Forums Forums Enthusiast Forums A - Z Gadgets & Tech a few sky/virgin/BT Questions

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?