Well I guess I'm about to find out

We have had a Sky package for about ten years and currently have Movies and HD pack tacked on which takes it to just under £50 P/M.

We have been talking of dumping them for a while (since last year) but have kept putting it off. A decision which has clearly cost us well over £500 Yesterday we purchased a Humax Freesat+ box from Richer Sounds so that's it Sky are going to receive their 30 days notice.

On setting up the Freesat the first thing we noticed was how much clearer the Humax is when compared to the Sky Box. We have always thought the freeview signal received on the TV was better than Sky, well the SD content on the Humax looks miles better and watching BBC HD was like having a new TV.

Only concern we have is which channels we will miss? I know that Dave is not on freesat but that can be seen on freeview and recorded on the PC if needed and then streamed round the house on the network

I'd miss Sky Sports for sure and probably Comedy Central.

I pay £100 per month for a service called 'Du' over here, I have pretty much 600 channels of absolutely nothing worth watching. Sky isn't all that bad when you compare it to other counties attempts at satellite TV.

Most of my viewing is done via a VPN and watch the online BBC, ITV and 4OD selection.

I suppose it depends on how hooked you were to Sky, with sports, cinema, HD, etc., and how much you really watched?

I've been disappointed to see only ITV HD and C4 HD channels come along since I started with Freesat several years ago, when only BBC HD and BBC1 HD channels were available. There is also a Japanese station NHK in HD, and in non-Freesat mode there was another station I forget the name of.

I've never had Sky (and never will do) but I always disliked the EPG and the remote, I think the Humax is much better, and I have programmed the remote to run the TV, DVD and receiver.

I can always revert to Freeview on the TV, but when comparing SD broadcasts on Freesat vs. Freeview, often Freeview is slightly better. But I don't have Freeview HD (and never had Sky HD) so can't comment. BBC HD always shows stuff in true HD, BBC1 HD sometimes has upscaled stuff, and some of the apparently HD stuff on ITV HD is not much better than SD.

You have Film 4 on Freesat, but that's about it for movie channels unless you count the various Movies 4 Men, horror channels, etc.

You can connect the Humax to a network and use it to watch BBC iPlayer and the ITV version, but not yet C4OD. One of the best things you can do with Humax is to install Raydon's firmware to allow you to copy and stream recordings to your PC, smartphone, tablet, etc. To read all about it and decide if it's what you want, start here: http://myhumax.org/forum/topic/media-file-server-bundle-for-the-foxsat-hdr-release-40

To install the sotware, first of all go to this page http://myhumax.org/blog/?page_id=166 and download the 7.94 Mb file with the name starting "raydons..." (Raydon is the "name" of the guy that wrote the software).

The only reason I have sky is premier league football and Sky Go on my phone.

My parents don't have Sky, but they have my username and password so they can watch sky on their PC. If you have any family or close friends with sky, they maybe kind enough to share their details with you.

I only got it for the F1 when it was on offer in late February. I struggle to find anything on freeview nowadays and am so used to pausing and rewinding stuff that I don't think I would ever want to get rid of it. Saying that, I only have the standard hd pack with F1. I don't think I'd need anything else. It saves me having to wait for things to be released like Game of Thrones, Bones and Fringe (but doesn't save me anything financially) but that's worth paying a premium for to keep me entertained every night for a year, pretty much.

we;ll be cancelling sky next month as the offer runs out in dec. we got all channels bar sports for £20pm,otherwise itll be going upto normal price of about £50pm..

i like 'How i met your parents, Rules of engagement (mmmm audry The big bang theory and ugly betty,oh and scrubs. which are all on freeview anyhow

I have never had Sky so i dont miss it. I just cant come to terms with all the different payment packages that folks in the UK have and the amounts they pay.
I have a Sky freeview with a standard sky decoder which someone gave me years ago.

Yes i am pissed of about the lack of sport on my TV chanels.But i dont loose sleep over it.

I suppose i spend more money on restaurents and socialising.

We have Virgin's TiVo. We only wanted it for the ability to pause and record TV and we had their broadband already so it made sense.

I can't fault it. There's loads of on demand stuff we can watch ad I've never experienced issues with signal in the year we've had it.

We don't have sports channels because I'm of the opinion that if there's a rugby match on Sky that I have to watch then I'll go to the pub.

I was on an original sky deal at half price. When it went up to £68 I think I cancelled stating it was two expensive with 30 days notice.
On the 30 days they called my up an offered the half deal again for another 12 months.
Likely they will too.

I've just had youview installed through talktalk and it has all the freeview channels and the on demand stuff and you can add boosts which gives you selected sky channels starting at a fiver a month with no contract. It also records and you can even rent films.

I've only had it since wednesday so not had much chance of fully exploring its capabilities yet, as for sky, had it once, never again. When it rained I couldn't watch a thing and it always rains here

Bob have you actually rung sky to cancel yet? You'll have a fight on you hands as they don't let go of customers easily. As Coupedummy has revealed you may find them cutting your current deal in half in order to keep you.

