Unaffordable TV

I’ve recently bought a‘smart’ tv, it seems to have a lot of channels, my wife has added Prime Tv and Netflix, the Prime tv comes with the Amazon prime delivery as a free addition, the Netflix is £5.99. I’ve never wanted Sky as I don’t watch sports and normally can find what I want on Freeview. The bonus with the smart tv is being able to pause a program or watch it on demand.

I was told you have to have something like sky or a humax box to be able to do that with a smart tv?

A friend has one, but it seems an awful lot of faff, but then he uses it along with his computer.

I just saw an article about streaing boxes, great I thought, until I realised they need a good wifi connection, I have a huge long cable running from the hub to humax box, because of the stone built parts of our house and the thickness of the walls stop wifi signals, even out wifi boosters have boosters.

I was told you have to have something like sky or a humax box to be able to do that with a smart tv?

A friend has one, but it seems an awful lot of faff, but then he uses it along with his computer.

I just saw an article about streaing boxes, great I thought, until I realised they need a good wifi connection, I have a huge long cable running from the hub to humax box, because of the stone built parts of our house and the thickness of the walls stop wifi signals, even out wifi boosters have boosters.

TheCatWoman said:

I was just wondering how people especially families cope with the cost of subscriptions?

The majority of young people in families I know seem to watch only Netflix, Prime or Sky, so they may have a subscriptions for these channels with or without ads. Individuals within families nowadays don’t watch TV together as much as families used to. Netflix in one bedroom, Prime in another while BBC is on in the kitchen and DIsney in the snug.

I am guessing the majority of older people watch Freeview channels such as BBC, ITV etc., but I expect they put up with the ads or have an extra subscription to go ad free on catch up.

Perhaps those who subscribe to multiple companies have high incomes or else they prioritise TV viewing over other forms of entertainment. 

We have freeview, and we can get all the catch up services, but we have to have them with adverts as theres no button on the humax remote to fast forward through them and some channels don't let you anyway. I always record comercial channels so as I can fast forward through the ads. The humax box could get prime and netflix, it can't do sky, we'd have to get a different one that does sattelite pick ups.

I was just wondering how people especially families cope with the cost of subscriptions? I guess this could be one of those things where if you don't have them and you have kids it could cause a lot of angst because they couldn't keep up with thier friends?

My Mum is far worse than me with tech and can just about use the remote contols, she can't even use our dumb phone properly, luckily or unluckily the only time she may have needed it, she fell over and sat on it and broke it.

My smart TV is about seven years old but it doesn’t need a Sky or Humax box as the programmes are built into the TV. It receives Freeview through the aerial and it connects to broadband to receive Netflix or Prime. It can also receive Sky and pretty much whatever is available, at a cost.

I watch mostly the Freeview channels, particularly BBC, ITV and Channel 4 on ‘catch up’. The TV licence covers these channels.

Sometimes I subscribe to Amazon Prime for a month at a time if there is something particularly good to watch. It’s easy to stop and start the subscription to suit. The odd time I subscribe to Netflix for a month, then cancel. 

I don’t watch a lot of TV so there is no need to have yearly subscriptions to lots of channels.

We have a smart TV and when we moved here there was no aerial, only a dish. We had an expert who came and did something to the dish so we could get Freesat. It picks up slightly different channels from Freeview which we had before, but has all the main channels.

Roy said:

My smart tv is connected to a normal aerial for Freeview, that gives me about 100+ channels.

I thought that was the case and why I mentioned Freeview too.

Even my old mum managed with that with no difficulty.

People have been using Freeview for many years I think and I believe that it's now often built into TVs rather than having to buy a separate Freeview box.

Roy said:

I only bought a 50” smart tv

My last TV was probably about 21" although I have to confess that there is a huge one in the house that I would rather was a window seat as it's in a bay window.

For some reason I don't have permission to replace it.

My smart tv is connected to a normal aerial for Freeview, that gives me about 100+ channels. To use the smart part it is connected to Wi-Fi, that allows all the different streaming and player services to work.

I have 800mm walls and have Ethernet cables in most rooms. You could just tack them around the skirting boards from the router. The pre made extension cables have the plugs already fitted.

I only bought a 50” smart tv from Argos as the rooms are quite small, a Toshiba was about £240.