Headlines - Sky HD gets cheaper, still too expensive?

[HEXUS]

Sky has announced that its HD service is to be re-branded and given a healthy price drop.

Read more.

[Saracen]

Is Sky's HD price drop enough to convince customers?

Not this one it isn't, though I'd guess it'll probably provide incentive to those that were wavering, but holding back because of cost.

Personally, there is not sufficient content (either in quantity or quality) for me to be willing to even contemplate it. But each to his own, I guess.

As for Freesat .... interesting, but it looks like a rather different proposition. Content is king.

[SiM]

Think of how many HD DVD movies you can buy for the same cost as the box!

Certainly hasn't made me even consider it...

[jimborae]

Ha that's still £100 too much for the bug ridden box of cr@p they send you. Or 4th box in my case. The HD-box has been built so cheaply that it's an unreliable hunk of junk that the user then has to sort out themselves by doing the following.

1. Replace the hard disk with a much more reliable and much larger, quieter and cooler one.

2. Replace either the individual capacitors on the HD-box's PSU or replace the whole psu itself.

Once you have done these two things you'll wind up with a rather good HD box but it will still be prone to Sly's random software errors and glitches. Then to add insult to injury you still have to pay the £10 extra a month for a very limited number of true HD programmes.

Somebody please remind me why I do this......Oh yeah cos there's no competition in the market and Virgin Media are 20x worse.

[directhex]

there are a grand 2 HD channels on freesat, 3 if your box supports the full FTA channel set. for free. not the best content, mind, but still...

[jimborae]

Originally Posted by directhex

there are a grand 2 HD channels on freesat, 3 if your box supports the full FTA channel set. for free. not the best content, mind, but still...

And those 2 HD channels are free on Sky HD as well......Hmmm makes me think I should just cancel my sky sub, pay £10/month for Sky+ recording facilities and keep the box just for Sky Freesat and free HD channels. That would save me £47/month

[postie]

Absolutely,

the box is not the problem price BUT the £10 per month to watch sky HD definitely is,
so till this stops I will not be upgrading.!!!!!!!

[DR]

There is not much HD content as it is... (!) I canceled mine - I had it with all the channels and realised - I don't need this - I will save the pennies.

I'm now attempting to use MythTV - thing which makes me smile the most? the web interface so I can record everything I want from my desk....

[TheAnimus]

The main complaint i have with sky is the quality of the SD stuff, because theres sod all in HD. First off, i don't pay for the sky HD, there is no way i would. My 52" LCD really does bring out HD/BlueRay films, stunning. But on sky its all 720p, which isn't the native and whilst better looking than SD just smacks of "could try harder".

Now given that most of the SD stuff is transmitted in such low quality you'd think it was routed over a mobile phone network, i think sky really should consider upping their game.

You've also now got an insaine number of channels, 90% of which are crap. I'm not menstrating so about 30% of them are irrevlivent. I don't know who these 'celebreties' are so don't care another 40% gone, i mastered surfing for porn on the net by the time i was 11, so don't need that other 20%.

But somehow repeats of the A-Team never get old.

[andytw]

Originally Posted by TheAnimus

The main complaint i have with sky is the quality of the SD stuff, because theres sod all in HD. First off, i don't pay for the sky HD, there is no way i would. My 52" LCD really does bring out HD/BlueRay films, stunning. But on sky its all 720p, which isn't the native and whilst better looking than SD just smacks of "could try harder".

Now given that most of the SD stuff is transmitted in such low quality you'd think it was routed over a mobile phone network, i think sky really should consider upping their game.

You've also now got an insaine number of channels, 90% of which are crap. I'm not menstrating so about 30% of them are irrevlivent. I don't know who these 'celebreties' are so don't care another 40% gone, i mastered surfing for porn on the net by the time i was 11, so don't need that other 20%.

But somehow repeats of the A-Team never get old.

The quality of the SD stuff on Sky is mainly down to how much bandwidth the broadcaster is prepared to pay for.
Hence ITV1 looks quite good but ITV4 is awful.
To be fair to Sky (dodgy ground I know) Freeview is no better in this respect.

Also the HD content on Sky is as far as I can tell (I have Sky HD) transmitted at 1080i not 720p (this is an option if the broadcaster wants to pay for the extra bandwidth needed for 720p).

In my opinion Sky HD is only worth the £10 subsciption if you already take the full sport and film package.
Otherwise for film fans a monthly rental fee from somewhere such as Lovefilm which offers Blu Ray rental may be a better value option.