Confused about Freesat+ and Sky

LydiaJ

Hope this is the right place to ask this...

I am currently using a second-hand Sky box with a dish that was put on the wall of my house by some previous occupant. (The box was only £23 from eBay - definite MoneySaving moment!) I don't have a card for the box, so I don't get C4 or C5, but that's not much of a problem to me at the moment, as I get all the BBC and ITV channels (from Sky) and can make do with those. I have an elderly video recorder and a basic DVD player (that only plays and doesn't record).

I haven't had any money spare to spend on this sort of thing, but now I've got a gift card for PCWorld/Currys with £200ish on it, so I've been thinking about what to do with it - especially since there are rumours about PCWorld/Currys going bust, so obviously I'd need to spend the card while they're still in business. I'd really like to get some kind of TV recorder with the usual features - pause and rewind live TV, set the thing to record an entire series, everything goes on a hard drive with no need to mess about with tapes/disks etc. I don't want to have to pay any kind of subscription.

I understand that Sky+ boxes only work if you pay at least a basic subscription, but there's FreeSat from the BBC which can do recording etc without having to make any ongoing payments. Are they from the same satellite? If I wanted to stop getting Sky and start getting the BBC version, would I need to have my dish adjusted to point in a new direction? Or could I just buy a FreeSat recorder and connect it to the existing dish?

Is there anything else you think I should know that I don't even realise I ought to have asked?

Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.

PS The reason I bought the Sky box was because the Freeview reception was terrible - sound kept cutting in and out, and picture kept freezing. Pity, because I think a Freeview+ box would be cheaper.

savemoney

Freesat uses the same dish lnb and cable. Freesat box currently only one make available is the Humax and they are in very short supply at mo. You get around 120 channels not including radio and regionally. Most arent briliant at mo. Its really a replacement for freeview however you can get BBC HD which is very good although its only part time. You can get 5.1 surround sound depending on the program on HD too and its 1080i which all I think supply at mo on cable/satellite

Freesat is free none subscription you can also get non freesat channels including one other HD channel which is mainly arts/documentary Lux HD

The Humax box has a 320gb hard drive you can archive none HD channels via the USB port to a flash drive or usb hard drive too. Its also twin tuners so you need a twin or quad LNB it doesnt cost that much but you also need twin cable or shotgun cable to get optimum viewing

kkpolobear

if you want c4 on the sky box just stick any card in the box ie a store loyal card then it should give you c4

LydiaJ

Thanks very much savemoney. That's very helpful indeed.
In what way are the freesat channels mostly not brilliant? What's wrong with them?

Thanks also kkpolobear. I just tried it and it works.

vale46_2

this may help the channels you can get at the moment freesat channel list more to come this system only a few months old
there's also channels you can add to the freesat channel list in non free sat mode some
here

freesat from sky channel list the free channels you get as a none subscription.on a sky digibox. = * means you need a card in the box to view them

both freesat from sky and the freesat from BBC/ITV use the same dish
(ie. a old sky digital dish if you got one) provided its set up ok and working

danechip

You can also buy a card from sky for about 20 quid, that will allow you to use your existing box giving you channel 4 and 5.

Its a lot of messing about flicking in between the "call sky to upgrade" dead channels in between, but you could use the favorite channels feature to add, you guessed it, your favorite channels.

I would stick with your trusty old sky box and wait for the prices to come down on free sat. It's a shame your 200ish wasn't cash. You could have a multi satellite system fitted with hundreds of channels for not a lot more.

mymatebob

five is now free to air if you add it on "additional channels" bit of the menu.

Details available of various websites.

Just did it myself the other day to watch some footie

Must try the storecard trick and see if that works

savemoney

You get your normal bbc1,2,3,4 itv +1 itv2 etc etc. There's some shopping channels and religious ones. Plus several kids channels and music plus radio

The HD channel is the bigger I think tomorrow especially good. I have only had it 2 and a bit weeks the freesat+ box has only been out a month

I find quality on SD not as good as freeview myself but it isnt too bad I just have a critical eye for quality

Its worth having though but ist around "£292- £300 to get

Humax have a very good reputation as qulaity gear I have several of there pvrs at home.

Freesat I belive has a big future, I had freeview when it first came out and before that ondigital or ITV digital It come a long way since and I beleive freesat will get better and better, HD is certainly a big bonus and it will be a few years before we may see HD on freeview and I suspect we will need new boxes and HD is compressed in h.264 which I dont think the old freview boxes can decode

LydiaJ wrote: »

Thanks very much savemoney. That's very helpful indeed.
In what way are the freesat channels mostly not brilliant? What's wrong with them?

Thanks also kkpolobear. I just tried it and it works.

LydiaJ

Thanks very much everyone. This is all useful info.

I've been reading some stuff about freesat on various websites and came across this ... "a standard installation starts from around £80 and a freesat+ install costs around £20 extra because of the need for two feeds from your satellite dish."

Does that mean I would need some kind of alteration to my dish or cabling? What's a feed in this context?

Inactive

A " feed " is a cable from your LNB on your dish, to use Freesat+ you will require 2 feeds ( 2 cables ).... you probably only have a single feed LNB, so that would require changing to a twin ( 2 outputs ) or quad one ( 4 outputs ).

There are no Freesat+ Receivers for sale anywhere in the country at the moment.

LydiaJ

So I'd need a new LNB? Or a new dish altogether?

This is all beginning to sound too expensive. Perhaps before I go ahead I'd better check if the freeview reception is still as hopeless as it was last time I tried it, which was about 2 years ago, I think.

Thanks again for all you helpful people who are educating me!