Sky HD goes on sale Wednesday April 12

[Bob Crabtree]

Sky's high-definition satellite TV service Sky HD will go on sale to the general public next Wednesday, April 12, with installations due to begin in May.

Installations can be booked on the net at http://www.sky.com/hd, at "selected" retail outlets or by calling Sky direct on 08702 40 40 20.

As we revealed last month, subscribers will pay £299 for a high-def-compatible set-top box plus £10 per month on top of their Sky digital subscription but installations will be free to new and existing Sky customers until May 31 or earlier if stocks run out.

More in this HEXUS.headline.

[dangel]

I'm a Sky+ user and to be absolutely honest, i've no plans to 'upgrade'. First, with sky you can guarantee the box will be bug ridden for at least a year (perhaps more) as they NEVER release a product in anything but a half-finished state. Sky+ was a great example - as an early adopter I had my fingers burned by software 'upgrades'.

Second, i've got a 36" TV which isn't HDTV ready, four more years of warranty on it and am perfectly happy with the picture quality. HDTV is impressive, but isn't anywhere near the jump we saw between, say, VHS and DVD quality. Many people won't care methinks.
And third, coupled to the above, I don't believe display technologies provide the 'perfect' flat panel HDTV yet - there's a lot going on in the market and i'm interested in future innovations coming are way that may make them a lot cheaper and a darn sight better (HDR screens for example).

Lastly, there's availability of HDTV sources - the channel range at the moment is meager at best on Sky (you can already see which channels will support it) and will take at least a year to expand to a useful level and much longer to reach saturation point.

An extra lastly - more choices may open up in the not to distant future with IP TV being introduced this year..

[Bob Crabtree]

dangel,

Appreciate your input and the reasons why Sky HD may not be right for you at the moment.

I also believe that people will appreciate knowing your take on the likelihood of bugs in the initial Sky HD+ box.

But none of this will be a consideration for a lot of people - especially those who've already bought large-screen HD-compatible sets.

And, it is only people with large-screen HD-compatible sets in normal-size rooms who, right off, will be find what Sky HD delivers to be completely compelling.

If you sit at the same sort of distance from an HD set that's 37in or larger that you did with a smaller SD set, you'll see the line structure on the HD set and be seriously hacked off that you've paid out all that money for a picture that may seem inferior to that which you enjoyed with SD!

And (perhaps oddly you may think) there is actually a HUGE number of people who are in that position and, thus, will be gagging for some HD content.

[Nick F]

Great, lets just hope the £299 will not put too many people off buying it. I will getting it for sure when I move house.

[Parm]

I have a 50" Pioneer HD Plasma screen (PDP505XDE) and have been looking forward to HD TV for over a year now.
I already have a Pioneer 868 DVD Player and can therefore watch upscaled DVD's via a HDMI cable, which looks stunning.
My XBOX360 is also connected to the Plasma and that just looks drop dead gorgeous.

Although I'd like to have Sky HD, it's not something I'm willing to pay so much for.
I already have Sky+ with Multiroom and the top Sky channel package, that means I'm paying £42 per month for the channels, and £10 per month for Multiroom. Total of £52 per month.
If I wanted to add Sky HD to my package, I'd have to pay £299 for the new box, and an extra £10 per month for the HD subscription. Taking my total to a whopping £62 per month.

That for me is too much. I was really hopefull that customers subscribing to the top package AND Multiroom would have the HD subscription waved, but alas, it is not to be.
I don't mind shelling out £299 for the box, that was expected as all new Sky boxes come at a premium.

The extra monthly subscription was the nail in the coffin for me. I'd really like to get it, but at £62 per month, I simply can't.

[stockyvillage]

i believe that if you hd tv only has dvi input that you have to buy your own hdmi to dvi cable and that they are not that cheap,does anyone know if this is correct

[MSIC]

plus £10 per month on top of their Sky digital subscription

Does this mean £10 a month on top of a regular subscription (ie not Sky+), or does is mean £10 a month on top of Sky+ (ie £20 a month on top of a regular subscription)?
Anyone know?

[dangel]

dangel,

Appreciate your input and the reasons why Sky HD may not be right for you at the moment.

I also believe that people will appreciate knowing your take on the likelihood of bugs in the initial Sky HD+ box.

But none of this will be a consideration for a lot of people - especially those who've already bought large-screen HD-compatible sets.

And, it is only people with large-screen HD-compatible sets in normal-size rooms who, right off, will be find what Sky HD delivers to be completely compelling.

If you sit at the same sort of distance from an HD set that's 37in or larger that you did with a smaller SD set, you'll see the line structure on the HD set and be seriously hacked off that you've paid out all that money for a picture that may seem inferior to that which you enjoyed with SD!

And (perhaps oddly you may think) there is actually a HUGE number of people who are in that position and, thus, will be gagging for some HD content.

HUGE? Hmmm i'm not convinced - none of my friends have HDTV yet for example. Straw poll of the office - none! Realistically, HDTV penetration right now is very small (why buy something you can only use with a 360?) - it's chicken and egg; once HD DVD/Blu-ray/SkyHD are established and _affordable_ (have you seen the projected cost of HD DVD players for example?) then takeup will be larger. Sure, if you go and buy a new telly today you'll probably be sold HDTV by the friendly sales guy but i don't see people dumping their existing widescreen sets en masse just because SkyHD has arrived. No, at the moment you've got to be wiling to pay a big fee each month, plus 300quid for the box and be willing to put up with the inevitable year-to-year-and-a-half of chaos whilst they finish the software. Sky+ never really took off until they repriced the monthly fee (you used to have to pay 10quid extra for it and now you only do if you don't subscrive to two premium packages) and dropped the cost of the box/install. That took circa 1.5-2 years if I remember rightly.

