After a bit of sitting down, thinking and discussing with the wife, We have decided that we dont watch much TV, its mostly NICK jnr thats on our TV. so anyone got any idea what the smallest/cheapest SKY package is that still gets Nick Jnr and enables us to the free/£5 broadband?

and even if we dont subscribe to any mixes can the sky+ and series link still be used on the free channels, i.e Ch4?

also anyone got BT Broadband, what sort of speeds do you get and what are their prices like?

and last question for now, can I have VM tv and BT phone and BB?

ok, this is really my last question in this post, can I run VM broadband and an ADSL broadband at the same time and would this double my speed or would they conflict.

£16.00 per month

You can use Sky+ for free on any package, provided you are not using Freesat. The cheapest package as far as I am aware includes 1 mix. Im not sure if there is a Sky+ option on Freesat, but if there is, it will be £10.00 per month. Freesat is a false economy for most people anyway, £150 for a standard box, whereas you can get it for free with free installation on a contract for just under £200 per year (indeed a free Sky+ via me).

Im unable to answer about the speeds from experience, however, people I know on the service are pretty happy with it. They dont like the customer support (BT customer support is pathetic) but the service itself is fine. Pricewise, they are expensive, when compared to most competitors, and their caps are very restrictive.

I believe so, although Virgin do prefer it if you take a phoneline with their TV service, I think it is standard for them to include it anyway, although you can choose not to have it installed.

Yes, you can have both services as they are bosed based on different technologies. However, to run them as one connection, you would need a Load Balancer, which to be honest is an enterprise standard piece of kit, and will cost hundreds, if not thousands.

I am unaware of one off the top of my head that will support both DOCSIS and DSL especially, but provided both connections provide an ethernet link from the modems, you should be able to use a generic load balancer.

TBH Im happy with the VM tv service, the current channel line up, the TVoD etc.

Im happy with the phone service.

But Im pissed with this fair use policy on the broadband. 350mb is a tiny amount nowadays,

little question, if the fair use policy is 350mb between 4pm and midnight, and Im surfing a site that has 350photos that a 1mb in size each, is that my bandwidth reached, or is it only based on downloaded mb's.

That is your bandwidth reached as everything you do on the net, even just general browsing, is via the downstream channel, so is being downloaded.

You also might like them to clarify if the fair use policy is the downstream traffic combined with the upstream traffic, or whether they are under seperate fair use policies, as every request you make on the net (by clicking into this thread you have "requested" it) also uses upstream bandwidth... not much, but it all adds up very quickly, especially if transferring a few files, FTPing etc...

Im leaning towards SKY more and more, purely for their BB price and service.

I just liked the idea of a BT homehub, with inclusive wifi minutes. lol

how do I find out what speed I would get from SKY?

cheapest subscription is £16, but all 6 mixes are £21, might aswell gett all the mixes for the extra fiver.

Yeah the Wifi is a great advantage of BT Homehub, but the problem for most people, including myself is the cost of their services and the limitations with regards to data transfer etc...

Having said that though, to be completely fair, they are providing a complete solution, for a fair and realistic price. And imho, they are the only company doing this right now. It just means the deal isnt as "good" for the end consumer.

Sky can only offer their solutions because they bought Easynet and are not making much profit from it, its sort of a loss leader to get more television customers, as the TV market is pretty mature and they had to find a new way to entice customers.

Together with the new landline service (which I am a happy user of lol), I predict they will be advertising it strongly next year, as a complete TV, internet and phone solution, which will begin to allow them to poach customers away from Virgin Media, especially with the full Tvod service on the Horizon.

why are you not a happy customer of their landline service, would you advise to stay clear.

Sky will give you 2Mbps inclusive in the price of the subscription. 95% of lines in the UK will be able to provide this speed without any issues at all.

For £5 per month, you can get "upto" 8Mbps... this means you will get as fast as your line can handle but capped at 8Mbps. 90% of users see in excess of 4.8Mbps according to some survey I saw. I see around 7Mbps on this service. I have peaked at past 8Mbps though, according to my internet monitor. And I have screenshots (posted on the forums as well) of downloads coming down at like 8.2Mbps or summit like that.

For £10 per month, you can get "upto" 16Mbps... this means that you will get as fast as your line can handle but capped at 16Mbps. A few people I know are on this service, and they all seem to get around 10 - 12Mbps, but none ever see the 16Mbps speeds. Still, for £10 per month, they get nearly 1Mbps upload as well, so its ideal for their needs.

