Alternatives to Sky?

[gadgetman]

What package do you have? I have you already cut out bits you don't use?

[RazeVRS]

Don't know if you've sorted your tv issues yet?

We've had YouView installed a week now,having thought about FreesatHD boxes.

It works great ,they turned up with a new Nrouter ,and tweaked the line response to improve the download speed.

The YouView box includes integrated Iplayer/On demand which is easily accessible from the EPG screen,even my technophobe lady can use it! :-)

You can buy the box ,or if you're with BT or TalkTalk ,they do phone line+24calls+u/ltd Internet+YouView box deals for £30 all in!

Then if /when the next tv thing comes along in a couple of years time you can change to that. ;-)

Edited 24 January, 2013 by RazeVRS

[mannyo]

Youview is no good in areas with limited freeview, for example I would hardly get any channels at all since it relies on Freeview to get the live TV. For £30 a month, I can get BT infinity, have a much faster connection and use what I already have for catchup TV. I don't see youview being successful in the long term since it offers nothing over what is already available.

[Skully]

YouView is wife friendly.

Much easier for my wife to go back a few days in the TV Guide and press ok than get the laptop or sit at the desk and watch a TV show on the computer, through iPlayer or similar.

It cost me the same to upgrade to TV with Talk Talk. £30 for phone and broadband or £30 for TV, phone and broadband. I made the right choice.

[@Lee]

Does YouView offer more tham what I already get from my BT Vision (Black box) service. On that I get iPlayer, ITV Player 4OD, Demand 5. 2 week planner, dual channel recording, pause, rewind live TV, BT Vision films and some other stuff I've probably missed. Also got Freesat HD but hardly use that as there's no 5 in HD, no Quest on 38, so no 'Mighty Ships' etc.

It seems that the YouView box is just a rebooted BT Vision box. The good thing about my BT Vision box is that watching iPlayer etc or downloading movies doesn't count towards your internet data allowance. I wonder how many will buy a YouView box without realising how much data they are using (if not on an unlimited package) Or does watching iPlayer etc on YouView not count towards your data?

[Aspman]

A couple more years and YouView boxes will disappear inside the tvs. They're just specialised web browsers / media recorders. It took a long time for YouView to appear because all the various companies had to agree to particular formats and standards. The techy stuff is a piece of **** these days.

I think FreeSat has their own version either here or on it's way......

Yes it's called Free<Time> and is basically the same idea as YouView.

[Dean-]

Stick with the broadband - Buy a raspberry pi and run XBMC

[Skully]

It's basically the same as BT Vision.

No idea if the data contributes to your allowance, I average around 400GB a month anyway!

[MartynVRS]

My cousin had it to replace Sky. It's a lot cheaper but he does miss the amount of channels. He just streams the rest via other means. I've never had Sky, we went Virgin mainly for broadband. We did the 3 for £30 offer but it started going up every month to the point it was nearly £45 and we weren't getting anything extra. We cancelled the TV package but they let us keep the box so we still get all the Freeview channels and use of their On Demand service which we use a lot

[Padrino]

I would offer you something different. Go to your local ALDI, they have on offer Motorhome Satellite system running on 12 or 220 V. Included in the box is everything, from the 35 cm dish, receiver, remote and even10m coaxial cable from the dish to the receiver. At the moment they are on offer for £29.99 (at least the one next to me) A friend got one last week and now he is watching 140+ chanels. You have more than 20 satellites over Europe and around 90% of the chanels are free INCLUDING Sky Sport and all the premier football (if you like the game)

Have a look here:

http://www.digital-direct-aerials.co.uk/index.php/eurosat

[MartynVRS]

I looked at that for the F1 but after doube checking I can get a good line of sight with the satellites. There's a new house in the way

[the mad monk]

whilst i agree with Padrino's advice im not sure a 35cm dish will suffice, i use a 90cm mesh dish and struggle with some sats although i do get all i need

[Padrino]

whilst i agree with Padrino's advice im not sure a 35cm dish will suffice, i use a 90cm mesh dish and struggle with some sats although i do get all i need

I am sure you are correct regarding the size of the dish, but he could pick up second hand better size dish from gumtree for maybe 10/15 quid. For the price they sell them in ALDI you just can't beat them

I was looking at ASTRA satellite website, At the moment they have over 300 FREE English language chanels for UK cover and this is just one of the satelites

The best thing about this whole set up is that if you DO NOT watch TV from UK provider by law you don't have to pay TV license ... now this is a deal

Edited 26 January, 2013 by Padrino

[mannyo]

It's basically the same as BT Vision.

No idea if the data contributes to your allowance, I average around 400GB a month anyway!

Yes, the data download does come from your usage allowance as stated on the youview website.

We recommend a minimum broadband speed of 3Mb/s (you can check your speed with our clever little app below). Watching on demand and catch up programmes will count towards any monthly broadband data allowance you may have.

As a rule of thumb watching one hour of Standard Definition Catch-up TV or On Demand uses about 1GB of data. (High Definition (HD) TV uses a lot more.) So if your limit is 10GB/month, you’ll use it up by watching ten hours of catch-up or On Demand TV in that month. If you’re also using your broadband for other things, like downloading files on your computer, you’ll hit your limit more quickly. Standard digital TV, which comes through your aerial, won’t affect your broadband usage.

[Dr Zoidberg]

I'd go for the BT deal with infinity and a YouView box (it's a very good one made by Humax) assuming you have free view coverage. Most US shows can be found online if you know where to look.

[@Lee]

I'd go for the BT deal with infinity and a YouView box (it's a very good one made by Humax) assuming you have free view coverage. Most US shows can be found online if you know where to look.

+1 Although if ESPN, Sky Sports 1 or 2 were required, you'd need to go for the BT Vision box rather than the YouView box which would then mean no HD channels (there's only four anyway)

Note: The sports channels will only be available to Infinity customers from 22nd Feb

[V8 Dave]

My combined Sky bill is 81.50 for phone broadband and TV. I've got a second SD box in the bedroom and the HD package. I tried to speak to Skys retention team as Virgin are doing some good offers at the moment (admittedly, our flats are not cabled, so Sky is our only option - I was kinda hoping they'd not know this though...)

The attitude of the girl that dealt with me was horrendous - I said that Virgin were doing a good job to tempt me in, and could they make me a deal. She tried to give me Sky Anytime (a free service that I have no interest in). When I said what are they going to do, they said absolutely nothing, there are no offers on they can give me and I can lump it.

Shocked doesn't even begin to cover it. As soon as I'm able to move out of this crapshack into a real house, Sky will be told to poke it up their arse.

[walejase]

Stick with the broadband - Buy a raspberry pi and run XBMC

Have you put Navi-x on it yet? Awesome add-on.

[Dean-]

Have you put Navi-x on it yet? Awesome add-on.

Yea had that on a while.

You should download Fusion to your Pi - Saves having to mess about with memory cards etc to add too it. Here is a link

http://www.xbmchub.com/blog/2012/04/24/fusion-easy-addon-installation-for-xbmc/