…and it was remarkably easy. I was expecting a bit of a “but we can offer you X for only £peanuts more a month – but nope, they just said OK and that was that.

I just have a couple of questions for those that have also cancelled.

Do I really have to send the receiver box back, or will I get charged the £115 if I don’t? I thought I had paid for it when I 1st signed up?

If I do have to send it back, which HD receiver is now the best to replace it with? Is the Humax box still good, or is there a better alternative?

We sent ours back, but they did send a box and P&P from what I remember.

We ended up going back to them, just found the other solutions very buggy and slow/ not as intuitive to use.

Now have Sky Q which we are happy with for the cost we pay.

I never sent our Sky box back (is was the bog standard digital box though, not SkyQ or anything like that)

We bought a second hand Humax box. Its……okay. One thing Sky do have nailed is the boxes and the UX/UI of the software, it’s pretty intuitive. The same cannot be said of the Humax one we’ve got.

Saying that, we hardly ever use it, pretty much everything we watch is now cast from iPlayer/All4/ITVPlayer on my phone.

Sky haven’t really done the pushing for a while, reality is i think the decline in Virgin and the others, as well as Sky buddying up with several of the online formats make them pretty much the only show in town if you want what they have.

To be fair to them, they do seem to have made a lot of positive changes over the years, whilst others haven’t unfortunately.

If an old HD Box they won’t want it back – they told me to chuck mine when I cancelled 4 months ago. If it’s a Sky Q box they probably will want it back.

I’m on Freesat now and streaming services as and when I want.

Is this you needing a box for Freesat?

Got to confess I can’t remember the last time we watched anything through Freesat or terrestrial – everything through the Roku stick including any live TV we watch (very little) through the BBC iPlayer app or itv/channel 4 equivalent.

I had to send the Q box and router back. But a few years ago I got to keep the HD box

When we cancelled Virgin they sent out a box and returns label so they could dispose of the box in an environmentally sound way…………..apparently. We then just used Amazon Firesticks/TV rather than any kind of box thing. Seems to work OK for us.

Our Humax box is showing it’s age though still works if a little slow and glitchy.

We did this recently too. I believe Sky Q is different in that you ‘rent’ the equipment from them so you do have to return it, that’s what we did.

We replaced it with a box from Manhattan which we’ve been quite pleased with. I was very concerned with getting the box with the simplest and most responsive software and while I’ll say it can still be a bit laggy it is pretty good.

The main thing I miss is the Sky Q ability to watch recordings in different rooms. I’ve emailed Manhattan about this a few times and they implied that they were working on it but it might be a long time before it happens. I’d love to know if any other product exists that can do this.

—-

If you like the idea of running your own server then there’s also Channels. This does everything I wanted including multi room recording but I want to treat it as an appliance, not another computer to care for and keep running.

…and it was remarkably easy. I was expecting a bit of a “but we can offer you X for only £peanuts more a month – but nope, they just said OK and that was that.

I just have a couple of questions for those that have also cancelled.

Do I really have to send the receiver box back, or will I get charged the £115 if I don’t? I thought I had paid for it when I 1st signed up?

If I do have to send it back, which HD receiver is now the best to replace it with? Is the Humax box still good, or is there a better alternative?

We moved to a Humax box when we dumped sky (20 years ago) well, actually I built a Windows media center and ran that for years then moved to a Humax box, that died a year or so ago and we haven’t bothered replacing it as we have an Amazon fire TV so anything terrestrial is watched via the apps. We don’t watch a lot of TV though, the kids don’t use it at all, Mrs P watches a couple of soaps and gardening programs and I occasionally watch a film. It’s getting to a point now that if the TV broke I’d begrudge having to buy a new one.

Thinking about it they asked us to return the old router…. but no the sky box. That went to the tip.

You can keep sky and freeview channels for something like £5 pm, just no ability to record.

You can keep sky and freeview channels for something like £5 pm, just no ability to record.

That’s why we went with a recordable Freesat box. I know you can stream most things, but you then have to sit through loads of adverts (if not on BBC).

And then there’s all the bloody log-ins! 🙂

Sky haven’t really done the pushing for a while,

Oh, it’ll come. Despite telling them I no longer have a TV and being assured that my name would be removed from their systems, I get regular offers through the letter box and I now have three phone numbers blocked on my mobile. The calls seem to come regularly for a while, then stop, then there are groups of calls again.

We ditched Virgin last year and went to a Humax – no doubt about it, it ain’t as good as the V6 box it replaced. But we watch so little free to air TV these days – as noted above, 90% of what we watch is streamed.

