Freesat and using an old card?

[micah777]

Hello,

I use to have sky but havent used it for a while now. Anyhow my girlfriend gave me her old sky box with its card in it. So I hooked it up and now recieve freesat. Do I need to buy my own sky card ? ie its not illegal or anything daft like that if I use my girlfriends card?

It's not illegal. You can continue to use it for as long as it works. However, Sky is currently rolling out replacement cards to all subscribers and cancelling old ones, so the card you have will cease working at some point over the next few months. When that happens you will have to contact Sky and ask for a FreesatFromSky card. They will charge you about £20 for this IIRC.

Or you could go and buy a basic, true Freesat box - more info at www.freesat.co.uk or www.joinfreesat.co.uk - and never have to worry about buying a replacement card ever again.

[Tezcatlipoca]

Just to add to Chris' post though:

When the card does stop working, you won't lose all channels, just the "Free to View" channels (free but encrypted channels). I think this is mainly just the various "Five" channels, & Sky 3.

No card is needed to receive the "Free to Air" channels (free & unencrypted).


As Chris said though, it's worth looking at proper Freesat. No need for a card at all, no need to have a subscription to access PVR features if you ever have a PVR box (unlike Sky+ & Sky+HD), & uses the same dish.

[micah777]

Thanks for that! Ive just taken my girlfriends card out and it made no difference to the channels I recieve??? I still recieve them all without the card in??

[Kymmy]

I thought that there was now only a few channels (SKY3, Five Life (Fiver), Five US ) that still needed the FTV card due to the introduction of FREESAT and the fact that they've all gone to no encryption, even on an old sky box.. ?

[micah777]

Actually just been going through the cannels and some of the channels have been removed since I took out the viewing card....ie fiver

[Kymmy]

Not an official site but has a good upto date listing as to what's available

http://www.sam-radford.me.uk/ftv.htm

Originally Posted by micah777

Actually just been going through the cannels and some of the channels have been removed since I took out the viewing card....ie fiver

Yes, there are a handful of channels that are free-to-view but not free-to-air. That means you need a Sky card to decrypt them. If you never watch these channels it makes no difference to you whether you have a Sky card in the box or not. This is largely thanks to the true Freesat service, which is co-owned by the BBC and ITV. Before Freesat came along many channels were free-to-view but not free-to-air, so you needed a Sky card to watch just about anything except the BBC. Since Freesat launched, and requires boxes to work without cards, most channels have now switched to full free-to-air operations. Those that haven't will do so over the next year or thereabouts.

[Waldo Pepper]

Originally Posted by Chris

It's not illegal. You can continue to use it for as long as it works. However, Sky is currently rolling out replacement cards to all subscribers and cancelling old ones, so the card you have will cease working at some point over the next few months. When that happens you will have to contact Sky and ask for a FreesatFromSky card. They will charge you about £20 for this IIRC.

Or you could go and buy a basic, true Freesat box - more info at www.freesat.co.uk or www.joinfreesat.co.uk - and never have to worry about buying a replacement card ever again.

I notice Sky have now started showing a splash screen on programs that can only be removed by hitting the BACK button and thus preventing a Tivo from controlling it. Is this the same thing?

IIRC the splash screen is part of their plan for warning FSFS users that they need to arrange to buy a new card. I've not seen it myself yet though.