Personally, unless you need the higher upload or are likely to be downloading a lot more then 60GB every month, stick to the 8Mbps for best value, unless you can make do with the 2Mbps service, which is fast enough speed wise, but 2GB data transfer probably isnt enough for most people. Its aimed really towards basic users, but dont take the 2GB rule as set in stone, it would be good for upto around 4 - 5GB per month, Sky wouldnt cut you off for using 3GB a month lol.

Sorry, I mean I am, typo lol - now corrected. Im even happier because they gave me 3 months half price for being one of their first customers on it (i noticed it on my online account rather then them advertising it yet) and this month they havent charged me anything as the billing system isnt fully setup for it, and have advised me they wont be charging me for this month at all haha!

Here is the post with the screenshots in:

https://www.wikiwirral.co.uk/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=166677#Post166677

You know them vouchers you got Matty, any chance you can give CS a ring and tell them that you have a freind interested in:

SKY HD, with 6 mixes, no premium channels tho
Sky landline with free evening and weekend calls
8mb Broadband

and see if they can sort out a offer or deal, to get a free HD box etc, I know Im pushing it. Bu I tried to do the National trust offer but it wouldnt let me add phone or broadband options.

I can give them a ring in the week if you want and see if I can get them to sort any special deals.

I really cant see them giving you a free HD box though, I can ask about the £199 box with all the extra's ye want if you like.

Put simply, the HD service is their premium service, where the Sky+ service was 3 years ago. It is high cost atm, the boxes cost a fair amount more to manufacture and they also have to claw back some of the hundreds of millions they have invested in the service.

Analysts currently predict we wont see free SkyHD boxes until 2009, Sky+ is only set to go free in early 2008. The free Sky+ offer sent out to some customers is to trial the launch of the free Sky+ box service.

Even if you took Sky World, Sky Landline, Sky 16Mbps Broadband and Sky Talk Anytime, they wouldnt offer you a free SkyHD box lol. A free Sky+ probably, but a free SkyHD, no.

On top of all this, atm, they are gaining tons of customers, thanks to Virgin Media going downhill for a lot of people, and their excellent brodband pricing enticing new customers. So they are not in a position to give out offers really, because put simply, they dont need to, their churn rate is stupidly high already, why lose money gaining a few new customers when you are already gaining a consistent high volume without it.

was this 1 mix?

so am I right in saying with all mixes it would be:
- Sky Digital TV - £21
- Sky Talk Freetime
- 8Mbps Broadband - £5
- Sky Talk Landline £10
- SKY HD subscription - £10
- £46.00 per month

any tips Matty......

Thats correct matey. Dunno any tips to give otherwise I would hehe.

tbh I dont mind paying £199 for a HD box, because the V+ box is £150m and with Sky you get a free wireless 108 router which would set back a bit anyway. its the £10pm HD subscription I would like waivering, lol.

or the 8Mbs BB fee waivering for taking out SKY HD and a SKY landline, etc

I know Im pushing my luck.

Lol, no chance on the HD subscription, it is essentially what has replaced the Sky+ subscription, it is being used to claw back investment in the service.

In the future, it WILL be waived for customers who subscribe to Sky Movies or Sky Sports, but that probably wont be until mid-2008.

Like Sky+, it will eventually be offered free with all packages, but Sky+ took more then 5 years before it became free, so it could essentially be 2012 before the sub is free to everyone, it just depends what happens within the industry and how quickly Sky want to make SkyHD the standard service.

Sorry fella, but atm, SkyHD is the top end service, and as Sky have nobody competing with it, plus the fact they are getting tons of new customers anyway, they are not going to subsidise it or make any offers more then the ones they already have running.

All in all, what you would be getting is already an excellent price imho, I know its a lot of money, but you wont get better value anywhere else, and you wont get HD from anyone else. So its either Sky or pretty much forget HD lol. Its the price you need to expect to pay for an HD service... if Virgin HD was fully fledged and offered more then just the BBC channel, it too would incur a monthly subscription fee.

Eventually VM will pull their fingers out of their arses and stop protecting the pennies and offer more HD channels, but until such a time Sky are the only option. Sky are as always, showing that even though they have the weaker and more limited technology, they have the better system through investing money into research and development into the right area's.

