Freeview / Freesat from SKY
 

I have SKY+HD in my living room and just SKY HD in my bedroom. I have 4 separate feeds coming from my dish. 2 feeds to the box in the living room, and 1 to my bedroom. This means I have 1 feed free.

My parents gave me their old white Thompson SKY+ box. I've hooked it up in another room using the spare feed. If has an old blue viewing card that must be about 7 years old! The box still records and I can pick up about 85% of Freeview channels and a whole host more however I'm missing things like Dave, Yesterday and DMAX.

I understand that SKY offer a Freesat card. Any idea how much this is? Also would replacing the card disable the recording functions of the old SKY+ box I have? I'm finding some of the information online to be a little conflicting and confusing.

Re: Freeview / Freesat from SKY
 

We paid to replace our blue Sky card a couple of years ago when they replaced them with the white ones. It was somewhere between £10 and £20, IIRC. We had to pay for it because we were using the box in FreesatFromSky mode with no Sky subscription at all. AFAIK the card is paired with the box so you have to buy it from Sky, you can't just get one off eBay.

Because Sky Multiroom charges an extra subscription for every additional box, you won't get your old box working for free. AFAIK they will treat it as a FSFS box and you will have to buy the viewing card.

Also, Sky still charges for the recording feature to work, I think there is a risk that your box may lose its recording functionality, or at the very least lose the ability to record channels that are free-to-view but not free-to-air.

And another thing ... Dave is not free to air or free to view on satellite. You can only get it in a Sky subscriber channel pack. Stupid, I know, seeing as it's on Freeview, but I think Sky are paying them to keep it locked down to try to limit the appeal of 'proper' Freesat.

And finally ... ditch the old Sky box and get a proper Freesat PVR. All the free channels on FSFS worth having are on Freesat, plus you get an EPG that only contains the channels you can watch. No more tripping over blue screens with 'to upgrade to this channel...' on them. That was the thing that annoyed me most about FSFS and one of the reasons we eventually ditched it and bought an Echostar Freesat PVR.

Re: Freeview / Freesat from SKY
 

I have a old sky hd + box ( approx 4 year old with blue sky card)
I recently hooked it all up and all ok as a freeview box.
I can get itv HD and channel 4 HD, but not bbc HD.
I thought this would be available without subscription on the sky box.?

Re: Freeview / Freesat from SKY
 

BBC HD has closed down and has been replaced with BBC Two HD. I'm guessing your Sky box needs some sort of 'hit' in order to detect that. You won't be able to get that hit from Sky with the blue card, you will need the new white one.

Re: Freeview / Freesat from SKY
 

From http://www.sky.com/shop/freesat/home/faq/

Re: Freeview / Freesat from SKY
 

Thanks Chris.
I meant to say BBC 1 HD is not available on the old blue card.

Re: Freeview / Freesat from SKY
 

It could be the same reason - BBC services have switched to a different sat in the last couple of years, your box may not be able to tune to them without the information that would be on the new card. Sky stores regionalisation in the card, not the box - this might also have something to do with it.

Re: Freeview / Freesat from SKY
 

Ok Chris. Understand.