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Alternatives to Sky TV


ioneabee

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its getting bloody expensive

 

what are the options if I cancel ? what will I be able to view

 

I NEED to be able to watch Game of Thrones

I like to watch films

and the missus likes things on Sky Living

 

I've got a sky+HD box linked to the router

 

so what are the alternatives

 

my TV is NOT a smart TV

 

:thumbs:

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Now Tv is pretty good. Will need internet tho. Get yourself a chromecast if you have a iPad or other tablet that you can mirror to the chromecast. Or you can get apple tvs now for 50 quid. There is a new Apple TV coming out soon if your into having the newest stuff.

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Can't remember what it's called, I'll find out, but my dad bought a box of ebay, either a one off price or a yearly fee of £70 and has all the sky sports/movies etc :)

 

My dad just bought one too, but ebay cancelled the order and banned the seller as they are illegal lol..

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Interested in this as I also find that Sky is silly money at circa £65.00 per month for the full package.

 

Been meaning to phone cancellations for months now and sort out a better deal.

 

However very interested in the options.

 

PS: Internet connection not the best as I live in the sticks and fibre optic is never going to happen. :lol:

 

Alex. :)

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I ditched Sky late last year as they were charging £82.50 and were increasing it by £4 a month. That was the final straw.

 

So I went with BTTV. I'm with btinternet, so it's only £12 per month (12 month contract) if you're already with them ... but which is just a Youview box with freeview, the standard catchup apps and very little else, so I wouldn't advise going this route if you have a Smart TV or alternative means. They're cancelling their BT film subscription service (which was poor anyway) and offering Netflix instead (SD netflix with one bit of viewing equipment at any one time). You do get BT Sport with it for free (SD only, I think) if you're on btinternet. Don't watch sport, so don't really care. I got the kids package, which my daughter is now out growing, so will ditch that soon too. Overall, I'd avoid it given my choice again.

 

So, for extra TV and film, I got Netflix with HD and 2 concurrent viewing platforms (£7 per month, no contract), which I'm enjoying as I'm catching up with Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, and other series. Films on it are limited (for my tastes).

 

Needed GOT, so also subscribed to NOW TV Entertainment (£6/month with no contract) and watch that on the Smart TV upstairs and via XBox - got some decent box sets of TV series on it. I didn't go for the Sky Movies or Sports option.

 

Mulling over Amazon Prime, but they give you a free month then charge you a full £79 for a year. You do get Amazon Prime express delivery on orders, so if you use Amazon a lot, it might be worth it. A mate of mine has it and says it's got a decent amount of stuff on it.

 

I found my new Smart TV has a satellite tuner built in, so just plugged in the old sky connection and can get Freesat. The old Sky box reverts back to a Freesat box when you cancel too.

 

All of the online stuff is predicated on having a decent broadband rate. I can run the above fine on my 38Mbit/s internet connection. Not sure how well it would work with slower connections.

 

And a word of advice ... if you're serious and committed about ditching Sky and don't want to spend an hour and a half on the phone, say you've got a contract abroad for a year or two. They don't pass you around their customer retaining cycle then. They'll still send you the please come back letters and offer you half price or better for a year and some magic beans, but I don't think I'll ever go to another contracted tv provider after my period with BTTV is up.

 

Bottom line is I've reduced the TV bill from about £85 a month to less than £30, and still get the bits of Sky I want, but without a contract.

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+1 for Now TV although it did crap out on me for GOT this week but ......top tip if you can managed to wait 15mins (yes I know thats very hard) you can watch it on catch with practically no ads !!! So finishes about the same time

 

Apple TV is OK for movies but the free stuff isn't clever - there is no UK main channels on catchup and I would want a box to have BBC iPlayer as minimum. It does allow you mirror onto TV but I thing Google chrome will let you do that as well. You can also have a heap of TV options with any recent Xbox or PS

 

The BT sport app is free and does a shedload of sport inc premiership/FA Cup games plus Aussie rules (keep her happy !) as long as you have a BT Line

 

Also +1 on the moving abroad bit although in my case that was true !

 

I am right out in the sticks here and get 4mbps if I'm lucky and never had a problem

Edited by Mudman
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Amazon prime is pretty good. And the free 1 day delivery on selected items is great too. The Mrs and I split the cost as you can use it on other accounts linked to same address.

Plus when they are late with delivery they give you a month free. Out of all the orders I have had only 3 have been late so far so have a extra 3 months. Their customer service is pretty awesome.

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Amazon prime is pretty good. And the free 1 day delivery on selected items is great too. The Mrs and I split the cost as you can use it on other accounts linked to same address.

Plus when they are late with delivery they give you a month free. Out of all the orders I have had only 3 have been late so far so have a extra 3 months. Their customer service is pretty awesome.

 

I've used Netflix and got a free trial of Prime, I thought it was pants but if you are happy with the 1 day delivery that's a bonus :thumbs:

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Im in the middle of moving house so going through a similar process at the moment.

 

I've always been on Virgin Media - top package, multiroom, Sky Sports... and it's £115 per month (and i dont have movies, although i dont need them. ;) )

 

My new house is in a non-VM area so need to find an aternative. All i really care about is getting the sports channels and having the ability to record.

 

I think im going to try out Freeview with my Smart TV which can also record to an external HDD apparently. Im then going to look out for one of these boxes which streams the sports channels from an online source.

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Sounds to me like you just need a NOW TV box. Covers off watching GoT and Sky Living. £6.99 pcm + the box, and hopefully you have a decent interwebs connection (what speed?).

 

Nothing else can give you this, apart from yarring the stuff you want to watch but I'm guessing that's not an option.

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interweb speed is currently 6.7mb - it should be in the region of 14 - 22mbs - currently being discussed with TalkTalk to find out whats wrong -their engineer is arriving on Friday next to have a look (£65 if the fault is on my side) but I've done all the checks I can think of ie plugging router directly into main BT box with the face off, tried 2 different routers and several different pc's laptops etc to check the speed.

 

off now to look at NOW TV boxes - cheers Dan

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Do you have a PS4 or anything else that can run apps? You won't need the box then. Also BT vision has to be the worse TV service I have ever had to use. The box OS is awful. And everything seems to have to run with internet so if your not getting a great download speed it's crap!

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