What should I replace Sky with?

TDevlin

TDevlin

TDevlin

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3 Nov 2011
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286
After years of having Sky tv bought and paid for, I'm about move out and be in a position where I have to pay for it myself :eek: So as much as I do love it, I'm thinking it's a luxury I don't really need and don't think I can justify the cost either.

So my question is, what would you recommend I have as a new set up? I don't really watch that much tv anyway so paying a monthly subscription for the bt or virgin alternatives is not something I'd want to look into. I'm more thinking along the lines of a free tv service and supplementing this by streaming movies from my pc.

What happens when you cancel sky, will I still be able to use my sky+HD box and receive a basic selection of channels or do I need to fork out for a separate freeview box?
 
You will be able to watch a selection of freesat from sky channels but not record or even watch anything you've already recorded. I'm assuming you have a dish at your new place?
 
MissChief said:
You will be able to watch a selection of freesat from sky channels but not record or even watch anything you've already recorded. I'm assuming you have a dish at your new place?
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Not sure about that to be honest as not decided where I'm going to move to yet although I'm assuming I'll need a dish wherever I move to?

Do you mean the the recording feature of the Sky+box will disappear? That would be a major downside.
 
TDevlin said:
What happens when you cancel sky, will I still be able to use my sky+HD box and receive a basic selection of channels or do I need to fork out for a separate freeview box?
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yes, you can still use it as a freeview box, but not the recording feature
 
Shame you can't record with with the Sky+ box as I'm never in when something I want to watch is on. Might just see how I get on with it to begin with though and then look into getting a Freeview+ box if necessary.

That's my tv viewing sorted then, but I hardly watch any tv, it's mainly just movies. What would you recommend for that side of things? Currently I've got the sky movies package but most of the movies I watch are streamed to my ps3 from my pc.

Is it worth getting a dedicated media streamer for this and possibly a NAS box? Or is it worth just sticking to the ps3 and maybe buying an external hard drive?
 
I've just done the same; cancelled Sky and getting a Freesat+ box next week (our Freeview channels can be a bit hit & miss sometimes).
For films I use a portable USB hdd connected to a Cyclone Micro +2, brilliant little piece of kit!:cool:
 
enkoda said:
I've just done the same; cancelled Sky and getting a Freesat+ box next week (our Freeview channels can be a bit hit & miss sometimes).
For films I use a portable USB hdd connected to a Cyclone Micro +2, brilliant little piece of kit!:cool:
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seems like a good idea to me, should save loads by cancelling sky. I'm going to stick with my ps3 for now as it's doing a fine job, but still not sure if I should go for a portable hdd like yourself or invest in a NAS box
 
TDevlin said:
seems like a good idea to me, should save loads by cancelling sky. I'm going to stick with my ps3 for now as it's doing a fine job, but still not sure if I should go for a portable hdd like yourself or invest in a NAS box
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NAS. then stuff is available on all your devices.

you can pickup a basic 1tb NAS very cheap
 
I'm not entirely sure, to be honest i don't see Sky as a luxury. £52 a month for unlimited internet (15mb down for me), line rental, phone calls (rarely use), Sky+ HD normal entertainment package, access to Sky Anytime+. I think that's pretty damn good for the price.
 
Freesat+ it's free and you can record the stuff you want to watch.

Personally I hate the way the Sky packages work, I mean who really watches ZeeTV?

It would be loads better for the customer if Sky did individual channel pricing, so you could would only pay for the channels you actually want, I mean QVC? really?

Obviously Sky would never do this because the crappy channels probably pay them a load of money to have a channel.

Would be nice from the customers POV though
 
Rossi~ said:
I'm not entirely sure, to be honest i don't see Sky as a luxury. £52 a month for unlimited internet (15mb down for me), line rental, phone calls (rarely use), Sky+ HD normal entertainment package, access to Sky Anytime+. I think that's pretty damn good for the price.
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I wouldn't say sky was bad value for money either, but it just depends what your disposable income is. That's over £600 a year for the package you've got and it doesn't even include movies. That prices it a bit too high for my budget anyway.
 
TDevlin said:
I wouldn't say sky was bad value for money either, but it just depends what your disposable income is. That's over £600 a year for the package you've got and it doesn't even include movies. That prices it a bit too high for my budget anyway.
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You get a handful of free movie channels and can use the the box office (pay per view) if you want HD films etc. But what can you get from virgin in comparison?
Also, Sky has Sky Atlantic.. best TV channel ever :D
 
Well you keep saying you hardly watch TV which is the same as me. I've got 89 channels including 4 HD channels and I pay nothing because it's on freeview. Ok, it's nowhere near as good as sky but I honestly don't watch TV from one week to the next. I play games instead most of the time. It's not bad for free really. Now that they've switched analogue off, they will keep adding channels. Remember, they could fit 40 digital channels in where they could never fit a 6th analogue. Now they have got rid of the 5 analogue channels.....

*actually, small lie. Some of those are subsciption channels such as Sky Sports, so I haven't got all 89 but that's how many the TV finds.
 
yeah freeview will do fine for me, and I can't say I've ever watched Sky Atlantic, but I'm sure there is good stuff on it. Only channel I'll really miss though is FX.

I'm the same as you mame, I can quite easily not turn my tv on for a good few days in a row and won't feel like I've missed anything, and if I do have any free time I'd rather play a game instead.
 
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