Alternative to sky q

[dardismagee]

Hi. I'm currently on the tv essentials package and broadband with sky. I have a sky q box. I'm paying £15 basically to record/pause tv. If I cancel I have to give the sky q box back to sky. 

Is there an alternative  box  so I'm not switching cables etc. A straight swap?

Thank u

[nigea99]

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@dardismagee wrote:

Hi. I'm currently on the tv essentials package and broadband with sky. I have a sky q box. I'm paying £15 basically to record/pause tv. If I cancel I have to give the sky q box back to sky. 

Is there an alternative  box  so I'm not switching cables etc. A straight swap?

Thank u

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hi @dardismagee 

Yes a Freesat 4K box will work with the same set up

[oldfella]

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@dardismagee wrote:

Hi. I'm currently on the tv essentials package and broadband with sky. I have a sky q box. I'm paying £15 basically to record/pause tv. If I cancel I have to give the sky q box back to sky. 

Is there an alternative  box  so I'm not switching cables etc. A straight swap?

Thank u

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Hi @dardismagee 

The latest Freesat 4K boxes will work with the Sky Dish and LNB.

https://www.freesat.co.uk/

[Anonymous]

Hi @dardismagee ,

Freesat is a great alternative which works with the Sky dish, you can find more information here: https://www.freesat.co.uk/switching-is-easy . 

As you would be switching from Sky Q then your dish is likely to have a wideband LNB and you will be able to record three different channels while you watch another, or record four different channels while you watch a recording you made earlier (or any programme On Demand).

Freesat 4K boxes are available as recordable or non-recordable; the recordable sounds most suitable, as you are able to pause/rewind and record live TV, whereas the non-recordable box does not allow you to do either.

The Freesat 4k Recordable Box allows you to stream on demand content, record programmes (also using the Freesat app) and pause/rewind live TV.

The 4K Recordable box is available in 500GB (approx. 250 SD hours), 1TB (approx. 500 SD hours) and 2TB (approx. 1000 SD hours).

Regards,

Daniel.

[MattHill]

How are you paying £15pm? I've literally just come off Chat with Sky rep who told me that Sky Signature is the lowest TV package I can have, at £35pm?

[dardismagee]

@MattHill sky don't like to tell you about this package. Its called tv essentials £15 a month. Basically I can still keep the q box and have access to all freeview channels and still b able to record pause rewind etc 

[MattHill]

Wow, this is how they reward me for 22 years with Sky? Lying to me about what packages I can downgrade to?  Thanks for the info 🙂

[GlamRock]

They didn't offer up this info at all during my cancellation convo but the email after says:

"If you are cancelling your TV service and retaining Broadband, you do not need to return the Sky Q Hub or Booster."

Which is well worth knowing!

[Invisiblename]

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@GlamRock wrote:

They didn't offer up this info at all during my cancellation convo but the email after says:

"If you are cancelling your TV service and retaining Broadband, you do not need to return the Sky Q Hub or Booster."

Which is well worth knowing!

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They are not referencing the Sky Q satellite receiver, just the equipment associated with Sky broadband.

[Forever+Customer]

Yeah same here my price went up by 30 to 40% in the last year and they didn't seem to care too much about offering me a better deal after over 22 years of custom.  Then after cancelling I see that the Sky Q box even blocks free services like BBC iPlayer so I've just packaged up my Q box to send back.

The packaging provided for return of equipment is shockingly bad - I can only assume the eqipment goes straight into the trash on return. 

End of an era - shame really all they had to do was knock a tenner a month off and I'd have probably signed up for another year or 2.  Nevermind too late now the Q box gets collected tomorrow.  Time to go shopping for a Freeview or Freesat recorder I guess. 

[Padam_Padam]

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@Forever+Customer wrote:

Yeah same here my price went up by 30 to 40% in the last year and they didn't seem to care too much about offering me a better deal after over 22 years of custom.  Then after cancelling I see that the Sky Q box even blocks free services like BBC iPlayer so I've just packaged up my Q box to send back.

The packaging provided for return of equipment is shockingly bad - I can only assume the eqipment goes straight into the trash on return. 

End of an era - shame really all they had to do was knock a tenner a month off and I'd have probably signed up for another year or 2.  Nevermind too late now the Q box gets collected tomorrow.  Time to go shopping for a Freeview or Freesat recorder I guess. 

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If you have a Freeview antenna then I can recommend the newly launched Manhattan T4-R recorder. Very easy to use, has a full searchable EPG, all the free to air catch up apps, watchlist, etc. Records two channels at once and very easy to skip through ads on recordings. 

[Forever+Customer]

Thanks - I've been trying to find a freview box that can also get the Disney+ app but it seems these boxes only do Netflix & Prime in addition to the usual catch up apps.

[TimmyBGood]

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@Forever+Customer wrote:

 Then after cancelling I see that the Sky Q box even blocks free services like BBC iPlayer so I've just packaged up my Q box to send back.

Without a subscription that's a requirement anyway.

The packaging provided for return of equipment is shockingly bad - I can only assume the eqipment goes straight into the trash on return. 

As far as we know it's refurbished, but after eight years Q is almost certainly at market saturation (and superceded by Glass/Stream) so realistically Sky doesn't need that many spare boxes any more.

Time to go shopping for a Freeview or Freesat recorder I guess.

Be aware that Freesat is only going to be losing channels from now on: Freeview Play is most versatile, with Freely being rather limited at the moment.

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[Forever+Customer]

Yes it does appear that satellite TV's days are numbered.

[Padam_Padam]

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@Forever+Customer wrote:

Thanks - I've been trying to find a freview box that can also get the Disney+ app but it seems these boxes only do Netflix & Prime in addition to the usual catch up apps.

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Depending on how much you record, you may find that your TV has a perfectly good Freeview receiver built in, along with the ability to set recordings to any USB flash or hard drive. That's what I currently do with my Panasonic OLED which has Freeview Play built in. I added a 256Gb USB flash drive (which cost less than £20) and I can record anything easily from the full EPG. It only has a single tuner so can only record one thing at a time but we watch so little free-to-air TV that it's perfectly adequate for our needs. The TV also has all the catch-up apps built in along with Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, Prime, etc but we mainly use an Apple TV 4K box to stream all our TV these days.