I’m with Sky at the mo, but thinking of moving over to BT to get fibre broadband. However freeview is a bit rubbish in my area, so I’m wondering if I can still get all the ‘free to air’ channels via the Sky HD box without a viewing card/subscription?

Anyone doing this?

you can get free to air, but you will not get all freesat channels.

Cheers – any idea which (main) ones I’ll be missing out on?

channel 5 for sure.
there are more but i am not sure.
i will ask a installer when one comes in and let you know on this post.

Thanks Ton. I don’t want to shell out for a freesat box if I can avoid it!

You don’t get the PVR functionality once you aren’t paying sky anymore, and that includes not being able to watch anything you;ve already recorded

Yep – realise that. Apart from MOTD recorded when City won the premiership there’s nothing of any sentimental value… 😀

It used to cost £25 for a Freesat card, but its £175 now (wrapped up as an installation using a new box) :-O

Apparently you can haggle on the cost though – no idea whether or not you can still get just card only.

Aha….

I already have Sky digital satellite equipment – what else do I need?
All you need to gain access to the free channels available on the digital satellite platform is a Freesat from Sky viewing card, which costs just £25. If you’d like to access the interactive services available, you’ll also need a working phone line. To purchase a viewing card please phone Sky on 08448 244 400.

Have had Freesat from sky up until quite recently when I bought a Freesat box. Was OK only channel I missed was DAVE which says it all really.
If you don’t pay SKY the £10 a month you lose the SKY+ as mentioned above.
My Humax Freesat box cost £200 had 250GB Hardrive and the interface is acutlaly quite good, comes with YouTube, iPlayer, 4OD and Demand5 preloaded.

Cheers all. Part of the problem is that although BT is willing to offer me fibre broadband, it hasn’t released it to the other providers yet, otherwise I’m sure I could get Sky to price match.

Part of the problem is that although BT is willing to offer me fibre broadband, it hasn’t released it to the other providers yet,

That’s not quite right. The bit of BT that sells it to you (BT Retail) isn;t the bit that has anything to do with fibre (BT Openreach). If BT Retail can buy it fromk Openreach, so too can other LLU providers in your exchange (Sky, TalkTalk etc.).

Suggest you go back and ask Sky.

My current non-Sky PVR is getting a bit long in the tooth and I’m beginnin to have issues with disk corruption. Does you iPlayer etc work over your regular internet connection? I’ve a 10gb limit on my current broadband package

Also, does you Humax have a USB port so you can take recorded programmes off the box to watch on a PC or on another telly? Does anyone know of a PVR that offers this facility?

Had multiroom about 3 and a half years ago, gave it up after I stopped working for Sky (I wasn’t paying for it) It automatically went to Freesat using the old card that was in the box.

Got multiroom put in another room and the engineer asked me for the card, which was wtill in the old box upstairs, he used it in the new one and the old box still gets the same channels

Only hassle is using the Sky menu and having to plough through all the other channels to gt to the ones you have, but if you just set them up as favourites it’s better than having to pay for the pleasure

18 months ago the payments to Sky stopped. So did the non freesat channels.
Everything else is fine. All freesat channels and recording is as it should be. We have 2 old sky boxes on different tellys running from the same dish

That’s not quite right. The bit of BT that sells it to you (BT Retail) isn;t the bit that has anything to do with fibre (BT Openreach). If BT Retail can buy it fromk Openreach, so too can other LLU providers in your exchange (Sky, TalkTalk etc.).

Suggest you go back and ask Sky.

That’s odd. I did talk to a couple of providers, including Sky – they could find no trace, not even a ‘coming soon’ on the system, whereas BT were happy to sell me infinity…