From time to time I've read posts about trying to get foreign digiboxes and similar digital TV kit working in Finland, here are some tips from my experiences of things bought in UK and Germany.
First some basics
DVB-T, DVB-C and DVB-S
Finland uses the DVB standard for digital TV. DVB-T is for terrestrial broadcasts (with a roof aerial), DVB-C is for cable broadcasts and DVB-S is for satellite broadcasts.Digibox (and TV) tuners normally pick up just one of the modes although there are some "hybrid" models (TV's and digiboxes) on the market that work in more than one mode.If the digibox is the wrong mode then it will not pick up anything - no picture and no sound. I have not seen any DVB-C products on sale in the UK, users probably get them direct from the cable company. If you live in a flat then you need to check where the signal originally comes from. An antenna on the roof (DVB-T) or the local cable TV company (DVB-C).
In the UK DVB-T is also known as Freeview and some products on sale in Finland even have Freeview on the outside of the box.
TNT is the French name for digital TV, so you might see that on the box also.
Encryption
Some pay channels are encrypted and you need a decoder and smart card to watch them. Digiboxes don't normally have the decoder built in, there is a slot (CI slot) for the decoder which you can buy in Finland, the smart card from the pay TV company then fits into the decoder.
Subtitles
In Finland there are two methods used to show finnish subtitles
1) burn them into the picture so they are always present (the digibox doesn't even know there are subtitles). This is used on MTV3 and some other commercial channels. Every digibox will show these subtitles.
2) broadcast them as a separate data stream. The digibox must then extract them and display them. This means you can pick from multiple subtitle languages and turn them on/off. This is used by YLE.
Electronic Program Guide (EPG)
This is extra data that identifies the name and description of the program you are watching and programs in the future. I think in Finland information about the next 7 days worth of programs are broadcast.
Audio
With DVB it's possible to broadcast multiple audio tracks and you can then switch between them. Implementation of this varies from broadcaster.
Things like sports events work most sensibly with this since there might be Finnish audio track and a Swedish one, but things get a bit messy with other kinds of programs since each audio channel is identified by a language code and there is no guarantee that that is the language the people speak in!
Commercial channels (eg MTV3): identifier is ALWAYS finnish even if a program is in English or another language.
YLE: identifier matches the language of the program (eg an Italian soap is broadcast with audio id=Italian, finnish news has audio id=finnish). For non finnish language programs YLE also broadcasts an audio channel with id=DUTCH. This is not actually Dutch but a computer voice speaking the finnish subtitles. This can cause trouble if your digibox is set to finnish language audio and a program starts in Italian. The box doesn't find the finnish audio so picks another, if it picks Dutch you'll hear the voice speaking the finnish subtitles to you!
Finland vs. the rest of Europe
Digiboxes which are the right type (DVB-T) should work in Finland, but can have trouble with the things above. This is because if those features are not used in other countries then they are often deleted from the digiboxes sold there. For example DVB subtitles are not used in Germany, so a German digibox might not display any subtitles at all.
How some imported products worked in Finland:
Panasonic DMR-EH54D: Hard disk/DVD recorder/Digibox. German market
Encryption: no CI slot so impossible to watch encrypted channels
Subtitles: not displayed since subtitles are not used in Germany. This only applies to DVB subtitles. MTV3 style subtitles appear on every digibox.
Audio: Audio channel can be chosen and changed but there is nowhere to set the default.
EPG: only now + next program is shown, not full 7 days info
Panasonic DMR-EX77EB: Hard disk/DVD recorder/Digibox. UK market
Encryption: no CI slot so impossible to watch encrypted channels
Subtitles: only English/Welsh/Gaelic can be chosen (so YLE style subtitles never shown in Finland)
Audio: Audio channel can be chosen and changed but there is nowhere to set the default.
EPG: full 7 days EPG although the Freeview+ feature (it will record a whole series even if the times change from week to week) is not used in Finland.
Dreambox DM7025: hard disk digibox with two tuner slots. You can choose any two from DVB-T, DVB-S or DVB-C. German market (although same model is sold all over Europe)
Encryption: CI slot ready for a decoder.
Subtitles: you can set a preferred subtitle language and also change it.
Audio: preferred audio can be chosen and you can change to any broadcast.
EPG: only now+next program info is shown.
