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Stew

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Sky HD, is it worth it?

 

 

It costs 9.75 gbp a month extra (or 117 gbp a year) which is a sizable chunk for what could be nothing.....

 

Opinions please. Also, if you can get a deal let me know..... ;)

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I may have one of those - intorduce a friend and you can have £x worth of MS voucher things somewhere.

 

I have the HD, and do enjoy watching the discovery chanels and items on BBC that are broadcast in HD. I dont have the sports chanels, so cant comment on those, but if they are as good as the others, then I can imagine they are great too.

 

You could always phone sky and try bartering - advise them you arent convinced, and can you have it for free for 6 months (start at six and you may get three :lol: ) You can barter just about anywhere these days, high street shops included, so perhaps sky will be no different?

 

The new tv guide isnt for everyone just yet - Ive been waiting for montsfor it, but its not been deployed to the newer boxes yet.

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I debated the very same thing when going for Sky. Ended up going for the HD package and definitely think it is worth it. Especially if you have a large tv. Its so annoying when having to watch football on ITV now as it just looks terrible compared to Sky Spors HD.

 

I have a 47" tv and you can so tell a difference when not in HD due to the size and pixels.

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I may have one of those - intorduce a friend and you can have £x worth of MS voucher things somewhere.

 

I have the HD, and do enjoy watching the discovery chanels and items on BBC that are broadcast in HD. I dont have the sports chanels, so cant comment on those, but if they are as good as the others, then I can imagine they are great too.

 

You could always phone sky and try bartering - advise them you arent convinced, and can you have it for free for 6 months (start at six and you may get three :lol: ) You can barter just about anywhere these days, high street shops included, so perhaps sky will be no different?

 

The new tv guide isnt for everyone just yet - Ive been waiting for montsfor it, but its not been deployed to the newer boxes yet.

 

 

I called them on Friday. They said I could have 1 month free if I got it online.... Boxes aren't available just yet so they are taking notes of interest and will call back when they are placing an order apparently.

 

They also want 70 bucks 'installation' fee. Is there more to it than plugging in the two aerials, power and an HDMI cable?

 

I don't have sports package but would enjoy the movies I think.

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Unfortunately you do require a proper install.

 

The new tv guide is good once you get used to it.

 

My only gripe is the lack of HD channels but they will increase over time.

 

Just do it :thumbs:

 

ps. adult channel not available in HD so maybe this is not for you. :lol:

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Unfortunately you do require a proper install.

 

The new tv guide is good once you get used to it.

 

My only gripe is the lack of HD channels but they will increase over time.

 

Just do it :thumbs:

 

ps. adult channel not available in HD so maybe this is not for you. :lol:

 

Hmmm, whats involved in the install?

 

No adult channels in HD! Boooooooooooooooo! You could be right... I might wait for that! :lol::lol:

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Unfortunately you do require a proper install.

 

The new tv guide is good once you get used to it.

 

My only gripe is the lack of HD channels but they will increase over time.

 

Just do it :thumbs:

 

ps. adult channel not available in HD so maybe this is not for you. :lol:

 

Hmmm, whats involved in the install?

 

No adult channels in HD! Boooooooooooooooo! You could be right... I might wait for that! :lol::lol:

 

 

They have got to run another cable from your dish and enter a few secret codes, job done :thumbs:

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Personally I don't think it's worth it unless you get both the movie & sport packages as well, as otherwise there's just too few channels for your money. I absolutely adore mine and don't begrudge paying the money every month, for the use it gets in my house it's well worth it.

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They have got to run another cable from your dish and enter a few secret codes, job done :thumbs:

 

Not sure what secret codes your talking about? You only need to run a 2nd cable if they are going from Sky to Sky+HD. If you already have Sky+ then you are fine. I bought my HD box of ebay and just plugged it in, phoned up Sky to get HD enabled and its been fine ever since.

Just today I also cabled up a 2nd HD box myself by just running a cable from the LNB.

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They have got to run another cable from your dish and enter a few secret codes, job done :thumbs:

 

Not sure what secret codes your talking about? You only need to run a 2nd cable if they are going from Sky to Sky+HD. If you already have Sky+ then you are fine. I bought my HD box of ebay and just plugged it in, phoned up Sky to get HD enabled and its been fine ever since.

Just today I also cabled up a 2nd HD box myself by just running a cable from the LNB.

 

Correct, but I believe that a virgin HD box is a slightly different install and is not plug and play but I stand to be corrected if that is not the case :thumbs:

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They have got to run another cable from your dish and enter a few secret codes, job done :thumbs:

 

Not sure what secret codes your talking about? You only need to run a 2nd cable if they are going from Sky to Sky+HD. If you already have Sky+ then you are fine. I bought my HD box of ebay and just plugged it in, phoned up Sky to get HD enabled and its been fine ever since.

Just today I also cabled up a 2nd HD box myself by just running a cable from the LNB.

 

Correct, but I believe that a virgin HD box is a slightly different install and is not plug and play but I stand to be corrected if that is not the case :thumbs:

You are corrected :lol: - see below

 

I dumped Sky+ last year - issues with crashing and got one of the Humax recoding boxes in December that does all the same as Sky+, including pausing live TV etc and with HD. Simply plugged into the old Sky+ aerial (which has the double lead facility and you don't have to change the aerial orientation) and with freesat and freeview I get all the channels I want. The box cost £300 outright - no more £40 monthly payments to Sky so it has just about paid for itself already :D

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I'm sky+ at the moment so have the two cables.

