Getting rid of Sky, another query

[MoaningMinnieWhingesAgain]

Currently have Sky HD with sport, broadband/phone, everything except movies.
It is costly a bloody fortune and we want to dump Sky for Murdoch related reasons anyway.

I was looking at buying this plus getting a phone/broadband package. Will that roughly replace it? I know we lose the sport (boohoo )But I will gain Iplayer through the TV and much reduced monthly cost.

What do you think?

Bump

Yes, that would work. But iplayer connectivity will depend very much on how strong your wifi signal will be. So it's probably best if your wifi dongle is fairly close to your router.

Do you also know if you can get a Freeview HD signal? It's a lot of money to spend to later find your aerial isn't man enough for the job.

I have a Humax foxsat recorder that uses my sold sky sat dish. So can you not reuse the cables/dish from your old set-up?

Do you have a wii??

You can watch iplayer on that anyway

Thanks niceguy2 I better check on the freeview HD. We have an HD tv that we can watch freeview on when the sky is broken, but it's the HD reception I'll need to check - good plan, will have a look at it all tomorrow.

I was planning to go with freeview rather than freesat option so that if/when the sky box breaks we can still watch TV but I may have misunderstood how it works.

I just know that sky boxes always break at the wrong time and we want to dump sky altogether. Router is about 5 ft away from TV in the same room so should be fine on that front. I was going to go for BT vision but when I learned you can watch iplayer on TV with a PVR box I was because it was the iplayer on TV that made me

No Wii yet! No other consoles except for a DSi, DH not a gamer and children not old enough to insist on one (yet)

I would just cancel the Sky and then use the Sky box and freeSat to get what you want.
When/if the Sky box fails then you buy a freeview box, but why spend that amount of money upfront now when you don't need to?
Can't you connect the computer/laptop to the TV to watch iplayer?

Ditto what Chasing said.

Oooh, I 'm cancelling sky today Minnie too. Just realised we've been paying £83 a month for the last two.

Chasing and Ohbugrit, can you get free sat using the existing sky box then?

Yeah, just cancel it and when it finishes you won't be able to access any of the paid channels, otherwise nothing changes:)

you won't get the livepause/recording though if you use the sky box and dish for the freestuff

we ditched sky a year or so past and got a freesatbox that does all the same as sky plus and connects to the dish. Hugely easy to set up, and the memory on the box is amazing, loads better than sky

With the sky box we were always having to delete unseen stuff that we had not got around to watching.

The only thing this one does not have is a reminder facility, which is vexing but not as vexing as paying all that money to Murdoch

Wow, thanks for that, doing it now!

oh, I didn't realise you couldn't use the "+" features.

no neither did i!! they are sneaky bastards !

We didn't have Sky + in the first place so it was no skin off our noses!

Yes you can use the + features on freesat because they are controlled by the box, not the satellite. You need to get a Freesat box with a hard disk recorder. I can recommend the Humax Foxsat HDR box. This will allow you to pause live tv, record, set series record, watch one chanel while recording another... basically everything you can do with Sky+ but without a monthly charge.

It's the sky+ features that we would miss most, rather than the few sky only channels. Love the easy recording, and haven't watched an advert for years.

Can't hook PC to TV, they are in different rooms, use a wireless USB for the broadband to desktop but router is in same room as telly.

According to the freeview website, we do get HD freeview. Now unsure whether to go freesat or freeview for the box, as it will just be the dish I am using rather than the sky box, won't it.

Really want the iplayer on TV though, we miss loads of good bbc stuff, DH is a radio 4 nut and we never get round to watching it on the computer. Might go and have a browse in Currys tomorrow and get a spotty youth to run me through it.

I've just cancelled my sky package and the man mentioned that if we get freeview or similar and miss the rewinding and recording etc, you can pay £10 a month for it as a stand alone service from sky. Interesting. Not sure it's worth £10 but, like you, it's the thing I'll miss most.

No, we do not want to give sky 10 pence a month any more, never mind £10 The boxes do the rewind stuff anyway. Now need to decide on the phone and broadband.

that's what I thought, nocake, but no, they can turn them off. and they do!

I've been considering it for ages but decided that I couldn't live without sky Atlantic and the kids channels. Have found that if you cancel the movies and sports then the basic package is not too expensive. We also couldn't live without the sky+ facility. If I had to pay £10 a month for that then an extra £15 per month for the channels seems quite reasonable.

DD likes the Disney stuff - otherwise we would have cancelled years ago

Can I get Disney any other way?

You can get Disney with BT vision on demand KatyMac . Oh dear, that's reminded why my original plan was BT vision. All indecisive again now.

But my friend has BT for TV and broadband and says they are useless, and the last time I had my landline with them they kept taking the DDs for months after I cancelled.

Thanks I will look

Catsmamma, there's nothing for Sky to "turn off" because they have no control over Freesat. We have a Sky dish that was installed by the previous owners of the house. We simply plugged our Freesat box into it and can pause live TV, record and set up series record. Obviously you get fewer channels on freesat than Sky.