Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2011) Vol. I.

[Fred Fish]

Thanks for the reply (for future reference where would be best to post this?).

I have tried checking the cables (and everything else appears OK picture wise).

But I havent tried the other suggestions, I will work out how to do so and if all else fails then I will do as you suggest and call in.

Thanks again, I appreciate it.

Mods.... as this is in the wrong place, I wont be offended if you delete this message.

[devilincarnate]

Originally Posted by Fred Fish

Thanks for the reply (for future reference where would be best to post this?).

I have tried checking the cables (and everything else appears OK picture wise).

But I havent tried the other suggestions, I will work out how to do so and if all else fails then I will do as you suggest and call in.

Thanks again, I appreciate it.

Mods.... as this is in the wrong place, I wont be offended if you delete this message.

Service status page here:

https://my.virginmedia.com/service-status/details

Or link for the fix it assistant and how to find it here:

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...nt/td-p/128873

But instead of trying the numbers you may need to check for what it says dependent on the box that you have.

[Fred Fish]

Originally Posted by devilincarnate

Service status page here:

https://my.virginmedia.com/service-status/details

Or link for the fix it assistant and how to find it here:

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...nt/td-p/128873

But instead of trying the numbers you may need to check for what it says dependent on the box that you have.

Thanks again

[LexDiamond]

I have never understood why people use the word 'monopoly' when describing Sky.

Virgin actually have significant power over Sky in that Sky can't realistically run any of its own channels (in SD) without making it available to Virgin. The Sky 1 saga proved this.

What it can do is make a bit of fuss for a while which it certainly does. But that is just open markets and Virgin seem like a company not willing to pay over the odds so timing differences will always occur.

I personally find the idea of splitting Sky very strange. If you reduce the incentive for them to gain an advantage then all viewers including Virgin viewers would lose out.

Correct me if I am wrong but didn't the sale of Virgin channels to Sky include freeview channels (sorry I'm not familiar with freeview)? If so that is very convenient as Sky pay Virgin to buy channels then only to remove from freeview and both win. Sky also removed SSN from freeview trying to devalue BT Vision and Freeview.

Personally I think Virgin and Sky are like Marie and Frank from Everybody loves Raymond. They come across as hostile but they love each other as they both make money from each other.

[muppetman11]

Anyone else got a bad blurring picture every so often on ESPN HD Man City game ?

[alwaysabear]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

Anyone else got a bad blurring picture every so often on ESPN HD Man City game ?

Mine seems Ok at the moment.

[muppetman11]

Originally Posted by alwaysabear

Mine seems Ok at the moment.

Yeah mine to now was blurring a bit before

Originally Posted by LexDiamond

I have never understood why people use the word 'monopoly' when describing Sky.

Virgin actually have significant power over Sky in that Sky can't realistically run any of its own channels (in SD) without making it available to Virgin. The Sky 1 saga proved this.

What it can do is make a bit of fuss for a while which it certainly does. But that is just open markets and Virgin seem like a company not willing to pay over the odds so timing differences will always occur.

I personally find the idea of splitting Sky very strange. If you reduce the incentive for them to gain an advantage then all viewers including Virgin viewers would lose out.

Correct me if I am wrong but didn't the sale of Virgin channels to Sky include freeview channels (sorry I'm not familiar with freeview)? If so that is very convenient as Sky pay Virgin to buy channels then only to remove from freeview and both win. Sky also removed SSN from freeview trying to devalue BT Vision and Freeview.

Personally I think Virgin and Sky are like Marie and Frank from Everybody loves Raymond. They come across as hostile but they love each other as they both make money from each other.

I haven't ever heard anyone say that Sky is a monopoly. The fear is that they will eventually become a monopoly. Sky has so much money that if they decide to squeeze other platforms by denying them content then there is nothing to stop them. At least when VM owned some channels they had some leverage over Sky. Now they have nothing. VM used the sale of the channels to gain some of Sky's exclusive channels to give them a fighting chance to compete against them. Look what has happened. Sky has bought loads of content that they could have put on their existing channels and put it on a new exclusive channel. How any customer would say that is not a bad thing is beyond me. The different platforms should be competing on price and level of service not channel exclusivity.
If Sky were split up they would still have the incentive to make money that any company has. It's not going to happen though. What we need is for Ofcom to take a stand on this blatant anti-competitive and anti consumer behaviour but Murdoch has too much political influence for that to happen.

[Henkesghost]

And Sky have so much money because..............?















Yes that's right, they are the best at what they do

Originally Posted by Henkesghost

And Sky have so much money because..............?















Yes that's right, they are the best at what they do

So you dont want Ofcom to act in our interest then and stop sky keeping content exclusive to their platform?
It's quite obvious as well that a major reason why they were able to get so far in front of everyone else was that all they have had to compete with in the pay tv market was a fragmented cable service. Even now that cable is getting it's act together it would take a huge amount of money to get anywhere near their coverage.

[Digital Fanatic]

Originally Posted by Henkesghost

And Sky have so much money because..............?















