sky box and freesat

John W

I have just picked up a pace digibox and I intend to watch FTA programmes on it using the sky EPG.

Is there any advantage or disadvantage of doing this over buying an official freesat box?

Would I have gotten more channels with a freesat box? is the EPG better etc.

Also do you think I will ever be able to get the Five channels on it? without buying a doggy freesat UK card?

Thanks

mossym

you won't get the freesat epg, but will have the sky one. no five currently, but rumours are maybe in the future. the only thing this box won't get you is the interactive services freesat are launching soon, but nobody really knows what they are yet.

syboit

any channels you tune in with the sky box in the "others" section wont have any epg, i.e. the itv's, cbeebies. Whereas with the freesat box you would get the epg.
Also with a HD freesat box, you can get bbchd and itvHD (when it broadcasts)

Fat_Fingers

Another problem I would see is that with Sky box you would have to skip a lot of encrypted channels until you figure out where all the free channels are. Sky box will not list all the free channels right on the top of the EPG, No problem like this with freesat box since everything on it is free.

List of free-to-view channels for which a Sky box is required (with sky’s freesat card)
• Channel 4 HD
• Five
• Fiver
• Fiver +1
• Five US
• Five US +1
• Sky Three
• Setanta Sports News

As of June 2008 some ITV1 regions have been encrypted again due to one of their narrow bean transponder agreements ending.
Five's group of channels will become free-to-air once their contract ends in July 2008 so they can launch on Freesat.
Channel 4 HD is also suspected to become free-to-air so it can launch on Freesat but no date has yet been set.

Ludo

Fat_Fingers wrote: »

Five's group of channels will become free-to-air once their contract ends in July 2008 so they can launch on Freesat.

Really? First I have heard of this. About time and good to hear.

Off to try and verify this from a second source now.