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We've had the same Sky plus box for about 7 years-it's been great and we like sky plus. The box is becoming old and rather unreliable-won't record properly and keeps freezing. We rang Sky to try to get a new box, but they don't even make them any more! They obviously want everyone to get Sky HD, but tbh, I can't see any different with friends' who have HD and I certainly don't want to pay £10 a month extra for something with no discernable difference! Sky is expensive enough as it is, without adding 50% of the price again.

Did everyone else just accept they had to pay loads extra when they got HD? We've thought about going to Virgin, but don't really want to as they don't have Sky Atlantic and Game of Thrones is back on soon!! I don't even want to threaten in case we have to go through with it!

I just think £10 EXTRA a month on top of what we already pay is too much for something I don't want.

Has everyone else in the Sky world got HD?

You can buy the old sky plus boxes on eBay for about £25. I'm going to look on there soon to replace the one in our bedroom as definitely don't need HD in there.

Ours needed replacing last year. IIRC we were offered a free box if he signed up to HD for £10/month or we could just get the box for £50 or so and as our tv is quite new we would get a lot of the hd channels anyway.

Did they not offer this?

I bought a used box in a s/h electronics store (Cash Generator or similar) for 25 or 30 quid, and feel sure you could do the same. You don't need to use the 'HD' channels even though the box is capable.

Of course, if you're primarily watching non-Sky channels, you could use a FreeSat box, or get a FreeSat recorder (from 130 to 250 quid, depending on whether you want brand new or get one on Ebay).

I bought a Grundig box from Tesco Outlet on Ebay for a bit over 150 quid inc delivery. I also have a couple of SD boxes and an HD box in different rooms. No need for 'multi-room' fees and the SD boxes were about 35 quid in local Asda. HD box (Manhattan brand) was 90 quid from Tesco (and at the time there was a deal on where they fitted a new dish, too, so I have one at the front and another at the back... stuff the rules against too many dishes, it was neater without cables all over the place!)

Tesco currently has an Echostar HDS600RS FreeSat recorder for about 180 quid. It's promoted as having the ability to allow viewing (via the net) like a Slingbox but some comments are critical of that features... However if you just want to time shift or record 2 shows and watch something else, seems capable.

Tell them you're cancelling your contract as it's too expensive and you weren't watching it enough to make it worth paying for HD. Stick to your guns and watch them jump.

That's what we did when they were going to charge us for an engineers visit. Got a new box and a cheaper contract.

Sorry, see you also want Sky Atlantic, so FreeSat wouldn't fit the bill. But a used Sky box could. I'd seel you one of my 2 but I will likely remove the hard disk as it's cheap at 30 quid

(Also, without a subscription to Sky, the record facility is blocked anyway, and I cancelled Sky completely after a year with them. Even more reason to remove the hard disk!)

I rang Sky and they said that I could have an HD box without paying the HD subscription, as they only make the HD boxes now. You can then watch the free HD channels and also get a lot more storage

It is cheaper to buy a box elsewhere though. I can buy a refurbished one with 12 months guarantee from a local shop for £90 as opposed to £200 from Sky.

We cancelled our subscription as couldn't really afford it. Anyway, we still used the box to watch the free stuff. Meanwhile, Sky relentlessly contacted us asking us to go back, so eventually we caved in as the offer was very good, something like half price for a year. Since we re-subscribed the box developed problems so we called up Sky and they sent out a new box, with us only having to pay the carriage (£15). Can't argue with that!

We cancelled our subscription as couldn't really afford it. Anyway, we still used the box to watch the free stuff. Meanwhile, Sky relentlessly contacted us asking us to go back, so eventually we caved in as the offer was very good, something like half price for a year. Since we re-subscribed the box developed problems so we called up Sky and they sent out a new box, with us only having to pay the carriage (£15). Can't argue with that!

Oh god, if you are in a Virgin area. Call them up, tell them you are cancelling because your box is rubbish and you've been told that if you sign up with Virgin you will get the same channels and a shiny new Tivo box.

Voila within minutes they'll be sending you a new Sky HD box!

Ebay. We did when our box died. You will then need to ring them to get the sky box registered to your viewing card and they do it there and then over the phone with no problems (well not for me the twice I have done this)