Replace Sky with NowTV?

tazmago

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Hi,

I have been researching NowTV for the last few hours and have been finding conflicting information, so I thought I would ask for some clarity on here.

I currently have Sky HD (along with Amazon Prime and Netflix), but have lately been considering replacing Sky with NowTV. I’m not fussed with 4K as my broadband wouldn’t cope with it. I currently pay £43.95 a month for the Sky subscription (I cancelled Sky movies and Sky Sports last year) but looking at my viewing habits over the last few months the vast majority of stuff I watch are all on the NowTV entertainment pass list (or they will be once History channel is added later this month (I believe)). It seems like a no brainier to me to cancel Sky and go with NowTV, but I have a few questions I was hoping that you good folks on here could help me with.

1. I’m a little confused about how the NowTV payment works. I’ve seen on CDKeys they sell 3 month entertainment passes for £14.95, which seems like great value. However I’ve also noticed on the NowTV website, it says that once the 7 day trial is up, I’ll be charged £8.99 pm. I know you can’t stack vouchers for this, So do I need to cancel just before the trial/pass runs out so I don’t get charged the full £8.99. Then just repeat this apply voucher/cancel cycle every time? How easy is it to cancel?

2. I would also like to add the booster pack for HD viewing, does this work as a separate subscription, so I’ll just be charged £3 a month providing I keep my passes active.

3. I had a habit with Sky of watching one programme while taping another, so with NowTV I’ll miss the record option. This means I will miss a certain live programme, is the catch up feature available for all programmes, so I could watch my missed episode 24 hours later, or is catchup only available on certain channels/programmes?

4. Does everyone agree that in my case, dropping Sky is a good idea?

Sorry for the long post, any help is much appreciated,

Cheers :thumbsup:
 
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£8.99 a month is a lot cheaper than £43.95 a month.

Yes, you will be charged the full £8.99, if you do not cancel before the trial/pass runs out.

You only get the free trial once and that's it.

Booster pack does not work as a separate subscription, it gets added to your other pass that you have, e.g, entertainment pass is £8.99, add booster pack for £3, the total is £11.99.

Catch-up is available for certain programmes/ channels.

If you have programmes on your Sky HD box that you need to watch, then watch them and then get rid of Sky, if that is what you prefer.

There are other alternatives to Sky and NOW and I'm not on about Freeview or Virgin Media or any other streaming service.

I am however on about the greatest alternative to Sky and that is motorised satellite system.

Works the same way as Sky, but you only pay for the box and the setup/installation, if you prefer someone to install it for you.

Want to read more about motorised satellite system?
 
NowTV has many 3/4/5/6 month deals. Just google search. The £3 boost is a must have and the quality improvement is amazing. Also no adverts on NowTV.

Downside is other UK TV channels are best quality via Satellite or Good Ariel such as ITV/4/5.
 
£8.99 a month is a lot cheaper than £43.95 a month.

Yes, you will be charged the full £8.99, if you do not cancel before the trial/pass runs out.

You only get the free trial once and that's it.

Booster pack does not work as a separate subscription, it gets added to your other pass that you have, e.g, entertainment pass is £8.99, add booster pack for £3, the total is £11.99.

Catch-up is available for certain programmes/ channels.

If you have programmes on your Sky HD box that you need to watch, then watch them and then get rid of Sky, if that is what you prefer.

There are other alternatives to Sky and NOW and I'm not on about Freeview or Virgin Media or any other streaming service.

I am however on about the greatest alternative to Sky and that is motorised satellite system.

Works the same way as Sky, but you only pay for the box and the setup/installation, if you prefer someone to install it for you.

Want to read more about motorised satellite system?
Thanks for the info, I’m going to give the NowTV trial a go and see how it goes. The motorised satellite does sound interesting, but it’s not for me atm.
 
NowTV has many 3/4/5/6 month deals. Just google search. The £3 boost is a must have and the quality improvement is amazing. Also no adverts on NowTV.

