Moving broadband + tv provider (advice please)

So you attach the existing Sky input cable to the Freesat box. So the dish is still operative but not talking to Sky satellites ? :thinking:

On broadband, do you have any FTTP alnets in your area?

If not, going direct with BT FTTP isn’t that bad a choice and they have a TV service as well.

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I was told that I would have to change the LNB connectors on the dish cos I had Sky Q and Freesat wouldn’t work with existing connections.

Didn’t buy Freesat box to try it anyway to save wasting money, so will never know if that advice was accurate.

Freesat and Sky use the same satellites. The newer boxes do work with the Sky Q LNB. So you could just buy a Freesat box and plug it in to get the free satellite channels.

The reason I mentioned changing the LNB and cabling earlier was because you wanted multiroom - multiroom on Sky Q only has the main box connected to the satellite dish, with the other boxes streaming via that main box. If you wanted Freesat on every TV you’d need cables running from the dish to those TVs as well.

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Good news. The notion of reusing the dish is a winner.

I have a second smart TV elsewhere which has freeview (?) inbuilt so I’ve disconnected the Sky box from that and the free channels are working courtesy of WiFi.

Brilliant.

It’s great to get such a wealth of info from folk who’ve already been there - done that.

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I’ve not moved the dish so I imagine that it’s still using the Sky satellite.

Seems almost to good to be true :grin:.

Box ordered……

Very simple. We’d still have been using the Sky box if the disc in it hadn’t packed in and got really noisy.

+1 for Apple TV, but if you’re used to recording then I’d invest in a DTT (Freeview) or Freesat DTR as well.

This particular one is a great buy. BT bundles it with their BT TV product but it functions completely fine as a ‘record two channels and watch a third’ box which can record all Freeview channels (technically not a Freeview box but it doesn’t matter for these purposes).

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I would’ve said that a freeview pvr was the way forward, but this is an interesting read

As @N26throwaway says, it seems like we’re waiting for Freely. In the meantime, we’re stuck in limbo.

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Wasn’t aware of Freely. I’m having an issue with the reception on freeview HD channels on all my TVs. Was thinking I’ll need to get someone out to take a look at my rooftop aerial, but might now just wait for this.

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My Freesat box arrived today. Thanks to the advisors herein, I’ve swapped the cables out of the Sky box and Bob’s your father’s !!

Thanks everyone :relieved:

(I’ll be watching closely how Freely develops…)

Ooh interesting.

So you had Sky Q before, with the dual feed cable, and managed to connect the existing cable to your Freesat and it worked?

Which box did you get? May give it a go.

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I went for the 4K recordable version. To say I managed to connect the sky cables is over-egging it. Straight swap - both RF cables and the HDMI - job done. A quick setup - connect to WiFi - then it’s ready to go. Feature-rich.

My Sky-less anxiety is gone. :relieved:

£230 :astonished: seems so pricey for 2 DVB-S2 tuners, a hard drive and a simple computer to do the doing.

But then on the flipside I suppose thats less than a year’s worth of Sky TV subscriptions.

It’s a shame Freesat was never able to build up a head of steam, it should be leagues ahead of Freeview in terms of its offer (both choice and picture quality) but it just never really happened. Sky paying basic channel operators to keep their HD versions behind a paywall no doubt is part of that problem.

It’s actually less than two months of Sky subscriptions.

A big part of all this is to be free of Sky and have 3 tv’s which are actually giving me the benefits which coming with being Smart. I’m playing catchup and rather enjoying the process.

You were paying more than £115/month for Sky TV :open_mouth: :open_mouth:

Including Broadband, yes. So this is me moving on :smiling_face:

I am agog. But bravo for giving them the boot, get a decent broadband package for ~£20/month and that’s somewhere around a grand you’ve saved in a year.

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The very next step will indeed, be to source reliable Broadband.

(Incidentally, whilst not wishing too make you any more “agogged”, a Sky subscription can easily be in near three figures. That’s one of the problems of being a long-time customer whose household needs required such). Nuff said….