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Freesat Vs Sky

NickTB

NickTB

Alan Hutton
Ok, I'm now royally fudged off paying Sky nearly ?ú70 per month when in reality I hardly ever watch any channels. I can't get Freeview round my way (The sticks of Essex) so I've been looking at Freesat. Basically using the Sky hardware to grab free channels ala Freeview.

Is anyone using Freesat? if so, any pros and cons?

Any info would be good.

Cheers,
 
If you wait a few weeks you might be able to get freeview. I think the south east is having their analogue signal switched off by mid April (Well I know London is having it all off from 18 April), after this they will boost the signal of regular freeview so you may find you can get it.

Although freesat is likely to be more reliable and wont cost much if you have the dish installed.

Agreed on sky, I'm just about to get a flat and dont know if I'll even bother with it.
 
P.D. said:
If you wait a few weeks you might be able to get freeview. I think the south east is having their analogue signal switched off by mid April (Well I know London is having it all off from 18 April), after this they will boost the signal of regular freeview so you may find you can get it.

Although freesat is likely to be more reliable and wont cost much if you have the dish installed.

Agreed on sky, I'm just about to get a flat and dont know if I'll even bother with it.
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Looking at the Freeview website even after switchover, the best I can hope for is poor signal. Taking into account a new aerial (I only have my dish) and Freeview suddenly becomes a no no
 
When my wife took redundancy I cancelled our sky, was ?ú70 odd with the broadband, switched to Orange ?ú17.50 for unlimited broadband and phone line rental. Was going to get freesat or a.n.other but couldn't decide on a box I liked enough (with HD and drive etc), so instead we just programmed all the freeview channels onto the sky box and now use it as the freesat box.

Found that once you programme them in as favourites, you can then look through them easily via TV Guide-Favourites (blue button), then to avoid scrolling through loads of channels you don't have you just use the blue button to scroll through them, works good enough for me at ?ú65 odd less a month.
 
Gifter said:
When my wife took redundancy I cancelled our sky, was ?ú70 odd with the broadband, switched to Orange ?ú17.50 for unlimited broadband and phone line rental. Was going to get freesat or a.n.other but couldn't decide on a box I liked enough (with HD and drive etc), so instead we just programmed all the freeview channels onto the sky box and now use it as the freesat box.

Found that once you programme them in as favourites, you can then look through them easily via TV Guide-Favourites (blue button), then to avoid scrolling through loads of channels you don't have you just use the blue button to scroll through them, works good enough for me at ?ú65 odd less a month.
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Nice one. And I take it the usual things like recording and HD work as per normal?
 
No recording, the planner works as a reminder. I download stuff now to my media centre instead, if I miss anything. Pass on HD as I didn't have it, but doubt those will work as they are a subscription service through SKY, so you'd need a box of some sort for that.
 
Ah right. I need the Hd and recording facility so I suppose an new box would be the way forward
 
The thing that put me off was there was no box on the market that offered both freesat HD with a recording module and USB/NIC AVI/MKV playing (or streaming) module, yet without the hard disk there were boxes which had NIC's to stream onto.

But if you aren't fussed about using it as a streamer also then there are plenty which arent overly expensive (think it worked out as paying for itself in 3 or 4 months for the 500GB disk HD models).

The main thing is that you adjust very quickly to what you've got, it just means my wife can't watch masses of UKLiving crap, which is another bonus!
 
If you wait until the summer, there's a new service/box coming out that will let you build your own package out of all the premium services.
 
We got Freesat a little under four years ago. Our analogue signal was brick and Freeview basically didn't hack it 'round our way either. I wasn't going to lash out the cash for Sky considering the only thing I'd bloody watch was the football, and I could count on the fingers of less than one hand how many Spurs game I didn't go to that were televised.....

I think Freesat is great. The only thing I miss on Sky now is cricket, and frankly, that's not worth the subscription on it's own for me.

We started out with a Humax HD receiver and a Sony DVD/PVR. I got fed-up with the two-box setup as it took up too much space and I couldn't fit my AV amp in the limited space we've got. So I switched to a Panasonic Blu-Ray/Freesat, that can be connected (wired) to my home network (which I haven't yet done) to do stuff like get the BBC iPlayer.

Don't see us going back to Sky. Won't say ever, but certainly not any time soon.
 
WookieD said:
If you wait until the summer, there's a new service/box coming out that will let you build your own package out of all the premium services.
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Do you have any more details on this? Whats different about the box?


chichester said:
I want to be able to pay just for sky sports and nothing else, i do not watch anything else except for itv4 in the summer for the cycling. Is the anything that would be good for me?
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You can do this with BT Vision and also just through sky player online but its really expensive. Your talking ?ú35/40 for them alone. Thats how Sky make all their money really, either make you pay for loads of other brick no one wants to make up their income to fund sports or charge you a fortune for the sports alone if you go down that route.


This Youview thing looks pretty good, may hold out till it launches in the summer. Trouble is I'm still not sure the internet is up to constant streaming here, doesnt seem quick enough.
 
chichester said:
I want to be able to pay just for sky sports and nothing else, i do not watch anything else except for itv4 in the summer for the cycling. Is the anything that would be good for me?
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ITV Player, while not a patch on Beeb's iPlayer, will let you watch the ITV4 guff for free online and you can just pay for the Sky Sports - all the BBC channels (non-HD) are online too.

Is my memory right that your outside of the UK a bit? If so then Expat Shield would be a good option (free vpn) to get the online bits, though if you have access to a UK router then I can give you the Sky IP's so you can view the live TV from them.
 
we have a Humax foxsat 320GB for freesat, and a ps3 for everything else like netflix, lovefilm, iplayer, 4OD etc. lately ive been watching streams through the ps3 on the TV.

foxsat box just plugs into the old Sky+ dish. got rid of sky as its only TV and not worth paying for 99% of the week. I basically just pay for broadband and phone and im saving so much money now I can afford to actually watch Spurs at WHL more.
 
chichester said:
I want to be able to pay just for sky sports and nothing else, i do not watch anything else except for itv4 in the summer for the cycling. Is the anything that would be good for me?
Click to expand...

Esentially, it should allow to you cherry pick whatever you want, from whoever you want. The idea is that it opens up everyone's content. It's all a little vague at the moment though.

There's a little more information on either the link above or the wiki page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouView
 
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