I cancelled Sky, will the box work at all?

Tiggy10

when I was at uni we used my mums old sky box to receive freeview channels through an old tv we were donated that was not ready for the switchover.

It worked for us and it wasn't even our old sky box from the house we were living in.

we had a pretty good selection of channels. We found the easiest thing to do was to bookmark the free view channels using the 'favourites' button on the sky interface as everytime we hit a 'pay for' channel it froze the box on the sky helpline number.

[Deleted User]

st999 wrote: »

I kept my VHS recorder as well.

While that's certainly a money-saving option, a VHS recorder is hardly state-of-the-art technology. Picture quality will be (at best) poor and deteriorates still further over time. A Freesat PVR is a better option IMHO.

Buzby

The real issue is being freely able to transfer recorded material between premises.

How would you imagine the OP achieves this without having to exchange PVRs?

davemurgatroyd

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

There is a signal sent to the card via the box which negates the card's capability of allowing the decoding of subscription channels. I only used the term "kill signal" in response to someone who used that phrase.

The card can be turned off for particular services (depending on whether/what you cancel/downgrade) but it also has "entitlement dates" for each subscription choice and these are updated approx every month by "over the air" signals to add a further month or so to that date. When that date is reached and has not been updated then that service is no longer available. So not only do you have to avoid a "kill signal" you also have to have a means of updating the entitlements. The "kill signal" merely changes the entitlement dates to the required cancellation date in most cases.

lammy82

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

you won't get a better selection of Free-To-Air channels on Freeview

Unless you like Dave - which is (for me) the one notable exception that's available on Freeview but missing from free-to-air/view satellite...

yangptangkipperbang

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

There is a signal sent to the card via the box which negates the card's capability of allowing the decoding of subscription channels. I only used the term "kill signal" in response to someone who used that phrase.

There is not "a signal sent to the card via the box which negates the card's capability of allowing the decoding of subscription channels" - quite simply, the signal which allows decryption of certain programmes (channels) is removed. As soon as this signal is removed you cannot watch encrypted programming.

This may sound like a "nit-pick" but it isn't - it is fundamental to how encrypted television broadcast systems work.

[Deleted User]

yangptangkipperbang wrote: »

This may sound like a "nit-pick"

Yes, it sounds like a "nit pick":D

VisionMan

The sad truth is Sky don't like providing free TV. And they don't like anyone else providing it either.

[Deleted User]

Buzby wrote: »

The real issue is being freely able to transfer recorded material between premises.

How would you imagine the OP achieves this without having to exchange PVRs?

The OP never mentioned transferring recorded material between premises. The Op didn't even mention that recording was a priority. The Op has cancelled Sky, not moved house.

VisionMan

davemurgatroyd wrote: »

The card can be turned off for particular services (depending on whether/what you cancel/downgrade) but it also has "entitlement dates" for each subscription choice and these are updated approx every month by "over the air" signals to add a further month or so to that date. When that date is reached and has not been updated then that service is no longer available. So not only do you have to avoid a "kill signal" you also have to have a means of updating the entitlements. The "kill signal" merely changes the entitlement dates to the required cancellation date in most cases.

Indeed.

In short, its a 'keep alive' signal. And using this method, there is no way around it either. Clever.