VIRGIN HD are relying mainly of HDoD, theres only so many times you can watch raging planet in HD tho.

if I subscribe to 6mixes and HD but no premiums, do you think that when they do the promo weekends were you get free movies or sports for the weekend, will the HD version of the channel be available.

can you still subscribe to a premium for a month or do you have to take out a lengthy contract.

With regards to the promo weekends, I dont think they will offer the channels in HD, they are mainly to give people a flavour of what types of movies or sports they are missing if they are not subscribing, as well as offering a little extra value/entertainment to customers.

The minimum subscription period on any premium package is 30 days, after which it can be cancelled.

I think I've asked this before but do you only only get the HD channel if you are subscribed to the corrosponding SD channel

I think this is correct for the Premium channels, however I think for the normal channels, the HD is classed as a sepeate package, so you would get Discovery Channel HD without being subscribed to Discovery Channel.

However, I am not 100% on that, and could well be wrong, so I would need to verify this for you.

well chop chop. get verifying, lol, thanks for all your help Matty.

Verified and you are correct, the subs only allows you to view HD counterpart channels that you subscribe to, bar BBC HD and Channel 4 HD.

Channel 4 HD proberbly going to be my most watched out of all the HD channels

lol... provided they have the rights to any decent HD content to show on it of course... we all know how skint Channel 4 are - well until it comes to wasting money that is, so the HD service will probably be excellent actually.

so it wont just be normal channel 4 broadcast in HD then, was looking forward to Holloaks HD

Well most of the channels currently available simulcast any HD content on their HD counterparts. So if its filmed in HD it will be broadcast in HD as C4 have exclusive rights to Hollyoaks.

Why on earth would you want to watch Hollyoaks or indeed any soap in HD

HDTV combined with Dolby Digital is good for movies and certain types of documentaries, everything else is pretty stupid imho, including football.

Im not a fan of HD at all for a premium over standard tv, but why anyone would want to watch a soap in HD lmao....

Just to confirm, after a quick scout around the net, Hollyoaks is very likely to be in HD as Lime shoot all their productions in HD now, but it may not launch straight away as Channel 4 have only so far officially announced US imports for their HD lineup.

I just want to get the most out of my TV

Lol... watch an HD movie for that.

I dont see that a soap broadcasting in HD will give you the best out of your television hehe.

OK, I understand that your not SKY CS but if I was to pay the initial £199 for a HD box do I have to subscribe to HD straight away, or can I subscribe just for a month to test it etc.

also, coz the SD channels are running through a hdmi port, are the upscaled?

Im unsure about both of them questions to be truthful mate, however, I dont think the SD channels are upscaled. Upscaling an MPEG2 DVB source isnt all that good anyway due to the relentless compression encoding on it.

I think you can cancel the HD sub after 30 days of course, but you will then only continue to recieve BBC HD.

You would need to ask Sky about that to be certain though.

I want to buy a Sky HD box, dont see the point in getting a SKY+ box, then having to upgrade to a SKYHD box when the time comes, apart from the SKY+ being free woth your voucher.

I can then subscribe to the HD content for 30days, decide for myself whether its worth the £10 a month, if not cancel it and just operate it as a SKY+ box with bbcHD thrown in for good measures. plus the HD box is black which will match my decor better that the +box, lol.

on your SKY+ do you have a record to VCR/DVD option, that then streams content via a seperate scart, therefore being able to watch one thing on your tv whilst streaming something different to a VCR or DVD recorder to archive. does that make sense.

Waddi you thought of booking a consoltation in with matty ? lol
All good info in there

If i had spare cash i would be on sky i'm peed off with VM
Excuses for lame service.

I know what ye mean fella.


Yeah, well the I think you can cancel the SkyHD subscription, but you would certainly have to confirm this with Sky themselves.


Tbh, I have never done that or tried it lmao! I just archive the usual way, whilst im playing back. However, there is a little used "copy" function, that may do what your saying. I say little used, because I have never used it, and most people with Sky+ have never used it haha.

I want to archive to DVD so that I can watch things I have sky+'d on my laptop or portable dvd player in work.

Been in currys today playing with SKYHD, not over impressed, bbchd and sky sports were the only channels that impressed me. they had heroes and spooks sky+'d in hd.

so im gonna phone sky and see if I can buy a hd box but not have to subscribe to the hd package straight away. wonder if itvHD or ch4HD will be free like bbcHD.

HD wont impress you tbh, because at the end of the day its still the same programmes, just at higher resolutions.

