Why ntl and not sky?
 

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

:welcome: narbin

If you get rid of the ntl digi TV, you will have to pay for phone rental whcih is currently bundled in the digi TV price.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Thanks for your reply. Rather quick! The phone rental isn't a major concern and might go altogether if mobile calls get any cheaper.....

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

But to have sky you need some kind of phone line to use PPV and most of there interactive services.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

you need an active phone line for the first year of your contract :)

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Good point. All of the interactive services that I am interested in work without the phone line (BBCi, etc) but I definitely take your point on the PPV.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

are their any channels offered by sky that you don't get with ntl that you would want?

true, but as they say in the guiness advert... good things come to those who wait ;)

can't argue with that one!

why use teletext when you have the internet? i see teletext as the most outdated technology we have, with no signs of it ever being updated!

isn't this the same as on demand? or have i misunderstood :confused:

no comment ;):pp

but is affected by adverse weather

you can do this on ntl as well... infact i do quite regularly

Personally, i stick with the philosophy, if it ain't broke; don't fix it. Unless you have a good reason to leave ntl, i would stick with it as you might find that swapping over is more hassle than it is worth, and you will then be stuck in a 12month contract with sky; i assume your contract with ntl has now passed the 12month mark. As MGP said, if you get rid of ntl tv, you will have to pay for the phone line rental.

and lastly.... :welcome: to the site ;)

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

I can't really see how you can use that as a valid thing against Sky.

My parents had analogue Sky, and you would get some "sparklies" as they were knownm on the screen in very bad weather.
My parents went straight over to Sky digital, and I've had it for 4 years myself, and never once has the picture been affected by the weather.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Not all ntl boxes have that facility though MB-it seems that if you get your box swapped out due to a fault, the one you get given will not allow that facility.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Mostly shopping etc. Fair enough there are a couple of (IMHO) decent channels such as FX289, VH-2 but I reckon they'll end up on NTL before long.

See Above.

Ok i'll give you that. You would need a connected phoneline for a return path though.

Can't agree with that. I've not had any personal dealings with Sky but from conversations with people I'd put the two on a par. Certainly I've heard some absolute horror stories from both companies.

So does Ntl Digital. If your box doesn't have this CS can send out a combiner which (with an outside aerial) will allow you to do this. This may be a Langley only thing though.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Thanks for the replies everyone. I am still looking into it, but I will definitely take on board the comments about the need for a phone line.

New channels / Lack of channels - I am primarily interested in Digital TV for the choice of Music Channels and Sky seriously outdoes ntl in this area. As regards waiting, it would be more acceptable if ntl told us how long we might be waiting. I remember it taking a good 18 months to get the newer MTV channels up and running.

Customer Service / Picture - My parents have never had any trouble with Sky digital since they had it installed several years ago. ntl have serious customer service issues (probably the worst company I have EVER dealt with) which need to be sorted out.

Multistart Movies - As far as I know, Sky have multistart movies on some of their non PPV channels now. Considering that I always miss the first 5 mins, this would be great.

Analogue feed - When my set top box was fixed, the engineer told me that I couldn't get terrestrial TV any more and that there was no way that I could. He also disconnected my audio leads and didn't tell me that there were no sockets on the back of the replacement box. Thanks....

Teletext - You shouldn't knock teletext. Although I am a bit of a technojunkie, I still think that it is the quickest, simplest way to get local information - no need to boot up the PC or go to the study, it's there on the TV in front of you. Interactive can take several minutes to get to the right page (wait for it to start, choose an option, watch an advert, choose an option, choose an option, reboot the box, etc.) but, with Teletext, key page "XXX" and it's there within a few seconds. Try to find local travel news (invaluable in my job) in a few seconds on ntl interactive.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

The price of Sky and BT phoneline is roughly the same as the equivalent NTL DTV package.

BT phoneline allows you to use many providers for phone calls, most of which are cheaper than NTL. ADSL may be available depending on your BT exchange and your distance from it.

Whilst the Sky contract does say that you have to have the digibox connected to the phoneline for the first 12 months, many customers do not keep it connected and Sky never contact them. Some only connect it occasionaly to pay for PPV movies and events.

