10.27.06
TV experiment
Ok, so here is something I am going to try.
We have Sky. It’s desperate. Well, not entirely, we get Paramount which shows Seinfeld all the time. But no Channel 4 no ITV( so no Prime Suspect!!) no BBC 4 AND no Ceebeebies which means no childrens telly without ads!!!
So a friend who knows about these things said, after 1 year you own your Sky digibox. Go on eBay and buy a “freeview” card from England which will you can put in your Digibox and which will give you all those channels for FREE!!! And you save the €30 each month you pay Sky. He has one and the only slightly weird thing is that you get some off BBC regional channels depending on what part of the country you bought the card.
So I just bought one for €40 + €5 P&P. We’ll see.
Daniel Sullivan said,
October 27, 2006 at 6:36 pm
Sarah, it’s all about Jon Stewart for comedy in my house.
Gavin said,
October 28, 2006 at 3:31 am
Believe it or not, a huge amount of channels are available gratis – all you need to do is point the satellite in the right direction and use a freeview DVB box you can pick up in any Lidl or Aldi.
On Astra alone you get BBC1,2,3,4 and all the regional variations. ITV1,2,3,4. Film Four, Film Four+1, CNN, Sky News, Sky News Ireland, BBC News 24, Euronews, and a bunch of shopping channels. It also includes a few Arab channels. You also get a huge amount of radio stations including all the RTE and BBC ones.
If you want even more you can always get Hotbird, which adds another 1500+ channels to your telly for free. Most of them are European – Polish, German, Italian, French, Spanish and Arab. It also includes Voice of America.
Pete said,
October 28, 2006 at 11:25 am
I know someone who has a sky freesat card from the uk. It works fine, but after he got it and put it in his skybox he had to ring sky to get it activated. He got a mate in the uk to do this, in case sky had caller-id. The mate had to supply various bits of information to sky, like the name and address that the card had been sent to, and the software version on the skybox (eay to get). Also, the card is only good for 2 years, after that sky disconnect it and post out new cards to the uk addresses that they were originally sent to. This is to make it hard for people outside the uk to use them.
Sarah said,
October 28, 2006 at 9:04 pm
ah…..hmm…this will be interesting.
had idea about that DVB thingy. If card fails will try that.
P O'Neill said,
October 28, 2006 at 9:56 pm
Yes Sky’s little secret is that they’re just broadcasting from the same Astra satellite that has all this other stuff on it. So once the dish is pointed there, any satellite receiver can pick up some stuff from it and then there are the subscriber cards that will work for additional channels that don’t have the Sky encoding on them.
Ronan said,
October 30, 2006 at 12:31 am
ITV is available on my sky, go to services and other channels and there it is. Bit cumbersome to get to but it is there, as is Cbeebies thingy and BBC 4
Sarah said,
October 30, 2006 at 7:04 pm
can’t find it. But maybe if I get the frequency I can tune them in? I did this with Radio 4.
Sarah said,
October 30, 2006 at 11:13 pm
UNBELIEVABLE. I went to this page http://www.astra2d.com/astra2d_freq.htm
and tuned ITV, all the BBC’s including Cbeebies, and Film4!! There ALL THE TIME. Those bastards at Sky! I could’ve been watching these channels all the time. Well, if this Freeview card does work out, they just deserve to do without their €30 from me since they’ve been so royally screwing me for the past year.
Pete said,
October 31, 2006 at 1:24 am
Well done. Actually, even if the Freeview card doesn’t work, you could still stop paying Sky, and continue to recieve all the channels that are marked – “encryption – clear” on that webpage, completely free and legal.
Sarah said,
October 31, 2006 at 3:48 pm
OK, Freeview card has arrived and it works! Am phoning Sky now to cancel the €30 per month. eeek!
Pete said,
November 1, 2006 at 1:30 am
Suggest you take out the freeview card and replace it with the original sky card until you have been “disconnected” by sky. Don’t tell them you have a freeview card – it’s still their property and they can disable it remotely.
Sarah said,
November 1, 2006 at 10:42 am
yeah, the guy who sent me the card gave all sorts of tips for using it including don’t ring Sky if you have a problem
Also, children still attached to Peppa Pig (as am I) and Little Bear, so we put the old card back in last night for the pre-bedtime TV fest..and I’ll see if I can get some DVDs of those programmes. Which means I have to get a DVD player. Which I suppose we were going to have to get at some point anyway.
Sarah said,
November 2, 2006 at 3:30 pm
I have BBC3/4 ITV/1/2/3/4 on my sky through adding them through other channels, it is a pain really, we only keep sky cause of sky plus.
John said,
November 2, 2006 at 3:31 pm
OOps sorry i put your name in the name Box Duh!
Sorry…
Ed Cooper said,
June 21, 2007 at 8:12 pm
Where did you buy your ‘freeview’ card as I serched ebay and cannot find one – all I am getting are computer cards for PC’s