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Author: Subject: Sky alternatives
Simon

posted on 26/1/14 at 10:03 PM Reply With Quote
Sky alternatives

Folks,

Currently have the full Sky package and have thought for a while it's exceptionally poor value - I rarely find anything to watch.

So, what are the alternatives (and I don't mind paying a bit to upgrade a little) - Freeview, freesat etc etc

What are your preferences? Sky pee'd me off this evening so quite keen to cancel.

Cheers all

ATB

Simon






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morcus

posted on 26/1/14 at 10:20 PM Reply With Quote
Having had Sky and Virgin (And On Digital, and relatives with telewest) I would say all of the pay tv providers are pretty much the same and if it was my money I'd just have freeview and get some sort of hard drive recorder and maybe plug in an old computor to get iplayer.

You'll miss it for a while then you'll forget you had any more than freeview after a few months.





In a White Room, With Black Curtains, By the Station.

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Scuzzle

posted on 26/1/14 at 10:31 PM Reply With Quote
I got rid of Sky a couple of years ago and just opted for the Sky Freesat card, you finish with your Sky subscription and pay them £20, (might be more now?), they send you card which you slot into your Sky box and you never pay anything else again.
Because you are still using your Sky dish you get a good picture and you get 200 odd channels instead of the 90 odd you get with Freeview. (Admittedly a lot of them are rubbish though, shopping channels etc.)

At first I missed the Sky, mostly the sports but BT seem to be sewing up the football now and as far as TV programmes go when I'm at friends houses that still have Sky it seems to be same stuff they were showing 2 years ago when I had it so I feel a bit better about it.
I get all the new series on internet catchup TV as well so not missing out here either.

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mark chandler

posted on 26/1/14 at 11:14 PM Reply With Quote
I just have freeview, some big films appear a year after the big screen so we tried 'love film' which had limited stuff on line so gave up on that.

Sky has never appealed, when at friends houses it just looked like reruns then paying extra to watch current stuff, if you like sport then change your ISP to BT.

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NigeEss

posted on 27/1/14 at 12:12 AM Reply With Quote
Humax or Samsung both do good HD Freesat boxes with hard drives so you still get to record and pause etc.
Just hook up to your current dish and away you go.
You get all the free HD channels that Sky won't give you unless you subscribe to their HD package, one of the
reasons I sacked them.





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Slimy38

posted on 27/1/14 at 06:42 AM Reply With Quote
An extension of the original question, which freebies give you Sky One/two? I have a feeling none of them do, but since we mainly watch either the Channel 4 channels or Sky One then a similar service that gives access to those would certainly be a bonus for me.
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britishtrident

posted on 27/1/14 at 07:47 AM Reply With Quote
If you have decent unlimited internet connection then Now TV box (free channels + catch up + option of Sky packages) only cost £10 and works well even on a half decent non-fibre broadband.

The full Rocky boxes are free from being tied to Sky but cost more and Chromecast should be available soon





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bimbleuk

posted on 27/1/14 at 08:17 AM Reply With Quote
The Now TV box can side load one app in addition to the standard progs. There's a few available but I'm using Plex media server to stream media to my bedroom from a PC. Not bad for £10.
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David Jenkins

posted on 27/1/14 at 04:59 PM Reply With Quote
A Freesat box is a 1-to-1 replacement for the Sky box and gives a reasonable selection of channels. Just as much junk as Sky, but no fee!

Worth getting a HD box - note that Freesat HD is higher definition than Freeview HD. Various hard-disk boxes around, if that's what you want. I have a Humax box, which works fine, although the menus and remote are a bit naff.






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Peteff

posted on 28/1/14 at 10:38 AM Reply With Quote
We got a new telly and Humax freesat box with freetime a couple of weeks ago. It's good and easy to use, I have no problem with the menus they seem pretty intuitive to me.





yours, Pete

I went into the RSPCA office the other day. It was so small you could hardly swing a cat in there.

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David Jenkins

posted on 28/1/14 at 11:31 AM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Peteff
It's good and easy to use, I have no problem with the menus they seem pretty intuitive to me.


Ours is a few years old - they've probably improved!

[Edited on 28/1/14 by David Jenkins]






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dhutch

posted on 28/1/14 at 12:49 PM Reply With Quote
I watch almost no TV (circa 1 hour a month) however I have sub'ed my viewing organisation out to BT in the form of a BT Vision box.

Basically as I see it, 4quid a month, for the rent of a twin-tuner freeview hard-disk recorder, with in built iPlayer/4OD/Itv/Five on demand services.

At which point it does what is says on the tin, can compared to 200 quid for a hard disk recorder that is unlikely to last more than 4 years the price appears very reasonable.


Daniel

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Simon

posted on 28/1/14 at 04:54 PM Reply With Quote
Cheers chaps. As the rest of the family can't seem to be without telly (would be my choice) we're dumping talk talk and sky and getting bt tv. Even with a few add ons we'll save around £70/month.



ATB

Simon






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coozer

posted on 28/1/14 at 06:11 PM Reply With Quote
I would happily ditch Sky but my main channels are the sports for the cricket and discovery/history channels for documentrys. I cant see any other way from getting these channels.





1972 V8 Jago

1980 Z750

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McLannahan

posted on 28/1/14 at 07:48 PM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Simon
Cheers chaps. As the rest of the family can't seem to be without telly (would be my choice) we're dumping talk talk and sky and getting bt tv. Even with a few add ons we'll save around £70/month.



ATB

Simon


I did the same Simon. I now have Youview from BT and no Sky or Talk Talk ( like you had both). Youview is good, a little slow to boot even on non-Eco mode. Not missing Sky or the bills at all.






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