Has anyone signed up to Sky Essentials recently?

Not all the FTA boxes are complicated, depends on what you want. All will need some set up, a simple one will need to be tuned and channels sorted and that's it, some tuning may be needed from time to time. The big drawback to some is that a basic one just gives now and next epg.

Also was told by Sky yesterday that the Essentials is no longer on offer so zgemma all the way now. Some satellite shops eg satworld will set up a zgemma for you with basic features(7 day EPG, series link etc)

Have a guy coming to install aerial and change the lnb next week so hoping it's all a decent replacement for Sky.

To have Saorview you would need an aerial, outdoor is recommended but it depends on your location. You most likely will be able to get Saorview through your tv tuner but that will mean changing sources, some people prefer a combo box, Saorview and satellite in one box, for that reason. Check your tv it may have a satellite tuner on board.

If you have a free sat tuner in your tv and if your current satellite was setup to receive sky then yes it should just go straight into your tv do a scan for channels and you should have free to to air satellite channels available then. If you want to have just the Freesat channels available you will need to set your tv region to the uk that will leave bbc one on 101 etc.

Thanks for that info I wasn't aware of the difference for Sky Q

Similar position. Have to get a guy to swap lnb and put up aerial( recording is a big requirement for me so bought a zgemma box,which will give saorview and free to air channels).

Or if you wanted to use the rte player for saorview stuff you could just buy a freesat box for the UK channels and wouldn't need to swap lnb, just connect the freesat box to the existing sky cables

If going for the zgemma , places like satworld will preconfigure for you. Haven't seen what looks like yet and how quickly replicates the sky experience. I'll update here next week when know what it's like.

It should also be noted that FreeSat does not include all freely available channels such as CNN or some +1s

@Belli1 that does not happen and as for advance warning the BBC changed TODAY and the warning started in MARCH last year and its the first entry on this forum. You should have a good read of the zgemmaH7S thread box wont come fully configured and it needs your input.

As regards FREESAT that often refers to the type of box that comes with proprietary software for epg. Freesat can be replicated on an enigam2 box but not advisable best to use Sky configuration gets all the FREE to air, eg CNN etc.

ABM can be run nightly to pick up any frequency changes.

Any frequency changes are posted on the forum well in advance.

That's reassuring to know. Anyway If ABM is scheduled to run nightly then it will automatically pick up on any channel changes?

The guy in satworld said to not create favourites as would be overwritten or something . I can't remember exact reason. That would be great if could create favourites out of the box . Does it just create a new favourites bouquet?