Sky DTV doesn't get affected much by the weather, at least mine and my friends and relatives doesn't. Weather affected my NTL DTV pictures more.

Sky offers you Sky+ but a similar offering is unlikely to be offered by cable companies in the foreseeable future.

Sky interactive works as does its seven day EPG (3 days on NTL).

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

personally if you can get sky then i would go for it :tu:

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

happy with ntl internet tv and phone all ok no major major pronlems plus i don t like rupert murdoch

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

I would definitely stick with NTL.
There are extra channels on Sky - but none which you would waste the bandwidth on.

Most importantly THERE IS NO RED DOT ON NTL

The 'interactive services' are mainly cr@p to seperate fools from their money- and the red dot ruins the picture --- yes I know you can press back up --- not when its a video you can't. If you have not had Sky you cannot estimate how irritating it is. See http://dvdfever.co.uk/pressrel/pressred.shtml for more details

Similarly Sky+ is overhyped junk designed to lock you into Rupert cos you have bought kit which only works on sky (by another PVR)

NTL is a little cheaper if you have all 3 services CF sky. Customer service is way better and did I mention NO RED DOT

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

I believe that the red dot is coming soon to NTL and when it eventually does it will be just as bad as it is on Sky.

It was nice to be able to choose which Champions League game you wanted to see on Sky using thee red button but you wouldn't know if you only have NTL.

Please remind me, are the interactive games free on NTL?

My Sky+ box was well worth the money and only working on Sky isn't a problem as at the moment, and for the forseeable future, Sky beats NTL hands down. Where can you buy a PVR for your NTL setup that has dual record facilities.

I don't know about Sky customer services as I have never had to call them but I do know how long I had to wait to get through to NTL CS>

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

No they are not! I recently found that out when it seems my 6-year old had been 'fiddling'. Also there appears to be no way of applying any form of parental lock on these things!

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

No one seems to have mentioned that with sky, you buy the digibox so if it breaks down after the warranty period (and I don't know how long that is) you have to pay for the repair. Sky does offer insurance but I think this costs around £200.

With ntl, the box is included as part of the rental so when it goes wrong, they fix it free.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Ditto!

With NTL, despite many requests to turn off the games etc all together, they keep returning & little amounts pop up on the bill...

I have been told by Sky that they can turn the interactive services to use a PIN.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Id stick with NTL... I have had problems recently but that is due to us getting extra services and being quite a distance from the CAB.

I personally do not think the picture quality of sky is as good and as someone said above it is affected by bad weather which isnt good is this country, lol.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

I have to enter a PIN to access the interactive on my NTL box.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

If they bring it to NTL I will be seriously fed up and will consider my subscription

Only if you are a serious footy anorack...but It is wrong that Sky refuse to give NTL subscribers to Sky sports (like me) all the programmes. There is no reason why this can't be done by having SSX1 SSX2 SSX3 etc

Dunno I am a grown up

Why would i want dual record ? Better not to be locked into propriatory technology (esp when owned by Rupe)

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

it's handy when for example, "cutting it" is on one side and "CSI" is on the other with no chance of repeats except in the long term.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

But you can always rip the HDD out of the box when you are done with it. At £200 its pretty subsidised. A standalone PVR is £400+, and its another box under your TV.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Actually, unless you are very stupid, you are given the box for free. I've also posted in another thread on this subject that my parents have been given 2 box replacements by sky, way outside the 12 month initial contract and not been charged for the engineer visit or the box. Even so, if they did try to make you pay, which I'm sure they wouldn't if you said you would quit, you can buy a sky digibox on ebay for about £20-30.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

1st post - :D

I've noticed the 'Press Red' box appearing in the corner of the screen a lot on BBC channels, and it's far more intrusive than the red dot, but it does go away if you leave it for a while.

They by no means have a full 'red dot' package, but the bloody thing never works anyway.
I tried it when the snooker was on and I ended up having to unplug the box to get back to TV.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

The reason I left SKY for NTL was the reliability of their Digibox, the first one failed completely within a month, the next was was burnt out after a lightning storm, so was the next, the next 2 had chennels stuck and refused to change, by the time this happened, warrantly has run out and each call out would cost £50, so I got fed up and moved to NTL. You think the NTL CS was bad? Wait till you see the SKY CS, they were rude and once they even slam the phone on me. They took money from my credit card without authority. It was a nightmare !!

