Moving from Sky to Freesat/Freeview… questions

Moving from Sky to Freesat/Freeview… questions

Author
Discussion

CoffeeGuy

Original Poster:

44 posts

40 months

Saturday 25th May
quotequote all
HI Everyone,

So I have just told Sky I no longer need their services. Got 31 days to sort it. The broadband is easy enough but not sure on the Freesat. We did have Freeview originally but the cheeky barstewards cut it off to push their cable through without me noticing (ie they couldn't be bothered drilling a new hole for the dish cables).

Questions....

We have SKY Q (apparently) It has the glowing blue Q on the front. However I understand there is an issue with newer Sky setups using non standard receivers so I can't just plug any random FreeSat box in?

Given that, can anyone recommend a good box with recording and HDD built in that are plug and play replacements?

Many thanks!

OutInTheShed

9,368 posts

33 months

Saturday 25th May
quotequote all
We've been using a Humax hard drive recorder for many years, with a cheap dish and 4-output LNB.

There may be some modern LNBs which don't work with this set up,

babelfish

966 posts

214 months

Sunday 26th May
quotequote all
As long as it's a modern 4k Freeview box /TV you are using it should work with the Sky Q wide band LNBs

megaphone

10,938 posts

258 months

Sunday 26th May
quotequote all
babelfish said:
As long as it's a modern 4k Freeview box /TV you are using it should work with the Sky Q wide band LNBs
Freeview will not work with a sat dish, it needs an aerial.

megaphone

10,938 posts

258 months

Sunday 26th May
quotequote all
Sky Q uses a wideband LNB, so you will need a Freesat box that can take a wideband LNB, they are less common.

Can you access the dish? Often a 'Hybrid' LNB is fitted that has both wideband (Q) connections and legacy connections, easy to swap them over.

Or just re-instate the Freeview TV aerial and get a Freeview DVR. BT TV boxes are made by Humax and are good and readily available on eBay etc.

babelfish

966 posts

214 months

Sunday 26th May
quotequote all
megaphone said:
babelfish said:
As long as it's a modern 4k Freeview box /TV you are using it should work with the Sky Q wide band LNBs
Freeview will not work with a sat dish, it needs an aerial.
Typo - I meant Freesat

nyt

1,850 posts

157 months

Sunday 26th May
quotequote all
There is something called Freely coming soon.

Seems quite restricted at the moment, but may meet your needs in the future

https://www.freely.co.uk/how-freely-works

ETA: Only seems available on HiSense TVs as I type

dickymint

25,841 posts

265 months

Tuesday 28th May
quotequote all
EE broadband and TV - stream everything or use an aerial.

CoffeeGuy

Original Poster:

44 posts

40 months

Saturday 1st June
quotequote all
So just to update and close it out....

I spoke to the Freesat people and they told me that the 4K box would work fine. It does. Literally unscrew sky box and replace with Freesat. Job done.

As to is it better than Virgin/Sky..... the programs are the same but so far I am finding the interface very clunky, unintuitive and slow BUT at the end of the day I am saving £50 a month and getting three times faster broadband into the package.

They really need to work on the performance and usability of the Freesat box.

dickymint

25,841 posts

265 months

Saturday 1st June
quotequote all
CoffeeGuy said:
So just to update and close it out....

I spoke to the Freesat people and they told me that the 4K box would work fine. It does. Literally unscrew sky box and replace with Freesat. Job done.

As to is it better than Virgin/Sky..... the programs are the same but so far I am finding the interface very clunky, unintuitive and slow BUT at the end of the day I am saving £50 a month and getting three times faster broadband into the package.

They really need to work on the performance and usability of the Freesat box.
Ok but what "box" are you using?

megaphone

10,938 posts

258 months

Sunday 2nd June
quotequote all
The Sky EPG is probably the best out there, both the Q and older HD EPGs are really good, quick and intuitive. Most others are a bit compromised in some way.

I use the 'Freeview' Humax/Youview/BT/EE boxes, the newer EE EPG is good, but still has it's failings. But it does what I need.

Dave Hedgehog

14,686 posts

211 months

Monday 3rd June
quotequote all
CoffeeGuy said:
So just to update and close it out....

I spoke to the Freesat people and they told me that the 4K box would work fine. It does. Literally unscrew sky box and replace with Freesat. Job done.

As to is it better than Virgin/Sky..... the programs are the same but so far I am finding the interface very clunky, unintuitive and slow BUT at the end of the day I am saving £50 a month and getting three times faster broadband into the package.

They really need to work on the performance and usability of the Freesat box.
i dumped freesat 8 years ago, nice to hear its still an awful experience


grumpy52

5,717 posts

173 months

Monday 10th June
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I use a Fire stick with a hosting app installed £40 pa subscription and loads of satellite channels and all the Freeview channels that are not available normally in my area

Digger

15,181 posts

198 months

Monday 10th June
quotequote all
Anyone bought one of the new Manhattan boxes?

https://manhattan-tv.com/freeview/manhattan-t4r-tv...

anonymoususer

6,605 posts

55 months

Tuesday 11th June
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Digger said:
Anyone bought one of the new Manhattan boxes?

https://manhattan-tv.com/freeview/manhattan-t4r-tv...
I saw one "in action" saturday. I was buying a chaps Humax Aura and he was selling it because he had bought the T4R.
I have used T3r and T2r and I find them fast. The T4 seemed even faster. He was happy with it it was very quick to load the i player and 4OD apps
I had absolutely no problems at all with either the T3R or T2R and I note that ITVX works fine on the T3R

Having said that I do like the Humax Aura.
I have a lot of ripped stuff on network drives and used a Firecube with Kodi installed on it. I fear the firestick/ firecube days are drawing to a close as Amazon go for their own firmware
I have found Kodi to be an excellent media player. Other TV's and players can play lots of stuff but some are missing audio or they wont play certain types of file. Not Kodi so I can illegal stream lol.
Kodi pretty much plays everything. Another good one is VLC.
I was delighted to find that both can be installed easily on the Aura.


Edited by anonymoususer on Tuesday 11th June 12:45


Edited by anonymoususer on Tuesday 11th June 12:48