Freesat any good?

26/04/05 @ 06:13

This post is not related to the web in any way, but who said I had to stick to that theme. Back is September ‘04 I posted about my purchase of a Freeview box because I wanted more choice, but did not want to shell out for Sky.

Now, however I have spotted , from the makers of Sky and it looks pretty decent with 120 channels instead of my current 30 or so. My question is, is it worth getting? Has anyone out there got it? Is there another better service? Let’s hope my blog is popular enough to get a response :) Thanks.

Comments

  1. (04/26/2005 03:36 PM) #

    I have Sky Digital at the moment and get most of the channels accept for the sports. I pay a fair amount for it a month.

    The funny thing is I never watch it, because I’m always coding something lol, having said that my wife and daughter do a lot.

    Feesat is £150 one-off payment. If you said Sky was £30 a month, after 5 months that’s your £150.

    I would be interested to see exactly what channels you get? I can’t see it being all of the regular channels?

  2. Dave (04/27/2005 01:53 AM) #

    I looked around the site and basically it’s all rubbish channels – No E4. No Sky One. No MTV. It does say you can upgrade it to ‘proper Sky’ at any time.

  3. Dave Budd (05/09/2005 08:26 PM) #

    We’re getting it installed on Sunday. Where we live we can’t get Freeview and we don’t get 5 on terrestrial. No loss, some might say, but there’s a little bit of motorsport on 5 that I wouldn’t mind seeing. As much as anything we want Cbeebies for our kid. And the poker channel, obviously.

  4. Dave Budd (05/25/2005 08:36 PM) #

    Well, we got FreeSat. NOT equivalent to Freeview at all. If you can get Freeview, it’ll be better, for those that don’t want any Sky channels. But we can’t get Freeview where we are, so the FreeSat gets us soem of the stuff we were missign and wanted – BBC3&4, ITV2&3, Cbeebies, poker channel, Five (yes our terrestrial didn’t even have that). And the pictures better than our terrestrial was, and there’s radio stations we can’t get coz of the hills, and the extreme sports channel.

  5. Sarah (05/30/2005 09:30 PM) #

    Freeview and Freesat are very similar (I have both – long story), but you don’t get E4 with freesat. But, you do get a couple of movie channels (if you like old movies – B&W, 1970s/80s etc.). Depends really on where you want to use it – do you get good freeview reception? Freesat is more expensive. Personally, I’d go for freeview.

  6. Dave (05/30/2005 10:48 PM) #

    Reception really isn’t a problem where I live because you can literally see the antenna from my window – I don’t even need a proper aerial; a portable one does the job brilliantly (maybe even a coat hanger might work)

    Now I have E4, Iam pretty much happy with my Freeview investment. Talking of which it would not surprise me to see E4 of Freestat soon, as channel 4 are paying the value of lost subscription fees by pulling it as a pay channel.

  7. John (06/02/2005 08:14 AM) #

    Hi
    Dave when do you think that E4 will be availiable on Freesat, because we have freesat and because we cant get freeview.
    Also do you think sky sports news will ever be availiable on Freesat because what i dont get is thats a sky channel and they give it to freeview (bbc) people and not freesat (sky) people. Makes no sense to me.

    Anyone else got any ideas on this?????

    Thanks

  8. Dave (06/02/2005 08:27 AM) #

    Well I hate to say that E4 won�t be available until 2008 onwards when the current contact between Sky and Channel 4 expires � that is the latest info.

    Not so sure about Sky Sports News, I would have thought that it should be on Freesat (like you said). I will have a look about.

  9. John (06/02/2005 08:32 AM) #

    Thanks
    Yeah ive just got to hope that the bbc upgrades some of their transmitters so that i can get Freeview, i suppose.

    As with Sky sports news thanks for looking � i havent got a clue.

  10. Dave (06/04/2005 08:39 PM) #

    Official response:

    “Unfortunately, Sky has no plans at present to broadcast this channel on Freesat, however, your interest has been noted and passed to the relevant department for their information. At present this channel is part of our Family Package.”

  11. (06/05/2005 04:44 AM) #

    I have Freesat. I downgraded from pay sky to don’t pay. saved me fiddling around with a freeview box as i already had the sky kit. bit of a shame about no E4 but BB is cr*p anyway!!

  12. nigel (02/27/2007 11:17 AM) #

    I live up in the welsh mountains and the Tv. reception depends on the weather. I’v shopped around for Freesat but the suppliers around here put an extra £80 on instalation costs. So a one off payment is xxxxxxx. Sort it out sky.