.
Single feeds are becoming rarer as they do not offer the user the ability to add additional receivers to their household or even have a receiver that can both record and watch live TV simultaneously.
Dual feeds were very popular when satellite receivers could not record and a video recorder was used to record Sky whilst the watcher was forced to only watch an analogue TV signal in the meantime. The duo LNB feed enabled the householder to have two Sky boxes running at the same time.
Then came the dawn of Sky Plus which could record whilst you watched another satellite channel. This was heaven to many and had the biggest impact on the massive increase in sales of the Quad LNB (not to be confused with the Quattro LNB). Suddenly two feeds were not enough as one Sky Plus box took both of these leaving no spare feeds for another telly anywhere else in the house. This effectively meant that with a dual feed being wholly taken by the Sky Plus box, Granny or little Timmy could no longer have a feed into their bedrooms. There were solutions other than upgrading to a Quad LNB such as using a videosender (i.e. stealing the signal received from the Sky Plus box) but this meant Granny or little Timmy were forced to watch whatever the person downstairs was watching. Not a good idea if you subscribed to the Adult Channel!! Another attempted solution was to use the LNB out socket on the Sky Plus receiver but this came with its own problems not least of which was you needed to hardwire a cable from the back of the box all the way to Granny’s or little Timmy’s rooms. Internal cable is usually unsightly and hard to hide easily. So many upgraded to the Quad LNB which is probably the most widely used of all satellite LNB’s today.
Finally for those of you (including me) there is only one real winner in the LNB stakes, the Octo LNB which allows a massive eight feeds into your house allowing Granny and little Timmy to be sorted and leaving you six spare feeds to use in whatever way takes your fancy. So go and treat yourself, at the very least to a new LNB Quad – you know you want to.
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