Receive Freesat on a Skybox question

A friend is upgrading and has offered me his working Sky box.

Would I be able to use the Skybox to receive the non Sky Freesat service?

Thanks

Alt Beer wrote:
A friend is upgrading and has offered me his working Sky box.

Would I be able to use the Skybox to receive the non Sky Freesat service?

You'd get quite a choice of free TV and radio channels on it, including the
main five TV ones.

Get him to pull out his viewing card, and you'll see what's available

The only problem would be the wrong regions for BBC 1, 2, and/or ITV.

Without a viewing card, and with a reboot, the box defaults to BBC 1 London,
BBC 2 England, and ITV Central West Midlands.

Your local BBC 1 (and if applicable BBC 2) can be found up in the 900s, but
not the other ITV regions (except for London), though the correct ITV region
can be added into the 'Other Channels' menu without too much fuss.


--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

www.paras.org.uk

Alt Beer wrote:
A friend is upgrading and has offered me his working Sky box.


As I understand it, FreeSat is an EPG. I would expect you to be able to
receive free to air channels, including some, or all, of those in
FreeSat, but not the actual FreeSat EPG.

Mark Carver wrote:
Alt Beer wrote:
A friend is upgrading and has offered me his working Sky box.

Would I be able to use the Skybox to receive the non Sky Freesat service?

You'd get quite a choice of free TV and radio channels on it, including
the main five TV ones.

Get him to pull out his viewing card, and you'll see what's available

The only problem would be the wrong regions for BBC 1, 2, and/or ITV.

Without a viewing card, and with a reboot, the box defaults to BBC 1
London,
BBC 2 England, and ITV Central West Midlands.

Your local BBC 1 (and if applicable BBC 2) can be found up in the 900s,
but not the other ITV regions (except for London), though the correct
ITV region can be added into the 'Other Channels' menu without too much
fuss.


In other words it's a pain in the arse.

Bill

Bill Wright wrote:

Your local BBC 1 (and if applicable BBC 2) can be found up in the
900s, but not the other ITV regions (except for London), though the
correct ITV region can be added into the 'Other Channels' menu without
too much fuss.


In other words it's a pain in the arse.

In other, other words, get a Freesat box, and if possible an HD one.

(The BBC/ITV regions are set by entering your (or whoever's you like) postcode
during the set up process.

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

www.paras.org.uk

On Mon, 03 Dec 2012 19:22:06 +0000, David Woolley
wrote:

Alt Beer wrote:
A friend is upgrading and has offered me his working Sky box.


As I understand it, FreeSat is an EPG. I would expect you to be able to
receive free to air channels, including some, or all, of those in
FreeSat, but not the actual FreeSat EPG.

True, but don't forget that B Sky B's own subscriptionless service is
called Freesat (from Sky).

--
Graham.
%Profound_observation%

"Alt Beer" wrote in message
...
A friend is upgrading and has offered me his working Sky box.

Would I be able to use the Skybox to receive the non Sky
Freesat service?
Thanks



As others have said it will work.

If your friend is getting HD it may be that his box comes with a
new card. If so then have the old box and his old viewing card
which will revert to the FTA and FTV channels only when it has
been deactivated.

[FTA=free to air - channels you can watch without a viewing card.
FTV=free to view for which you will need a card as it gives you
access to the otherwise free channels that are still encrypted
with Sky. FTA is BBC1/BBC2/ITV/Ch4/five, whereas FTV is such as
the siblings of five, Pick TV, Film 4 and a few others.]

Otherwise get yourself a freesat viewing card which is a once off
payment of £25. Then you will get the correct channels for your
region in the right slots.

Oh, and don't believe the pap that Sky will throw at you. The
card does NOT need to be registered to the box if you are not
watching premium channels. If the box is active then any card put
in it will work. It does not need to be connected to a telephone
line either, so long as the box is over a year old.


--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com

"Alt Beer" wrote in message ...

A friend is upgrading and has offered me his working Sky box.

Would I be able to use the Skybox to receive the non Sky Freesat service?

Thanks

*****


Yes.
Regards
David

I think I read somewhere that if the Sky box is HD then the record capability is disabled unless you subscribe to Sky HD free to
view at subscription cost of £10 per month.

If this is true and the box is HD but I don't tune to HD channels would I be able to record without paying the £10 per month?

Thanks



"Alt Beer" wrote in message ...
A friend is upgrading and has offered me his working Sky box.

Would I be able to use the Skybox to receive the non Sky Freesat service?
Thanks

Graham. wrote:

True, but don't forget that B Sky B's own subscriptionless service is
called Freesat (from Sky).

Strictly speaking, "Freesat from Sky" - no brackets.


--
SteveT