 

I'm still thinking. So far nobody has said it's not worth a tenner a month though.

 

It all comes down to what you watch. If you like your sports and movies then its great. If you don't then its probably not with it IMO. Discovery HD etc is great but not worth the money. Watching Prem matches in HD is much better than SD specially on large screens, I even notice it on my smaller 32" LCD.

 

At first you 'may' not think its much better but after sitting watching HD for a few hours when you switch back to SD thats when you really noticed it.

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I had to buy my HD box outright £299 because I am outside the UK so can't take advantage of the special offers.

 

Yes it is worth it, the sports and Discovery channels etc are great and it helps if you watch it on a large screen. I watch it on a 8 foot wide screen on the 720p setting and the HD pictures are fantastic and I also watch it on a Pioneer 42" plasma.

 

More HD channels will follow and then it will be even better :thumbs:

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for me i'd like to do it, but i think i'll wait for a while yet. but i do have a couple of questions.

 

1st is this menu update being done eventually on the the Sky+ boxes?

 

2nd is the humax box that was mentioned, if you no longer have to pay subscription does that mena you no longer get sky 1?

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The problem I find with Sky is their SD is @*!#. Compared to Freesat or Freeview the quality is pants. So if you had Freeview and a small TV (under 40") I would say stick with that. If you have Freeview and a big TV (40" or bigger) I'd say get Freesat as the HD looks excellent. Now if you have any TV and SD Sky and want to keep Sky I'd say get HD as the SD quality is shocking and HD is the only way to make it better! Thing you have to remember with a lot of Sky HD is that its just upscaled SD most of the time. But that looks a lot better than normal SD and then when you get true HD it looks even better.

 

Confused yet? Get Freesat :lol:

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Thing you have to remember with a lot of Sky HD is that its just upscaled SD most of the time.

 

I wouldn't say that. I would say a majority of HD channels show mostly HD i.e. BBC HD, Discovery HD are 100% HD

 

As for the question about the new EPG and Sky+ boxes. I would put money on them never porting the EPG to the old boxes. I am pretty sure they actually use a little bit of the extra resolution of the HD box as on SD screens the menus are noticably harder to use

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I got one of the first HD installs when it was released in time for the World Cup a couple of years ago and I have never regretted it.

 

HD channels have been growing since then and I am happy with the amount of HD channels right now, seems to be more getting added every 3 or 4 months.

 

The difference when you watch a Premiership match in HD and then switch back to Sky Sports 1 or 2 is amazing, the lines on the park are crystal clear, you can read all the sponsorship signs easily etc etc

 

I also watch a lot of Discovery etc and Movies and with regard to Movies I always check to see if an HD version is running first before watching ANY film.

 

Yes, it's worth £10 a month.

 

Don't believe there is any special install. It uses the same cables from your existing dish, as long as you have two cables.

 

My advice to anyone is go get it.

 

In regards to SD being crap on Sky, it depends what channel your talking about, channels like UKgold etc use a lower bandwidth/bitrate so are obviously of a lower quality. I have watched Sky at mates house and all the channels look pixelated etc but look good on my TV. I think a lot to be said about certain brands of TV over others, I would never look past Samsung.

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If you watch a lot of Sports and Movies and currently have Sky it's well worth an extra tenner a month in my opinion - but if you don't want to get the Sports and Movies package it's not worth it, and you'd be better off with freesat.

 

The new EPG roll-out has possibly been delayed as it's causing system crashes on some boxes and signal drop-outs. Those with HD Amstrads probably won't get it for some time yet and I doubt it'll pass down to Sky+ boxes at all. You're better off with the old one at the moment anyway.

 

Personally I think most of the SD stuff on Sky is reasonable (and no worse then freeview) - depends on your telly and set-up and which channel. The HD stuff is very good (I can't watch sport on SD anymore without squinting at it).

 

The only problem with Sky is trying to get them to sort any problems out - their customer service is a joke (but then which company isn't these days :angry: )

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The only problem with Sky is trying to get them to sort any problems out - their customer service is a joke (but then which company isn't these days :angry: )

The problem is they are so big with so many customers, they couldnt care less if you leave, even if you tell all your mates, its cheaper to lose a few customers than send someone round to fix it! :rant:

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2nd is the humax box that was mentioned, if you no longer have to pay subscription does that mena you no longer get sky 1?

 

The Humax Foxsat HDR box does all the fancy recording and TV picture control. The channels I get are those that come from Freeview and Freesat - does not include Sky1. The only Sky channels I tended used to use was Eurosport so at £40 a month and as others have said, next to useless customer service (even worse than Nissan :lol: ) and 2 duff repacement Sky+ boxes for me it was a no-brainer to stay with Sky.

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2nd is the humax box that was mentioned, if you no longer have to pay subscription does that mena you no longer get sky 1?

 

The Humax Foxsat HDR box does all the fancy recording and TV picture control. The channels I get are those that come from Freeview and Freesat - does not include Sky1. The only Sky channels I tended used to use was Eurosport so at £40 a month and as others have said, next to useless customer service (even worse than Nissan :lol: ) and 2 duff repacement Sky+ boxes for me it was a no-brainer to stay with Sky.

I've had the Foxsat HDR box since I could get hold of one and its fantastic! I did a self install of a Sky dish and quad LNB, and the picture quality and sound is excellent. Hasnt missed a recording, hasnt crashed or anything else. Just a shame that ITV show stuff at such a lot bitrate on Freesat, its noticably worse than Freeview, but on the flip side, BBC is better and HD is awesome with more progs on all the time :thumbs:

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