Downside is other UK TV channels are best quality via Satellite or Good Ariel such as ITV/4/5.
Thanks for the help, I’ll give the trial a go, no adverts sounds great :smashin:. Forgot to ask can I still use the Sky box for UK TV and freeview channels, and will the record feature still work?
 
Excellent, now I’ve only got to find out how to cancel Sky, as it says on their website not to call due to the current climate :thumbsdow.
You can call them for something important as cancelling. I would try nowtv free trial first before cancelling.
 
But bear in mind that what appears on Sky doesn’t necessarily make it to NowTV, and if it does, not always in its entirety. Programmes like Station 19 series 3 is a case in point: NowTV isn’t listing episode 2, because of some sort of rights problem, yet the episode will air on Sky Witness. Also bear in mind that customer support on NowTV is frankly appalling. No email, no ‘phone, just a chat service hosted in India which at present is shutdown, so if you gave any problems you’re pretty much hosed. The moment those series that SWMBO is watching are finished, I’m stopping paying for it. Caveat emptor ...

Clem
 
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Personally i find Nowtv poor value for money & i've never paid full price, there's a limited channel availability with entertainment, i generally only watch Discovery & Nat Geo channels,sometimes programes aren't available on demand/catch up as they don't have repeat rights for internet on demand/catch up, as far as adverts are concerned you still get ads on live tv just like Sky, in my experience you can stack 2 entertainment passes at any one time,give it a go see how you find it,you should be offered a discounted price if you cancel,sometimes you may even get a better discount if you don't accept the first offer
 
Got myself a couple of 1 month passes off cdkeys and a boost trial as just wanted to watch Gangs of London
 
Cd keys Had the ent passes for £3.99 lately, I seen it on hotukdeals,but noticed they had been cheaper a couple of weeks ago,anyhow it beats paying full price, keep your out for other avforums members selling Nowtv codes in the voucher codes classifieds
 
Am I missing something with the app on Apple TV ?
No watch list ? No in progress ? I’ve seen better kodi skins

the iPad app is fine but they don’t seem to “talk” to each other
 
Well I’ve cancelled Sky and had Now TV for the last few days. I have to say it’s been great. Initially I used my Roku 2 (v2) for Now TV, but since I discovered that this is fixed at 60Hz causing some judder with Now TV, I purchased a NowTV smart stick and everything is smooth. I’ve not tried sports, but I’ve watched live tv, box sets, a handful of movies (just watched Shazam!, which is great fun btw), and so far it’s not missed a beat. Everything I used to watch on Sky is available, except the History channel, but that should be added (along with two other channels) on May 27th.

The only thing I miss with Sky is the record feature.
 
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@dUnKle: the app. on the Apple box is basically a pile of junk and hasn’t been updated. You’ll need either an LG or Samsung TV where the app. is available, or a NowTV box, to get the best out of the service. If you have the Boost pass then you’re wasting your money if you're using the Apple box as the app. won’t do 1080p.

Clem
 
@dUnKle: the app. on the Apple box is basically a pile of junk and hasn’t been updated. You’ll need either an LG or Samsung TV where the app. is available, or a NowTV box, to get the best out of the service. If you have the Boost pass then you’re wasting your money if you're using the Apple box as the app. won’t do 1080p.

Clem

cheers. I’ve cancelled everything and will just watch gangs of London with the pass I got off cdkeys

It’s the only thing sky have that I want to watch that can’t get else where.
 
I’ve been with Now TV for nearly 2 years now and have never paid more than £12 a month for both Entertainment and Cinema together. Everytime I cancel they offer me ridiculous offers like currently paying £2.40 for Cinema pass etc:

Then usually on Black Friday they have a 12 months pass heavily discounted, think it was £49.99 for the Cinema pass.
 
i shall be cancelling once SWMBO has finished the latest series of Greys Anatomy. It will be interesting to see if I'm offered anything.

Clem
 
I got a lockdown knock back. Permission has been rescinded until 911 S3 has been watched.

