I’m considering options for new telly, recording device and smart capability. One option would be to join the cheapest sky package for a year rather than paying £200+ for a humax free sat smart recorder. Could get unlimited broadband and the sky box for £20/month at the moment. Will this set up continue to give me all the free to air channels and ability to record/use internet etc after I cancel sky in a year’s time, or do the Murdoch minions somehow switch it off if you are no longer paying for it? Not interested in paying for tv other than as an economical way to buy the box.

Any other options/thoughts? Satellite gives a lot more channels than the limited freeview range in my area, currently using an old, donated sky digibox with a free sat card, and an old monster CRT tv.

Cheers

No Sky + does not work once you have left Sky (you can get a Freesat card and use the box, but the record functionality will not be available).

IIRC it the box works for everything except recording if you don’t have a subscription

[edit] i wasn’t too slow – this is what life with a PVR is like, you can rewind things and watch again if you weren’t paying attention the first time

As they said!

Just bite the bullet and go with the Humax. Does everything a Sky+ will do without putting your dollars in NewsCorps coffers. You even don’t get Dave on Freesat so no wall-to-wall Jeremy “Murdoch Lite” Clarkson marathons

if skys anythiung like virgin you never actually own the box and have to return it after the contract. virgin will sting you for a couple of hundred quid if you dont send it back within 6 months of the contact finishing

Having recently switched to sky IIRC you do actually ‘own’ the box.

Oh, found this

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/advice/9302938/Will-my-Sky-box-stop-working-if-I-cancel-my-subscription.html

BUT read the comments.

I’ve just been looking through this – If you go with sky, do it through Quidco.com and you should be able to get good cash back deals – I think I got £150 back.. Sky were charging me full wack and so I’ve cancelled it having been with them for 3 years.

As a replacement, I was looking at a WIFI Humax box but since trying out a friend’s EE TV box over the weekend, I’d like to try that. It’s free and appears to do everything that Sky+ or Humax does, so no monthly Sky bills or lay out from buying Humax. They’re launching it soon. Just transferred to EE broadband, with £130 cash back as well!!

Also, you can recommend a friend and get a tesco voucher for £125 (and £100 for the recommender) – I’d be happy to recommend you 🙂

With Sky you own the box at the end of the contract, with Virgin you don’t.

if skys anythiung like virgin you never actually own the box and have to return it after the contract.

No. Once you’ve had it for a year then it’s yours.

BUT read the comments.

Interesting… didn’t realise you could pay £10/month to still have full use of the box. The one thing that is really good about Sky IMO is the box. Is there anything else out there that is genuinely as good/user friendly?

Having switched from Virgin I much prefer the Virgin box than the Sky one… YMMV of course but I really dislike the menu system.

Is there anything else out there that is genuinely as good/user friendly?

The EE TV box looked good – https://ee.co.uk/ee-and-me/ee-tv

I have a sky box, but don’t pay a subscription.

You can view the standard freeview channels through it (I think that’s what they are) and the series reminder still works, but you don’t get the record or HD functions or any of the new wifi applications even if you connect the box up.

Works for me as I don’t get aerial reception, have super slow broadband and had the box already. I have no idea if it would be the best solution when starting from scratch.

If I recall they did kick up a bit when the subscription was cancelled saying that I couldn’t still use the box as it wasn’t covered for warranty once the subscription was cancelled. I decided I would just use it until it broke, then figure it out from there…

EDIT – just reading the posts above… Yes for a while i did pay the £10 to have the record functions and a few extra channels. Not sure if that would mean the newer wifi stuff would work…

IIRC the newer WIFI stuff is tied down with your contract.
We’re on a 3 year old contract and get everything via WIFI whereas a girl in my office has just started with Sky and they want her to pay extra to get access to the box sets which we take for granted.

The EE TV box looked good – https://ee.co.uk/ee-and-me/ee-tv

Looks interesting – but is it not available to everyone yet (says “Register your interest”)?

Also it’s roughly the same monthly cost for the broadband/phone line as Sky so looking at it like that I’d only save the extra £10/week that Sky charge for their exclusive channels – which they are (maybe) just about worth to me.

You’ll be bloody lucky if it works when you are paying let alone after you cancel the subscription! If a more unreliable piece of technology exists then the only place you’d find it would be in a certain rival of Sky’s vanity project.

I bought a Humax Freesat recorder after we cancelled Sky as the recording was the one thing we wanted. For the first time in my life I actually bought a fairly reasonably priced extended warranty as I was so wary of any box. Some 18 months of ownership and it’s behaved perfectly. The Sky box on the other hand which is in another room now regularly needs a hard restart and often several. In fact it hasn’t worked for a while now and I’ve pretty much given up on it, The TV it’s connected to is one the kids use now and they’d rather be watching Netflix or YouTube.

not sure if any one has mentioned this before but once they switch of any of the subscriptions the content on the box is inaccessible. eg no hd stops local hd recordings and if you stop the sky subscription all the recorded content becomes inaccessibe.

+1 for the humax hdr boxes

is the EE box terrestrial only?

If a more unreliable piece of technology exists then the only place you’d find it would be in a certain rival of Sky’s vanity project.

My Sky box needs the occasional hard restart (not unusual for any modern equipment) but apart from that it’s very reliable.

I’m on my 2nd Sky HD box now – first one died due to hard disk failure which you can hardly blame Sky for. Perhaps that’s what’s up with yours. Hard disks can and will wear out especially under heavy use e.g. video so I would fully expect your Humax to fail at some point. Of course the disk will probably be a lot easier to replace than on the Sky box!

I can’t even remember how long I’ve had my Sky+ box, it’s not one of the very first ones, I got it when they dropped the charge to have it installed, so five years? Anyway, just like anything that’s got computer functions, it needs a reboot, usually every few months. It did have a problem recently where it kept refusing to record two programmes at once, but all that was needed was the cashe of deleted programmes clearing out, and the planner rebuilding, works perfectly now.
The thing I particularly like is the remote app, which works beautifully, and it will show alternative showings if there’s a clash.
Wouldn’t swap it for anything else.

Ruling out sky, then, how about a youview plus box from talk talk, £10 a month unlimited broadband, anytime calls and the telly box? (Just landline to pay on top).

NO.

Get a Humax.

is the EE box terrestrial only?

The one I was testing had all the freesat type channels, plus iPlayer, You Tube, etc. You miss out on the Sky channels obviously and save c£10 pm.

For me it works well, we it’s WIFI enabled, so I can plug it straight into the TV and it connects up to the router with WIFI. There is a Humax one that does the same, but it’s £240.

The EE box also as 1 TB of recording capacity.