If I Wanted to Ditch Sky.... Options?

Kintarō Hattori

Hi Folks,

I've always had a subscription service of some kind. Most years it was Virgin and over the last 12 months I've had Sky. I've been thinking though that perhaps I should ditch these and look at alternatives. Can you help enlighten me as to what options are on the table if you don't want to take a subscription tv service. I know I can look at Saorview but what else is there?

My apologies, I'm sure this is something that's asked a lot on the forum.

swoofer

have a read here

http://www.boards.ie/search/submit/?query=ditching+sky

I used the search facility

Johnboy1951

Kintarō Hattori wrote: »

Hi Folks,

I've always had a subscription service of some kind. Most years it was Virgin and over the last 12 months I've had Sky. I've been thinking though that perhaps I should ditch these and look at alternatives. Can you help enlighten me as to what options are on the table if you don't want to take a subscription tv service. I know I can look at Saorview but what else is there?

My apologies, I'm sure this is something that's asked a lot on the forum.

It is totally dependent on your TV channel needs.
I use a combination of Satellite and Terrestrial, and have maybe 90 channels that are watchable at times, without any subscription.
I do not require subscription sports channels, nor subscription film channels, so I have no need for any subscription TV service.

Your needs might differ and so the solution for you will be different.
Without knowing your needs (rather than 'it would be nice to have') no one can give you a reasonably accurate answer.

_Brian

There are a raft of Android options to be explored too, ditched Sky 10 years ago - thought it was too dear then !

The Cush

Freesat is the most obvious Sky-like plug & play option for the satellite channels, with 7 day guide, recording, series linking etc. - https://www.tvchannellists.com/List_of_channels_on_Freesat_(UK)
http://www.freesat.co.uk/get-freesat

A non-Freesat generic FTA satellite receiver will give you access to a wide range of free to air satellite channels without 7 day guide, series linking, channels LCNs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free-to-air_channels_at_28%C2%B0E

Mint Sauce

I use Freesat for the UK stations, gets all your BBCs, ITVs, C4s, and C5s, along with other free to air channels. Has built in apps, for both subscription such as Netflix, and none sub, such as youtube. Also has red button, but cant access BBC on demand, as recognises a none UK IP being used. Oddly also blocks 4OD, despite it being available on laptop and tablet to Irish IPs. The top end boxes (I have a Humax) also come with up to 1TB of recording space, the 7 day TV guide as above, and also auto tunes, if stations change frequency, or if new ones added.

Also use a Chromecast, that gets around the 4OD issue, and to watch Eurosport. Netflix, and Eurosport are the only TV that I pay for (other than the licence).

The odd time that I watch RTE, I use Saorview.

Kintarō Hattori

Many thanks for all the helpful replies folks. We wouldn't have any need for sports or movies, to be honest most of what I watch would be the likes of BBC News, Family Guy etc. Wen I do watch TV it tends to be late at night and it's mostly just crap that I don't have to process to hard before I go to sleep- Police Ten 7, Motorway Cops etc, so to be honest I don't really have any specific needs. She would watch boxsets more than anything else. We never watch RTE or any of the Irish channels so I don't think I need to have Saorview.

I've had both a Spotify and Netflix subscription for years and have a Chromecast. I know Android is an option but that will be too fiddly for my partner so I want to keep it as easy to access and operate as possible. It looks like Freesat iis probably the way to go but looking at the non-Freesat option, it appears to be much the same channels? What do you get on terrestrial that you don't get on Freesat?

Johnboy1951

Kintarō Hattori wrote: »

Many thanks for all the helpful replies folks. We wouldn't have any need for sports or movies, to be honest most of what I watch would be the likes of BBC News, Family Guy etc. Wen I do watch TV it tends to be late at night and it's mostly just crap that I don't have to process to hard before I go to sleep- Police Ten 7, Motorway Cops etc, so to be honest I don't really have any specific needs. She would watch boxsets more than anything else. We never watch RTE or any of the Irish channels so I don't think I need to have Saorview.

I've had both a Spotify and Netflix subscription for years and have a Chromecast. I know Android is an option but that will be too fiddly for my partner so I want to keep it as easy to access and operate as possible. It looks like Freesat iis probably the way to go but looking at the non-Freesat option, it appears to be much the same channels? What do you get on terrestrial that you don't get on Freesat?

The Irish channels ....... not FTA on Astra Satellite
RTE1 HD
RTE2 HD
TV3
3e
be3
TG4
NewsNow
RTE1+1
Oireachtais
RTE Junior

Freesat is a user interface to the Free to Air channels.
You get the same Satellite channels from both.

MBSnr

Mint Sauce wrote: »

Oddly also blocks 4OD, despite it being available on laptop and tablet to Irish IPs.

This is actually due to the URL on the Freesat box for 4OD being different (and seemingly IP geo-blocked) than the one for 4OD on PC and tablet.