Old sky box- any use?

[mycatoscar]

We have had delivered a new sky plus hd box for the living room and I now have a spare white sky plus box. Dh seems to think we can somehow use it to get free to air channels, so sort of like a free view box.

Anyone know if this is possible? We don't have a proper aerial for normal tv so would be rather useful. We only have the one sky card now so I'm not convinced.

Its a Panasonic DMR-EH50 HDD/DVD recorder. Its at least 6, probably 7 years old and its worked perfectly all that time.

It is a bit scary actually as its old tech - no EPG, pre "+" technology, single tuner only and the instructions are a little complicated but its very very good at what it does. Never had a problem, never had a glitch. Has all the time-delay capabilities, watch while recording, time-slip etc, and you can dub to DVD easily should you ever want to.

One day I vow to have something modern and simple and "with it"

Modern and simple and "with it" would probably not do what your box does.
Time to find another in working condition for the day yours eventually packs up. Might be able to just move the hard drive and still have all your recordings.

I will definitely go hunting for something similar. Have seen CashConverters or CashGenerator with similar type boxes. Have never considered them before (perhaps put off by the mention of DVD, but also, not all have the HDD in them, AFAIK).

Off to dig up some older online reviews of same, and go hunting online for suchlike...