Can I use both a Sky and a Freesat box?

bramval

Apologies if this seems to be a lot of nonsense but after reading some of the threads on here I am still confused.

Currently I have a standard Sky Digital box with the basic package. After investigating the cost of a possible upgrade to Sky+ it seems to be too expensive (increases to £42 per month for the same package) So what I was wondering was whether it would be feasible to buy a Freesat box for free HD content and run it alongside my existing Sky box for the current Sky programmes.

oldandhappy

We run a freeview box also a magic eye which transmits our sky box to a bedroom and can switch between either. Dianne

Kurtis_Blue

oldandhappy wrote: »

We run a freesat box with a magic eye to transmit our sky box to a bedroom and can switch between either. Dianne

Do what with the what now?

Are you sure you are not running a freeVIEW box in the bedroom fed by the combined RF out from the sky box?

And yes you can run the freesat next to the Sky by:

running another feed from the dish. Or
Swapping the cable between the two. Or
IF FITTED use sat loop through on the freesat box (has LNB in AND out socket on rear)

spike7451

bramval wrote: »

Apologies if this seems to be a lot of nonsense but after reading some of the threads on here I am still confused.

Currently I have a standard Sky Digital box with the basic package. After investigating the cost of a possible upgrade to Sky+ it seems to be too expensive (increases to £42 per month for the same package) So what I was wondering was whether it would be feasible to buy a Freesat box for free HD content and run it alongside my existing Sky box for the current Sky programmes.

You will need to either change the sngle LNB for a quad LNB & run another feed for the freesat box or fit a A/B Switch to allow you to switch between Sky & Free sat.

Bunter_2

bramval wrote: »

Currently I have a standard Sky Digital box with the basic package. After investigating the cost of a possible upgrade to Sky+ it seems to be too expensive (increases to £42 per month for the same package) So what I was wondering was whether it would be feasible to buy a Freesat box for free HD content and run it alongside my existing Sky box for the current Sky programmes.

I was in a similar situation to you about a year ago. After a lot of research I figured that the way to go was to get a quad LNB (installed by a private local firm) to replace my single feed LNB, and then to purchase a Foxsat Humax box. At that time I had the basic Sky package and was planning to ditch Sky altogether when I had the Freesat Humax up and running.

However, I discovered that Freesat channels (and the Humax interface) were not entirely to my liking. I particularly like the Documentary channels on Sky and it was not possible to record the Sky channels on my Humax box. So I decided to stay with Sky and get a Sky + box off ebay and do a self install. This just involved putting the leads in the right places and then ringing Sky to ask them to upgrade me to Sky Plus which they did with no hassle and no charge.

From your post it is not clear what you really want or how much financial outlay you are comfortable with.

If you intend to keep your basic Sky package then it would seem to
make sense to do an upgrade to Sky + through Sky which would cost you (according to the Sky web site) £99 for a Sky + box plus a standard setup fee of £60. If you want the HD package then that will cost you £10 a month on top of what you are paying monthly now. You would also be committed to a further one year contract.

If you go this way I would try and persuade the Sky installer to put four leads on the quad dish and not just two, as this will give you more options for the future.

If you go privately, as I did, you would have to get a local firm to do the quad dish install. I was very surprised at how reasonable the charge was for this, although obviously charges will vary quite a lot from one area to another. Then you would have to get a Sky+ box from ebay or somewhere. Mine cost about £100.

I now have both the Foxsat and the Sky+ box but I prefer to use the Sky+ box. It is useful to have both however. I use the Foxsat to record the freesat programmes and the Sky+ box to record the Sky package programmes. This is especially useful for when programmes overlap. Sometimes I will record a programme on both boxes if there is something special that I want to see. (Recordings do sometimes fail).

oldandhappy

Kurtis_Blue wrote: »

Do what with the what now?

Are you sure you are not running a freeVIEW box in the bedroom fed by the combined RF out from the sky box?

And yes you can run the freesat next to the Sky by:

running another feed from the dish. Or
Swapping the cable between the two. Or
IF FITTED use sat loop through on the freesat box (has LNB in AND out socket on rear)

All I know is there is a cable from main TV room that travels to the bedroom into a socket to fed the sky there via a magic eye(hope that makes sense I am not much good at ironing either;))
We have a freeview box connected to an outside aerial. So the set up works fine for us...Turn off freebox and sky is on, turn on freebox and freeview is on:)no actual switch here..........Dianne

Baldur

oldandhappy wrote: »

All I know is there is a cable from main TV room that travels to the bedroom into a socket to fed the sky there via a magic eye(hope that makes sense I am not much good at ironing either;))
We have a freeview box connected to an outside aerial. So the set up works fine for us...Turn off freebox and sky is on, turn on freebox and freeview is on:)no actual switch here..........Dianne

Freeview & Freesat are totally different things (aerial versus satellite), which is why your original post "We run a freesat box with a magic eye to transmit our sky box" was queried by Kurtis_Blue.

oldandhappy

Baldur wrote: »

Freeview & Freesat are totally different things (aerial versus satellite), which is why your original post "We run a freesat box with a magic eye to transmit our sky box" was queried by Kurtis_Blue.

I have edited the error of putting freesat instead of freeview...thanks but unfortunately I can so easily type the wrong words these days...years;). Dianne

broxiebear1

i have sky at the moment and was wondering how to install freesat for the bedroom i know if i do away with sky then its simple to install freesat but if i keep sky in living room how do i install freesat in bedroom
thanks guys
broxie

Baldur

broxiebear1 wrote: »

i have sky at the moment and was wondering how to install freesat for the bedroom i know if i do away with sky then its simple to install freesat but if i keep sky in living room how do i install freesat in bedroom

You need a satellite feed to the bedroom (1 x feed from the satellite dish LNB for standard Freesat box or 2 x feeds for a Freesat + box - if you wish to record) plus your chosen Freesat box.