Ok, so I took up an offer from Sky for all the box, dish and installation last year and have been paying £11 month for the basic package. Never had Sky prior to that and I have to say I quite admire the functionality. However, the package price doubles soon and I’d rather not be paying that every month for TV.

I understand that I can simply remove the Sky box and put a Freesat twin tuner recorder thing in its place. Is it really that simple though? I have the HD Sky box with the two cables coming in, do I simply plug them into the new Freesat box (likely a Humax)?

If I do not go Freesat, will the Sky box effectively be a Freesat receiver without the Sky specific channels (I don’t think I will be able to record on the Sky box anymore)? Finally, if I get rid of the Sky box, does it have a value (HD box, 12 months old)?

Anything else to be aware of?

Thanks

Alternatively you can just ask sky to switch your subscription to a ‘freesat on sky’ one.

eric – when you say subscription – they charge I assume? I know that a Freesat box costs but its a one off cost.

IIRC a “freesat from sky” view card used to attract a one off fee of £20, but if you just cancel your subscription and keep your old card it should retain the free to view channels. Some of the sky+ functionality will go though.

IF you get the Humax box, then yes you just disconnect the two cable from the dish and re-collect them to the feeesat box.

£25 one off, no monthly charge

http://www.sky.com/shop/freesat/home/

Does anyone know if you move to Freesat with Sky if your recordings on the HD box disappear?

Thanks eric – this could work out cheaper than I anticipated! Another question though, if I convert my existing Sky package to the Freesat by Sky it will cost £25. Would Sky allow me to get the full installation offer of £175 for the box, dish and Freesat for another part of the house? I’m doubting that, but it would offer a good solution to getting reliable tv to the office (running cable from the existing dish would be a mess!).

They don’t disappear, they are just inaccessible, as the recording facility is turned off without a subscription.

t853 – I have a similar question. Does the Sky box that remains (assuming I switch from SKy to to Freesat by Sky) retain its recording functionality?

No recording if no sky subs

they remove pretty much everything off the sky box without subscription.no demand, no recording no access to recorded content.

I bought a humax 1010s hdr which was a straight swap and works well enough. You get timeshift, series recording, on demand for the terrestrial channels, hd and a heap of other free channels.

The software is a bit slow but it does what its supposed to do. I dont miss any of the sky functionality only some content but I’d rather spend more time on the bike and sign up to some movie rental service.

Looks like revert to plan A for me then. Recording is a must for me. Thanks all

you can re-subscribe to sky after a 12 month hiatus. there are some anecdotal reports of not all sky+ functionality being switched off when you go to “freesat from sky”

If you were to unplug the phone line before cancelling would the recording functionality still be removed?

They got me back with £100 account credit, no contract and 75% off all packages (i.e they pay you to watch TV for over a year) but my credit has run out out and not interested in staying with them.

Yes it would, our box was never plugged into the phone but when we cancelled sky we lost recording functionality and access to everything we’d recorded

The above all sounds rather complicated to me and expensive.
I phoned Sky and closed the contract. All stayed the same for a couple of days and then I turned to freesat. That is all I did. The card stayed in the sky box for months before it was removed.
As we had a double cable (like a speaker cable) for some reason I literally pulled it apart and took one half to the other side of the house and plugged it into a spare sky box in the bedroom. Both tellys now have freesat. Cost. Nowt.

Best thing to do is cancel your sky subscription and wait till you get plagued by their offers to resubscribe.

I went to a Humax PVR and it’s really good, but the offers I ggot from Sky after leaving were really really good, they won’t do naff all decent whilst you’re still a subscriber though!!!

How long do you have to leave Sky for to become eligible for offers? ie is it a day, months, 1 year?

I started getting gold envelopes within a couple of months, the killer £100 credit/75% off/no contract came within maybe six months just before Christmas. I think I got it as when they called I said I didn’t want it even if it was free, but £100/75% off is better than free and they came straight back with it without the usual haggling) I even wangled a new HD box and free postage as he sold me an HD subscription without checking what box I had.

He did however miss-sell as he told me I could downgrade but neglected to state the 75% discount would be removed, however a request for them to listen to the original phone call/read the notes fixed that after a couple of minutes on hold.

The recent £4 price increase and a dicky box has sealed their fate though, no intention of staying.