HD was primarily invented for 40"+ televisions, its a fad at anything less, 32" is just about good for it, anything less then that and its not much difference.

But SD sources struggle at 40", and that is what HD was developed for. People think its somehow the future of TV, the future of TV for me has nout to do with HD, it is more SED's, OLED's and then actual apps like PVRing and TVoD.

the only one i understood was TVoD

SED - Surface Electron Display - Basically, similar tol LCD but much much higher quality, comparable to the very best CRT's.

OLED - Organic Light Emitting Diodes - Again, similar to LCD's, but the beauty is these screens light themselves as they are living organisms... Which means like 70% less power usage. Perfect for mobile devices and low power home devices. Also far more vibrant and better defenition then either Plasma or LCD.

PVR - Personal Video Recorder - Sky+, TiVo etc...

Its funny how HD is only seen as the future of TV in the UK/Europe, my dad (used to be an electrician/owned tv repair shops etc) was ranting on about it to me when I first heard of plasma's, which must have been like 1999 or summit like that!

America and Japan have had HDTV since the 90's lol.

Obviouly the bigger the picture the more lines you need to keep the quality similar to megapixels on cameras I guess...

but sd has enough lines to fit 32" to a decent quality with a good source, a picture can only be as good as its source.

any news about itvHD & ch4HD,launch dates, wheher they will be subscription free like bbcHD etc

Channel 4 HD is testing right now, launch is imminent.

ITV-HD is set to launch next year, sometime in Q1, probably February at the latest.

They will be FTV but not FTA.

FTV - free to view, as in skyHD?
FTA - Free to air , freeview?

Free To Air - means you can recieve them with Freesat as their not encrypted.

Free To View - means you can recieve them at no extra charge provided you have a Sky Digital subscription.

BBC-HD is the only FTA HD service currently available, and the carriage deals that ITV and C4 currently have with Sky means they are only FTV.

Im still none the wiser, what classes as a sky digital subscription then, atleast 1 mix?

SO I will not need the HD sunscription to get bbcHD, itvHD or c4HD?

Sky Digital Subscription - you subscribe to Sky. Simple lol.

Im not 100% over the FTV HD channels, but I believe the FTV ones will be free regardless of whether you have a HD sub or not...

Cant guarantee this until it actually launches, Sky need to make money on the extra bandwidth being used, so it may only be FTV for HD subscribers.

FTV for HD subscribers, that doesnt make sense, you can watch this HD channel for free if you pay £10pm for the HD package, so then it wouldnt be "Free" to view, lol

Will they not charge ITV and c4 to air their channels?

Well like I say I dont know. It could be without subscription, it may need one. Wait and see.

I just cant see Sky wanting to put all FTV channels on a non-HD sub basis. As the likes of Channel 4, ITV-HD and BBC-HD (when it finally gets into gear) could well deter customers from paying the HD sub.

How it could work, is with a HD sub, you only get the channels that you subscribe to the normal counterparts... so a FTV HD channel could quite easily be just that, you get it automatically with a HD subscription because the counterpart channel is FTV.

For instance you wouldnt get Discovery Channel HD, National Geographic HD or History Channel HD unless you subscribe to the factual mix, even though you are paying for the HD subscription.

you put your thinking cap on there matty, thats proberbly how they will do it, As I said earlier, Wasnt really impressed with the quality difference in currys other than on Sky Sports HD and bbcHD, maybe the programmes on them were proper HD programmes shot in HD tho and the other channels were just upscaled programmes etc. the bbc content I watched (spooks and heroes) was on SKY+ as bbcHD is currently only a part time channel.

Heroes and spooks blew me away with the explosions and special effects. and you could see individual facial hairs on the rugby players when it zoomed in close on a small group. and when zoomed in on players on the football on the other SKY sports HD, I think it was yeovil, was impressive but not over-impressive as a whole picture when zoomed out to show the game,

So Im gonna get the skyHD box, depending on whether they will let me buy one without subscribing to the HD package for 12months.
then sign up to HD for a month when more channels are launched, mainly c4 and itv.
if its any good keep it, if not unsubscribe, I will still keep bbcHD tho, yipee.
Get 8Mb/s BB
Get SKY landline and freetalk

Am I right in saying that only the skyHD is going to be capable of the TVoD service?

