Doing away with Sky - Plex with TV Tuners vs Freesat box

ChrisD.

ChrisD.

ChrisD.

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My Sky bill is going to be over £60 with the recent price hikes. I'm out of contract in June and whilst I'll miss Football and F1 in UHD, I do have BT Sports via EE, I can watch the F1 via the F1 app and a VPN, and I'll just make do without the Sky football coverage or go to my local. We don't watch any of the movies or premium channels, apart from Sport it's just free to air TV. North of £720 a year to watch the few games I watch is hard to stomach, that would cover the insurance on both cars as an example.

I have a Plex Server with Plex pass, I can plug in a Freeview tuner to it and get Freeview via Plex with recording capabilities. Or, I could get a Freesat box and make use of the existing dish. I guess another option is to use the native TV tuner but I don't think I can record.

Anyone have any experiences of TV on Plex? Or the Freesat boxes?
 
If you're weighing up Freesat ten you might be looking at the newest Freesat 4K boxes. These are the ones made by a firm called Arris. They won the contract off Humax. From a manufacturer point of view, Freesat is an exclusive contract deal, a monopoly. Only Arris can make and sell the latest generation boxes (Gen III), so there's no chance of another Freesat 4K box coming out from a rival manufacturer. Previous generation boxes can be made by other companies.

The full features of the Arris boxes are only unlocked when it's used with a wideband LNB. This is the type that is used with most Sky Q installations. With this type LNB it's possible to watch 1 + record 3, or for when you're out, record 4. The Arris boxes will work with the Sky+HD type LNBs. Here though it's a watch 1 + record 1 kind of deal, same as Sky+HD.

Swapping out a standard LNB for a wideband version isn't a complicated job, nor is it expensive. If you go down the Freesat route then it's worth considering. The boxes adapt accordingly.

There are no 4K broadcasts on Freesat. Any reference to 4K in the box name is for streaming 4K content from your premium accounts such as Netflix, Prime and Disney+. However, Freesat does have an advantage over Freeview in the number of HD channels carried. Freeview might not have so many, but every telly in your house can receive it. I mention this because it's surprisingly common to get questions from folk planning to go all in with satellite, but then forgetting that every TV will need a box and cabling too. You might already be using Freeview alongside Sky, in which case ignore this.

Whilst considering IP TV via Plex you might also want to have a look at HDHomeRun from Silicon Dust.

One final thought. Consider the others in the house. After 20-odd years with it we binned Sky over 6 months ago for similar reasons. However, my missus is so used to grabbing the Sky remote for 'telly' that I kept the HD box connected. I have a Freeview recorder as well, but her go-to is still the Sky remote.
 
Thanks Lucid. I've actually ordered a HDHomeRun box to give it a go and see how I get on with it. Her go to is usually Netflix or Plex, so I don't think that would be much of an issue. I think the Sky box gets used 2-3 times a week at most.
 
HDHomeRun installed into the loft and plugged into the aerial. I already had power and a POE there for my Wi-Fi AP. All working fine. There's a small delay when starting to watch a channel and admittedly browsing the guide is not as intuitive as Sky Q, but, it works fine! I can record and manage the channels to remove most of the crap. We've got FTTP so anything else we can watch via streaming. So far so good really.

If it turns into a disaster, we can get VM broadband (which I won't use) and their TV for less than Sky want for TV + Sports alone.
 
You could always try an Enigma 2 receiver and you’ll be able to run Satellite and IPTV off the same box. I shied away from the Arris boxes because the general consensus is that they’re not the very good and the older humax boxes were much better.

Yes, there’s a bit of messing to get an E2 box set up, but it shouldn’t cause to many issues for someone who is savvy with computers. Get one with FBC tuners and change your LNB to one that supports Unicable and you’re away.
 
Every time I see this sort of conversation I dive down the rabbit hole of trying to work out if anything other than Sky Q and the Arris boxes can receive signals from the Sky wideband LNB. Again I've come up blank, too much confusing phraseology for my old brain. FBC is not the same is it? My dish is to high up for me to change the LNB so ideally I'd like a replacement system that uses the wideband LNB. Is there an Enigma 2 option here?
 
Yes, you’re right. A wideband LNB is only suitable for Sky Q and an Arris Freesat box, so you will have to go change the LNB if you dont want to use those boxes.

FBC tuners are fitted to some Enigma 2 boxes and allow you to watch or record up to eight channels at once.

:)
 
ChrisD. said:
I'll just make do without the Sky football coverage or go to my local. We don't watch any of the movies or premium channels, apart from Sport it's just free to air TV. North of £720 a year to watch the few games I watch is hard to stomach, that would cover the insurance on both cars as an example.
Click to expand...

I get Sky football via Now TV. £30 something a month if you ever feel the need, you only have to take the footy and not the whole Sky package.

Choose your Sports Membership and start watching instantly

Choose your Sports Membership and start watching instantly
www.nowtv.com www.nowtv.com
 
Blueball said:
I get Sky football via Now TV. £30 something a month if you ever feel the need, you only have to take the footy and not the whole Sky package.

Choose your Sports Membership and start watching instantly

Choose your Sports Membership and start watching instantly
www.nowtv.com www.nowtv.com
Click to expand...
It worked out about that on the deal I was on, I was paying just over £50 and got Sports UHD and Netflix. But it’s over £60 with their price rises and I’m not sure I can be bothered to negotiate again. £30 is still expensive for the few matches I watch if I’m lucky enough that they’re televised.
 
I used to have Sky back in the days it was priced a little better.

Then when my contract was up I decided it was not worth the cost anymore.

They left the Sky dish so I got a Freesat box and Freeview box.

I would switch between the two and its ok, my sisters both have netflix and they seem to like that.
 
It's getting a bit ridiculous isn't it. We recently got the sky stream setup, mainly for liveTV in all the bedrooms, and a nice front end GUI with all the streaming apps, but also because there's no contract.

We like it, but the price has recently gone up (again). It's getting hard to justify.

I have a beelink mini PC with the latest celeron running plex/pihole over ubuntu server. It's an awesome machine. Tempted to go down the freeview route (again!).
 
We tried the HD Home Run & Plex approach, it was a very nice setup but ultimately pointless for us as we simply don't watch live TV anymore.
 
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