Don't get me wrong - I acknowledge HDTV is better (and I love tech!) but my point is it isn't dramatic enough to persuade the 98% of us who don't own the sets that spending two grand on a panel, 300 quid on a box and ~50 quid a month is that great an idea right now Some of us are married

[Bob Crabtree]

HUGE? Hmmm i'm not convinced - none of my friends have HDTV yet for example. Straw poll of the office - none! Realistically, HDTV penetration right now is very small (why buy something you can only use with a 360?) - it's chicken and egg; once HD DVD/Blu-ray/SkyHD are established and _affordable_ (have you seen the projected cost of HD DVD players for example?) then takeup will be larger. Sure, if you go and buy a new telly today you'll probably be sold HDTV by the friendly sales guy but i don't see people dumping their existing widescreen sets en masse just because SkyHD has arrived. No, at the moment you've got to be wiling to pay a big fee each month, plus 300quid for the box and be willing to put up with the inevitable year-to-year-and-a-half of chaos whilst they finish the software. Sky+ never really took off until they repriced the monthly fee (you used to have to pay 10quid extra for it and now you only do if you don't subscrive to two premium packages) and dropped the cost of the box/install. That took circa 1.5-2 years if I remember rightly.

Don't get me wrong - I acknowledge HDTV is better (and I love tech!) but my point is it isn't dramatic enough to persuade the 98% of us who don't own the sets that spending two grand on a panel, 300 quid on a box and ~50 quid a month is that great an idea right now Some of us are married

Two pieces for you to look at:

Gfk stats on sales of large-screen LCD and plasma sets (to May 2005).

I really must update this, cos the figures are certain to be even more impressive by now.

My visit to BBC R&D.

[dangel]

Two pieces for you to look at:

Gfk stats on sales of large-screen LCD and plasma sets (to May 2005).

I really must update this, cos the figures are certain to be even more impressive by now.

My visit to BBC R&D.

All well and good but that's just large screen sales - it doesn't define how many of them were HDTV enabled. My boss bought a 26" screen the other day and it's a plain widescreen. Many sets being sold cheap aren't HDTV ready and public awareness is still quite low IMHO. I still maintain people are buying large TVs because they are _large_ not because they're HDTV ready - what's the point when you can't (yet) get HDTV content for the darn thing? Sure, the salesman will push HDTV Ready but people will see it as future proofing and be perfectly happy with just having a big picture in their front room.
As I said, if you're buying a panel now then, sure, you're most likely to buy HDTV ready but this is pretty irrelevant in terms of actual market penetration - most people don't spend 1-3k every year on a new tv, most will keep them 5 years or more _or_ until there's some driving factor to upgrade - e.g. lots of widescreen content on Sky/dvd driving widescreen sales (I had a 4:3 telly for years on Sky as widescreen was pretty rare at one point). The same is true for HD content - and I find myself coming back to my original point - there isn't any _yet_. Even when SkyHD launches there's only about ~10 odd channels supporting it (as far as i can see) and still no HD DVD players (which apparently cost $400 to make so don't expect to pick up one for 25quid!).

How are you going to sell HDTV to people like me with a large screen and Sky+ ? I already have a good picture and digital surround sound (which, btw is still rare on movies on Sky!). Sky HD is going to offer you a handful of HD channels at a signicant cost and those with Sky+ (again a small percentage of Sky customers) already have PVR functionality. It's no different from the problem that the industry faces in trying to get us to give up DVD and move to the next generation formats - in the cold light of day it's a lot of money for not much in return. The gold rush for HDTV is some way off..

[Bob Crabtree]

dangel,

I think you do seriously underestimate the number of HD-capable sets that will be in homes right now - though that's not to say you are wrong in supposing that a large proportion of the people with large-screen sets didn't simply buy them for their size.

However, your comments underline the need for me to have access to some hard facts - opinions are all well and good but are no substitute for stats - so I'm chasing the GfK market-research people to try to get some up-to-date figures.

[dangel]

dangel,

I think you do seriously underestimate the number of HD-capable sets that will be in homes right now - though that's not to say you are wrong in supposing that a large proportion of the people with large-screen sets didn't simply buy them for their size.

However, your comments underline the need for me to have access to some hard facts - opinions are all well and good but are no substitute for stats - so I'm chasing the GfK market-research people to try to get some up-to-date figures.

All I'm doing is pointing out the practicality of it all - you have to get content out there at the right price point before people will buy into something. Sure, the bleeding edge lot will upgrade regardless, but a lot of people will wait and see what happens (and [rightly] assume that prices will drop in the interim). SkyHD is expensive - 300quid for the box and extra subscription on top of an already pricey sky package isn't that appealing for most.
I don't think i'm underestimating the penetration of HDTV - in fact i'd be quite willing to suppose it's marginal to say the least if we talk about the total number of sets in peoples homes. Of those people, how many then have Sky too?

No, I still think that we've a long way to go before HDTV becomes utterly compelling - once freeview, sky and HD DVD are all out there it'll be a different game. The DVD one is interesting - the biggest problem with it for this year (at least) is that it'll cost far, far too much (400-500 quid for a player?). I bought a tesco's 'value' dvd player the other day - it cost less than 20 quid! Worse, we've still to face a stupid, pointless format war which will mean anyone buying into HD DVD or BluRay exclusively stands a chance of investing in dead technology. Roll on the dual format players (again)...