The NTL STB failed only once since I joined 3 years ago. Other than that, no problems. SO good luck to those who move to Sky !

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

As far as my experience went, you need a SKY engineer to come to "marry" your card to the box, and they do not come out for free.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

but by the same token i have had no such problems and have had sky for as long as i can remember , mind you yesterday is as far back as my memory goes :D :D :D :D

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Sorry, but that is absolute B$.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

You can call it what ever you want, it was my experience too, may be you tell us your experience rather than calling rude names:disturbd:.

I am talking my experience about 3 years ago, may be things have changed I don;t know, that is why one needs to read these posts more carefully. At the time, you cannot just take the card and slot it into another machine and watch it, the engineer has to ring into SKY and get the set to recognise the card. and that is not BS

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

As a young father i cannot understand having the time or the
need to record and then eventually watch two different progs :confused:

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Can't agree with you more.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Why is it?
Maybe if you could explain why then I might not have to delete your slightly pointless post.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Sorry for the delay in replying properly but I was rather engrossed in the Chelsea match.

You do NOT require a Sky engineer to come out, and never have had, to activate a box bought on ebay or to marry a viewing card to the box.

The "new" box will work WITHOUT a viewing card to receive all FTA channels.

If you have to marry a viewing card with the box you can do this via the installation menu (Services, 4 0 1 select 6 ). If you have a problem with getting a card to work then just ring Sky and they will sort it for you, no problem.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

So it was perhaps a mistake, as opposed to 'BS' as you described it Ian? ;)

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

LOL How diplomatic. Ever thought of a job in Iraq? :D

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Hmm, I can see the attraction of a strange person twiddling with your remote for a few minutes for £60. Personally, I'd go to Amsterdam for that though! :D

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

When I first had the Sky digibox installed, that is what the engineer said to me, they have to come out to marry the card to the box, they had to do this to combat stolen cards. As I said it was a long time ago and may be practices have changed. I can't even remember when Sky went digital, 1997???

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

I made that statement when I was not fully concentrating and meant that Sky was giving the customer a load of B$ if they told them that.

Apparantly the poster took it the wrong way for which I apologise.

I don't know why the NTL engineer thought that it required an engineers visit to marry the card to the box in order to combat card theft as each card and box have unique identities and the engineer could only quote these numbers on the phone the same as the customer could. Very strange.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Yes, I rang Sky for my new box, didn't know about the installation menu.

Two mins on the phone and my existing viewing card was working in my new Sky box off eBay.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

After much sole searching, I ditched NTL TV & Telephone in december, in exchange for SKY+, and a second SKY Digibox upstairs.

Must say that the engineer from Sky was significantly better than NTL, with neat cabling, and cleaning up as they went. Obviously, this will vary between one engineer & another, but I had to call out NTL 4 times to sort out cabling/faults went they installed by Stand Alone Cable Modem.

Channels are generally the same, but there are a few 'minor' ones that I watch - e.g. Motors TV which shows Champ Cars this year.

Customer services from NTL are nearly always very inefficient, and they never seem to return calls when they promise to. I have only needed to contact Sky twice, and both times they were excellent.

However, the best part is Sky+. Able to record 2 digital channels at the same time (or watch & record another). Great when you have little children (or wifes) who hog the telly. Also, very useful is the 'delay' recording. This allows you to 'rewind live telly' - again great for footie matches when you want to re-look goals etc. Finally, you can record a programme (2 weeks in advance, and also series link, so all eastenders are tapes for example), and start watching it debfore it finishes.

However, for Broadband, must say that NTL is still unbeatable, especially given the new speeds. If only they would get SPAM, Email & News sorted.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

same here - the engineer said SPECIFICALLY that the box wouldnt work except with the viewing card supplied for me. he said it was married to my box by sky.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

it's not a need - it's a luxury and a pleasure.

:)

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

And you think that's unbeatable? :erm:

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

It's late, and I'm feeling generous!!

