Will NTL ever catch up with Sky?

[Tod]

I could not believe the superiority of the Sky services on Digital TV compared to NTL when I played around with a friends Sky digital box the other day.

Most channels have interactive content on Sky (All BBC, ITV, Ch4, all the UKTV channels etc etc)

The program guide actuarily loads up fast and WORKS!

Is NTL ever going to get anywhere near Sky - because they have an awful long way to go yet!

[themelon]

Most of those Interactive service are commercially exclusive to $ky, which basically means the broadcasters are offered incentives to only produce content for Sky. From the likes of ITV, CH4 and UKTV we will never see Interactive.

As for Sky Active.........Sky know they are onto a good thing, they can steal customers with the lack of 8 games on Cable or Multistart films.

Until people complain to OFCOM Little will change.

I actually thought the EPG was equally crap and slow, but I guess that is box dependant.........give me the TV Times anyday. That lift music is pure irritation as is the loss of tv sound.........or a mini picture.

ntls search and scan is miles ahead of the Sky blue and white 'block the picture', that doesnt really do very much, it doesnt even tell you what time the programme you are watching started!!...........which is useful to say the least! You cant find info on anything on later, you cant quickly turn on subtitles, you cant browse and keep the banner up for more than 30 seconds (like pressing tv on ntl).

Will Sky ever catch up on that?

As well as having customer service even worse than ntls and a installation team that couldnt tell its arse from its elbow...........they are great!

(All in my personal experience, neither is particualrly better than the other, Sky is just getting away with abusing its monopoly position due to OFCOMS lack of balls)

[Neil]

Originally Posted by themelon

(All in my personal experience, neither is particualrly better than the other, Sky is just getting away with abusing its monopoly position due to OFCOMS lack of balls)

Whatever the reason, Sky's product is still far more capable, & superior to ntl's (& now-no "coming soon"!)

[Derek]

Sky's interactive is currently far better than Ntl's. I'll agree on that. As for the actual EPG I personally prefer the Ntl one over sky seeing as it gives you a lot more information about programs etc and you can check through the programs without losing the current channel.

I've used the Ntl guide on a variety of boxes and there are varying speeds. On the Samsung boxes it flies faster than 99% of the Sky boxes. On most bog standard sky boxes I've used the difference between Ntl and Sky full guide hasn't been that noticable. Sky boxes were a bit faster but not hugely so.

[gazzae]

Originally Posted by themelon

it doesnt even tell you what time the programme you are watching started!!.

Hit info and it will tell you there what time the program started at.

Originally Posted by themelon

you cant browse and keep the banner up for more than 30 seconds (like pressing tv on ntl).

Yes you can. There is a setting which dictates the timeout length for the banner, you can change this to never and that way the banner will stay on the screen until you press back-up to remove it.

[Neil]

Originally Posted by dezzo

Sky's interactive is currently far better than Ntl's. I'll agree on that. As for the actual EPG I personally prefer the Ntl one over sky seeing as it gives you a lot more information about programs etc and you can check through the programs without losing the current channel.

Doesn't ntl's only go up 3 days though (as opposed to Sky's 7)?

Originally Posted by dezzo

I've used the Ntl guide on a variety of boxes and there are varying speeds. On the Samsung boxes it flies faster than 99% of the Sky boxes. On most bog standard sky boxes I've used the difference between Ntl and Sky full guide hasn't been that noticable. Sky boxes were a bit faster but not hugely so.

Are you referring to Interactive 'red button' stuff?

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by themelon

Most of those Interactive service are commercially exclusive to $ky, which basically means the broadcasters are offered incentives to only produce content for Sky. From the likes of ITV, CH4 and UKTV we will never see Interactive.

I know what you're saying, but even Freeview's interactive services are far better than ntl's. It still makes me laugh when I see the little red 'i' for ITV followed by the inevetable 'There is no interactive link for this channel' message!

Originally Posted by themelon

Until people complain to OFCOM Little will change.

I'm not sure that will have a great deal of effect. There is no real provision for the level of interactivity that should be made available by broadcasters or carriers from OFCOM, and given the other issues this country has with regard to all broadcasting, I can't really see them introducing one in the near or mid-term.

Originally Posted by themelon

(All in my personal experience, neither is particualrly better than the other, Sky is just getting away with abusing its monopoly position due to OFCOMS lack of balls)

This I don't really understand. Sky has a majority of digital homes through providing a better service (not necessarily customer service) than its competitors. Cable has been going for longer than satellite TV in this country, but Sky very quickly overtook them as the cable companies were unresponsive, behind the times and offered very little for a lot of money.

Sky very quickly eroded cable's offer through quality marketing, a better product and being quick to adapt. As such Sky is a very profitable company when most cablecos are struggling to break even.

This isn't a monopoly, and IMHO should not be legislated against by OFCOM or anyone else, with the exception of unfair trading of key channels such as Sky Sports etc. (where it was proven they were being unfair to cablecos in their wholesale pricing and this was changed as a result).

[orangebird]

Originally Posted by Neil

Doesn't ntl's only go up 3 days though (as opposed to Sky's 7)?

Yes, but if like me, you're only interested in what's on for the day, it's fine, and much better than Skys. If I want to see info for a programme that's an hour ahead, I can do so without having to change channels at all - with sky you have to go back to the guide, which is irritating.