Going to be interesting to see the Virgin & Sky TV subscription stats in 6 months time, once the big jump in fuel bills are sunk in. Will expect them to show significant drops….

Do I really have to send the receiver box back, or will I get charged the £115 if I don’t? I thought I had paid for it when I 1st signed up?

I had Sky Q and they sent me boxes and postage label

If I do have to send it back, which HD receiver is now the best to replace it with? Is the Humax box still good, or is there a better alternative?

Depends on what you want to view, the TV we have receives Freesat HD, we were then going to get the latest Apple TV for streaming services. We were happy to give up live pause or recording then watch slightly delayed to avoid adverts cos of the savings of just watching a few hours or next day via streaming apps.

In the cancellation period I had some odd conversations with Sky, they called me once or twice but could never offer a fair price, then a few days before the end I got a mailer offering an actual fair price with online sign up, I did have a question about the offer but the agents on the livechat or phone couldnt even see the offer I was sent! Ended up signing up online and all went through fine.

In the cancellation period I had some odd conversations with Sky, they called me once or twice but could never offer a fair price, then a few days before the end I got a mailer offering an actual fair price with online sign up

IME the longer you can hold your nerve the better the offers get 😃 I actually cancelled and then 1-2 months later got a really good offer in the post, signed up again for another year but binned it off permanently after that!

Getting tied into a Sky contract is just nuts these days IMO. NowTV is a lot cheaper, and you can just rotate around the various streaming services a few months at a time if you want to save money but have a greater variety of content.

recording then watch slightly delayed to avoid adverts

This is the only reason we bought the Humax box TBH, for watching things like the Tour (or even Bake-Off…), that you want to watch on the day/evening they broadcast, but may not be able to watch live, and the streamable catch-up doesn’t appear for ages on the ITVPlayer app. It sits there idle for 95% of our viewing time though

We ditched Sky about 6 months ago now, and yet to miss it.

If I do have to send it back, which HD receiver is now the best to replace it with? Is the Humax box still good, or is there a better alternative?

Humax is, I think, discontinued (though you can still find them). The newest ‘freesat’ branded box is a very significant software upgrade over the Humax box we had a few years. I’d go as far as saying it’s pretty close to Sky Q (which I actually found less easy to use in many ways than the older sky box).

The freesat box probably cheaped out on the processor – theres a little bit of a lag after a button press but I think the various ways you can view your recordings (order recorded, sorted by series, a-z) is better than sky. There doesn’t *seem* to be any way to manually delete stuff which is odd (it automatically deletes oldest stuff when the box is full unless you’ve marked a programme to keep). So I currently have 138 episodes of channel 4 news on my box…. (I so miss Tivo’s ‘keep at most’ setting for each series which meant you could just have the latest news recorded to watch)

the on demand stuff works well – on BBC programmes if you go in to a live programme it offers you ‘watch from start’ and switches to iPlayer. Very cool

BUT All4 (the channel 4 on demand) doesn’t seem to be on there (we have an Apple TV box as well so that’s not an issue)

https://www.richersounds.com/catalog/product/view/id/121402/s/freesat-uhd-4x-1tb/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw0oyYBhDGARIsAMZEuMuais4-P2Bz12-DQQUhmpwdTGn7IYdg7iTti52ftauC6hHCKGq_LXIaAmjsEALw_wcB

I picked up a ‘refurb’ (ie brown box mail order return) from eBay for about £100 off list price

There doesn’t *seem* to be any way to manually delete stuff which is odd

It’s there – took me a while to find it though.

Go to recordings > select the programme > and in the menu that pops up there should be the options to delete programme or delete series.

– everything through the Roku stick including any live TV we watch (very little) through the BBC iPlayer app or itv/channel 4 equivalent.

Same here, dish came down when the garage had a new roof and I never bothered to replace it.

In the process of doing this now, set the broadband swap in progress last night, will cancel the TV when that is done. They prompted us really, wanted to up our costs by £15 unless we signed another contract. Turns out we can swap to PlusNet, get a Now TV subscription and be £40 better off a month. Being saying for ages if we were to sack off a subscription service it would be Sky first. I’m not interested in haggling with them. Personally I think their business model will slowly die hence introduction of Sky glass.

It’s there – took me a while to find it though.

Go to recordings > select the programme > and in the menu that pops up there should be the options to delete programme or delete series

I know I found it once and deleted some stuff but have never since managed to find it again. will go have another go now.

