Sky - alternatives to or getting a better deal?

cambsno

cambsno

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Simon
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Been with sky for over 10 years now, but cancelled contract with them as they would not budge on price. Was paying £72 for pretty much everything, sports, movies, hd, multroom. Over a year or so ago I threatened to leave and got my package for £40ish for 6 months but now they will to do anything. Sorry, but as a loyal customer for so long I would expect something!

So, need to get tvsorted in next 3 weeks. Can't get virgin in my area, so is free view or bt the only option?
 
I make do with freeview and an annual Eurosport subscription which is £35. Satisfies my need to watch live sport with the cycling but obviously doesn't cover the football.

Bt vision is your other alternative. Not sure the requirements of that with regards to cabling and things.
 
You can also watch foreign free signals legally and the German freeview equivalent has a lot of football on. You just need a satellite (which presumably you have from sky) pointed in the right direction and a box to hook up to it. Obviously commentary is in German though!
 
I was a bit like you Simon about 6 months back albeit with less tech.

I was paying £56 a month for Sky everything (sports, movies the works) but no SKY+ box or HD or multiroom. I'd been with Sky since about 1998 with the same box.

What pished me off was that I still had an old box (1998) so despite paying for the 'total package' I didn't have the SKY + benefits.

First call to SKY saw me blanked. I got the same story about how new customers could get loads for their money but I couldn't.

Told them I'd walk away and they were around in 24 hrs. They said the tech I had was so old they couldn't understand how I hadn't been upgraded and how they owed me big time.

Sky+ / Multiroom / HD / All sports and films - £56 pcm

Happy at last with SKY but in all honestly I'm going to chuck it.

SKY Movies - Me and the Mrs don't bother with anymore.

New films - DVD's seem to (aherm) change hands before SKY get them.

Sky Sports - Live football was always the big selling point for me but despite the likes of sopcast being squished for live premiership footy streams - I (aherm) have been led to believe that if you google 'Nutjob' you will be happy with the footy.
 
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we used to have the full package.. but like Dinners, we hardly ever watched movies and i'd get 'the glare' when i had sports on all the time. So we downgraded to the basic package on the terms that i could go to the boozer to watch 'important games' only :suspect:

i think i pay about £38 for Sky +, HD, multiroom etc.. still pains me to pay it though. :gag:
 
Get a freesat box or two. Then use the money otherwise previously wasted on sky for camera gear :) I think it works off astra too so you shouldn't need to fiddle with the dish.

If you have room get a motorised dish then you have a greater choice of satellites. I think the setanta sports package covers quite a bit of stuff too.
 
I left sky about a year ago because the only thing i watched that I couldn't get on freevew was Sky sports. I decided I would use the internet streaming for it and get free tv in HD.

So I bought a humax pvr for £250 and got freesat. For about a month I was happy. Then I realised the interface for freesat/freeview is absolute tosh and has been designed by someone with clearly no usability qualifications, including the design for the remote.

The streaming football, was always annoying, I had to sit in front of my laptop or desktop - the quality stank. Even the good streams are nothing comapred to footbll in HD.

The concept was great but once you have had sky, everything else is inferior - sad but true. I put up with it for a year until sky dropped a leaflet through the door that said I could have whatever I wanted half price for a year - so I rejoined and now get Sky+ HD, Sky movies, sky sports and the basic package of tv channels for £36 a month until january.

Added to this is Sky go - which I think is off the chart, I can watch the football on a mobile device if I need to except the quality is great and isn't full of adverts that keep annoying me.

I hate the company - but the sad thing is - they have the best product by a mile.
 
Can you record two different channels and watch a live third one with sky+ yet, all of them in HD?

I ditched sky as they wanted a fortune for sky+ and a freeview pvr worked out much cheaper and could do more then.

I can't say the usability of sky then was that great. I often had to turn it off and on again just to get it to work! Next door had sky and they had endless issues with it. If you happen to get a good box then it is great but half the time you got a duff one. The picture would break up every time it rained too.

They have a poor attitude to the equipment they supply. At least VM take responsibility for the equipment for life, not just a year.

