Freesat replacing Sky

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Hi all
I've checked the search feature on this subject but all the posts are old & with the speed that technology moves I'm hoping for some up-to-date advice.
We've been Sky customers for around ten years but now need to prune our financial outgoings & are considering Freesat.
We have a Sky dish/box & a terrestrial aerial. The latter will not currently produce a signal, but I suspect the fault lies with the boosters (installed to allow two extra room extensions twenty years ago) rather than the aerial itself. On the assumption that many installation outfits are financially biased when it comes to advice (no apologies for my cynicism) I thought this forum would be the place to come for advice.
Many thanks for reading.
 
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In very broad terms, if you have/had a regular Sky/Sky+/Sky+HD set-up, then you'll be able to swap the Sky box for a Freesat receiver/recorder as simple as just swapping the cables over. Humax made decent Freesat PVRs, but I don't think they're still available to buy new any more. There are some changes afoot with Freesat.

Freesat is a joint venture between the BBC and ITV. They gave the contract to Humax to make Freesat boxes, but that agreement ended as of September/October last year. The new contract went to a French firm called Arris. They promised to make the next generation of Freesat recorder; the big feature being 4K compatibility; except they didn't. Not for a long time. It has taken over six months for Arris to get its act together and deliver Freesat recorders.

Their product line-up now is one receiver and three recorders ranging in HD size from 500GB, 1 TB and 2 TB. You'll find them online and at Currys as the Freesat UHD-4X range. All the recorders have two tuners available when connected to a dish used for Sky+/Sky+HD. This mimics what a Sky+/Sky+HD box could do which is either record one channel while watching another, or record two channels at the same time so long as you either watch one of them or play back a previous recording. All of the boxes will receive HD channels.

Change the LNB to a wideband version as used by Sky Q then these recorders are able to make four recordings simultaneously.

The 4K compatibility is limited to streaming sources rather than satellite channel reception. The boxes have a smattering of streaming apps such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, Youtube and Netflix. If you subscribe to Netflix and can access their 4K UHD content then the Arris boxes can display it on a suitable 4K UHD TV.

Can I use my old Sky box?

Yes, but with some provisos. Firstly, Sky uses its own EPG channel guide, so it doesn't follow what you have on Freesat. Put more simply, you'll still have all the Sky channels to flick past in between those channels that you get for free. Next, you won't get as many HD channels. Sky repackages the HD channels as a cost option bundle. Once you're out of contract and no longer paying a monthly subscription for HD then these channels will disappear for you. It doesn't matter that they appear free on Freesat. Sky isn't giving you Freesat. It's giving you Free-to-Air satellite. That's a different thing.

The question everyone asks is "can I still record?" The answer to that is very likely not. There may have been some older boxes that missed out on a program update which means they could (for a while at least) still use the recording feature. AFAIK, that loophole has been closed.


Freesat pros and cons:

pro; the picture quality is a tad better than Freeview because it's not as heavily modified
pro; there are more HD channels on Freesat than there are on Freeview
pro; aside from the cost of the box, it's an easy swap to go from Sky to Freesat

con; you need a Freesat box for each TV if you're not going to get the aerial sorted
con; getting wiring from the dish to other rooms can be a pain
con; the standard 4-output Sky LNB only supports two recorders... and before you ask, satellite signal cables can't be split as you would with aerial signal cables

There's also a side issue that Freesat lacks a few stations found on Freeview. The most notable are Ch4 HD, All4, and the online streaming portal 4OD.


Freeview isn't perfect, but it might be worth you investigating getting a new aerial.





If you go for Freesat
 
Many thanks Lucid for your very comprehensive explanation, I will consider your advice & come to a decision.

Stay safe.
 
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Hi Lucid, can I sort of borrow this thread and ask if these UHD 4x boxes will work with a feed or feeds from a multiswitch setup
 
My freeview does not include commercial channels, it does depend where you live, my old Sky boxes will still work with no card, however I am not so sure about new Sky Q, non of the old sky boxes will record, and the old Sky boxes are not as good as free to air boxes, I use an Icecrypt STC3250CCIHD this is both freeview and free to air so it is seamless between the two. But the order of programs is what I have arranged, it does not follow sky or freesat order.

I am able to plug a hard drive into the Icecrypt but needs good USB leads, there is no question the sky does work better, but I would not miss the Sky Q myself except for the powerline adaptor function.
 
Hi Lucid, can I sort of borrow this thread and ask if these UHD 4x boxes will work with a feed or feeds from a multiswitch setup

It's a relevant question, so I don't see the harm. It's not my thread though.

As far as the UHD-4X boxes goes, the short answer is 'Yes'.

Quite how they'll behave depends on whether the LNB is a basic quattro or a wideband, and of course, the compatibility of the multiswitch; which is a given, really.

Where the LNB and multiswitch system is geared up to distribute for Sky Q, then any UHD-4X boxes should offer 4 tuner recording.

LNB/multiswitch systems geared up for standard Freesat or ordinary Sky will work with the UHD-4X boxes too, but the boxes will revert to two-tuner recording mode.

Either way then, they'll work. The difference is whether it's two-channel recording or 4-.
 
Have swopped my sky to humax FreeSat and also have aerial connection so get all channels available on main tv, use aerial feed for others.Only outlay now is £23 a month for web access.
 
Have swopped my sky to humax FreeSat and also have aerial connection so get all channels available on main tv, use aerial feed for others.Only outlay now is £23 a month for web access.

With the £23 shared between web browsing, email, software updates and the TV itself.
 
Not sure what you mean, web access is just that.

My own web access was primarily installed, for email and browsing, streaming to TV came along much later. My assumption was that your Internet access would have similar uses, so unfair to apportion the entire £23 to TV streaming.
 
My own web access was primarily installed, for email and browsing, streaming to TV came along much later. My assumption was that your Internet access would have similar uses, so unfair to apportion the entire £23 to TV streaming.
I didn’t
 
@Harry Bloomfield , maybe I'm not reading this in the same way you are, but I don't see where @foxhole said that £23/month was just for TV streaming.

If someone says to me "web access", I kind of take it as read that they mean their internet service. What it's used for - be it email, surfing, streaming or whatever - that's incidental.
 

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