Ditching Sky

[Mad Cyril]

I have realised that I do most of my viewing online these days so I am looking at alternatives to Sky.

Has anyone got any suggestions they are happy with? I am not bothered about sports or movies.

 

[Pubey]

We've got a humax free sat box so we can record stuff. Pretty good, and it has Netflix and catch up built in.

 

[RHB]

We've got a humax free sat box so we can record stuff. Pretty good, and it has Netflix and catch up built in.

Yep, gets my vote too. It's also got YouTube and the catch-up saves fiddling about in the various TV Players.

 

[Mad Cyril]

Do you just connect the satellite dish to it and off you go?

 

[RHB]

Do you just connect the satellite dish to it and off you go?

That's the theory. Humax recorders come with twin recording capability so you would probably need doubleshot cable or two singles coming from your dish.

 

[Pubey]

Do you just connect the satellite dish to it and off you go?

If you've already got sky plus then you just take out your old sky box and plug the new humax box into the satellite dish. You can get versions with or without wifi depending on where you box is for the catchup/internet access.

 

[Ricey]

Where is the best/cheapest place to get the box? I think I may ditch Sky, the only issue I have is my kids love the Disney channel, what does freesatHD have that will keep them happy?

 

[Pubey]

I think humax set the price so there isn't a best place to go. We got ours from John Lewis. The box and remote are annoying sometimes but for a non-contract way to record tv and have a range of HD channels and online access there isn't a better option from what I can see.

 

[Pubey]

Also if you can live without sky for a month they'll be hassling you with offers of up to 60% off any tv package to sign back up.

 

[Ricey]

Also if you can live without sky for a month they'll be hassling you with offers of up to 60% off any tv package to sign back up.

I phoned them up and told them I was going to leave for another company and they didn't seem bothered.

 

[RHB]

Where is the best/cheapest place to get the box? I think I may ditch Sky, the only issue I have is my kids love the Disney channel, what does freesatHD have that will keep them happy?

This may help

http://www.freesat.co.uk/channels

There's a PDF download link at the bottom of the page for a full list.

 

[Ricey]

This may help

http://www.freesat.co.uk/channels

There's a PDF download link at thew bottom of the page for a full list.

Thanks for that, there is a few kids channels but no Disney. Oh well they will have to suck it up or pay for sky themselves!

 

[Pubey]

Here's my story from about a year ago.

We were paying a lot for our sky package. Maybe about £70 for fibre broadband, phone line and HD sky+ with the basic channels.

Getting rid of the telly package would save us maybe £25 a month.

So we cancelled with sky and there was one month before they disconnect. During that time I ignored a few calls from them, thinking I could play hardball. Also a letter came in the post offering 30% off (12 month minimum contract with 30% for the full 12 months). Decided to leave it, expecting them to call again right when the box was going to stop working, but they didn't. Waited a few days before going to John Lewis to get the box. It was about £200 so it paid for itself after 8/9 months. However after about 3 or 4 weeks of having the box I missed a few more calls from them and had some letters offering 60% of. So if you do like sky and are willing to go a few weeks without it then there's a good opportunity to save quite a bit of cash with them. However I don't think it's so easy now to threaten to leave and they give you a sweet deal.

MSE is a good forum for tips and suggestions. Being contract free is good in general. If we move house we might sign up with sky again as long as we get a good deal on the package, because I do prefer the box and remote, and the Humax box can live in the bedroom or spare room.

 

[Pubey]

Urgh, my Netflix proxy (unlocator) has given up now. Seems like the clamp-down has begun.

 

[MK Shrimper]

I've got TalkTalk...no issues with it.

 

[phsend]

Where is the best/cheapest place to get the box? I think I may ditch Sky, the only issue I have is my kids love the Disney channel, what does freesatHD have that will keep them happy?

If it helps, Disney Channel is one of the ones you get on Now TV along with Sky 1, Sky Atlantic, Sky Living, Sky Arts, Gold, Fox, MTV etc - think its 8.99 per month but you can get it cheaper buying the passes on ebay - all legit and legal.

 

[TrueBlue]

Problem is sky ain't the cheapest but what they do they do better then anybody else especially their sport coverage is better then anybody in my opinion, but always helps to ring up say your leaving they will always do what they can to keep you! Last thing they want is you wandering off to BT or Virgin

 

[Usual_Suspect]

I cancelled my whole Sky package a few weeks ago which was costing about £105 a month. As with Pubey they phoned and sent letters and eventually got a 50% discount, £50 credit on the account and a new HD box (as my current one isn't Wi Fi). Having looked around the only alternative was BT for value as Virgin was often cheaper for 12 months, but they hammered you for the last 6 months of the 18 month contract.