Confused? Can we cancel Sky,buy a receiver & use the Sky dish that's on the roof?

ohwell

No idea how these things work so sorry if the question seems a bit mental, lol. Just thinking instead of paying Sky €300 a year maybe we can simply cancel Sky, buy one of those receivers - like a set top box - plug it in, connect it to the tv and away we go, we'll get various channels to it through the existing Sky dish we have on the roof? Or doesn't it work like that? Thanks.

Dozen Wicked Words

ohwell wrote: »

No idea how these things work so sorry if the question seems a bit mental, lol. Just thinking instead of paying Sky €300 a year maybe we can simply cancel Sky, buy one of those receivers - like a set top box - plug it in, connect it to the tv and away we go, we'll get various channels to it through the existing Sky dish we have on the roof? Or doesn't it work like that? Thanks.

Cancel and just use the sky box without a card.

ohwell

dooferoaks wrote: »

Cancel and just use the sky box without a card.

Thanks but I don't have a clue what you mean, lol. So, we'll still get Sky if we cancel Sky? Or we'll pick up non-Sky channels if we did that? When we moved in here over 3 years ago the dish was already on the roof but when we turned on the tv we got diddly squat until we got the Sky set top box installed but of course we didn't have any set top box whatsoever back then.

newbie2

You can use your existing sky box, and dish, but just remove your viewing card. You'll get various channels like BBC One etc.

You own the box and dish AFAIK and can do what you please with it.

Dozen Wicked Words

ohwell wrote: »

dooferoaks wrote: »

Cancel and just use the sky box without a card.

Thanks but I don't have a clue what you mean, lol. So, we'll still get Sky if we cancel Sky? Or we'll pick up non-Sky channels if we did that? When we moved in here over 3 years ago the dish was already on the roof but when we turned on the tv we got diddly squat until we got the Sky set top box installed but of course we didn't have any set top box whatsoever back then.

To find out what channels you will get just remove your viewing card, maybe you need to unplug it to reset the box, not sure if its
necessary, anyway it leaves you with the channels you would get if you cancel Sky.

a clanger

You will basically get the UK channels..i.e. BBC1,2,3,4 ITV 1,2,3,4 Channel 4/5. You will not get any Irish channels and you will not be able to record anything as this feature is part of your sky subscription. If you want to record you can get a 'Freesat' box for about €250...just google it for the channel line up. Set my Dad up with a Freesat box (Humax foxsat)and a Saorview TV a year or so ago ...He swears buy it and has convinced 2 of his friends into the same setup.

Cantona's Collars

One spanner in the works though-is the box a HD box? If so then it won't revert to the default UK channel line up unless it's the 1% of the older ones that can.

If it's a standard box ie. a white coloured one then simply remove the card,plug the box out & in again to get the UK epg.

ohwell

Thanks for the info, folks. Back from taking doggie for walkies so will try it soon. Wemust have 200 or 300 channels with Sky but in reality we usually only ever watch about 10 or 15 of those channels! The Sky Box isn't a HD one as afar as I know, it's an older one, can't record on it. It's silver in colour. Got it in 2008. Think we'll be looking to economise in other areas too pretty shortly. Sky is fine, it's good but we don't need 200 or 300 channels to be honest. A lot of the shows we like, Game of Thrones, Walking Dead etc you can now watch on the net for free in any case (ahem, so I've heard!!!) Thanks.

dowtchaboy

ohwell wrote: »

Thanks for the info, folks. Back from taking doggie for walkies so will try it soon. Wemust have 200 or 300 channels with Sky but in reality we usually only ever watch about 10 or 15 of those channels! The Sky Box isn't a HD one as afar as I know, it's an older one, can't record on it. It's silver in colour. Got it in 2008. Think we'll be looking to economise in other areas too pretty shortly. Sky is fine, it's good but we don't need 200 or 300 channels to be honest. A lot of the shows we like, Game of Thrones, Walking Dead etc you can now watch on the net for free in any case. Thanks.

