Sky digital

Hightower · 27 March 2006, 22:32

I've been a Sky subsriber for 10 years and my Box is starting to seeze up (not having much luck with electrical things at the moment).

My questions are:

Do you think they'll give me a free box and have it installed free for being a loyal customer, I think they owe me one

?

If they tell be I have to buy, can I unsubscribe one day and sign up for a new package the next?

Anyone with experiences of this?

roycruse · 27 March 2006, 22:52

They are tight as hell - don't expect any favours from them.

I would advise just getting one for a tenner off ebay.

If you try and cancel they will normally offer long term customers a discount for 3 or 6 months to stop you leaving (you cant try it too often though) also after you cancel they will periodically ring you back with time limited discount offers to get you back.

I think its highly over priced rubbish and cancelled my subscription long ago.

Hightower · 27 March 2006, 23:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by roycruse

I think its highly over priced rubbish and cancelled my subscription long ago.

Happen to agree, but would have kids and wife getting on my nerves otherwise....It's worth the money for that!

Milan · 28 March 2006, 06:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hightower

Happen to agree, but would have kids and wife getting on my nerves otherwise....It's worth the money for that!

No problem Hightower just tell them your having difficulties explain what it is tell them you have had enough and your cancelling your subscription they will offer to send an engineer for free which would normally cost £60 and he will replace the box free of charge they would rather keep you as a paying customer than worry about a box that they buy by the hundreds the same thing happened to my sky box and they replaced it just stick to your guns over cancelling

PS. About six months after they replaced the sky box I cancelled my subscription as some of the channels were coming up as no sattalite signal being received and all I had to look at was a blue screen they offered to send out an engineer again free of charge but told them to keep it

Alice · 28 March 2006, 06:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by roycruse

I think its highly over priced rubbish and cancelled my subscription long ago.

Yep, it astounds me how they can charge £30+ a month and still saturate the thing with intelligence insulting adverts, and we pay it!

donutsina911 · 28 March 2006, 07:05

ditto the above, tell them you're thinking of leaving and they'll do you a decent deal..

Andy Moore · 28 March 2006, 08:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hightower

Happen to agree, but would have kids and wife getting on my nerves otherwise....It's worth the money for that!

I have 'downgraded' my subscription to just the £10.00 pm month that allows me to continue to use my Sky+ box.

Suits me down to the ground. Saved me £33.00 pm to spend on fuel.

And while we are on the subject:

Are the new TVs a con?

"Consumers who are thinking of investing thousands of pounds in plasma or LCD televisions that claim to be "HD ready" should read the small print first, says the Daily Mail. High Definition television promises to deliver crystal clear picture quality by broadcasting in up to two million pixels. (The more the pixels, the sharper the image.) Sky and the cable channel Telewest have already started showing programmes in the format; the BBC will broadcast June's FIFA World Cup in High Definition. But most of the screens that are being marketed as "HD ready" have a maximum of 720 lines with 1280 pixels per line, a total of 921,600 -less than half the full potential. "I think many people will feel conned," said broadcast electronics expert Brian Robertson. "They may have paid more.than £2,'000 for a set that does not deliver the real clarity promised by HDTV."

Source: 25 March 2006 THE WEEK

roycruse · 28 March 2006, 08:30

Anyone not having the sense to investigate that there is more than one format of HDTV and that their budget "HD Ready" television is only meeting the lower spec deserves what they get.

To be honest though - in comparison with the 480 lines that we are all watching at the moment it will still be a MASSIVE improvement.

Someones got to buy these cheaper screens.

If you look at the higher spec models - a lot of those don't have a full 1080 lines either though - they stop short at 1024 meaning the 1080 picture will either have to be scaled (resulting in quality loss due to aliasing) or cropped (this being the favourable option).

Alice · 28 March 2006, 08:43

Phew!! Was on my way to 'Dixons' this week!!

Andy Moore · 28 March 2006, 09:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by roycruse

If you look at the higher spec models - a lot of those don't have a full 1080 lines either though - they stop short at 1024 meaning the 1080 picture will either have to be scaled (resulting in quality loss due to aliasing) or cropped (this being the favourable option).

Its all rather confusing, isn't it. So, if we want a tip-top screen, what is the minimum resolution we should be looking for?

roycruse · 28 March 2006, 09:54

Hi Def TV is a massive topic - and I've only scratched the surface myself.

My current recommendation is to wait until it all settles down.

The high def standard includes 3 "sizes" of picture measured in horizontal lines.

480, 720 and 1080.

The 480 being equivalent to the standard picture that we have at the moment (this is included purely for backward compatibility so HDTVs can still view old format TV).

720 and 1080are the new high definition standards.

There is also i & p that needs to be thrown in to the mix. i standing for interlaced and p for progressive.

interlaced basically means that we get fed all the even lines in one 48th of a second frame then all the odd lines in the next 48th second frame and so on. progressive pictures feed the entire frame every 24th of a second.

