Sacking off Sky Q for Freeview/Sat
Discussion
Apologies if the incorrect forum to post this.
Seems being a Sky VIP customer means absolutely chuff all when you want a deal doing. Costs are getting ridiculous for simply something that we don’t really fully use anymore.
Currently got Sky Q, multi screen, broadband etc. but want to sack it all off.
Never ever been down the free view/free sat or similar route, and have no idea on any of it!
Does such a thing exist where I can buy a box, plug in into the mains, plug in to the telly, connect wireless to the broadband router and have HD TV, all without the astronomical Sky monthlies? Recordable being a bonus, but not an essential. Do you still have to pay monthlies for the service?
All suggestions and recommendations very welcome.
Also… Freeview/Freesat – what’s the difference?!
Seems being a Sky VIP customer means absolutely chuff all when you want a deal doing. Costs are getting ridiculous for simply something that we don’t really fully use anymore.
Currently got Sky Q, multi screen, broadband etc. but want to sack it all off.
Never ever been down the free view/free sat or similar route, and have no idea on any of it!
Does such a thing exist where I can buy a box, plug in into the mains, plug in to the telly, connect wireless to the broadband router and have HD TV, all without the astronomical Sky monthlies? Recordable being a bonus, but not an essential. Do you still have to pay monthlies for the service?
All suggestions and recommendations very welcome.
Also… Freeview/Freesat – what’s the difference?!
Freesat is what you need. I'm currently a SkyQ customer. They have altered the satellite connection to the dish so that it is no longer straight forward.
My previous house, the sellers had Sky broadband. I managed to simply plug in my Humax box and get connection. No monthly fees and the old Humax box can record scheduled programmes.
I've noticed on the dish of my current house that the two old outlet wires have just been put aside. At some point I will need to go up there and see if I reconnect them, whether my FreeSat box will work. Ideally I will cancel my contract when the fixed term expires.
My previous house, the sellers had Sky broadband. I managed to simply plug in my Humax box and get connection. No monthly fees and the old Humax box can record scheduled programmes.
I've noticed on the dish of my current house that the two old outlet wires have just been put aside. At some point I will need to go up there and see if I reconnect them, whether my FreeSat box will work. Ideally I will cancel my contract when the fixed term expires.
Freeview is transmitted from local transmitters and needs an aerial to receive.
Freesat is transmitted from satellites and needs a dish to receive.
Most new TVs come with either or with both built in. No monthly charge to view the channels.
Some TVs have a record function, or you can buy a freeview (or freesat) box that has a built in recorder (and allows you to watch one channel whilst recording another).
Freesat is transmitted from satellites and needs a dish to receive.
Most new TVs come with either or with both built in. No monthly charge to view the channels.
Some TVs have a record function, or you can buy a freeview (or freesat) box that has a built in recorder (and allows you to watch one channel whilst recording another).
leef44 said:
Freesat is what you need. I'm currently a SkyQ customer. They have altered the satellite connection to the dish so that it is no longer straight forward.
My previous house, the sellers had Sky broadband. I managed to simply plug in my Humax box and get connection. No monthly fees and the old Humax box can record scheduled programmes.
I've noticed on the dish of my current house that the two old outlet wires have just been put aside. At some point I will need to go up there and see if I reconnect them, whether my FreeSat box will work. Ideally I will cancel my contract when the fixed term expires.
I think its just the LNB that needs changing if you have Sky Q. We will be binning Sky off later this year, when we moved into this place the engineer who attended said we had a dual LNB that could do Q and regular Freesat so thats what I have been looking intoMy previous house, the sellers had Sky broadband. I managed to simply plug in my Humax box and get connection. No monthly fees and the old Humax box can record scheduled programmes.
I've noticed on the dish of my current house that the two old outlet wires have just been put aside. At some point I will need to go up there and see if I reconnect them, whether my FreeSat box will work. Ideally I will cancel my contract when the fixed term expires.
One possible technical problem, we moved our living room around – importantly, the TV to the other side of the room away from the point where the satellite comes in where you plug the box in to.
With our current Sky Q set up, we have the main Sky Q box plugged into the satellite point the otherside of the room hidden under a coffee table without being connected to a TV. We then use a multi room box to connect to the main sky Q box and that is plugged in to our main TV in the living room.
So ideally, I need to get something that doesn’t need to plug in to the satellite point in the wall on the other side of the room, to avoid having to mirror the screens again. Is that possible??
With our current Sky Q set up, we have the main Sky Q box plugged into the satellite point the otherside of the room hidden under a coffee table without being connected to a TV. We then use a multi room box to connect to the main sky Q box and that is plugged in to our main TV in the living room.
So ideally, I need to get something that doesn’t need to plug in to the satellite point in the wall on the other side of the room, to avoid having to mirror the screens again. Is that possible??
Grumps. said:
Freesat will work on existing sky dish so you can just remove any sky box connected and replace with the freesat box.
Yes but sometimes the LNB will need to be changed. Sky Q uses a different LNB to regular Freesat, there are some newer Freesat boxes that use a 'Wideband' LNB, same as Sky Q. geeks said:
I think its just the LNB that needs changing if you have Sky Q. We will be binning Sky off later this year, when we moved into this place the engineer who attended said we had a dual LNB that could do Q and regular Freesat so thats what I have been looking into
Thanks. I will see if I unplug the SkyQ connectors at the dish and replace with the two original ones (which are just hanging lose, by the dish), whether this will do the job.leef44 said:
geeks said:
I think its just the LNB that needs changing if you have Sky Q. We will be binning Sky off later this year, when we moved into this place the engineer who attended said we had a dual LNB that could do Q and regular Freesat so thats what I have been looking into
Thanks. I will see if I unplug the SkyQ connectors at the dish and replace with the two original ones (which are just hanging lose, by the dish), whether this will do the job.megaphone said:
Grumps. said:
Freesat will work on existing sky dish so you can just remove any sky box connected and replace with the freesat box.
