Is FreeSat worth getting?

[gtafan1981]

Hi,

Is Freesat worth getting?
I am thinking of cancelling Sky as its a bit expensive for me, and moving to Freesat.
I'm assuming you can use the Sky dish and I wil probably get a Humax Freesat box as they seem to be the best ones out at the minute.
What channels do you actually get and are they worth it?
Oh BTW I dont have an HD telly......

[raiun0]

There are some film channels on freesat, not much on the sport front though.

[wilf]

Hi,

Is Freesat worth getting?
I am thinking of cancelling Sky as its a bit expensive for me, and moving to Freesat.
I'm assuming you can use the Sky dish and I wil probably get a Humax Freesat box as they seem to be the best ones out at the minute.
What channels do you actually get and are they worth it?
Oh BTW I dont have an HD telly......

this will tell you what you can get
The Satellite Shop

[alunfennell]

If thats the way you are thinking of going your better to buy a receiver your Sky Card will work on so you can get the Sky Freeview channels seeing as you will still have the sky card, Freesat receivers do not have a card slot to take any cards also Freesat do not have Sky Sports Five US etc, Sky three and Uk History which are Free to View only.

In my opinion your better to buy a Technomate or simular receiver that can be patched to take a Sky card for the Sky Freeview channels along with the Freesat channels you will have not a bad service other than that I would look into a bigger dish and motor buy a linux receiver and enjoy sports and movies from other providers around Europe.

Regards:
Alun

[gtafan1981]

Thanks for all the help guys, will look into it

[ms09]

As you already have a fully functional Sky system you don't need anything else. Just cancel your subscription to Sky. The Sky box is yours, you have a valid Sky card that will allow you to watch FTV (that is free to view, but encrypted, whereas FTA is free to air and unencrypted). So you can have all the FTA and FTV channels for nothing.

Little point buying a Freesat box as you will actually receive less and it will cost you money to buy.

[jofus48]

I would back up the comment above

I bought a Humax Freesat HD box last halloween and use it with an old Sky dish
(I bought it for HD - cos the old Sky Digibox doesnt do this)

If all you want is BBC 1/2/3/4, BBC-HD, ITV 1/2/3, Intermittent ITV-HD and Channel 4 - plus a load of tat then the Freesat is fine - you get a a little bit of HD - but you are not really any better off than with the old Digibox. (and you have spent some cash and you have yet another remote control)

Im disappointed cos although I can use the Freesat box as a regular satellite decoder - the box doesnt have a card slot - so not much scope for playing around.

With hindsight I reckon what I really wanted is a Technomate combi box (has 2 decoders - one satellite and one digital terrestrial)
[important in Ireland to receive local channels free]

but thats going to be a bit hard to justify now ...

[Slackworth]

I've got to say Freesat is pretty handy along with a Sky HD box. We regularly have to use the two tuners at once for recording so good that we can turn it off and get Freesat (BBC HD is handy) via the Panny TV.

[johny5]

As you already have a fully functional Sky system you don't need anything else. Just cancel your subscription to Sky. The Sky box is yours, you have a valid Sky card that will allow you to watch FTV (that is free to view, but encrypted, whereas FTA is free to air and unencrypted). So you can have all the FTA and FTV channels for nothing.

Little point buying a Freesat box as you will actually receive less and it will cost you money to buy.

I am in this predicament right now.
Sky are killing off their SKY credit card, I only used to pay about ?5 a month for the ?19 basic sky subscription as I collected skypoints when using my credit card.
Now they put the base channel price up to about ?21 AND are terminating their credit card I figure its time to ditch sky!

I have the HD box and to be honest I really arent bothered about HD but I would like a PVR option of the free channels and was thinking about getting the humax PVR.
I would really like to keep my sky HD box and use the pvr on that but I think sky want me to pay to record the channels!?

unless their is another way?

[opsmonkey]

Is the Sky box yours to keep..?? If it is and sky dont want it back, sell it on eBay then use the money to buy a new box

[nibbles_uk]

I have recently cancelled my Sky and bought a Humax freesat HD box - I feel like I've lost an arm!

My reasons were to cut out the subscription costs and just have a one of payment to buy the box - we had a sky+ box so we were hooked on being able to record stuff and pause TV so easy. The Humax interface is clunky, the channel line up is still in it's infancy and doesn't tune into five US and Virgin 1 and a few others, and the only HD channel on there at the moment is BBC HD and the odd ITV programme!
That said it does have 1 or 2 sweet features like being able to skip ad's on recorded shows by pressing a button twice.

But hey, at least I'm not lining Mr Murdoch's pockets anymore!
Lets hope the more people buy into Freesat, the more channels will come on board too.

[noel1]

can you tell me from your experience what would be best for me. i have the box pvr dual all channels gone for some time now.want to see if i can get new box or dish so i can get normal nt hell channels and some history, discovery etc, thanks . noel

[edward hitler]

Noel 1, you say you have a box pvr dual tuner, and you have lost all channels. I have one of these boxes and have all channels. What is the problem with the box? Do you have latest firmware on it?