Sky Boxes

Originally Posted by themelon

But of course everyone has different opinions

I'm interested in them all, I still have ntl analogue tv and and I'm trying to consider all options, in what will be an inevitable change to digital.

The 'normal' sky vs ntl/telewest debate, aside -

- what really interests me is the possibilities of PVR - the pros & cons of tivo vs sky+, for example. Future plans for Video on Demand have to be factored in, as well.

- and then there are computer solutions, too, I could set up my system to capture like a PVR, if I could be bothered, including program scheduling, favourites, etc - (only for one feed atm, though)

So, as far as I am concerned, on this subject any information, is useful, rather than anything like 'taking sides'

[themelon]

In my opinion the Cable TV service I recieve is far superior to the service I recieved when I was with Sky.

Firstly I was a Sky customer for years and they were treating me worse as every year went by. The final straw was when I moved house they turned up made a complete hash of my front room, hole drilled half way up the wall which leaked. I played hell with them to no avail, they then told me I was locked into a contract for 12 months so I decided to stay until then. Then my picture began to break up in anything but perfect weather conditions......called Sky sent an engineer dish fixed until next breeze. It turns out they only fix the dish to the support arm with 2 bolts instead of the four drilled holes. This happend several times I said it wasnt good enough, Sky threatend to charge me if I called them again...I said not my problem. In the end I cancelled and payed the remainder of the contract at the value pack rate.

Called ntl, Installed within a week, choice of colours for cable in front room, neatly pinned to skirting board. I think my TV picture has failed once in nearly 2 years. For a year now I have been recieving good interactive from the BBC with few problems. I am due to move in a few weeks and really hope the house is in a cabled street.

Currently I have no need for Sky+ as in my opinion the majority of TV aint worth recording.......I hardly use my DVDR or VCR now.

Originally Posted by themelon

In my opinion the Cable TV service I recieve is far superior to the service I recieved when I was with Sky.

thanks, but in my quest for information, please can you say how it is superior?

- better picture? better epg? (digiguide does for me on analogue)

I value your opinion, but will be grateful for any 'filling'

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by themelon

In my opinion the Cable TV service I recieve is far superior to the service I recieved when I was with Sky.

That is your opinion of the two services and I am sure that there are many others who would agree with you. My own experience is completely the opposite. I consider the move to Sky+ to be the best thing I have done with regards to TV reception and I only wish that I had done it earlier. It may have cost £200 for the Sky+ service but it only costs me £40 per month (I know it is going to £41 later this year but NTL will follow suite in due course) for the full pack with sports and movies rather than £49.50 for less channels with NTL and I would miss Motors TV which is not available on NTL. In two years I will have saved the £200 cost as I don't want or need the NTL phone line. I will have had the many advantages that Sky+ give that nothing else compares with.

One of the main reasons that people have problems with Sky reception (and with many other services) is that they sit there and accept a less than perfect service from the odd installer who is not up to scratch instead of sticking up for their rights and insisting that matters be put right. Your previous posts regarding your Sky experience have indicated that you have been guilty of this.

[themelon]

Personally I prefer the ntl EPG as it doesnt take you away from the viewing and play lift music like on Sky. But I have never really used either I prefer the TV pages!

I prefer the search and Scan on ntl because you can press TV and browse whats on now and next and beyond if necessary, you can then press the 'i' button and recieve a blurb on the current and next programs. The search and Scan on ntl doesnt disappear if you leave it for 5 seconds or so and lose the channel you got too if you dont touch the remote. The reminders are audiable so if you are in another room you can hear when a programme starts.

In my opinion my picture quality on ntl seems better, or certainally its constant. On Sky the picture quality varied, it was great in great weather and would be poor in fog, heavy rain etc and would sometimes lose a signal completely particularly in Ice or Snowy conditions. For me picture quality is important as I have a good TV, and this is where ntl has impressed me.

I also prefer the method of ordering and finding information out about front row movies, instead of using box office which seems very clumbsy using a number of channels and having to scroll through each channel which plays the same film at different time intervals, and having to select the 'i' at the end of the movies start time to find out about the movie. On ntl you select a movie, pick a time, enter a pin, bobs your uncle!!

I also surprisingly perhaps find ntl customer service more helpful and polite than that of Sky who treated me like dirt on numerous occassions, Ok there may be some who are bad but I think they are improving contnually.

I would say Interactive if done properly like the BBC, seems faster on ntl certainally than my Girlfriends Pace Sky Box anyway, I used interactive Wimbledon the other day and expected it to load instantly after hearing how great the Sky Interactive was..........The first time it locked the box, the second time it took an age!! Which doesnt seem to distant to what some people recieve on ntl!!

[themelon]

Originally Posted by ianathuth

That is your opinion of the two services and I am sure that there are many others who would agree with you. My own experience is completely the opposite. I consider the move to Sky+ to be the best thing I have done with regards to TV reception and I only wish that I had done it earlier. It may have cost £200 for the Sky+ service but it only costs me £40 per month (I know it is going to £41 later this year but NTL will follow suite in due course) for the full pack with sports and movies rather than £49.50 for less channels with NTL and I would miss Motors TV which is not available on NTL. In two years I will have saved the £200 cost as I don't want or need the NTL phone line. I will have had the many advantages that Sky+ give that nothing else compares with.

