BBC HD

[Paula54]

I've just got off the phone with sky. BBC and ITV are pixilated on my Sky Q box. I was informed that I would have to upgrade to HD to continue to use these channels. An extra £9 per month on top of the TV licence. Absolutely fuming 

[xenon81]

That's not correct, the BBC and ITV HD channels are free and don't require a Sky HD subscription. They just need to send an engineer to check your dish alignment as that is the most common cause of picture break up. 

[nigea99]

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@xenon81 wrote:

That's not correct, the BBC and ITV HD channels are free and don't require a Sky HD subscription. They just need to send an engineer to check your dish alignment as that is the most common cause of picture break up. 

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@Paula54 

So sorry you have been given such bad advice

What @xenon81 is correct  - BBC1 HD & ITV HD are actually free to air and not strictly part of your subscription (although one is needed to be able to use SKY Q)

I am afraid you will need to call again and insist they send an engineer and personally I would suggest you raise a formal complaint asking for your previous conversation to be reviewed. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@Paula54 wrote:

 I was informed that I would have to upgrade to HD to continue to use these channels. 

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I suspect that's a CS person getting confused with the cessation of SD satellite broadcast by the BBC (and some ITV regions) which happened on Monday and Tuesday this week.  All Sky Q boxes are HD-capable, and as noted above, all BBC and ITV HD broadcast channels are free-to-air and so don't require the Sky HD add-on to view them.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/reception/work-warning/news/hd-2023

I'd note the text from the BBC does resemble what you were told, but in this case is potentially very misleading.

" If you are still using SD satellite equipment you now need to upgrade to HD to be able to watch BBC channels. "