Yes, the SkyHD box is the only one that will be able to use TVoD when it launches next year. This is because its the only box with the hardware capabilities and the power, and even if the other box had that, the HD box is the only box with the ethernet connection lol, which will be vital for TVoD.

So thats that.

could take a Sky landline as I had no current BT landline, and therefore had to get BT to reconnect me and sign a 12month contract.

SO BT are coming out a week on monday to reconnect my landline.

Phoned Sky, with the combination of the voucher off Matty and the National trust HD offer.

The NT HD offer has some small print, to get the HD box for £199 you must also purchase a SKY+ box for £99 and pay £10pm multiroom.

So I went for the free SKY+ box and install offered on the Voucher of Matty, and the operator told me unofficially to "watch this space" for HD offers for exsisting SKY customers in the coming weeks or months.

They are coming out a day after BT to install. I thought that was pretty quick. any tips on questions to ask the installer to get any freebies etc.

Thanks again Matty, you converted me from VM to Sky.

No problem fella, soryy about the landline, usual BT procedure (just keep an eye on how much BT charge you) - you should be able to move to Sky Talk in a couple of months if not sooner, but probably not for the landline. Ask them though, it may be BT making crap up to keep you as a customer, as im pretty sure you are allowed to choose any service nowadays, could be a 12 month thing though realistically.

Apologies about the HD box also, its only a matter of time before they come down in price, atm Sky are pushing the Sky+, probably in an effort to get more people onto the Sky+ service, expect a HUGE push of SkyHD when the TVoD launches next year, its the only way they can do it. £149 boxes can't be too far away im sure of it!

I hope ye enjoy the service as much as I have, did you take broadband with it?

BTW, when the engineer comes out to do the Sky install, ask him if he is giving you an Amstrad box, and if so, ask if there is any Pace or Thomson boxes instead. There isnt many problems with the Amstrad PVR3 since it was launched, but I feel Pace and Thomson are far superior, as Amstrad have had massive problems with the PVR2 (which I have lol).

I heard SKY bought amstrad tho....

No need to apologise mate, you have done more than enough to get me a good deal, just this hidden small print, the operator said that existing SKY cunstomers will be getting a very good HD offer soon.

I have to call SKY about broadband and SKYtalk once the landline has been activated by BT, he did a test thingy over the phone with the postcode, should get circa 5mb from the 8mb service.

Yeah Sky bought Amstrad a few months back (pending Ofcom and competition commission approval now though), but Sky are still contracted with Pace and Thomson (very minor with Thomson though not sure if they had anything since the Sky+ 160 boxes were out) to provide their boxes, so they should still have plenty of alternatives to Amstrad at the depot.

Its worth a try in any case.

5Mbps sounds a good speed, they said mine was around 4Mbps and i reguarly push 8Mbps without problems, lets hope its the same for you hehe!

Glad to have been of some use, sometimes I wonder why I take an interest in all this crap, its only when it actually comes in useful to someone that it actually pays off lol!

which is the best box and why.

None in particular. You will just get a PVR3. Iirc, most are actually Amstrad, but they do have Paces too.

The only reason I say steer clear of Amstrad if at all possible, is because of all the PVR2 boxes, the only ones with any significant problems are the Amstrad's.

Basically, since a software update about 2 years ago, the sound has randomly skipped on recordings, to the point where people have had to force Sky to replace the entire box by emailing James Murdoch himself and telling him about the problems. I can vouch myself, that the problems didnt exist before it, and I too have had the problems intermittently.

There is a 150+ page thread on Digital Spy, listing all the serial numbers affected etc, and the only boxes affected by the problem are Amstrad PVR2's. A lot of the time they record things fine, then some of the time its just stupid the amount of breaks in sound. A few members on Digital Spy have actually been interviewed by BBC Panorama who may be investigating the issue in the near future.

Its not known to affect PVR3's, but people just generally feel Amstrad's are of somehwat lower quality. For instance, when Sky Digital first came out, Amstrad's they were giving out lastest a maximum of 18 months, after which they died. Also, when you look at the boot-up times of Amstrad PVR2's compared to Pace PVR2's, the Amstrads take upto a minute, whereas the Pace take 15 - 25 seconds. Noticeable difference.

I would hope that the new Amstrad's have caught up with Pace, their boxes are also prone to some problems of course, but I think the industry in general has lost a fair bit of faith with Amstrad kit and although the PVR3's yet to have any notable problems, it will take time for the reputation to be rebuilt.