Yes that's right, they are the best at what they do

Because they were first. also as ahardie says, Cable was fragmented in the UK until the last few years. It's only now that cable (Virgin Media) is getting on it's feet and being a real competitor to Sky.

Competition is good for the consumer, but exclusive content only benefits it's holder.

[Chad]

Competition is good for the consumer, only problem is at the moment neither company can deliver what I really want for my TV viewing experience.

I want all HD and SD channels that broadcast on SKY, but I also want the catch-up and on-demand service Virgin provides. If a company can deliver me both of these, under one monthly subscription, then I'll be a happy customer.

Maybe Virgin and SKY can do a deal. Virgin let SKY use their broadband network, in return Virgin get access to all SKY HD channels, SKY 3D, full red button access, SKY mobile, SKY anytime and SKY Player. Or the other alternative is I stop drinking cider before I post my thoughts on here

Originally Posted by Chad

Maybe Virgin and SKY can do a deal. Virgin let SKY use their broadband network, in return Virgin get access to all SKY HD channels, SKY 3D, full red button access, SKY mobile, SKY anytime and SKY Player.

Its one of the focal points of VM, the brilliant broadband. Giving that away isn't worth a few extra pixels, you can't buy broadband speed 6 month later on DVD.

[mersey70]

Originally Posted by Digital Fanatic

Because they were first. also as ahardie says, Cable was fragmented in the UK until the last few years. It's only now that cable (Virgin Media) is getting on it's feet and being a real competitor to Sky.

Competition is good for the consumer, but exclusive content only benefits it's holder.

With the greatest of respect DF I think it is somewhat disingenuous of you to say Sky have so much money 'because they were the first'.

They joined the DTH game (but launched first) far later than British Satellite Broadcasting who even with the might of the Government and the IBA behind them made a complete and utter hash of their own business plans and were beaten to the post although regulation and technology contributed to the endless delays but basic poor decisions did too. Remember the squarial? Their CEO bought the idea from a small time inventor when there wasn't even a working prototype, that wasn't a technology that was imposed on them like the DMAC system, they had no choice with that but they didn't monitor it's development properly. I read a great book called 'Dished' which is all about the history of BSB, it was a complete and utter joke, it was quite unbelieveable what went on. Murdoch knew this and smelled blood but he really got in through the back door using Astra and it's cheap equipment, in fact the whole set up was cheap full stop, in my opinion it was awful but it was different, BSB seemed similar to the BBC.

I would suggest the reason Sky are cash rich is down to far more factors than launching first, let's be clear Sky have made some huge howlers over the years and initially could have brought News Corp down but overall I think the fact that they are a fantastically run business is a key reason for their success and the legacy cable companies appeared to be badly run, it's unlikely you file for bankruptcy protection like NTL did in 2002 because they were over $23 billion in debt if you are very well run. Put simply Sky gives Average Joe what he wants, they are not for me but the numbers don't lie, that's why I would guess they are successful. Now how they do that and the methods they use are up for debate.

That's just my opinion.

Originally Posted by mersey70

With the greatest of respect DF I think it is somewhat disingenuous of you to say Sky have so much money 'because they were the first'.

They joined the DTH game (but launched first) far later than British Satellite Broadcasting who even with the might of the Government and the IBA behind them made a complete and utter hash of their own business plans and were beaten to the post although regulation and technology contributed to the endless delays but basic poor decisions did too. Remember the squarial? Their CEO bought the idea from a small time inventor when there wasn't even a working prototype, that wasn't a technology that was imposed on them like the DMAC system, they had no choice with that but they didn't monitor it's development properly. I read a great book called 'Dished' which is all about the history of BSB, it was a complete and utter joke, it was quite unbelieveable what went on. Murdoch knew this and smelled blood but he really got in through the back door using Astra and it's cheap equipment, in fact the whole set up was cheap full stop, in my opinion it was awful but it was different, BSB seemed similar to the BBC.

I would suggest the reason Sky are cash rich is down to far more factors than launching first, let's be clear Sky have made some huge howlers over the years and initially could have brought News Corp down but overall I think the fact that they are a fantastically run business is a key reason for their success and the legacy cable companies appeared to be badly run, it's unlikely you file for bankruptcy protection like NTL did in 2002 because they were over $23 billion in debt if you are very well run. Put simply Sky gives Average Joe what he wants, they are not for me but the numbers don't lie, that's why I would guess they are successful. Now how they do that and the methods they use are up for debate.

That's just my opinion.

Personally I think saying they were first was being brief rather than disingeneous. Of course there is a lot more to it than that. If politicians had known what cable would have to contend with they wouldn't have set it up the way they did. Apart from that I broadly agree with your post but the fact that Murdoch is a canny operator doesn't mean that we consumers don't need protected from some of BSkyB's practices. Microsoft has also been a canny operator and has been probably even more successful than Sky but that hasn't stopped governments taking action to protect the consumer against their anti-competitive behaviour, as Muppetman has pointed out.