The conclusion
If you don't care about having pay channels or finnish subtitles then you can use foreign digiboxes with no trouble. One big advantage is the price difference since the Panasonic hard disk/DVD recorder was 195e in the UK and 399e in Finland. However if you need DVB-C then you're more limited in the choice of products sold (and you can see this by the limited choice and higher prices for DVB-C models in finland ).
It might be that some products sold in UK are identical to those sold in Finland, but it's very hard to get that information from the manufacturer (or their website). They only describe how well the digibox works in it's intended country of sale.
Foreign Digiboxes in Finland
Re: Foreign Digiboxes in Finland
just found this old post. very useful. amazed nobody said thanks so i'll be the first... thanks! 
yes that's a right hand drive car. no I don't work for the Posti
Re: Foreign Digiboxes in Finland
The CI slot (or a separately-bought Conax CAM) is not actually needed for decoding encrypted Finnish channels with this device. In addition to the CI slot, the Dreambox DM7025 also comes standard with two smart-card readers on its own. You can simply pop in your viewing card to one of these.riku2 wrote:Dreambox DM7025: hard disk digibox with two tuner slots. You can choose any two from DVB-T, DVB-S or DVB-C. German market (although same model is sold all over Europe)
Encryption: CI slot ready for a decoder.
While the DM7025 doesn’t support decoding Conax-encrypted broadcasts out-of-the-box, you can install a plugin that will do the decoding in software. (The DM7025 is a “hackable”, Linux-based PVR. The reason why they don’t provide Conax support out-of-the-box has probably something to do with licensing fees and circumventing them...)
Not true, you can get full EPG listings in a couple of different formats.riku2 wrote:EPG: only now+next program info is shown.
The Finnish cable companies do not let you activate their viewing card for HD channels unless you have a “Finnish” “Cable HD Ready” certified decoder, though.riku2 wrote:The conclusion
If you don't care about having pay channels or finnish subtitles then you can use foreign digiboxes with no trouble. One big advantage is the price difference since the Panasonic hard disk/DVD recorder was 195e in the UK and 399e in Finland. However if you need DVB-C then you're more limited in the choice of products sold (and you can see this by the limited choice and higher prices for DVB-C models in finland ).
Sometimes it might be possible to flash a local firmware update to a foreign-bought box if the hardware is otherwise identical. But this is really grasping at straws...riku2 wrote:It might be that some products sold in UK are identical to those sold in Finland, but it's very hard to get that information from the manufacturer (or their website). They only describe how well the digibox works in it's intended country of sale.
znark
Re: Foreign Digiboxes in Finland
Here is a short update to this post since I just bought a digibox from the UK and tried using it in Finland. Some of it works, some of it doesn't, although given the price and features it was still worth it.
The box is a Humax HDR Fox T2, this is a HD digibox with 500G hard disk and network connection, it will play media files from the hard disk, has FTP server, youtube and other network services.
What works:
Watching UHF TV channels through the antenna on the roof (called DVB-T in Finland).
EPG shows a week's worth of programmes (more on this later though).
Hard disk will play back shows i've recorded and SD/HD video files I transfer from my PC.
Youtube will play some clips (although not everything I find but I don't think this is because the box is in Finland).
What doesn't work:
The tuner is UHF and some channels in Finland are on VHF. Channels like YLE HD can't be received, only the UHF channels (which is the majority and includes YLE1/2, MTV3, Nelonen)
Shows recorded via the EPG initially didn't record at all (manually entering a start/stop time worked). This is because the box waits for a programme ID to be sent and then starts recording. It looks for this 15mins before the scheduled start time and waits max 30 mins after the start time. This means if a programme starts a few min early or is up to 30min late then the box still records it completely. This code isn't transmitted by some channels (eg MTV3, YLE). I had to turn this off so that the box records strictly based on the time, not the programme id. Turning this off is done by specifying a padding time (eg always start 1min before the scheduled time and record for 5 mins after the planned end time).
BBC i player doesn't play since the IP address is in Finland. I'm not sure how a VPN can be used (since this is a digibox and not a PC).
DVB subtitles don't appear, these are used by YLE. Broadcasters like MTV burn the subtitles into the picture, so those appear. I suppose this is because the box is only for the UK, so the subtitle support is a bit limited.
Overall for the price (200e) the box is great, 500G hard disk, plays media files, has a web interface and even FTP and telnet. The lack of YLE HD is a bit sad though and there doesn't seem any easy remedy. After some software updating I now have it recording the news 3x day everyday and keeping only the last two days worth of news programmes, automatically deleting the old shows.
