Sky Hd vs Freesat.

[Torquey]

Hi,

I might be missing something obvious here or misunderstood something but why would you buy a Freesat box (for £130+) when you can buy a Sky HD box for £50.

You get the same free to air HD channels on sky HD as you do on Freesat (apparently - without any subsciptions according to the sky website), but you'd also get the built in Hard drive so you can record - which if i'm correct is nearly £300 for a freesat equivalent.

I understand you may not get some of the other channels available on freesat but with the built in Freeview on my TV and non subscritption sky channels I could get enough non HD channels to keep me happy.

what have I misunderstood!?

[hugoagogo]

hmm, I'd be interested to know about this too
I currently have a normal sky box, with their 20 quid "free-to-air" card in it
could I just swap the box for a HD sky+ box and get HD(hi def) and HD(hard drive) recording without paying any more or connecting the phone line?

[Andyuk911]

It is very clear, you need to subscribe to sky ...

www.sky.com/hd

[Torquey]

Not quite.
From the sky HD site:

"Three HD channels – BBC HD, Channel 4 HD and Luxe TV HD – are free-to-air and available without any subscriptions. To watch these HD channels you will need a Sky+HD box and an HD ready TV (Channel 4 HD requires a valid viewing card). "

Edited by Torquey on Friday 20th February 14:27

[hugoagogo]

wait, the box is 49 quid WHEN YOU SIGN UP FOR THE HD PACK, otherwise it's 199

Edited by hugoagogo on Friday 20th February 14:31

[skoff]

To get the Sky HD box for £50 you have to subscribe to the HD service at £10 per month for 12 months. Plus if you are an existing Sky customer, you have to pay another £30 for 'installation'

You don't get ITV HD on Sky no matter what you pay - I hope that changes soon.

However if you get Sky sports and / or movies the HD package is pretty unbeatable IMHO

[JustinP1]

hugoagogo said:

wait, the box is 49 quid WHEN YOU SIGN UP FOR THE HD PACK

Indeed, you need to pay a years worth of 10 quids a month.

But then my friend the free world is yours.

[Torquey]

The wording says "Sky HD box only £49 When you take the HD pack OR join OR STAY WITH SKY FOR ANOTHER YEAR"

so if you already have sky it looks like you may get it for a one of payment of £50

Even so - if you did end up paying full price (£200) for the sky HD box it is still £100 cheaper than a recordable Freesat box. If you didnt mind C4 Hd instead of ITV HD.

Edited by Torquey on Friday 20th February 14:40

[hugoagogo]

true
presumably this 'free to air' card is a 'valid viewing card to enable you to get 4hd?

also, do they insist on coming out to fit it?

[anonymous-user]

Torquey said:

The wording says "Sky HD box only £49 When you take the HD pack OR join OR STAY WITH SKY FOR ANOTHER YEAR"

so if you already have sky it looks like you may get it for a one of payment of £50

Even so - if you did end up paying full price (£200) for the sky HD box it is still £100 cheaper than a recordable Freesat box. If you didnt mind C4 Hd instead of ITV HD.

Edited by Torquey on Friday 20th February 14:40

The SkyHD record facility won't work without a subscription.

[Mr_Yogi]

Bandit said:

Torquey said:

The wording says "Sky HD box only £49 When you take the HD pack OR join OR STAY WITH SKY FOR ANOTHER YEAR"

so if you already have sky it looks like you may get it for a one of payment of £50

Even so - if you did end up paying full price (£200) for the sky HD box it is still £100 cheaper than a recordable Freesat box. If you didnt mind C4 Hd instead of ITV HD.

Edited by Torquey on Friday 20th February 14:40

The SkyHD record facility won't work without a subscription.

Also the

said:

Sky HD box only £49 When you take the HD pack OR join OR STAY WITH SKY FOR ANOTHER YEAR"

is for people with an existing subscription, which I don't think HUGO has, so he would have to join for a year at a minimum of about £17/month + £10/month for the HD subscription.

Sky will sell you an HD box without sub but it's more than the normap RRP. When I got mine 2½ years ago it was £300 or £400 for just the box without the sub.

I would imagine that if the normal RRP of the HD box is now £199 that the box without the sub is £299. Or you could look on eBay.

EDIT: as for the phone line thing they only enfoce that when you have multi-room, although you will need it to be connected if Skyman does the install.

Edited by Mr_Yogi on Friday 20th February 16:41

Edited by Mr_Yogi on Friday 20th February 18:56

[hugoagogo]

sky doesn't come out to germany to install you see

[Andyuk911]

Save your money ... buy a Humax HD rec and watch F1 in HD ..

Google is your friend

[ninja-lewis]

Andyuk911 said:

Save your money ... buy a Humax HD rec and watch F1 in HD ..

Google is your friend

What channel has F1 in HD? I thought the BBC won't be able broadcast this year's season in HD because F1 don't film it in HD in the first place?

[Andyuk911]

Have a look ..

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=orf1+hd+f1

[Robin Hood]

I've just had Sky HD put in, very pleased with it

The reason they have to come out to install it is that it needs 2 cables from the dish to the box for it to work instead of one

[hugoagogo]

Robin Hood said:

I've just had Sky HD put in, very pleased with it

The reason they have to come out to install it is that it needs 2 cables from the dish to the box for it to work instead of one

so you can watch one channel and record another
that's no prob to do yourself unless your dish is on the roof

[ninja-lewis]

Andyuk911 said:

Have a look ..

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=orf1+hd+f1

Ah, just upscaled then. Seems there's no proper HD feed available from Bernie yet as the BBC said.

[Mello]

Robin Hood said:

I've just had Sky HD put in, very pleased with it

+1 Me too...

[Torquey]

Robin Hood said:

I've just had Sky HD put in, very pleased with it

The reason they have to come out to install it is that it needs 2 cables from the dish to the box for it to work instead of one

i already have 2 cables - as required with sky +...

So does that mean I only need to directly swap the boxes over??