TV Advice please ?

[MrJamie]

Time will tell on that one mate as I gave them 30 days notice last week. I get disconnected March 2nd

IIRC if there's any good deals for new customers you can get your wife to sign up as a new customer after you've ended your contract, that is if they don't try to offer you something cheap first. I hate the whole concept of flexible prices for those who negotiate, but it seems the best way to save money.

 

[MontyVeda]

I am constantly amazed/annoyed at how people get offended at TV licencing not believing they have no TV. This is because the vast majority of people who say they don't have a TV a lying thieves who expect the BBC TV they watch to pay for itself with magic f***ing beans.

If you don't have a TV just put them in the bin. Tell them you've no TV if you like but don't expect them to leave you alone, because, and don't take this personally, you're statistically likely to be lying.

And while I'm on this rant, I don't think they really threaten you, they just say what the penalties are. If you've no TV it's not really a threat, anymore than being aware of a crime and its punishment in any respect is a threat. Where I work I constantly deal with residents letters from TV licencing, and you just put them in the bin and show the bloke/woman in if they come round (unless you actually have a TV in which case just don't let them in, they have no right of entry. But I hope you feel guilty at such freeloading.)

Tar us all with the same brush why don't you?... I don't have gun, car or fishing rod either... but 'they' don't feel the need to inform me of the consequences of having an illegal firearm, driving or fishing without a licence every month or so. Nobody from TV licensing has knocked on my door in 8 years... five of which I've been ignoring and binning their letters. Of course it's f***ing annoying, but you can rest assured that your license fee is paying for this massive waste of paper and postage.

 

[mchunt]

Dropped Sky when they refused to replace a broken Sky+ box, when paying £50 per month I don't expect to have to pay for the box also.

Got a £30 Freesat HD box from Argos a few years ago and it works well would like a more modern box with interactive features but I don't really want to pay extra for recording facilities when most stuff can be got on catchup anyway (I want a Freetime/YouView box without HD).

Got Netflix as well at the moment which is a bit limited for films but has a lot of good TV series on it.

 

[tricksta]

We've had a HUMAX box for a year or so now after replacing our old SKY box (too expensive and not HD), we managed to get the box upgraded at the time of purchase to 500GB of storage though you probably get more as standard now. One thing to watch out for is that you really need to get an LNB (detector thing that sits in front of the satellite dish) with at least two connections, otherwise you wont be able to record some channels while watching others. We don't have one fitted (waiting for good weather to fit our new one and cabling it) and it can be very frustrating especially when channels conflict with recordings.

Just something to watch out for, they're easy to get of fleabay, I picked up a brand new dish, bracket, LNB (4 outputs), cable and cable clips as a kit for less than £30!!

Hope that helps

 

[Svendo]

Tar us all with the same brush why don't you?... I don't have gun, car or fishing rod either... but 'they' don't feel the need to inform me of the consequences of having an illegal firearm, driving or fishing without a licence every month or so. Nobody from TV licensing has knocked on my door in 8 years... five of which I've been ignoring and binning their letters. Of course it's f***ing annoying, but you can rest assured that your license fee is paying for this massive waste of paper and postage.

Sorry, I came over all Clarkson for a bit last night. I should have acknowledged that people who genuinely don't have a TV do suffer the inconvenience of putting TV licencing letters in the bin, and the nagging sense they are suspected of being criminals, when they're not. Another case of bureaucratic alienation. And all because of those that don't pay the licence. I'd be interested in the cost/benefits of all the letters, could be they raise more license fee than they cost?

 

[MissTillyFlop]

The new(ish) Youview box seems worth a look - 7 days of catch up

 

[Svendo]

One thing to bear in mind is that (at least when I last looked) Eurosport, and therefore cycling other than ITV4 coverage, is only available on SKY or t'Internet.

 

[MissTillyFlop]

Is Zee Café (Sky Channel 798) on free-to-view?
My wife loves this channel and I will be dead meat if I switch to freesat and it's gone.

you can subscribe to ZEE online: http://www.zeetv.co.uk/zeecafe/subscription_price.php

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

I have a Pansonic tv with both Freesat HD and Freeview HD built into it. It records to an external hard disk, and when it is recording you cannot watch the other input. Freeview is crap around here so use Freesat. Just having a single tuner for recording is fine for me as I find 99% of tv to be totally dire to be honest. It will pause/rewind live tv. I am interested in others posters comments as I might just totally ditch the tv license altogether as there is no way I get my money's worth and honestly think I would not miss it.

 

[Deleted member 20519]

Hauppauge? I've been using my Hauppauge box for a few years now and I've recently upgraded to the HD model. Lots of customisable options and firmwares to choose from to get it set to your liking, I don't think out of the box sat boxes can do that.

 

[Black Sheep]

We only have freeview and I find of the 50 channels,

you get 50 channels,

think we get 11!

steep hills and a small town in the bottom of the valley makes it a bit random what we do and don't get.

if I re-tune on a clear sunny day we get a couple of extra channels until the weather turns. Occasionally thought of going the freesat route, but when the weather closes in you loose all reception around here anyway.

 

[Leaway2]

I got a refurbished Bush freesat HD box for £60 and a dish for the same. It records, pauses live. The remote is rubbish and I had to modify the box to get it to see the remote properly (cut away plastic to allow a wider field).
But works OK.

 

[Over The Hill]

you get 50 channels,

think we get 11!

steep hills and a small town in the bottom of the valley makes it a bit random what we do and don't get.

if I re-tune on a clear sunny day we get a couple of extra channels until the weather turns. Occasionally thought of going the freesat route, but when the weather closes in you loose all reception around here anyway.

We are only 5 miles from Hannington transmitter and used to get great analgoue signals. Since going digital the crest of a hill is in the way and we canot pick up the signal from there and so get it from a relay transmitter somewhere miles away. This is with uprated aerial and a signal booster. However it is a good reception now and does not seem to be affected by weather.
Worth looking to see if anyone else in the area has the aerial pointed in a different direction.
Hope the 11 you get are the good ones and not the shopping channels!!