There is a similar digibox in Finland (Humax BXR-HD+2) but the price is about 380e and probably no chance of updating it with custom firmware (the box is running a version of unix). From what I read this digibox has a lot of features disabled from the original (on instructions from the pay TV broadcaster) so ethernet port doesn't actually work (for youtube and FTP) and neither does USB. So twice the money for crippled hardware.
The box is a Humax HDR Fox T2, this is a HD digibox with 500G hard disk and network connection, it will play media files from the hard disk, has FTP server, youtube and other network services.
What works:
Watching UHF TV channels through the antenna on the roof (called DVB-T in Finland).
EPG shows a week's worth of programmes (more on this later though).
Hard disk will play back shows i've recorded and SD/HD video files I transfer from my PC.
Youtube will play some clips (although not everything I find but I don't think this is because the box is in Finland).
What doesn't work:
The tuner is UHF and some channels in Finland are on VHF. Channels like YLE HD can't be received, only the UHF channels (which is the majority and includes YLE1/2, MTV3, Nelonen)
Shows recorded via the EPG initially didn't record at all (manually entering a start/stop time worked). This is because the box waits for a programme ID to be sent and then starts recording. It looks for this 15mins before the scheduled start time and waits max 30 mins after the start time. This means if a programme starts a few min early or is up to 30min late then the box still records it completely. This code isn't transmitted by some channels (eg MTV3, YLE). I had to turn this off so that the box records strictly based on the time, not the programme id. Turning this off is done by specifying a padding time (eg always start 1min before the scheduled time and record for 5 mins after the planned end time).
BBC i player doesn't play since the IP address is in Finland. I'm not sure how a VPN can be used (since this is a digibox and not a PC).
DVB subtitles don't appear, these are used by YLE. Broadcasters like MTV burn the subtitles into the picture, so those appear. I suppose this is because the box is only for the UK, so the subtitle support is a bit limited.
Overall for the price (200e) the box is great, 500G hard disk, plays media files, has a web interface and even FTP and telnet. The lack of YLE HD is a bit sad though and there doesn't seem any easy remedy. After some software updating I now have it recording the news 3x day everyday and keeping only the last two days worth of news programmes, automatically deleting the old shows.
There is a similar digibox in Finland (Humax BXR-HD+2) but the price is about 380e and probably no chance of updating it with custom firmware (the box is running a version of unix). From what I read this digibox has a lot of features disabled from the original (on instructions from the pay TV broadcaster) so ethernet port doesn't actually work (for youtube and FTP) and neither does USB. So twice the money for crippled hardware.
Re: Foreign Digiboxes in Finland
Instead of connecting to the VPN service straight from a single PC, you would need to create a configuration where your local router/firewall (the box sitting between your private home network and the public Internet) will establish the VPN connection on behalf of your PC and other devices, and route traffic directed to specific target IP addresses (or from specific source devices) in the VPN tunnel whose other end is in the UK. Quite doable if your router is a Linux PC, or if it is one of those generic broadband routers/modems/firewalls/wifi access points which can be made to use custom Linux-based firmware (OpenWRT etc.) but it requires some tinkering and knowledge of IP routing, VPN tunnels, etc.riku2 wrote:BBC i player doesn't play since the IP address is in Finland. I'm not sure how a VPN can be used (since this is a digibox and not a PC).
znark
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meplusthree
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Re: Foreign Digiboxes in Finland
Another couple of options to get the vpn working,riku2 wrote:BBC i player doesn't play since the IP address is in Finland. I'm not sure how a VPN can be used (since this is a digibox and not a PC).
Instead of connecting to the VPN service straight from a single PC, you would need to create a configuration where your local router/firewall (the box sitting between your private home network and the public Internet) will establish the VPN connection on behalf of your PC and other devices, and route traffic directed to specific target IP addresses (or from specific source devices) in the VPN tunnel whose other end is in the UK. Quite doable if your router is a Linux PC, or if it is one of those generic broadband routers/modems/firewalls/wifi access points which can be made to use custom Linux-based firmware (OpenWRT etc.) but it requires some tinkering and knowledge of IP routing, VPN tunnels, etc.
If you have a desktop pc you can install 2nd network card and set the ip config on you digbox to connect to internet via the desktop , if you have vpn running on the desktop then the digibox will use that. This requires some (a lot) RRRsing around with network settings on the pc & digibox.
Simpler solution is to use somthing like this https://vpnuk.info/smart-dns.html , I have used it on smart tv & android box and it works.