Is Freesat dead?

[Milkfloat]

Thanks Milkfloat... I don't know whether Mrs A uses any Sky channels!

I cannot help you there, but you could just look and see what she has recorded in the past.

 

[Mo1959]

I cancelled Sky years ago now but still get all the free channels which does me, plus the usual catch up channels through the tv if I miss anything.

 

[welsh dragon]

I cancelled Sky a couple of years ago. I was sick of spending £60 a month on repeats.

We have Freesat, plus we subscribe to Amazon prime so the programmes are in with prime.

Best thing I ever did was to get rid of sky. They are just rip off.

 

[Drago]

If you want cheap Sky then get it through BT TV. The package I have, with movies etc, costs about half what it would through sky, and I don't have to have a trashy looking sieve bolted to the side of my house.

 

[AlanW]

I would recommend picking up a BT Freeview+ box on eBay (made by Humax). This (assuming you have an aerial) will allow you to record 2 programs simultaneously and watch another, plus you have access to most of the catch up services and the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime. You do not need to be a BT customer.

To answer your questions - the aerial goes to the Freeview box and then you connect your TV to that (usually HDMI cable). No need to connect the TV to the aerial. Yes, you need an internet connection to the box for the catch up/premium services.

Great stuff @Milkfloat , thats answered all my questions.

 

[cyberknight]

£10 a month to retain recording facility to sky and you then use your sky box for sky Freesat last time I looked at it

 

[AlanW]

We had Sky for a number of years, only because we had little choice as we lived in a terrible area for TV reception.

Thankfully when the Sutton Coldfield transmitter went over to digital signals it opened up a whole new world for us and we were able to kick Sky into touch. As a matter of principle now I refuse point blank to pay for any TV subscription service.

 

[Mike_P]

Plenty of Humax Foxsat PVRs on eBay including ones newly refurbished

 

[Milkfloat]

Be aware if you are binning off Sky and switching to a different Freesat receiver then you need to be careful because Sky switched the LNB they were using if you got a Sky Q box and the new LNB (bit in the dish that takes the signal) will not work with older Freesat receiver.

 

[Smokin Joe]

For the price of one month get a Freeview+ box as I outlined above. Assuming you don't need the Sky channels Sky 1 then that will give you everything you need. remember you do need an aerial though.

Fine if you get the full Freeview service, we don't and we can lose it completely in bad weather.

 

[Milkfloat]

Fine if you get the full Freeview service, we don't and we can lose it completely in bad weather.

We are the same - bad weather causes us issues, although the 4G transmitter nearby caused the most problems until we put in filters. I have Freesat built into my TV but never really use it as recording on the TV is terrible compared to the BT Freeview box. If Freeview gets really bad I just watch via catchup.

 

[Gunk]

As I have no aerial on the roof but a dish I have two Humax Freesat boxes, the HD picture on them is better than Sky.

 

[Shearwater Missile]

Humax boxes are pretty reliable but.... When I worked in the trade the common most faults with the boxes were capacitors in the power supply so it would appear dead. You would see the faulty ones as they bulged (domed) at the top. We also had hard drive problems, you could always disconnect the drive to see if it would work without it. Any HDD would work in a Humax box. The other issue we had was that they could lock up and would need resetting. Hope this helps. There may be life in it yet.

 

[AlanW]

Humax boxes are pretty reliable but.... When I worked in the trade the common most faults with the boxes were capacitors in the power supply so it would appear dead. You would see the faulty ones as they bulged (domed) at the top. We also had hard drive problems, you could always disconnect the drive to see if it would work without it. Any HDD would work in a Humax box. The other issue we had was that they could lock up and would need resetting. Hope this helps. There may be life in it yet.

A couple of days ago all the recording vanished and it refused to record any of the programmers that were set to record either? Did the usual thing turned it off and back on again, nothing. Turned it off and disconnected the mains supply, plus the two feeds from the dish and left it 12 hours, reconnected....nope still nothing?

However, last night all the recordings were now showing again as if nothing had happened......

 

[Shearwater Missile]

A couple of days ago all the recording vanished and it refused to record any of the programmers that were set to record either? Did the usual thing turned it off and back on again, nothing. Turned it off and disconnected the mains supply, plus the two feeds from the dish and left it 12 hours, reconnected....nope still nothing?

However, last night all the recordings were now showing again as if nothing had happened......

It sounds that possibly it had locked up. I have seen that symptom before. It could be a faulty capacitor as mentioned or HDD or just locked up. What you could do is : 1st Check that the unit`s software is up to date. 2nd Go into settings and do a reset but make sure that the box for formatting the HDD is left un-checked otherwise you will delete everything. It may of course come to that if a normal reset does`nt sort it out. By the way I say reset, Humax call it " Default setting". You may find that it will work perfectly OK now.