[themelon]

The Wholesale cost of Sky Sports should again be reviewed, last time it was reviewed there were only 3 or maybe 4 channels now there are 10.

There are 6 games+ that we help to pay for, that we do not recieve in any form. This is wrong and Sky is abusing it monopoly postion in my opinion!

Im not remotely bothered about the Interactive.........just the football matches we help to buy the rights for but cannot see........unless we have an ugly dish and subscribe to Sky!

The cable companies still out penerate Sky in cable areas today, Sky has advantage that it is available to 100% of the population so will naturally have more subscribers. The cable companies offer a cometative product but were crippled by the governments hairbrained idea of franchising (ie letting lots of small companies with little capital, or income dig holes all over the country) instead of letting on big company (even BT was interested) do it! in the interest of stopping monopolies.

In the late 1980s BSB was awarded the first satellite broadcast license by the UK Governement.........they had to provide their own satellites (two, one as backup) and use the superior DMAC Format, this was a condition of the license. Sky was originally a 'pirate' they rented space and used a decidely dodgy but cheapo method of recieving the weaker signal with a big ugly dish compared to the BSB Squariel. OFCOMS predecessor suffered a massive lack of balls in allowing this.........which helped Sky get where it is to day breaking every rule in the book. Murdochs Sky didnt spend hardly anything getting started, and then merged with BSB creating BSkyB, they then sold off the good stuff and continued to use their decidley dodgy, but bigger profit margin methods! I remember the first Amsatrad box from Sky........it was the most tacky thing I had ever seen, like something you get from the seaside souvenir shops!

To this very day they still abuse their position, it is in my opinion clearly anti-competative to sign exclsuive deals for Interactive content, or give subscribers to 'your' channel on a competitiors platform a raw deal, Sky are still making a profit from the subscription of cable customers, so why treat them like crap............answer to make them get a dish.........anti competative!

[Derek]

Originally Posted by Neil

Doesn't ntl's only go up 3 days though (as opposed to Sky's 7)?

Yes. IMO though 99% of the time you are interested in either today or tomorrow for seeing what is on.

Originally Posted by Neil

Are you referring to Interactive 'red button' stuff?

No the actual guide giving you a 'grid' of programs and what is on different channels at the same time. Red button stuff on both platforms (BBCi mostly) seem to run at very similar speeds. Again this seems down to the actual box. Using the Sky system on a panasonic digibox was amazingly quick and responsive but going back to a bog-standard sky pace box seemed slower than the Ntl ones.

[ikthius]

Very anti-competitive in my opinion.

the main reason I am saying this is not the fact of looking up 7 days, but the interactive sky sports.

Why is it that sky will not let cable companies have the interactive services to see whatever match you want on sky sports extra? they want the customers for themselves to make more money.
But for those who have sky sports package with cable are not allowed this, then this is just monopolising something that many would want, therefore they have the upper hand of making people ditch cable.

My family are thinking of getting rid of NTL for sky just for the football, and to be honest this is wrong. NTL provide an OK service, not saying the best, they do have a lot of faults, but it does have the better advantage of better reception in bad weather, with 1,2,3,4,5 added because you have to have an ariel for things like football on bbc1 if sky did not get the license.

I would like to see someone like OFCOM do something about it, would an online petition help?

ik

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by andygrif

I know what you're saying, but even Freeview's interactive services are far better than ntl's. It still makes me laugh when I see the little red 'i' for ITV followed by the inevetable 'There is no interactive link for this channel' message!

In fairness to NTL, it's up to the broadcasters to provide the interactive service. Maybe NTL could be doing more to encourage development, but having been involved with design of Interactive TV (for a student's project, not a live site), I found that CR3 was technically as capable as the Sky system, and NTL were far more willing to help than Sky. Sky basically said that they could help, but would charge.

NTL gave us the liberate emulation software (Liberate forms the basis of CR3), access to a special off-net test server, and unlimited technical support for free.

Sky very quickly eroded cable's offer through quality marketing, a better product and being quick to adapt. As such Sky is a very profitable company when most cablecos are struggling to break even.

Actually, I thought that Sky made huge losses for the first 15 years of it's life, and has only recently started making a profit. IIRC, it was heavily financed as part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Cable companies (and other broadcasters) do not have the backing of one of the largest (if not the largest) media companies in the world.

Put basically, Sky could (& still can) afford to spend tens of millions of pounds on a new technology, then not worry when they see a return on that investment.

[themelon]

Originally Posted by ikthius

I would like to see someone like OFCOM do something about it, would an online petition help?

ik

Take a look here, may be worth someone setting up a petition just keep bombarding OFCOM with complaints until they do something!

http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/...=169238&page=2

[ikthius]

thanks themelon, but although they have sent letters, what about something like that here.

is there anyone good at writing up letters, so that we can make our own petition, because the digital spy one from the above link only supplies the link to a petition you can make, there is not one there.
I for one am hopeless at such letter writting, or I would do it myself.

I would definitley sign it, cause I for one am fed up that I pay the same for sky sports as someone who has sky digital and sky sports, yet they get the 8 game interactive.

ik

[themelon]

Just copy and paste on of the letters in that thread. As long as OFCOM Knows many people are upset they might be more inclined to do something worthwhile.

They cant ignore large numbers of complaints. E-mail OFCOM, Sky and ntl asking for answers or write to them, get other people you know to do the same.

I believe a petition is being set up. Will post a link when available.