Using old sky box as a freeview box

Leopard

penrhyn,

Apologies for the tone: I just fired from the hip when I saw that one.

I know you've helped a lot of people in the past, here, and I respect you for that.

But seriously, even if it did cost £100 to get the aerial updated/improved, that's still £900 less, over five years, than subscribing to Sky. More, when you take into account the loss of interest on the £1,000.



Karmacat,

I don't think you'll be able to get those extra channels even by manual re-tuning because Sky encrypts them: that's why they're not available on FreeSat.

However tight things may be (and perhaps even because of it) it's worth spending a bit of money to obtain Freeview with a decent signal. Thereafter, you'll get a lot of entertainment absolutely free - and that's worth a great deal when you can't afford to spend money on going out. You have to have some little pleasures in life and this one comes pretty cheap when you consider it over five years.

Hope things ease up for you soon.

Karmacat

Thanks, Leopard! I think I'll let it go for now, to be honest - I have all the other freeview channels, no problem, its just those 3 .... its a bit annoying, but really, in the scheme of things, I don't have a problem with it.

The tightest of tight things - if my second career takes off the way it should, everything will be hunky dory. With knobs on. If not, I'll be *really* disappointed, but I have a few fallbacks, and I want to move anyway - so when I move, I'll downsize and pay off the mortgage (which is only about 15% of my house price anyway).

You guys on the techie board do wonderful things!

jazzy

Not all of the tv transmitters will be broadcasting all of the freeview channels after the digital changeover. In my case I will only be able to receive approx 19 digital channels and Dave and Virgin1 are not included

BexTech

Note: Freeview via aerial, Freesat via satellite.

I'd wait until the switch-over in your area to see if you need a new aerial, also don't read anything into whether you get analogue Ch5 or not. Maybe best to go without the few channels for now you get on Freeview and not Freesat until the switch over and see how you get on from there.

Karmacat

I've still got the satellite dish ..... I'll just ignore this issue, I reckon, until channel developments force me to pay attention to it, or I have to move house.... thanks for the replies all.

jaydeeuk1

If you have a laptop / media center (might even work on some consoles) then try this to watch Dave and in the future, Virgin. Free to use too.

http://www.tvcatchup.com/guide.html

Free and legal.

jackieb

Karmacat wrote: »

Thanks all - I didn't realise I wouldn't be able to get those channels using my skybox.... didn't realise there might be reception problems either. I know the terrestrial signal round here for Channel 5 is pretty bad, but nothing else - I guess I'll google it and find out.

We can't get channel 5 here on terrestrial (or the majority of DAB radio stations, can't get BBC ones, only local ones). I thought if you couldn't get channel 5 on terrestrial then you couldn't get Freeview either?

http://www.freeview.co.uk/availability

Karmacat

Ooh, that catchup site has Yesterday and Dave!!! Thanks, jaydeeuk!!!! Says Virgin is disabled, from what you said, I presume they've made a deal to include it? I have Virgin cable, so my broadband connection is good enough to watch tv.

jackieb, the extra channels I'm getting are going through my old skybox, not through a terrestrial aerial. Don't ask me to explain the why or the how :rotfl: but thats definitely whats happening.

whoK

to get the 3 extra channels ie Dave Sky3 Fiver you will need a sky card pluged in any old card will do mine is around 10 years old.

Karmacat

No, whok, sorry, I have my old skycard in there, and can't get those channels, thats why I started the thread in the first place. Again, I don't understand teh technicals of it, but I know that thats the situation.

Thanks for posting tho.