No, sorry - well, at least not if you want to take advantage of the built-in backwards EPG that Freetime gets you.

The main thing is do you have a dish? If you do, and it was previously aligned to Sky, then it'll work and you're done, all you need is a box. If you don't, then you'll need a dish for Freesat. That's the key thing.

If that cable-to-freeview thing works (never heard of it but hell do I know) then that would be the best way, I'd say?

Honestly best thing would be to get an aerial chappie to come and have a look, it shouldn't cost that much and then good telly for lyf

We have a dish, and both 2 x Sky cables and a Virgin box in the living room.  But I plug a Sky+HD box into those cables and get nothing.  I presumed I'd need some sort of card or something?

Card yes for Sky, no for Freesat - but Sky box doesn't receive Freesat. Need new Freesat box.

edit: the coax converter option is the best cheapest one.

With your TV trouble, funkstain help you he will, yes. Hmmm?

It will, but you will only get basic HD telly.

If you want all the stuff that Youview / Freetime give you you need the relevant boxes. If all you want is normal, broadcast telly, then that would be fine, but I thought you wanted the catch-up apps and so on?

edit: the above was about the card plugged in to the Sky box to get Freesat. It's pretty limited.

The second question: those channels are the free to air (FTA) channels available via Sky. So, BBC1-4, ITV1-4, etc.

It's best to think about channels and platforms as separate.

There is Sky platform, which includes a number of FTA channels

Freeview platform, otherwise known as Digital Terrestrial TV, which only includes a number of FTA channels

And Freesat platform, aka Digital Satellite TV, which only includes a number of FTA channels (more in HD, and more in total, than Freeview / DTT).

YouView is an app platform on top of Freeview / DTT, which adds the capability of on-demand and premium VOD, such as NOW TV.

Freetime is a app on top of Freesat / DSAT which adds the capability of on-demand and (soon) premium VOD.

With a Sky box, you can get the FTA channels available on the Sky platform without subscription; add a Freesat card, and you get the full range of Freesat channels (more than are available on Sky's platform).

Aha, understood!

I think the Sky box is dead so I think feeding the cable TV line into the YouView box and seeing what happens is the next step.

My favorite thing about freesat was having all the local variations of channels, so I could watch the Bournemouth news if I felt homesick

Edinburgh, chum, albeit while working in Lincoln, so no stranger to the east coast main line.

I'll drop you a PM.

Very kind chum, I'll see where we get.  Plugging a coax into the Virgin cable outlet and the other end into the TV or Youview box got us nowhere.  Jiggling the cable in the wall now has me 34 channels rather than 100, but at strength 10% and quality 100%, bizarrely.

The Sky HD box I got didn't work; but we did try a spare Freesat HD box which worked perfectly, so we do have a satellite feed.

Thing is, we're on a contract with BT.  I might just call them and say "it doesn't work" and ask them to send an engineer out.  It's what you'd do with broadband, maybe worth a shot for TV?

Come on then, get your recommend on and show me some links..... beginning to think BT will be no use.

When we moved (back in the dark analogue days) I couldn't get a signal for love nor money. Tuens out I was still looking for the old receiver. One auto tune later and all was well again.

I felt like a right twat.

Don't the catch up services restrict themselves to a week, though? I like the fact that we're both busy but can still watch something recorded a fortnight ago when we have the time. IPlayer wouldn't be much use if there's a series on and we end up recording all of it, planning to watch it later, would it?

Otherwise, considering how rarely we watch things live that's not a bad shout. Is E4/More4 content on 4Od?

I seem to recall iPlayer's transitioning to keeping some stuff for a month, which might be better.

We've got a Samsung smart TV, with Plex, Netflix, and all the usual streaming services, so we could arguably give this a go.