TV packages

The wife cancelled sky Q not so long ago because of the cost. We don’t have an aerial so our TV comes through the internet however I’m not convinced sifting through apps like iPlayer will cut it.

So, what’s the best alternative to be able to watch tv? I guess it’s some kind of box thing, but I’m clueless so I’m asking for advice 🙂

If you’ve got no aerial but still have the sky dish then I’d say freesat is a good shout.

I’m on the brink of doing the same thing with Sky. My bill has doubled in 2 years and what I get for the money is pretty poor.

I’ll be getting a freesat box with a hard drive for recording all the nonsense that the other half likes to listen to whilst staring at Facebook on her phone.

The boxes can run apps like Netflix/ prime etc to stream content and pick up all the free to air channels that you’d get via an normal aerial. You’re just getting them from the dish rather than an aerial.

freesat. Your TV probably already has it built in. Or get a firestick. Or both.

Do you really need the recording function?… everything is streamed these days, and can be watched on catchup, or pirated.

That’s probably easiest, and will give you so much useless crap to scroll though, just like Sky.

I have two tvs so would I need to buy two freesat boxes?

Get an aerial? When we dumped Virgin I paid about £100 for someone to supply and fit a rooftop aerial.

Paid for in 2 months savings.

I’m not convinced sifting through apps like iPlayer will cut it.

no way around it these days really. If you restrict your viewing to stuff that pops up on the Sky Q planner – or even worse Freesat – you’ll be mainly watching garbage & repeats and miss out on the vast majority of decent original content, of which there is a huge amount these days! But distributed among the many different streaming services.
I try not to trawl through the apps though, preferring recommendations from friends, on here & other places.

99% of the stuff we watch is through iPlayer, and we do fine.

Sky do have an Internet connected box coming out which is not Now TV but also a lot less than sky Q in cost and functionality

When we dumped Virgin I paid about £100 for someone to supply and fit a rooftop aerial.

Yep – aeriels aren’t that expensive.

You can’t pause/rewind/record etc though – so Freesat box is only option if you want to do that.

I’ve just got sky’s new streaming box sky stream.
Seems to be doing a good job so far. It’s the normal sky interface and works better than the now TV app. Good integration with iPlayer, 4od, Netflix, prime, Disney+

My sister’s just signed up to sky as a new customer. Sky Q, fibre broadband and free Netflix for £38 per month for 18 months. I think that’s a pretty good deal (but as I’m an existing sky customer, I know she will be paying more than £38 by the time the deal is up.)

99% of the stuff we watch is through iPlayer, and we do fine.

that woman who only ever ate crisp sandwiches thought she was normal, too 😉

You can’t pause/rewind/record etc though – so Freesat box is only option if you want to do that.

Our 4 year old TV (and so I assume a bunch of others) will happily do all that if you plug a usb stick into it.

Our other TV has a satellite connection built in too so can get Freesat without a box. Worth checking before you buy anything

We don’t have an aerial

An obvious solution presents itself.

What “TV” do you actually want to watch? I get more mileage out of Nextflix than anything that comes via more conventional methods.

Forget tv.
Radio – and imagination.
Laptop.
Books; don’t buy – join library.

that woman who only ever ate crisp sandwiches thought she was normal, too

Arf.

But seriously, there is an absolute mountain of quality stuff on iPlayer, and by the time you add in, say, All4, there is, we find, just no need to pay for any subscription services to fill our 1.5-2 hours worth of telly gawping each evening.

Forget tv.
Radio – and imagination.
Laptop – porn
Books; don’t buy – join library.

Just filling in the blank, but assume this was what he meant

We dumped Sky a few months ago due to cost and poor value. We had the old HD box so got to keep it and use it with Freesat. Don’t miss the Sky channels at all. We have Firesticks in all the TVs and Freesat on the main one. Biggest change for me is not ideally flicking through the SKY guide, now I actively go and look for something I want to watch rather than settle for what’s on. It’s quite change if you’ve grown up with ‘normal’ channels, but quite liberating when you embrace the concept.

My brother recently cancelled his Sky Q and was expecting them to ask him to return both the main box and mini box but they said for £5/month he can keep the main box and use it for their freesat offering (he still had to return the mini box). It’s seems fairly limited (a lot of the HD versions of channels aren’t available) but a decent compromise until he figures out other options (he uses my Disney+ and Netflix and has his own Apple TV+ so has a bit of choice)

I have two tvs so would I need to buy two freesat boxes?

You can’t pause/rewind/record etc though – so Freesat box is only option if you want to do that.