I call up on an annual basis, and the deals I'm offered vary. This year it was line rental for £3 for a year, a 25% saving on my overall cost. The best I've had is half price everything for 12 months.

I have also been with Sky since it was invented

I had enough of them a couple of years ago and bought a Humax freeview recorder.

I couldn't wait to get rid of the Humax and was back with Sky in 12 months.

I don't watch much tv, but when I do watch it and use the Sky box, it just works, as it should and how it should and is consistant.

The Humax box was very annoying compared to Sky and I like my life to be simple

I was with Sky for years, then cancelled and moved to Freesat and, at the start of this year, got a Humax box for our main telly, with the old Sky boxes providing Freesat for my bedroom and my daughter's room.

I don't miss any of the Sky content, and I love having iPlayer on the Humax, although I wish they'd hurry up and add 4OD.

I find the Humax EPG isn't as good as the Sky version, but other than that I've no regrets about the change.

As Red Dwarf was on Dave yesterday I went to the trouble of wiring my TV up to an aerial (it's never been connected to one before because, although we can actually see a transmitter on the other side of the Tyne Valley it's powered by 2 AA batteries, or something, so we were never able to get a decent analogue signal and it didn't switch to digital broadcasting until last month) to get Freeview.

Annoyingly I only got 21 channels, and Dave wasn't one of them, so it looks like I'm going to have to venture into the loft this weekend to make an effort to point the aerial in the right direction.

I have done this several times in the past, it's how I got Sky+ and then Sky HD. To be honest though this is one of the reasons why I am ditching them. If they can afford to offer such cut price deals each time you call then clearly they are overcharging. So much for a competetive customer focused and customer driven market. I also find it frustrating that even though you pay them for a service they still bombard your set with advertising There is also the fact that even though you own your Sky box they block you from using its PVR functions unless you Pay them. These are some of the many reasons why I have decided to use the dish with a Humax box.



Already had this in hand Dave. I have the software I just need to update the box

Dave actually launched a BETA version "On Demand" player yesterday. If you go to their website & sign up you can get to see Red Dwarf on there, no need to go in the loft then

I suspect the loft may be a futile gesture.

If I go to the Freeview availability checker and stick in my post-code then it seems to be suggesting that the transmitter I can see (Newton) isn't carrying Dave.

So, I'd have to point my aerial at the Fenham transmitter in Newcastle, but that doesn't list Dave either.

I'm confused.

Fair enough Bob, thought I'd ask

thats exactly what they did with me. 18 month ago when we first took the sky up,we cancelled after 12 months. a month later they offered me movies and all other channels for half price for £20 (didnt have movies then,too expensive) so after that was up,we cancelled it..a month later they rang us up again asking if we wanted sports for free to which i said no as i dont watch sports much,so i asked for the same as previously cos we have a child,and they said yes Its due to run out start dec which is bit of bad timing due to all films on over xmas..

I've been on cable since the 'trial' by NTL (now Virgin Media), way back when. It's true that you have to regularly check on current deals or upgrades, if you're an existing customer, as the offers for 'new' customers are always very attractive.

My current package is Tivo, extra V+ HD box, XL TV channels (No Sky Movies, blech! But some of their regular ones), 'phone and (supposedly) 60Mbps broadband at around £60 pcm. You have to watch out for the one-off 'installation' charges though.

You had me a bit worried with this comment Theresa

After a week of playing I am actually liking the Humax Foxsat box. I have upgraded the firmware, as suggested adove, and discovered the box can do far more than the Sky unit ever did. The USB ports actually work and I particularly like the networking features and I've only just scratched the surface.

The only element I have found I dislike so far is the lack of a volume punch through on the remote. It would be better if when in Sat mode on the remote, the volume worked the TV volume as it does with sky.

Glad you are liking it Bob.

I agree with you about the volume thing, perhaps being able to reprogram the keys on the remote could be a useful new feature of the custom ROM?

How is your Humax connected to the TV? Direct via HDMI or via an amplifier or recevier? On mine there's an HDMI cable for the picture but the sound is via an optical connector to a receiver, and I thought the lack of the "punch through" on volume was because of this.

Currently taking sound and vision through the HDMI to the TV, though I do have the optical running to the Yamaha amp for movies.

The Volume issue is for when you are watching TV with remote set to run the Humax. The remote lowers the volume on the box, not the set. Also the HD channels don't seem to have any volume control via the Humax, so when you go onto one of those it is either louder or quieter It's all a bit odd unless I'm doing something wrong "POSSIBLY"

Disparate A/V equipment controls are a bit of a nightmare, TBH. Connectivity, Q-link, TOS-link, infrared 'prefix codes' for different equipment types etc.

A 'learning' remote with compound (i.e. multiple power-on/off, mute, volume) button programming capabilities might help. I have a Cambridge Audio M500 which can do all of that, but programming it isn't for the faint of heart.