I think sky have a slightly better product but are under the illusion it's massively better. At £850+ a year I'd expect a lot more than it offers compared to spending £300 on a freesat box once and then nothing else! Add another £100 for DVD rental and it is looking seriously over priced.
 
srichards said:
Can you record two different channels and watch a live third one with sky+ yet, all of them in HD?
Click to expand...

Yup.

Not only that, but at the same time my wife is recording two shows in HD, and watching a redocred HD version of eastenders I can be watching the football live on my ipad whilst some other random person is upstairs on my computer watching some other channel live or even watching something like a movie on sky anytime.
 
joescrivens said:
Yup.

Not only that, but at the same time my wife is recording two shows in HD, and watching a redocred HD version of eastenders I can be watching the football live on my ipad whilst some other random person is upstairs on my computer watching some other channel live or even watching something like a movie on sky anytime.
Click to expand...

Exactly. You can't record two live programmes and watch a third live programme! You can only watch a recorded one on the same box that's already recording two channels. That's why I went freeview as you can record two and watch a live third :)
 
Think I will tough it out and wait for an offer fom sky then. Shame as like joe, I have found them to be the best for tv. Not had any real issues with them, like the wide variety of channels too.
 
srichards said:
Exactly. You can't record two live programmes and watch a third live programme! You can only watch a recorded one on the same box that's already recording two channels. That's why I went freeview as you can record two and watch a live third :)
Click to expand...

My all singing all dancing humax box couldn't do that. Also, thats a rather niche feature - hardly worth sacrificing how poor the freeview interface is just for that 1 time a month when three things are on at exactly the same time and not repeated.

it's also box specific - you can't make that claim for all freeview, it seems the humax9300T does it but it's not as simple as you make out:

However, there are restrictions - if you're recording two channels on different multiplexes, then you can only watch a third channel if it's on the same multiplex as one of the channels being recorded. But if you're recording two channels on the same multiplex, then you can watch a third channel from any multiplex. It sounds complicated, but trust us, it's a very useful feature.

So if the three things you wanted to record and watch were on bbc1, itv and channel5 then you wouldn't be able to do it.

with sky you can record 2 live and watch 2 more live on ipads, iphones or laptops. Thats 4 live channels so :razz::razz::razz:

:lol:
 
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joescrivens said:
which box does that? You would need three feeds to achieve that.

My all singing all dancing humax box couldn't do that. Also, thats a rather niche feature - hardly worth sacrificing how poor the freeview interface is just for that 1 time a month when three things are on at exactly the same time and not repeated.
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My topfield sd pvr could do that. My current icecrypt hd pvr can do that. The current humax HD pvr can do that! My parents panasonic thing can do it. Most freeview pvrs can record two and watch a third channel if they have two tuners. Your humax should be able to. Only limitation is that the mux on the third channel you're watching live has to be the same as one of the other two being recorded.

In the winter there would be a couple of times a week when everything was on at once. If you want to keep the HD playback then +1 isn't an option and not everything is repeated.

It's not such a problem at this time of year as there's virtually b****r all on.

The irony is the sky system could do the same but sky don't want you to be able to. Other freesat systems let you with a similar limitation ie the third channel has to be on the same transponder as one of the other two being recorded.
 
srichards said:
My topfield sd pvr could do that. My current icecrypt hd pvr can do that. The current humax HD pvr can do that! My parents panasonic thing can do it. Most freeview pvrs can record two and watch a third channel if they have two tuners. Your humax should be able to. Only limitation is that the mux on the third channel you're watching live has to be the same as one of the other two being recorded.

In the winter there would be a couple of times a week when everything was on at once. If you want to keep the HD playback then +1 isn't an option and not everything is repeated.

It's not such a problem at this time of year as there's virtually b****r all on.

The irony is the sky system could do the same but sky don't want you to be able to. Other freesat systems let you with a similar limitation ie the third channel has to be on the same transponder as one of the other two being recorded.
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i added some more to my message after you had quoted me - including a childish tongue poking "my sky deal is better than yours" comment :lol::lol:
 
My freeview deal is loads better. It doesn't cost £850 a year :D

If it is on the wrong mux I have a dvd recorder that also has a freeview tuner.