Also just cancelled Sky, and was pleasantly surprised about how straightforward it was. The lady was quite chatty and I asked her if she was getting many calls like mine and she said yes, but that most of them (I’m sure she said about 80%) were switching to Sky Glass as it was a PAYG service, without a long term contract.

Our TV does terrestrial DTV and all the streaming stuff. I found out that plugging in a HDD to one of the USB ports on the back enables it to pause / record the over the air stuff.

Will let you know if I miss it or not once that sevice stops.

we cancelled our sky about 10 years ago and still have the HD box and use it for all the free channels.

Do I really have to send the receiver box back, or will I get charged the £115 if I don’t? I thought I had paid for it when I 1st signed up?

If it’s a Sky Q box, yes. It’s essentially on loan.

If it’s Sky Plus box, no, AND it’ll still work. You’ll lose the sky channels and some of the HD channels (ITV4 HD for example), but the ‘free to air’ channels will still be there and it’ll record and pause just like before. I was all set to buy a Freesat box, but there was luckily no need. Result 👍

I believe broadband routers contain information, like browsing history, log in details etc etc, and they use that for their statistics. I have heard that you should destroy them rather than return them, and treat it same as you would an old HD.

when I cancelled virgin TV , still have virgin broadband, they sent someone to pick up the TV box

When I cancelled BT they asked for all their stuff back, which was fair enough as they never actually connected my broadband so the stuff was all brand new and unused. So for a router , a telephone and whatever the BT tv works on they sent a A5 envelope bag, so I phoned them up and asked for a bigger bag . They sent the same A5 envelope bag. I still have all the stuff in my loft waiting for an appropriate sized bag to turn up , although it’s been 5 years so am not hopeful

For sky Q and fibre broadband, we pay £43 pm. The price suddenly jumped up to £75 pm a couple of months ago. I phoned up and said not happy with that. The guy just said yeah, it happens at the end of your contact, just phone is up and we’ll put you straight back onto your old price. So we’re back on £43 pm again.

It annoys me that I have to do that, just keep me on the same price and save me the hassle. And that no doubt some people will be getting exactly the same as me for cheaper, and many other people are probably paying way more for exactly the same thing.

I believe broadband routers contain information, like browsing history, log in details etc etc, and they use that for their statistics. I have heard that you should destroy them rather than return them, and treat it same as you would an old HD.

They could just download all that remotely whilst you’re using it…..

They already know what you watched, when you watched it, how much you watched in one sitting etc.

some TVs have a built in Freesat tuner, only relevant if its time to change the telly but worth considering

and it’ll record and pause just like before

Not in my experience with a Sky Plus box. Watching free stuff was fine, but no pausing or recording, or watching of previously recorded stuff.

I’m slightly baffled by all this talk of TV boxes. I’m hardly up with the latest tech, but our Samsung TV does all the streaming, Freeview and Freesat, and if you plug in a memory stick can record stuff to (though I’ve not done that). Is a separate box/remote really necessary in the 21st century? I’m curious as to to usage that may require one?

@IHN I was pleasantly surprised, I must admit. (I cancelled 30th June this year) EPG still works as before, including series link recording for freeview channels.

or watching of previously recorded stuff.

I lost the ability to playback previously recorded stuff from subscription channels, but BBC (and I have quite a few ‘Later’ shows on there), ITV, Ch4 (Documentaries & whatnot) etc play fine.

Probably not keithb, I suppose it depends on what you’re used to. 🤷‍♂️

Is a separate box/remote really necessary in the 21st century

For us it’s convenience – and the wife can’t be arsed with all the different streaming services and trying to figure out what is on what! Can’t say I’m a fan either, there’s so many of the ruddy things.

Popping things on series link is useful too – got to keep on top of Bangers and Cash and Salvage Hunters!! 🤣🤣

…and fast forwarding through the ads too.

I’m slightly baffled by all this talk of TV boxes. I’m hardly up with the latest tech, but our Samsung TV does all the streaming, Freeview and Freesat

how long have you had it? Check back in a couple of years when none of the apps work any more and Samsung won’t push out any more updates 😂

Phoned up to cancel sky got a good package offer including broadband. BT was silly expensive on the renewal for broadband phone line and sports.
Phoned BT to cancel was told we should have asked first they’d have done a better deal.
Told them maybe they should have just gone better straight away.

i cancelled and they didn’t call with any offers, sky q box had to be returned in supplied box.

I put a hibrid lnb on my dish into a freesat recorder with 2 cables, plus one directly into tv as the guide is better, another into the bedroom.