I think it's going to be interesting to see what effect Netflix has on Sky. There must be many people who would like to maybe drop back to a basic suite of Sky channels (or even go FTA) but there's a couple of favourite series that keeps them subscribing to a more expensive package, 99% of which they don't want at all. Now that you (maybe) will be able to selectively watch these treasured channels on Netflix the game has changed.

fleabag

I hope you don't mind me pigging-backing a linked question onto this thread. I'm thinking of giving Sky the heave-ho too because we only watch the Irish channels and BBC, Film 4 etc. We have a Sky+ HD box but we also have a really old TV - about 30 years old (and still going strong!). What will happen when the signal goes digital if I've given Sky the push? Will we still get the fta channels because we have the box and the dish or will the TV not work at all?

I know I'll probably have to program in the English channels as already mentioned by some posters due to having the HD box which I don't mind but I can't afford another telly - that's one reason Sky is going!

jimmyendless

http://www.adverts.ie/tv/edision-argus-mini-2in1-saorview-and-hd-satellite-receiver/1104416

I bought one of these on adverts.ie for 80e recently. You get Saorview and the free to air sat channels and if you stick in a memory stick it does the pause/rewind/record stuff of sky+. Only drawback is that you can't series link and the tv guide only goes 1hr forward but thats it.

ohwell

Wow, we're very surprised. Took out the Sky card, turned Sky box off and then on again and have a whole host of channels! Must be at least 50+ channels including:

BBC1 London
BBC2 England
ITV1 Central (we don't have any ITV channels at all with out current subscription?)
Channel 4
Channel 5 (never had it before?)
BBC3
BBC4
ITV2
ITV3
ITV4
S4C
E4
More4
CBS Reality
CBS Action
CBS Drama
BBC Alba (Scots Gaelic)
5 USA (never had it before?)
5* (never had it before?)
True Entertainment
Propeller
OHTV
Controversial TV
Showcase
Showcase 2
HiTV
Men&Movies (never had it before?)
Travel Channel
Food Network
Film4
Horror Channel
True Movies 1
True Movies 2
Movies4Men
Movies4Men 2
Sky News
Bloomberg
BBC News (never had it before?)
BBC Parliament (never had it before?)
CNBC
CNN
Euronews
CCTV News
Russia Today
France 24
Al Jazeera
CNC World

A load of music channels and a few cartoon channels etc.

Also have loads of other ethnic channels, religious channels etc.

Now is something wrong here? We took the viewing card out but we're still getting Sky News and a whole host of other channels I didn't expect we'd get? But even though the viewing card is out, we still have a Sky subscription, when we cancel that subscription will most of the channels go I wonder? Thanks.

Peter Rhea

All the channels you've listed there are free & most are nothing to get excited about imo.

ohwell

Peter Rhea wrote: »

All the channels you've listed there are free & most are nothing to get excited about imo.

We're not getting too excited, lol. But we thought we'd only have a handful of channels, maybe 10 or so. We're pretty happy with that line up. Suits us just fine and saves us €300 a year. Fine. Can get RTE News etc and TV3 (Tonight with Vincent Brown etc) on their players on the net if we really want to. Yep, we're pleased!

John mac

fleabag wrote: »

I hope you don't mind me pigging-backing a linked question onto this thread. I'm thinking of giving Sky the heave-ho too because we only watch the Irish channels and BBC, Film 4 etc. We have a Sky+ HD box but we also have a really old TV - about 30 years old (and still going strong!). What will happen when the signal goes digital if I've given Sky the push? Will we still get the fta channels because we have the box and the dish or will the TV not work at all?

I know I'll probably have to program in the English channels as already mentioned by some posters due to having the HD box which I don't mind but I can't afford another telly - that's one reason Sky is going!

you will not have rte ~(via satellite box) if you give sky the heave ho.

to receive RTE after 24 OCT you will need to get a Saorview approved set top box.
more info on these on terrestrial forum ..

Birdie086

I cancelled my Sky back in November, when I rang them to cancel the guy on the phone happily told me that I would still be able to watch the free channels using my satellite and box, have been working away happily ever since, without having to pay out 27euro a month. I did lose channel 4 but thanks to this forum just today i tuned back all the channel 4 channels, happy days.