Hoping to use the BT Pro box to live pause and record without subscription. I have been offered one for £30 but unsure if it will let me use on free channels or will it be blocked? Any advice if worth it?
It will do what you want from an aerial feed but you can't use IP without a subscription.
Also note that these boxes have never been made available to purchase, & so remain the property of BT. So it could be blocked at some point in the future.
Do not treat the £30 as payment for you to take ownership of the box.
Treat it instead as the fee for the transfer from one registered keeper to another (rather like the ‘logbook’ with a car - the V5C - records the registered keeper, rather than the owner, which remains BT 😛