I can't see the point in watching live tv on an ipad. I've got an 8 foot projector screen to enjoy :D :razz:
 
srichards said:
My freeview deal is loads better. It doesn't cost £850 a year :D

If it is on the wrong mux I have a dvd recorder that also has a freeview tuner.

I can't see the point in watching live tv on an ipad. I've got an 8 foot projector screen to enjoy :D :razz:
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My deal costs £432 a year and I get 4 sports channels in HD, sky atlantic in HD, 12 movie channels in HD - all of which you don't get. If you gave me the option of being able to watch 3 channels at once or have access to sky sports and sky movies, I know which I'd choose

Plus I can watch my sky tv and anytime wherever I am.

Freeview is a good idea and it's cheap - but you really do get what you pay for. A terrible interface and very little premium content. If you don't watch a lot of TV (especially sports) then it's a good option, but don't pretend it's a better product than sky - the only things going for it are that it's cheaper and that you can watch a third live channel. There is a LOT more you get for your money with Sky
 
After 10 years also, I'm in my final month and playing a game of brinksmanship with SKY also. Telephoned to say that I wanted the subscription ended, but hoping they will come back and offer me something ! We'll see :lol::lol:
 
I used to have sky with all the movies but got bored with it very quickly as the movies were repeated so often. The only thing I miss is motorstv. Had loads better coverage of BTCC than itv. No stupid ad breaks all the time either.
 
Have you checked out BT? Not sure if you had your BB with sky, but we have just switched.

Our costs with sky:
BB, Telephone & Sky TV (with Sports) £84 pm
Broadband was 8 down and 1 up.

Our new costs with BT:
BT BB Infinity, Telephone and BT Vision £26 for first quarter, then £42 thereafter (no sports).
Broadband is 40 down and 20 up! (awesome for uploading to website etc).

As we live in a flat, I can now also record one channel and watch another with BT - something we couldn't do with Sky on a communal dish.
 
srichards said:
Exactly. You can't record two live programmes and watch a third live programme! You can only watch a recorded one on the same box that's already recording two channels. That's why I went freeview as you can record two and watch a live third :)
Click to expand...

The sky+ satellite box has two feeds from the dish to the box. This means two channels coming in. For whatever reason (I don't pretend to understand) you can't split the feed from an LNB like you can from an aerial.

It is unusual that there are three things on that I want to see, on the very rare occasions where it has happened, to date at least one has been available to download on iplayer.
 
smooth said:
Have you checked out BT? Not sure if you had your BB with sky, but we have just switched.

Our costs with sky:
BB, Telephone & Sky TV (with Sports) £84 pm
Broadband was 8 down and 1 up.

Our new costs with BT:
BT BB Infinity, Telephone and BT Vision £26 for first quarter, then £42 thereafter (no sports).
Broadband is 40 down and 20 up! (awesome for uploading to website etc).

As we live in a flat, I can now also record one channel and watch another with BT - something we couldn't do with Sky on a communal dish.
Click to expand...

really? we've paying £56/month minus sports.
 
Last month just started my 3rd year on half price subscription, full package with Hd think it's £36.50pm

I phone up 2 months ago to cancel and was told as I already had the previous 2 years at half price there would be no more deals...not a chance. I wasn't to bothered and said I still want to cancel. 1 week before the months notice was up I get a call from what sounded like an Indain call center, could not really understand what was being said but something like we can offer you 6 months half price, I said no as I've sold my sky+ box so that ended that converstation (didn't really sell the box)

Anyway 2 days later a scots sounding guy phoned up and said really sorry to hear you leaving and in a nutshell he said if he offered me 12 months at half price would I stay on - I said yes

so 3rd year now at hald price:)
 
srichards said:
Exactly. You can't record two live programmes and watch a third live programme! You can only watch a recorded one on the same box that's already recording two channels. That's why I went freeview as you can record two and watch a live third :)
Click to expand...

The only problem is you're recording the two ronnies, steptoe and son and watching fawlty towers
 
Well, my sky was due to end on june 8th and I was starting to get nervous!! Having to go to freesat and lose my Sky+ recordings... then got a call today... 12 months, no commitment at half price (so approx. £26 a month for movies, sports and all the rest). Have to still pay £10 for multi room and took the decision that £10 for HD was not worth it so very happy!!
 
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