Freesat

[Jaimsieboy]

I currently pay Sky TV £41 per month and I am looking for an alternative method for watching Sky progs. like Discovery (Alaskan Bush People etc).
I was thinking of getting a Freesat box from a company but they were wanting £120 to install plus I would not get the Discovery Channel.
Does anyone know of a method whereby you could cancel Sky, and get a similar TV Box that would include Sky's Discovery Channel ?

[Buenchico]

Let's start with some basic stuff:

If you get rid of your Sky subscription, you probably won't gain anything from getting a Freesat box. A Sky box without a valid subscription becomes a generic satellite receiver, which will receive all of these 'free-to-air' channels:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free-to-air_channels_at_28%C2%B0E

A Freesat box wouldn't give you a great deal extra. It would actually give you just a subset of the channels in my link above by default (although you can manually tune it to pick up the others). All it really gives you is a few additional features, such as Freesat's electronic programme guide. However if you did decide to buy one you wouldn't need to pay anyone to install it. You can simply plug it in to replace your Sky box.

For completeness, I'll mention that there's also 'Freesat from Sky' which, confusingly, isn't the same as 'Freesat'. You get 'Freesat from Sky' by paying a one-off fee of £25 to get a viewing card for your existing Sky box. That then gets you all of the (unencrypted) 'free-to-air' channels from my link above, plus a small number of (encrypted) 'free-to-view' channels, shown under 'Extra channels' here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freesat_from_Sky#Extra_channels

If you've got a decent broadband connection (with no data limits), one way to get Discovery is to get a Now TV box, together with a monthly Entertainment Pass. That pass gets you Discovery, as well as Sky One, Sky Atlantic, Sky Living, Sky Arts, Nat Geo Wild, Comedy Central, Gold, Fox, MTV, ITV Encore, ABC Studios and Viceland. It costs £7.99 per month, with no ongoing commitment.

A Now TV box, even without a 'pass', makes a TV 'smart', giving access to catchup services (such as BBC iPlayer) and, for example, allowing you to watch Youtube content on your telly.

With current Black Friday deal, a Now TV box costs £12.50 and comes with two months of the Entertainment pass channels included:
http://www.nowtv.com/box-bundles

[Buenchico]

PS:
Just in case there's any confusion . . .

You're not faced with an 'either/or' situation with regard to your existing Sky box and a Now TV box. You can have both together, using the Sky box to get all of the channels in my first link above and the Now TV box to get the channels (such as Discovery) included with the Entertainment Pass.

[Hopkirk]

Run a mile from any company wanting to charge that much to supply Freeview!

New TVs even have it built in.

[Hopkirk]

Oops, sorry, you said Freesat, not Freeview

[Buenchico]

^^^ Jaimsieboy should still run a mile from any company which wants to charge for 'installing' Freesat when, given that there's already a satellite dish and cabling in place, it should take only a few seconds to plug the box in!

[Jaimsieboy]

Thanks to Buenchico & Hopkirk...J/Boy

[Rtaxron]

I pay double that Jaims, as have Sport Ch, which I have now given them the boot, as contract ends in January, but started my broadband & home phone a few days ago with EE.