Advice please - alternate set up after saying good bye to Sky

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › Advice please - alternate set up after saying good bye to Sky

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Rikkitic

Awrrr
18657 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#1764324 14-Apr-2017 14:12

lazza58:

Thank you all folks for your contributions. I'm grateful, and there are definitely some things here I'm going to follow up on. I'm now realising that my level of expertise is actually novicese. Serious question - where do you go or who do you see to learn about all this stuff? Thanks again

Geekzone is a fantastic resource and the one I have learned most from, both directly through information and help from other members and indirectly through following up on references others make. People here are knowledgeable, helpful and generous with their time. There is a reason why GZ is so highly regarded.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

davidcole

6029 posts

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Trusted

#1764334 14-Apr-2017 14:24

lazza58:
Thank you all folks for your contributions. I'm grateful, and there are definitely some things here I'm going to follow up on. I'm now realising that my level of expertise is actually novicese. Serious question - where do you go or who do you see to learn about all this stuff? Thanks again

You just start. Start small and cheap. And work up from there. I got started with an analog tuner card and myth tv running on a pc and over the years bought new hardware and tried other software.

Been using pvr software for about 10ish years now. And actually find with all the OnDemand services that we don't actually need recording ability any more. The same goes with media centres/media players. You just get one and see just wait goes. Sell it off if it doesn't, get another one. Rinse and repeat.

Previously known as psycik

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vexxxboy

4243 posts

Uber Geek

#1764384 14-Apr-2017 14:30

lazza58:

Sports is the only reason we've got Sky. But it's significantly cheaper to get rid of it, subscribe online to the sports I want to watch and get Netflix and Lightbox. It's dumb to keep paying $100 per month to get 80 channels of crap and a few I want to look at.

i worked out how much it would cost to switch to watching sport online that i do on sky and it worked out to be just over $1700 a year online , just to get the baseball, nfl, nba, nhl is close to $1000 a year so i will stick to Sky way cheaper.

Common sense is not as common as you think.

ajw

1932 posts

Uber Geek

#1764386 14-Apr-2017 14:49

Bought this over six months ago and still happy with the product.

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Android-Tv-Box-2GB-8GB-Built-in-2-4G-5G-WiFi-Amlogic-S905-KODI-16-0/608605_32690605120.html?spm=2114.10010108.1000023.2.MhEijW

old3eyes

9119 posts

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Subscriber

#1764394 14-Apr-2017 15:03

ajw:

Bought this over six months ago and still happy with the product.

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Android-Tv-Box-2GB-8GB-Built-in-2-4G-5G-WiFi-Amlogic-S905-KODI-16-0/608605_32690605120.html?spm=2114.10010108.1000023.2.MhEijW

Looked interesting until I saw

"Sorry, this item is no longer available!"

Regards,

Old3eyes

ajw

1932 posts

Uber Geek

#1764395 14-Apr-2017 15:06

old3eyes:

ajw:

Bought this over six months ago and still happy with the product.

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Android-Tv-Box-2GB-8GB-Built-in-2-4G-5G-WiFi-Amlogic-S905-KODI-16-0/608605_32690605120.html?spm=2114.10010108.1000023.2.MhEijW

Looked interesting until I saw

"Sorry, this item is no longer available!"

Plenty alternatives to choose from.

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=&SearchText=android+boxes

old3eyes

9119 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#1764406 14-Apr-2017 15:22

ajw:

old3eyes:

ajw:

Bought this over six months ago and still happy with the product.

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Android-Tv-Box-2GB-8GB-Built-in-2-4G-5G-WiFi-Amlogic-S905-KODI-16-0/608605_32690605120.html?spm=2114.10010108.1000023.2.MhEijW

Looked interesting until I saw

"Sorry, this item is no longer available!"

Plenty alternatives to choose from.

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=&SearchText=android+boxes

Thanx. Yep there sure are..

Regards,

Old3eyes

Equinox IT

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Gwilson

136 posts

Master Geek

#1764451 14-Apr-2017 16:41

Hi, We use a Panasonic BluRay HDD recorder to record Freeview HD. Works just like MySky and have programmed the Harmony remote to skip the normal length ad breaks.

Fanpass is a bit of a ripoff but better than wasting $100 month in, month out and we use that selectively for sports that we want to watch. Have not regretted ditching Sky a couple of years ago and saved a fair bit since then.

In terms of NAS Synology or QNAP are probably the best choices. Both have pretty comprehensive suites of applications that make them useful.

Cheers.

lazza58

22 posts

Geek

#1764475 14-Apr-2017 17:47

Fantastic answer. What a geek

JimmyH

2886 posts

Uber Geek

#1764807 15-Apr-2017 20:08

I'm on the cusp of ditching Sky - will probably, through inertia, hang on to it for the current season of GoT. I have been gradually paring back my package (dropped sport, then I dropped Rialto and the Movies Package, not I just have Basic+SoHo).

SoHo is pretty much all I have it for. The channels on basic and so saturated with ads they are at least as bad to watch as Freeview.

Anyhow, my setup in case it's useful.

For Freeview. 2x Panasonic recorders (1x BWT840, 1xXW390) take care of Freeview. One in the bedroom one in the living room, networked so they can see each other. Tne one in the living room also connects to the Sky box (for the moment). I had a third Panny (another XW390) in the spare room, but it seems to be dead (U99 error) and I will need to look at fixing it. I find the Panny recorders as good as the Sky box - and the DMR is expandable with USB drives, and also has remote record. The main issue is the lack of good content on Freeview.

For the Rest. Lightbox on the living room smart TV and HTPC upstairs. Will add Netflix (and probably a VPN, iPlayer and Hulu when I drop Sky). Content stored on a NAS (8-bay) running Plex. The living room smart TV has a plex client already. A Raspberry Pi in the bedroom running rasplex works for upstairs. The NAS holds around 2,000 films and 3-4,000 TV episides - mostly ripped from DVDs I own or capped from Sky over 10+ years before I dropped the movies package etc.

That's plenty for me. My main issue with TV is finding time to watch it. I'm down to about 3-4 hours a week.

Mavarick

206 posts

Master Geek

#1764808 15-Apr-2017 20:09

I use a Vu Solo2 which had great support with satellite , great epg (7 days) series recording along with a Nas with Kodi and trying to get some iptv to work, Im only a basic geek

article

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1774765 3-May-2017 09:29

Not sure if this is helpful, but also straddling a sort of digital no-man's land, relying (until the switch-off, or until someone figures how to load the programme guide) on TiVo and Freeview, some AppleTV2 and Kodi (very flaky but access to some European TV) and my trusty 2015 Samsung BD-H6500xy 3D blu-ray box, swung to the UK via the getflix dns service. The Samsung Smarthub is the best for France 24 (in English) DW (also in English), iPlayer, itv, All4, My5, Mubi, Vimeo, YouTube & more. One downside of switching to UK is you lose NZ on demand channels. Would be very useful to know if users of Samsung's newer Tizen ecosystem and TVs have managed to switch country in the smarthub. If not possible, the BD-H6500 is the easiest for now. Just search to learn how.

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