Recommendations for alternative to SKY Plus ?

emg74

Can anyone recommend a box that can be used as an alternative to SKY Plus?

Currently we have a basic SKY Plus subscription (negotiated down the monthly sub ) in one room and an old sky box minus the card in the sitting room.

I am thinking of getting rid of the sky subscription but love the functionality of SKY Plus......I am looking for a box the does the whole "pause, rewind, record" thing but would love to hear from someone who has bought a box that does this.

I have looked at the Humax (??) one online after seeing a recommendation on here.

Is this the best options or are there other boxes that I should / could look at ?

As I said, I would be great to hear from someone who is using this kind of set up.

Thanks In Advance

Peter Rhea

Really depends if you want the Irish channels or not: these aren't available for free with the Sky dish setup. You will need a UHF aerial for Saorview or a different dish setup: 2nd dish or 1 larger dish for UK & Saorsat.

Freesat receivers are best for the UK channels, but don't have a terrestrial tuner for Saorview & can't integrate the more limited Saorsat lineup (no TV3 or 3e) properly into the epg.

Combi satellite/terrestrial receivers are available, with varying degrees of functionality & needed user input, with the Linux based machines in particular offering a fair amount of scope for customisation, if you're prepared to put in the effort.

manutd83

I bought the Humax freesat freetime 1tb from freesat.ie on Friday, they were very good to deal with,easy set up, had it going in minutes, great of piece of kit,really happy with it

emg74

Thanks for feedback.. Not bothered about not having irish channels on the box. Would be happy enough to get a saorview box for that, most of the times we end up just watching the UK channels that are free anyway - Ch4, More4 etc so the Free Channels are fine. Sometime times even with the Sky channels you are browsing around and there isn't a whole lot on that would make you sit down and watch tv.

manutd83, Glad to hear that you are getting on okay with the HUMAX box. Will have a look at the site you mentioned.
Have you been able to access the BBC IPlayer etc or is that only available in the UK ?

Woodie40

emg74 wrote: »

Thanks for feedback.. Not bothered about not having irish channels on the box. Would be happy enough to get a saorview box for that, most of the times we end up just watching the UK channels that are free anyway - Ch4, More4 etc so the Free Channels are fine. Sometime times even with the Sky channels you are browsing around and there isn't a whole lot on that would make you sit down and watch tv.

manutd83, Glad to hear that you are getting on okay with the HUMAX box. Will have a look at the site you mentioned.
Have you been able to access the BBC IPlayer etc or is that only available in the UK ?

Itv player and YouTube only work for me. It's a fairly good PVR, it's not as reliable as Sky plus though.

excollier

Save some cash and get the discontinued Humax Foxsat HDR, add in Raydon's custom firmware and you have a superbly flexible satellite pvr. It can even do multisat diseqc control. I own one and can't recommend it highly enough. I just wish I could afford a second one as backup.

emg74

Sorry to bump this up again. Still haven't done anything to cancel SKY but intend doing it in the next couple of weeks.

Intend buying the "Humax HDR-1000S Freesat+ HD Box (1TB w/FreeTime)" box

I do have one more question though - I would like to get NetFlix. I have it on a months trial on my sons Xbox that he got from Santa at the minute (the Xbox has a 1 month live gold membership) but I don't want to have to pay for the Gold & NetFlix. Also the Xbox is in a room that the kids use mostly so don't want to move the Xbox from there.

Does the Humax have access to NetFlix or will I need to buy a different box for that? The TV we have is an old Sony CRT so no HDMI or any of that

Thanks in Advance

The Ayatolla

One of the Walker boxes has full EPG for Freesat and Saorview AFAIK. Needs confirming from one of the more knowledgable on here though!

excollier

The Humax doesn't do Netflix as far as I am aware. It runs on a Linux/Unix operating system and I always thought Netflix needed Silverlight, (Microsoft ware) which isn't available with anything Linux based.
I could be wrong of course....

The Cush

The Ayatolla wrote: »

One of the Walker boxes has full EPG for Freesat and Saorview AFAIK. Needs confirming from one of the more knowledgable on here though!

