Finally left sky - now what???

F

Florian drews

New Member
My Satellite Setup
Sky
My Location
Cardiff
Hi guys, total newbie here - we've finally left Sky. Now the TV still works, but I can't record anything anymore with my sky+ box.

What's the best thing to do? What box would you buy so that you could still record sky sat dish channels?

Plug n play preferred... ;)
 
Well if you truly mean the channels such as $ly 1, $ly Atlantic, Discovery etc then nothing as these are only available if you pay for them.

If you mean the FTA (free to air) channels such the BBC, ITV, C4 etc then a Freesat+ box will suit perfectly.

A bit more information will help us give our opinions.

Note: no guarantee that all opinions will match!
 
Welcome to the forum!

Yes you have discovered one of the disadvantages of leaving Sky - they disable the recording feature when you jump ship.

Buy yourself a Freesat+ box and you will have full control of your recording again and no ongoing subscriptions to worry about. Make sure you get a proper Freesat box and not one of the generic boxes that have very similar names.

Plug & play - turn Sky box off, unscrew the cables round the back, screw cables onto the Freesat box and power on. Give it a couple of minutes to set itself up and away you go

EDIT - if you want to keep the pay channels - we wont help with any illegal decryption methods & our answer will be "renew your Sky sub"
 
Definetely agree with whats been said so far, Freesat is the way forward.

You'll find when you change to a Freesat box that the channel order will be slightly different to Sky. Not sure if you are able to shift the channel order yourself, can anyone confirm?
 
Some sky channels are also carried via broadband, eg plusnet tv/bt tv/talk talk or now tv.

I know plusnet and bt do a recorder box.

I also use tvheadend server with a tbs dvbs/dvbt2 card, an hdhomerun dvb-t2 tuner connected to my Plex server for recordings.

I also have my Vu Duo set up as a Freesat box, I can also record on it.(I robbed the hdd from the old sky box)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
dankargo said:
Definetely agree with whats been said so far, Freesat is the way forward.

You'll find when you change to a Freesat box that the channel order will be slightly different to Sky. Not sure if you are able to shift the channel order yourself, can anyone confirm?
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In general no, apart from being able to customise which BBC and ITV Regional variant appears at 101 and 103.
 
If you are thinking of getting a naw television in the near future, you could buy one with an integral satellite tuner and try recording with a USB stick or external hard drive. Not quite P+P but very cheap.
 
Florian drews said:
Hi guys, total newbie here - we've finally left Sky. Now the TV still works, but I can't record anything anymore with my sky+ box.

What's the best thing to do? What box would you buy so that you could still record sky sat dish channels?
Click to expand...
Fully agree with the other posters, especially Analoguesat's advice on plug-and-play.

I would emphasise you will not be able to receive or record any Sky-specific channels. But you will have all the Freesat ones (BBC, ITV, CH4/5 etc etc) avaialble for recording etc. In addition, your new Freesat box will also be able to access BBC iPlayer, 4 on-demand etc, so you have archive access to the stuff you may forget to record.
Not entirely up to date with the current offering on the market, but I personally like Humax gear (they have a sound approach to making set-top boxes, which reflects itself into the user experience of their products. Not the cheapest, not the most bells & whistles, but does the job.)

Wrsp to buying new equipment; hang on to your telly, and get a dual-tuner Freesat box. Plug-and-play.
 
Chris1979 said:
Some sky channels are also carried via broadband, eg plusnet tv/bt tv/talk talk or now tv.
Click to expand...
I'm fairly sure that you have to pay for these either by subscription or PPV.

Chris1979 said:
I know plusnet and bt do a recorder box.
Click to expand...
Unless they've changed recently these are both based on Freeview boxes and the OP has already said the signal is poor.
 
PaulR said:
I'm fairly sure that you have to pay for these either by subscription or PPV.
Click to expand...

Yeah the plusnet one is a fiver a month for the basic pack. (You do have to have fibre with them)

Yes they are free view based boxes, but the “sky” channels are streamed to your box via the Broadband.
 
I got rid of Sky back in 2015 and have never looked back :).
 
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