If I were to cancel Sky completely, would I still be able to receive all the Free to Air channels on the Sky HD box? I would assume that Sky would have no right to prevent me watching them or can they stop them because it is their equipment?
You can, and I understand that if you leave the cancelled sky card in the box, you can receive the Free to View channels as well (i.e. those listed as FreeSatFromSky rather than just FreeSat)
There are a few channels that are available on FreeView you still won't get without paying such as Dave and Quest. Also you won't get HD versions of the "Five" channels.
Some years ago you had to make a one off payment of around £30 or something to use the sky box. Dunno if it's still the same but I bought a free-sat box anyway as the sky HD box kept dropping signal on one of the tuners.
But dave and Quest can be had on terrestril for free. Brian
Ok, thanks for your input.
Thanks for your views and links.
Pull the card out and see what you can still watch. Note "watch". Pretty sure the EPG will still list all the subscription channels but without an active subscription card you won't be able to watch 'em. This can be a PITA, you see something you'd like to watch in the EPG then find you can't.
Be aware of the two levels of "free". There is "Free To Air" (FTA), no card required (subscription active or not), this is how the Freesat channels (BBC ITV etc) are transmitted. The other is "Free to View" (FTV), you need a card to view these channels but it doesn't need have to have an active subscription. This is (was?) known as "Freesat from Sky", you used to have pay a £20, one off(*) fee, for a card. Not sure which, if any, channels are FTV these days.
(*) For the life of that particular issue of card.
Ok, cheers.
No they don't do that. You will still get the FTA channels but not FTV.
IIRC, you won't be able to record anything or even play back what's already recorded.
Yes, I had a feeling that would happen.
With respect to the guys here, ask in uk.tech.digital-tv. There are some bods in there, Bod.
You would still receive them (in HD), but Sky prevent you from using the recording feature. This should be illegal, but somehow they get away with it by saying you were renting their recording software, even though you actually own the box. I regard preventing you using your own equipment as blatant theft.
Cheers.
It's been answered by Uncle Peter and another poster, but thanks.
Apparently it was originally because of the 13.9% EU import duty on PVRs
- by making the record function a separate chargeable service they avoided this. However Sky won an appeal in 2011 to have Sky+ boxes reclassified to avoid the import duty, but didn't change the pricing policy.
You can pay £10 a month to keep the Sky+ recording function if you want, but it's probably cheaper in the long run to get a Freesat PVR.
On Mon, 01 Dec 2014 12:35:43 -0000, Reentrant w= rote:
Sky are a bunch of thieves.
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They sell a product that people want to buy. You don't need sky.
Yes at least you can say no. Unlike the BBC.
Er...
"If you only ever watch 'on demand' programmes, you don't need a TV Licence. On demand includes catch-up TV, streaming or downloading programmes after they've been shown on live TV, or programmes available online before being shown on TV."
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