Okay everybody lets do the
maths nice and slow
NTL
igital Cable TV and phone
Skysports and movies package = 47.50
Premiership plus = 1.00
Total = 48.50
Sky + BT : Digital Sat and phone
Sky sports and movies £40.00
Premiership plus (season ticket £25.00-not sure if that is the rest of this season price or the full season price-give them the benefit of the doubt) so say £2.00
BT phone -cheapest package - no I don't want BT together -honest £9.50
Total =£51.50
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Just to be clear
NTL = £48.50
Sky/BT= £51.50
Therefore NTL are cheaper QED
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Ok next - Sky have more channels. They do - and that is a way in which they abuse there monopoly position. Usually they move accross to NTL after a while (eg Sky one mix) There are very few channels encrypted on sky which are not on ntl. The only one of any consequence which I miss is Fox news (I like to laugh at the fascistic yanks) If you still have a sky box which I do many of the others (shopping and ****e) are still available.
To be fair NTL do charge for the god channel which is ftv on sky ???!!!
However the main channels (Sport, movies, News, uktv, mtv etc) are the same
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Finally to the dreaded Sky + box. Yes It does make me cross that people are being suckered into buying it.
Now then
kRAyZZed I understand you want to record films to watch at your convenience.
There are a number of choices for you and the rest of us
1) Video recorder
2) TIVO
3) DVD Recorder
4) PVR
5) A PC
6) Sky + box
Options 1-5 will work with any TV feed - analogue or digital, terrestrial, sat or cable (sat includes Murdochs Sky and every other provider arround the world canal + cyfra etc)
Option 6 will only work with sky period useless with all other types of TV. Why do you think sky are pushing it so hard?? To lock in subscribers to their pay service or pay the £10 sky+ tax
My suspision is that over time options 2-5 will provide a more flexible approach and be more future proof.
Say an aggressive competitor to sky comes into the market offering good TV at lower rates on a different satelitte- at that point if Sky+ users want to shift there boxes become a useless doorstop. Those with options 2-5 will be fine.
Where it is possible a non propriatory open system (like PCs) is the preferable option to a closed system like sky+
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A postcript on DOGs and red buttons
paulyoung666 vbmenu_register("postmenu_177667", true); yes like you I hate dogs and want them all gone- but the red dot was terminally annoying on Cricket where the back up button needed pressing 6 times an hour (lots of short ad breaks between overs)- You cannot press back up when you are not there.
It is not necessary