You’d need a free-sat box for each TV – if you want to record on either of those boxes you also need two cables coming from the dish to that box otherwise you can’t watch one channel and record another

I record far less than I used to now that we have better internet, making more use of iplayer. Its a bit of a dilemma though as a lot of  iplayer content expires – so you can watch things you’ve missed but can’t necessarily keep things you like. I used to series-record stuff and decide to keep or delete after watching but now if I watch something on catchup on iplayer its too late to decide to keep it.

But the recorder still comes in handy for channels that don’t have a good equivalent service. Each year I watch the TdF on ITV4 but their catchup service only offers the live coverage (4-5hours worth) which are difficult to skip through as it loads an advert everytime you fast forward but the Highlights show doesn’t appear on their player.

But the recorder still comes in handy for channels that don’t have a good equivalent service. Each year I watch the TdF on ITV4 but their catchup service only offers the live coverage (4-5hours worth) which are difficult to skip through as it loads an advert everytime you fast forward but the Highlights show doesn’t appear on their player.

TBH, after ditching Sky, we bought a second-hand Humax freesat box for pretty much the sole reason of recording/watching the Tour highlights, as catch-up doesn’t really work for stuff when you want to start watching something, say, 20 minutes after it’s started.

We dumped Sky about 6 months ago. The latest Freesat boxes have a really good interface (and do the on demand stuff as well (and better than sky) except All4 is currently missing (though it’s meant to be returning ‘soon’). We had a Humax a few years back and the latest boxes are a big improvement

However, the only thing we actually regularly record and watch is Channel 4 News (on a ‘record every day’, so we can start watching whenever and skip through stuff that’s not of interest).

Anything else we’re finding we now just stream – even when we’ve set the recordings it’s usually easier – and the Apple TV has the best interface so use that.

Yep – aeriels aren’t that expensive.

You can’t pause/rewind/record etc though – so Freesat box is only option if you want to do that.

Ummm, what? Freeview box allows you to exactely this (as will plugging in a storage drive to many TV’s)

that woman who only ever ate crisp sandwiches thought she was normal, too

Is that on channel 5?

I’ve been happy with my Freesat box for a good few years as had a dish on the house already. Admittedly my viewing habits are a bit oldskool + I’ve got Netflix for my son. Wouldn’t pay for anything else

Also pausing/recording and skipping past ads is used a lot

We ditched Sky about 2 months ago. Watch iPlayer/most other channels through my PS5 now – which is a bit of a faff but saves me £60 a month so happy!
I pay for Netflix, and piggyback off my sons AmazonPrime so nearly all bases covered now.

We had sky in the old house then Freesat when the F1 needed the full sport pack. Since moving I haven’t sorted the dish to work with the Freesat so we spend a little more for better internet and use apple TV box. Most stuff is streamed live or “watch from start” or we have pretty much all other streaming services (bit extravagant but we have small kids and all like to watch different things.

We watch all our TV through the internet – something like a Roku player makes it so simple, with iPlayer, C4, ITV, C5 all in the one place next to Netflix, Amazon Prime etc. Add on a Freesat box and you’ve got everything you need – but you could also layer in a Now subscription if you *really* need the Sky stuff!

Nicko can you elaborate on the Roku bit? Mrsg has mentioned not wanting the Apple TV. Does the Roku show stuff from all channels like a guide?

In case anyone is interested, Viaplay has now launched in the UK and you can have a free 7 day trial. Usual price is £3.99 per month. Offerings include Nordic Noir and films although I did notice a couple of series that are on/have been on All4.

https://viaplay.com/gb-en/

How’s your moral compass? I know plenty of people that get a fire stick and ask a geezer down the pub to ‘enable’ it…£50 per year for unlimited everything (Inc all live TV)sports/films/EFL games/ppv boxing etc).

Nicko can you elaborate on the Roku bit? Mrsg has mentioned not wanting the Apple TV. Does the Roku show stuff from all channels like a guide?

No, it’s just individual apps. Want to see whats on, you have to load up each in turn

Mrsg has mentioned not wanting the Apple TV. Does the Roku show stuff from all channels like a guide?

There’s an Apple TV app called “TV Launcher” that acts as an EPG and then fires up the relevant app for the channel you select. But irrelevant if for some reason you don’t want an Apple TV.

But the recorder still comes in handy for channels that don’t have a good equivalent service. Each year I watch the TdF on ITV4 but their catchup service only offers the live coverage (4-5hours worth) which are difficult to skip through as it loads an advert everytime you fast forward but the Highlights show doesn’t appear on their player.

Interesting. I watch the highlights on ITVPlayer normally.
Is it different in different ITV regions?