So you have 480i which is the current TV standard. then you had 720p and 1080i as the two main standards that were going forward - no one knows which of these will become the norm for transmission and home movies.

another complication is that Sony are hard pushing 1080p format with their PlayStation 3 and its blu-ray disc player.

next you have the connectors that will connect these new HDTV devices together. as a minimum you will need DVI inputs and outputs on you DVD player, sky digibox etc to connect up at the high definition quality but there is a new interface called HDMI which is an amazing standard - it can carry all the HDTV and HDAudio and remote control signals etc etc etc... I hope this takes off as it will eventually mean a single cable type for connecting all the TV, VIDEO and HI FI equipment together.

That just touches on it really - as I said its a very complicated subject.

To be safe you need a TV that can support 1080p and has as close to that size screen as possible last time I looked they were all 1024 lines.

but if what you end up watching is mostly 720p stuff that 720p image will be stretched to fit the 1024 lines on your screen resulting actually in a worse picture than if you had a 720 line screen. This is because digital displays display the sharpest, clearest picture when the incoming image matches 1:1 with each pixel on the display. whenever you stretch or shrink a picture the pixels are calculated by the video processor resulting in a slight softening of the image.

roycruse · 28 March 2006, 10:09

here's a good artical that puts it in perspective though

http://www.hdtvexpert.com/pages/x1080.htm

Andy Moore · 28 March 2006, 11:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by roycruse

To be safe you need a TV that can support 1080p and has as close to that size screen as possible last time I looked they were all 1024 lines.

Hot off the press, here

Lawrence · 28 March 2006, 13:37

I looked at it in detail just before Christmas. I bought a Sony HD ready LCD and I've just parted with my £30 deposit to be one of the first to be able to receive Sky HD transmissions at the start of May (hopefully in time for the World Cup!).

Picture quality on standard Sky broadcasts varies depending on the bitrate of the channel you are watching; some are crap, others can be very good and I'm hoping that 720p and 1080i will be a big improvement on what we get at the moment.

1080p is not on offer at the moment, Sky are only planning to use 720p and 1080i and there are few true 1080p (1920 x 1080) screens for sale and they are very pricey. Sony have had to postpone the launch of Blu-Ray/PSP 3 for a few months also. When they do start broadcasting in 1080p (not for years I suspect) I suppose I'll just have to buy a new screen...

It is a minefield that needs considerable attention to detail to make sure you don't buy a pup. Buy one with the HDTV Ready logo which should ensure it is capable of receiving the relevant standards and the more pixels the better but most important is the picture quality. A couple of HDMI inputs would be advisable as well to allow for future goodies...

Andy Moore · 28 March 2006, 13:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lawrence

Picture quality on standard Sky broadcasts varies depending on the bitrate of the channel you are watching; some are crap, others can be very good and I'm hoping that 720p and 1080i will be a big improvement on what we get at the moment.

Would this include, say, a BBC1 programme broadcast via Sky?

roycruse · 28 March 2006, 14:10

Whilst were on the topic of HDTV

This has just been released this month from Sanyo - currently the worlds smallest High Definition Video Camera.

I seriously want one - but cant justify the funds at the moment

http://www.sanyo-dsc.com/english/pro...hd1/index.html

Lawrence · 28 March 2006, 14:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andy Moore

Would this include, say, a BBC1 programme broadcast via Sky?

At the moment BBC channels broadcast are standard definition and are of average quality, some programmes being better quality than others, for example, some nature programmes. Surprisingly, Channel 5 is consistently of good quality. I think to get a decent quality picture the programme you are watching has to be of decent quality, as does the bitrate, reception and finally the screen and if any one of those is missing you lose out. You can watch 2 footie matches on Sky on the same channel and one can be a lot better quality than t'other.

HDTV transmissions will be shot in HD in the first place (the BBC and Sky have invested in new kit - cameras etc to do this) and a new Sky HD box will be necessary to receive them on dedicated HD channels along with a subscription. I believe the BBC plan to broadcast the World Cup in HD but only through Sky and perhaps some cable operators - so even though the BBC's transmissions are free, only Sky subscribers will have the kit. Trials are going on with Freeview but only on a limited basis in some areas. More and more programmes will be HD, but it will take time.

Hightower · 28 March 2006, 17:24

Back on Topic

Phoned Sky today and they're sending out an engineer next Tuesday FOC, hopefully he'll have a new box in the back of his van.

roycruse · 28 March 2006, 17:57

he will definitely have new boxes in the van. they always carry them.

when he arives he will fill out the details of the job he does on an o2 xda pocket pc - then you will be asked to sign on the screen.

I wrote most of the application he is using

Hightower · 28 March 2006, 20:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by roycruse

he will definitely have new boxes in the van. they always carry them.

when he arives he will fill out the details of the job he does on an o2 xda pocket pc - then you will be asked to sign on the screen.

I wrote most of the application he is using

Have you a back door installed so that after he gets me to sign, all Sky profits go into my bank account.