Leaving Sky

[Garfieldsarm]

We have had Sky for years and years, but actually most of what we watch now is Netflix / Amazon Prime, and TV that could easily be watched on catch-up. We hardly ever watch live TV.

Our Sky renewal date is coming up, and I'm considering leaving Sky and getting NowTV instead.

However, our house is a new build and didn't come with an external aerial. Does anyone know if we can use our SkyPlus box as a freesat box (and does it still work as a recorder - bonus if so?!)?

I think regardless of anything you lose the pause/rewind/record function and all your recordings.

Whether you can keep the box I think depends on the age, new sky Q boxes are essentially rented from sky so you'd have to send it back.

We bought a humax freesat box about 7 years ago and it's still going strong, cost £200 but you can pause/record etc

Thank you. We don't have a Sky Q box - it's one of the older ones.

I didn't realise you'd lose the pause function etc. - that would be a deal breaker for us.

Did you just plug your freesat box into the HDMI and Scart leads from the Sky box?

Yep freesat is all the same wiring, dead simple

Now TV Netflix and prime you can pause because they are streamed. Maybe a firestick or a now TV stick and won't need an ariel. Just Internet.

I think they send you a new viewing card that makes it a free sat box. Yes you will lose the record function.

We gave our months notice to Sky last week, still waiting for an offer we can't refuse to stay, and were initially concerned about recording etc. as well. Looking around we thought Now tv would be a good bet and having ipads, chromecast and a games console we can get everything we need on demand. We have netflix and amazon prime already, Sky box can go as far as we can see.
In our case broadband is 50meg+ so no issues streaming and from being £85 pm on Sky we go to £9 pm, entertainment pass, plus any sport I want to watch, £10 per day maybe twice a month if at all and there's always cheap day/month passes on the go.

I cancelled my Sky a few years ago. I use the same box and card to get Freesat.

I do miss being able to pause, rewind and record but not enough to be tempted to go back to Sky. I am not at all techie, but I think it might be possible to buy a TV with these features and will research more when I need a new TV.

We got rid of sky 6 months ago & have now tv. You can pause and rewind/ff on it. No need to record as once a show finishes its live airing its then available to watch & the bonus is no adverts. You do get some live tv channels. Can also have your netflix app, plus iplayer etc.

If you do their free trial and then cancel you'll get discounts. I paid £3.20pm for 3 months entertainment and £6pm for movies. Just renewed my passes and got entertainment for £5.40 (should be £8) and movies for £4.80 (should be £12). Plus no contracts means you leave whenever you want.

Thanks all. I'm now questioning whether we need FreeSat when the vast, vast majority of what we watch is on catch up anyway.

The only time I think we watch live TV is DH sometimes watches - for example - the rugby (on terrestrial TV) live. I'm guessing there's no way around this without FreeSat?

We have a new smart TV, so I'm guessing there will be a Now TV app which means we shouldn't need a Firestick, although we do have a Chromecast if we absolutely needed one for something.

If you've got an older sky box anyway you'll be able to use that to watch terrestrial