One of the main reasons that people have problems with Sky reception (and with many other services) is that they sit there and accept a less than perfect service from the odd installer who is not up to scratch instead of sticking up for their rights and insisting that matters be put right. Your previous posts regarding your Sky experience have indicated that you have been guilty of this.

Everyone has different experiences of course.......I may well be very lucky and apparently Nynex did a good job of cabling the North West.

I did ring Sky on many occassions but there was little I could do int the end but settle the remainder of my contract and cut my losses......they didnt want to come out again, they were going to charge me. I tried complaining to OFCOM who didnt really care either. I think when you have a problem that big there is little that can be done, I had about 6 visits from Sky with different engineers, none of them rectified the situation to a satisfactory standard, I never signed a form to say I accepted the work and Sky didnt really give a monkey about me or my house.

They were probably gald to lose a moaning git like me!

[ian@huth]

There is a lot of talk about the merits of the EPG on NTL and Sky, but to be honest I only use the Sky EPG to mark programs for recording on Sky+ . There are a number of programs that we regularly record but that simply is one visit to the EPG to set up a series link.

There is nothing to beat Digiguide for progam information and that is what I use rather than the EPG. Far better than Sky's 7 day EPG and the pathetic 3 days that NTL give you.

Originally Posted by ianathuth

There is nothing to beat Digiguide for progam information and that is what I use rather than the EPG. Far better than Sky's 7 day EPG and the pathetic 3 days that NTL give you.

Hey - something we can agree on

[themelon]

Im not a big fan of EPGs at all.

They are both poor and there are far better things out there like the TV times!!

The 7 days EPG or 3 Days makes no difference to me.......as long as the next few hours are shown and I can view info on each program im happy. Unless you use a PVR I think 3 days is perfectly sufficient for average user.

I also like an EPG that has a mini screen in the Corner which is the reason the ntl EPG has the edge for me............although its a tad small you can still see whats happening if say your waiting for an Advert break to finish or something.

Originally Posted by Neil

You're right-I was just trying to make a point that 'TheMelon' was really comparing apples to oranges.

I don't see why. More like comparing two different types of apples, one type of which has a flavour you don't like.

You don't like NTL? Fine, your opinion. He doesn't like Sky? Fine, his choice.

Personally I'm happy with NTL at the moment. I may change in the future.

No such thing as a free lunch is there!?

First question you should ask when someone offers you something "for free" is to ask "so how much will it really cost me?" [1]

Sky have no control over what ntl/TW bundle as TV packages AFAIK m8

Err, what? Where did I say that they did???

The point is that both Sky and NTL bundle channels as part of their packages meaning you may have to effectively pay for a whole load of them to get *one* that you actually want.


[1] NB this does not, of course, apply to companies that offer free leather wrist cuffs...!

[gazzae]

Originally Posted by themelon

The search and Scan on ntl doesnt disappear if you leave it for 5 seconds or so and lose the channel you got too if you dont touch the remote.

Thats easy to change on Sky if you want it to appear for longer.

Originally Posted by themelon

In my opinion my picture quality on ntl seems better, or certainally its constant. On Sky the picture quality varied, it was great in great weather and would be poor in fog, heavy rain etc and would sometimes lose a signal completely particularly in Ice or Snowy conditions. For me picture quality is important as I have a good TV, and this is where ntl has impressed me.

My Sky picture is great all the time, we had high winds and rain the other night and my picture didn't suffer at all. I had NTL before SKy and I can say that the pictures I recieved from both were similar.

[Bifta]

My Sky picture has always been perfect (apart from around 5 seconds outage in over year when there was a MASSIVE hail storm). When I had NTL Digital, the picture kept freezing every hour or so ... I know what I prefer.

[mdean]

Originally Posted by Graham

Personally I'm happy with NTL at the moment. I may change in the future.

Exactky right sir. You are not boxed in by buying over hyped equipment ie sky+ which is designed to lock you by hardware to the service even if in the future your view of it changes.

I would of thought on a computer forum people would get the idea that open source (like the PC) is a more flexible than a closed sourse solution like sky plus

I am glad like me you will not become another of rupes suckers

Originally Posted by mdean

I am glad like me you will not become another of rupes suckers

In which case I suggest you re-read the bit where I said "I may change in the future." Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean that my switching to it makes me a "sucker".

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by mdean

Exactky right sir. You are not boxed in by buying over hyped equipment ie sky+ which is designed to lock you by hardware to the service even if in the future your view of it changes.

I would of thought on a computer forum people would get the idea that open source (like the PC) is a more flexible than a closed sourse solution like sky plus

I am glad like me you will not become another of rupes suckers

I wonder if you were saying the same thing about NTLs cable modems when they first introduced broadband? You had to buy a piece of computer related hardware that locked you into the service even if your view of it changed in the future.

I suppose that you have a NTL phone line which locks you into only using cable broadband and the few telecom providers they allow who give cheap telephone calls.

The only suckers that I can see are the ones who are too blind to recognise the best bit of kit on the market for watching TV.