My house mate has just cancelled our expensive Sky HD package. Do we get to keep the Sky HD box (Sky haven't asked for it back)? If so, it has been suggested to us that when the sky stops we would be able to use the box for freesat. Does anyone know if this the case?

as long as you;ve completed the minimum 12 month contract, the box is yours to keep. You can buy a "freesat from sky" card for about £20 which gives you all the "free to air" channels and a few others. However – and this is the galling part, that I only found out about when I'd signed up for mine – the Sky+ recording facility will cost you £10 a month.

ah the buggers. So we won't even be able to use the box to record freeview?!

nope! not unless you pay.

Personally, I'll be ditching the sky box at the end of the contract, mr bro-in-law will probably want it, then I'll buy a freeview HDD

also there is no way to hide the channels you haven't got, so you have to flick past a million channels you haven't got to see what's on

So the box is useless? Anyone know how big the hard drive inside is (he says as he reaches for the hammer)?!

Mine is 250gb, your may be smaller as it'll be older if you;re out of contract

bear in mind a new sky+ hd box is £300 rrp and not everyone can get them free – my mate's recently carked it and sky would not give him one free, so he had to fork out. It'll be worth something on ebay, maybe enough for a freeview HDR

My old Sky box (not Sky+) receives the Freeview channels without the Freesat card. I think its a con to get £20 out of people!

we've an old sky+ box, connected but no contract (have a skyHD and used to have multi-room but not anymore)

the old sky+ gets quite a few channels and CAN record some – pretty sure it "shouldn't" & no idea why it does

HD boxes seem to go for over £50 easy on ebay!

My mum was a Sky customer for many years, paying over £40 a month. She paid £199 to get a Sky + upgrade years ago (that was the the only way to get the box).

She cancelled recently and now gets free to air channels, however Sky, the tight bastards, disabled the recording capability of the unit!!

Now is it me, or is this bang out of order, given that she paid for the Sky plus box?

I'm getting her a Freesat HD PVR and the Sky+ will go on the kitchen telly.

Me?I would never pay for subscription TV coz I know what Sky are like. Plus I don't see why I should have to pay a monthly subscription to get bombarded with commercials on dozens of channels!

I'd definitely pay for high definition, commercial free, on demand movie streaming though.

That's what they do. It is out of order, yes but there you go. The box is NOT useless at all, you can watch tv all you like – just not record it.

You don't get bombarded with commercials btw, you get to watch the programmes and then the ads are on in little bits before and after, and a few in the middle 🙂

If you want the channels and you don't have virgin, it's the only choice we have.

BTW Freesat channels are broadcast from a completely different satellite to Sky's (albeit very close to Sky's satellites' geostationary positions). In fact, there are several satellites in this area and the broadcasters periodically shift channels between satellites after moving them around.

The channel lists are not hugely different between Freesat and FTA Sky and there's a slightly bigger choice than Freeview (if ulike utter rubbish such as shopping channels!) 😀

It amazes me that this technology even works given that the transmissions are a staggering 22000 miles above the Earth's surface!

Re the channel lists, you can put all the free ones on favourites, and then use I think it's the blue button to cycle through them…

what molgrips says.

you will now get bombarded with offers frm sky, trying to tempt you back….. best I got the full works, all movies, all sport, the lot for 5 months for free….turned it off again once that finished though! it's not worth it for the amount I watch.

They have already phoned up offering our £70/month package (sports, movies, HD) for half price for a year. Too late now though sky, this ship has sailed!

BTW Freesat channels are broadcast from a completely different satellite to Sky's (albeit very close to Sky's satellites' geostationary positions).

No they aren't. They are the *same* channels broadcast via the *same* satellites (Astra 2A,2B,2D and Eurobird 1), with the exception of 1-2 channels (Five is/was one) that have say the regional versions on a "Sky" transponder (for regionally targetted advertising reasons), and a single FTA version on a "Freesat" transponder.

edit: although Freesat do tend to use mostly Astra 2D (spot beam) for major channels, but Sky also has transponders on this satellite.

The only real difference is that a Sky digibox will use the Sky EPG, A Freesat TV/box will use the Freesat EPG to know what is where and what is on and when, and an el cheapo FTA box from Lidl will use the raw basic DVB-S EPG features (and no red button nonsense etc., and just now/next for UK stations).