Walker WP645TS-HD - SatFree option
http://www.tvtrade.ie/blog/walker-wp645ts-hd-how-to-install-firmware-v3-8-satfree-from-usb-drive/

White Heart Loon

excollier wrote: »

The Humax doesn't do Netflix as far as I am aware. It runs on a Linux/Unix operating system and I always thought Netflix needed Silverlight, (Microsoft ware) which isn't available with anything Linux based.
I could be wrong of course....

No help to the OP but Netflix now uses HTML5. There are now ways to get it running on a linux OS, using Firefox you can install UAControl addon and add:

Site: netflix.com
Custom UA: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:23.0) Gecko/20131011 Firefox/23.0

I'd expect Netflix apps and plugins to follow on more devices soon.

emg74

Thanks everyone for input.

Now to put the cat among the pidgeons - I have been looking at this box which has a triple tuner and is supposed to be the closest match to Sky Plus functionality

https://www.satellitetv.ie/technomate_tm7102_t2?filter_name=technomate&sort=p.price&order=DESC

Does anyone have this box or have any recommendations ? It is expensive but if it would do all that Sky Plus does it might be worth it. Should pay for itself after about 15mths. I am a bit clueless but like the idea of one box that does everything without having to be dealing with external drives / usb / etc

As for the netflix, I am trying to figure out how to hook up a tablet to the TV so that might work. Otherwise there is a spare Wii in my dads house that I would bring up here.

excollier

The TM7102 is pricey, but very versatile too. No 7 day epg for Freesat or Saorview, although there might be some workaround by now, and it is also "patchable" which I cannot discuss here. Excellent bit of kit too.

White Heart Loon

emg74 wrote: »

Thanks everyone for input.

Now to put the cat among the pidgeons - I have been looking at this box which has a triple tuner and is supposed to be the closest match to Sky Plus functionality

https://www.satellitetv.ie/technomate_tm7102_t2?filter_name=technomate&sort=p.price&order=DESC

Does anyone have this box or have any recommendations ? It is expensive but if it would do all that Sky Plus does it might be worth it. Should pay for itself after about 15mths. I am a bit clueless but like the idea of one box that does everything without having to be dealing with external drives / usb / etc

As for the netflix, I am trying to figure out how to hook up a tablet to the TV so that might work. Otherwise there is a spare Wii in my dads house that I would bring up here.

Crazy money, buy an Amiko Alien 2 and an external HD and head over to this thread for info on how to flash a better software on it

Technique

emg74 wrote: »

As for the netflix, I am trying to figure out how to hook up a tablet to the TV so that might work. Otherwise there is a spare Wii in my dads house that I would bring up here.

Why don't you buy a Chromecast for Netflix, and a Humax PVR for the satellite recording function? It may be too much of a compromise to buy a lesser sat box just because it has Netflix.

emg74

Ok - Decision Made, got the spare wii up from my dads house and have that set up for Netflix, going to buy the Humax box next week and will use the Saorview box that we already have in the other room.

Will pick up a cheapo saorview box for the kids down the line at some stage - the only Irish Channel they ever look at in the other room is the kids movie on a Sat night so it's not an essential right now.

Thanks everyone for the advice.. Looking forward to cancelling SKY and not having that DD hitting my account every month

excollier

Congratulations, welcome to the land of the free!!

emg74

Just a quick update - Have just come off a 15min call to SKY so have cancelled the package.

Got our Humax box yesterday and have it up an running. So far I am liking it, menus are intuitive and it was a doddle to set. Have not got it connected to the broadband as nowhere close by to connect the ethernet cable to.

Is it worth getting it connected ?

Got a saorview box too so that is connected as well.

It is a bit of a pain to have to flick between the two boxes but we will get used to it.

Esp now that the monthly DD isn't going out to SKY anymore.

Anyway, Thanks to everyone for the advice / suggestions

Johnboy1951

White Heart Loon wrote: »

No help to the OP but Netflix now uses HTML5. There are now ways to get it running on a linux OS, using Firefox you can install UAControl addon and add:

Site: netflix.com
Custom UA: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:23.0) Gecko/20131011 Firefox/23.0

I'd expect Netflix apps and plugins to follow on more devices soon.

I passed on this hint to a friend, but it did not work for him

Can anyone confirm it does work?