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Well, they havnt delivered yet! not on speed,spam,email,news or even a plain TCP link! my 512 ADSL link is still faster than my so called '1Meg' from ntl.

Enjoy paying for your new service level, I'll enjoy watching you do it.
:D
ps:this is meant to be a friendly post, I didnt get it for four years either!

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

I agree - you never really understand how good sky + is until you've got it.


I disagree - there's a lot of ADSL products out there that beat it on price and also because ADSL offers 256 upload speed rather than 128.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Although I'm seriously thingking of moving to Sky+, I'm certainly leaving the BB with NTL, it works well around Hertford enough of the time (all networks have some problems) and the 750k will be a nice bonus. Better still would be 256 the other way, but with the resdesign of the website uploads will be lighter and fewer as it will be mainly modifying the product database.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

You sure about that.....?

Bulldog do a 2MB package for £34.99 per month (£3.00 less than ntl's 1MB ('soon' to be 1.5MB) offering.

http://www.bulldogdsl.com/residentia.../primetime.asp

Central Point offer a 2MB service for £34.99-with all of the following feature included.....

http://www.cpbb.co.uk/

When you consider that you will be paying £38.00 for a 1MB 'service' with (by your own admission) poor email/news servers/spam issues, it doesn't seem quite so 'unbeatable' does it.....? ;)

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Neil,

I guess you have not used the bulldog services then?

You cant compare something just on face value. Bulldog uses BT's Datastream which suffer from very slow speeds.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

We have 3 Set top boxes, we will soon have a 4th so I don't see the point in sky+.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

but with sky+ you can record digitally , not onto some grotty old vhs tape :erm: , mind you if you can afford 4 boxes a month money cant be too much of a problem :D :D :D

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

We got a DVD recorder :P

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

aint it funny , i am not surprised :zzz: ;) :D

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Exactly a piece of kit which will work with $ky NTL freeview, FTA digital sat from any bird in the sky, and even good old analogue

While those suckered into Sky+ are stuck recording just what Rupert lets them

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

So what exactly can you see on ..... NTL freeview, FTA digital sat from any bird in the sky, and even good old analogue... that you cannot get on Sky?

And also (this being the crucial thing for me) ..... how do you tape 1 Digital Channel for NTL (i.e. Horror Channel), and also tape or view another digital channel (i.e. Motors TV) - whoops, probably bad examples, as NTL don;t have either!

lemarsh (ignore the channels part, cheap shot when we are currently talking pros and cons of DVD Recorders v SKY+, not the additional channels on Sky) ;)

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

Leemarsh - my comment re freeview- ntl sky fta sat etc was about:-
1)picture quality- not numbers of channel ie on the same tv there is no difference between the different platforms (contary to some daft posts here.

2) A VCR / PVR/Pc can record off any of these sources- Sky+ can only record off sky

Therefore sky + is propriatory rubbish to be avoided at all costs.

Clearly to tape 2 ntl sources you need 2 ntl boxes and 2 recorders

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

mdean, have you ever had Sky+ in your home and used it for a while in order to judge its performance and features?

There is a difference in quality between the various platforms and my experience is that NTL is the worst of them, particularly in hot weather. Others may have different experiences with the various systems but having tried them all I know which I prefer.

If you want decent quality recordings then Sky+ gives you recordings of the same quality as the original transmissions. Do your solutions do this? VCR recordings are of a much lower quality than Sky+ recordings but if you are satisfied with less than the best take that route.

Sky+ may only be usable on Sky but as Sky is the best platform (in my opinion) the that is no problem.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

yes and not only that your dvd recorder or hard disk recorder needs a program guide and some way of changing the channels on your NTL box when it wants to start a recording off.

this is where sky + beats it - its recording facilities are fully integrated within the existing sky program guide.

last time I looked at DVD recorders, quite a few didnt even have program guides.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

But it is only £200 propritary rubbish. So in 18 months when the costs of otehr forms of PVR / DVDR have fallen in price to a similar level choice will open up.

At the moment I think in terms of value for money it can't be beat. When your done with it you have a HDD you can put in your PC too.

Re: Why ntl and not sky?
 

i will be going down this route soon i reckon , and after a year put a bigger hd in it :tu: