switching from Sky to Free/Saorview combo

anxie

Hi all, I have been trawling these threads for a couple of days and I wonder if there is any experience/opinion on the deals offered by tvtrade.ie
I am tempted to go for this one:
http://www.tvtrade.ie/cancel-sky.html
I will do the installation and setup myself,, I hope

I currently have sky setup in 3 rooms,
so I will replace the main living room box with the combo
reuse the other two sky boxes as FTA boxes
reuse all satellite cabling for the free to air stuff to the three boxes.

For Saorview I will route the new aerial feed back to the new main living room box.

I believe that the tvtrade.ie offer above uses this box:
http://www.tvtrade.ie/combo-box-smart-cx61.html

So, my questions are,
a. does anyone have an opinion on this deal?
b. and in particular this box?
c. any pitfalls in relation to the aerial setup?

(I know that the EPG is not going to be a 7 day job :-(
but saorview is just to keep the wife happy)
Main issues I see are that :
- it has only one feed in, so cannot record one channel and watch another which I can do with Sky at the moment
- has no RF out
- Need to purchase a hard disk separately.

Any advice is appreciated.

Eire sun

Good question, was looking at this option also, so come on techies bamboozle us with your wizardry

Digital Satellite TV

anxie wrote: »

- it has only one feed in, so cannot record one channel and watch another which I can do with Sky at the moment

Just to pick you up on that point. As with most combos;

• you can record Irish channel and watch UK
• Record UK channel and watch Irish station
• You can record UK channel and watch another UK station, as long as it's on the same transponder. That's limiting enough though.

Basically from a recording point of view, a Freesat+ box like the humax foxsat hdr is the closest thing to a sky hd box but you won't get the Irish channels on it. A lot more expensive too but a fine box.

I'll let everyone else chip in with independent pros and cons from this point.

anxie

Thanks Digital Satellite TV, I presume that this is because Irish and UK will be on two different inputs.. I didn't think of that - cheers.

anxie

In the end I went with the offer on satellite.ie
http://www.satellite.ie/acatalog/HD_Ariva_120_Combo_Box-1.html

I reused the cabling from the dish to the skybox and the saorsat aerial works in the attic, so setting it up was fiddly, but easy enough.
I had the Sky box on the wall behind the TV and the Ariva is considerably smaller, so there was a bit of work to be done there, but it is neater now than before due to the slimmer and smaller receiver.
I Haven't bought a hard disk yet, but that will come in time when I have the funds.
Delighted with the box and having all the stations via one remote.
some stations which don't work properly on Sky are coming in fine which was a surprise as I expected to have to adjust the dish.
The remote doesn't seem to be programmable to control the TV and the EPG menu system is fine, but could be improved.

Finally able to call Sky tomorrow to cancel...

anxie

Thanks to you also Tony, excellent service and very responsive - the new website content rocks! ;-)