Yes but sometimes the LNB will need to be changed. Sky Q uses a different LNB to regular Freesat, there are some newer Freesat boxes that use a 'Wideband' LNB, same as Sky Q. I canned Sky over a year ago, not missed it at all.
We just use the inbuilt Freeview on the Samsung TVs. No record function. Everything I want to watch is on catchup on the main channels Free apps.
That + shared Netflix/Prime/still got free Discovery+ from Sky days!
No more frustration with the unreliable SkyQ is a bonus .
We just use the inbuilt Freeview on the Samsung TVs. No record function. Everything I want to watch is on catchup on the main channels Free apps.
That + shared Netflix/Prime/still got free Discovery+ from Sky days!
No more frustration with the unreliable SkyQ is a bonus .
Grumps. said:
Freesat will work on existing sky dish so you can just remove any sky box connected and replace with the freesat box.
Not sure if this is still the case, but when I sacked Sky from our multiroom set-up several years go with the intention of looking around, the dish and boxes continued to show a subset of channels which I assumed were equivalent to Freesat. They still do.I have just binned off Sky Broadband for Gigaclear Fibre and cut the cost from £50ish a month to £20 for 18mths.
At the same time I re-negotiated my Sky Q deal and got that down to under £100 for everything. Saved £60 at least on the whole combined package!
The only issue is waiting hours to get through to them!!!
At the same time I re-negotiated my Sky Q deal and got that down to under £100 for everything. Saved £60 at least on the whole combined package!
The only issue is waiting hours to get through to them!!!
TEKNOPUG said:
What exactly do you watch? Would a streamer stick (Firestick, Roku etc) not be a simpler option?
We binned Sky years ago and moved to Now TV to get the same content much cheaper, although the cost of that has risen and it's still pricey compared to other services.Out LG has Freesat built in so just plugged the cables into the TV and it worked, but honestly we barely bother with this.
If you have Sky Q there can be issues with it working with an older freesat box as others have stated it depends what LNB is on there
This thread is a useful reference
https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-Q/Using-Sky-dish-...
A Freesat 4K box will work OK. These are the newer boxes and work with both types of LNB's they look like this:
Freesat gives you a few more +1 type channels than freeview plus other content
Freeview needs an aerial that goes into the TV. Depending on the age and type of your TV you may get actual HD channels
Some TV's were marked oddly meaning they received standard Freeview channels but not HD ones
You can also buy a seperate Freeview box that will allow you to record.
Freeview is moving rapidly over to Freeview Play though the Freeview HD boxes work well enough if you want to record stuff. Freeview play allows you to find content easier as it takes connections via both your aerial and broad band connection.
Not ALL TV's actually use freeview branding though they still use Freeview Samsung has moved to its own version called samsung TV which adds an extra choice of programming pulled from various sources.
We gave up SKY TV years ago and abandoned Virgin over a year ago. All our TV;s are connected to an aerial via an internal distribution box.
We also have a Freesat 4K box downstairs.
If I was buying another Freeview box I believe I would go for a Manhattan T3R box it's very fast and about as future proof as you can get
The Freesat 4K boxes seem to have gone up in price recently. Older Humax boxes are available over on e bay and the like.
There is also another type of Freeview thing called Youview it seems to be dying off now its more like Freeview Play the boxes were made by Humax and from personal experience they are ok when on but s....l....o....w to boot up
This thread is a useful reference
https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-Q/Using-Sky-dish-...
A Freesat 4K box will work OK. These are the newer boxes and work with both types of LNB's they look like this:
Freesat gives you a few more +1 type channels than freeview plus other content
Freeview needs an aerial that goes into the TV. Depending on the age and type of your TV you may get actual HD channels
Some TV's were marked oddly meaning they received standard Freeview channels but not HD ones
You can also buy a seperate Freeview box that will allow you to record.
Freeview is moving rapidly over to Freeview Play though the Freeview HD boxes work well enough if you want to record stuff. Freeview play allows you to find content easier as it takes connections via both your aerial and broad band connection.
Not ALL TV's actually use freeview branding though they still use Freeview Samsung has moved to its own version called samsung TV which adds an extra choice of programming pulled from various sources.
We gave up SKY TV years ago and abandoned Virgin over a year ago. All our TV;s are connected to an aerial via an internal distribution box.
We also have a Freesat 4K box downstairs.
If I was buying another Freeview box I believe I would go for a Manhattan T3R box it's very fast and about as future proof as you can get
The Freesat 4K boxes seem to have gone up in price recently. Older Humax boxes are available over on e bay and the like.
There is also another type of Freeview thing called Youview it seems to be dying off now its more like Freeview Play the boxes were made by Humax and from personal experience they are ok when on but s....l....o....w to boot up
Edited by anonymoususer on Wednesday 31st May 08:46
Smurfsarepeopletoo said:
If you can get Virgin in your area, they do a Stream box, no monthly cost, get freeview channels as standard, but get the option to change your package on a month by month basis, so can add sky cinema for a month, and then take it off. You just need Virgin broadband for it to work.
Thank you, the Virgin stream box looks like an absolute shout for us as we wouldn’t need to plug it into the dish socket which is on the other side of the room to the TV.The reasonably priced Virgin broadband is 264mbps – Is that a bit stingey for a streaming box? Their 1130mbps package is quite expensive!
How do things like Fire Sticks work? Is it possible to use those for normal freeview TV, how do you get access to it?
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