Clem
 
Left Sky and joined NowTV Entertainment Pass on a £3 CD keys voucher and a week later saw NowTV had added 6 months at £1.99pm to my account. Last weekend bought a Cinema Pass from Amazon at £2.79, a day later saw 6 months at £2.99pm added to my account. I also signed up for the Boost Pass at £3. So now get Entertainment & Cinema at 1080 with 5.1 on my LG for £8 a month, less than half the price of Entertainment on Sky and no contract - consider me converted.

Sky Sports is available for £25 per month (cheapest I have found) - so even with that at £33 and no 18 month tie in works for me.
 
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I’ve been with Now TV for nearly 2 years now and have never paid more than £12 a month for both Entertainment and Cinema together. Everytime I cancel they offer me ridiculous offers like currently paying £2.40 for Cinema pass etc:

Then usually on Black Friday they have a 12 months pass heavily discounted, think it was £49.99 for the Cinema pass.

The best i've got out of Nowtv was £3.99 month for 3 months entertainment,that ended recently & i was offered £5.99 month for 3 months,which i didn't take up,normally they come back after you don't take up the offer with a better offer,but they haven't this time,so i'll just wait to see if cdkeys reduce their price, there isn't much content that appeals to me at the minute, i was disappointed when they withdrew Nat Geo wild
 
@tazmago

I've had Now TV entertainment for two months @50p a month. Its never interested me before but I received an email offer and at that price dived in and I'm glad I did.

UPSIDES -

1, Now TV content is very good

2, Reliability is excellent

3, Picture quality is superb

DOWNSIDES -

1, Not all content on Sky TV is available on Now TV due to rights issues

2, Box sets are available but can then go off, again due to rights issues. Then bizarrely a few months later come back on. So if you decide to watch something, check the expiry date first.

3, Customer Support is awful. Well, zero actually. So if you ever have a problem don't bother. You'd be far better off coming to forums/fora like this where you will get all the help and advice you need. :thumbsup:
 
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Thanks for this thread. Making one of my infrequent, but always fruitful, visits to this forum. I think the last was when we were hacking our Sony Blu-ray DVD players with a remote we sent to each other! I still have the DVD player.
We are looking to consolidate our TV packages and broadband once our eldest has his online exams out of the way.
Currently we have the following:
BT Broadband & Landline 72mBps£60.76 per month
BT Sport HD£12.50 per month (though we had a few credits during COVID)
SKY TV Basic Package - Q Box multiroom£57.80 per month
Spotify (crashes the SKY Q box consistently) but we'll keep as Sky's fault not Spotify£8.99 per month
Netflix - We'll keep this£9.99 per month
Amazon Prime - We'll keep this.£0 through a deal

So we're looking to replace our 42" TV with a LG Smart TV. £299 or thereabouts. This has all the apps we need. Includes Freesat, Freeview HD.
NOWTV Broadband 66mBps£30 per month

We will lose recording facilities but most programmes we watch seem to be available by catch up anyway.
My son is the one who watches the football mostly but he is happy to have the mobile NOWTV at £6.99 per month and pay for that himself.
One "problem" is that our second room has a Smart TV but a Toshiba so we can't have a NOWTV app there if we did decide to watch material through NOWTV but probably easiest to solve by just getting a NOWTV USB stick.
And hopefully we can just take advantage of NOWTV offers and deals from thereon..
 
Now TV has its advantages but it can never completely replace Sky Signature.

It only has the 12 main channels and you cannot record or set series reminders etc. Also you get the kids stuff thrown in.

I was paying 95 quid a month with multi room. What I did was to cancel Sports and movies but keep the base channel package and multiroom. Down to 50 quid a month.

I then subbed to Now TV Entertainment and Movies with 1080p boost for 25 quid.

When my box records series', I see if it's on NowTV and watch it there... no ads and 90% is in better 1080p quality... which is certainly noticeable on a 55 inch 8 foot away... as Sky 720p is a bit soft in comparison.

ALL movies are available in full 1080p HD, and I will simply buy weekly or daily Sports passes for certain events, such as The Masters and when Sheff Utd get into the European Cup final !
 

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