FreeSat from Sky

[Barbarossa]

Do you really still need a viewing card for this racket, or is that just a load of chav-directed sky marketing pish??

I read somewhere you need a card with a yellow house on it to watch ITV and Channel 4, wtf?

Otherwise, am I correct in the assumption that if I've already got a sky satellite dish hanging off my house, and a muddy brown cable snaking its way into my living room, then all I need to do is buy a cheap digibox off of EBay, plug it in, and I'm away??

Please can someone, preferably a well informed someone, advise me...?

Thanks.

[lynx]

At the moment you still need a card, since ITV, Ch4 and Ch5 are contracted to using Sky for transmission. That will probably change when the contract expires or is bought back. FTV cards are no longer available.

However, I'm told that if you get a card for one of the porn channels (for the minimum period of course ) then when it expires you can still use it as if it was a FTV card. Don't blame me if it doesn't work or you get callouses.

Correction: FTV cards are available again, they cost £20.
http://www.freesatfromsky.co.uk/?pID=6

[Livy]

or if you wish, you could get 2 mixes for a year, at £7.50 for 3 months, £15 for 9 months. you get £10 for signing up online, a nice new shiny digibox. and free instalation with new dish maybe, for £147.50,
cancel after a year and you'll get your card converted to a freesat one.

you can see the channel lineup on the link lynx put up. its basically freeview with a little more channels.

edit: had a look on ebay and the cheapest digibox i could see was around the £30 mark. plus £20 for the freesat card, your talking about an extra £100 for a year, and thats new equipment. and installed,

[Barbarossa]

Thanks for the info.

I haven't decided what to do yet.