Cable TV Vs SKY

Originally Posted by skunk4u

Sky+ box: Only £99

Sky+ 160 box: £399

Whats the diffrense?

AIUI the only difference between the regular Sky+ box and the 160 is the former allows 20 hours of storage, the latter averages 80 hours.

But I believe the only difference is the size of the hard drives (40GB vs 120GB) however since you can buy a 120GB drive for less than £50 and install it yourself without much hassle, the 160 box seems excessively expensive.

[paulyoung666]

, there is definitely a big problem with the pricing of sky+ 160 i reckon

[TheBlueRaja]

Yeah agreed - but to be honest I have the 40GB version and have no problems with regard to disk space.

If I need to I will chuck in a larger hard disk myself - 400 quid for 160 gig is ridiculous.

[TheBlueRaja]

Originally Posted by DarthYoda

I can still see the TV will I am browsing

Good point that - i do miss that feature as well in Sky.

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by TheBlueRaja

Good point that - i do miss that feature as well in Sky.

The only time that I use the Sky EPG is when I am selecting programmes to record or when starting the playback of them. I tend not to watch too much live TV these days but record what I want to watch on my Sky+ box and watch it when it is convenient. I use Digiguide (see signature) to plan my viewing, there's nothing to beat it, and then set up the Sky+ box.

[STONEISLAND]

With Sky + I take it you can record over old stuff that you have all ready recorded. If this is the case it would not be worth getting the bigger drive surley?

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by skunk4u

With Sky + I take it you can record over old stuff that you have all ready recorded. If this is the case it would not be worth getting the bigger drive surley?

You certainly can. The only time that the standard drive is a problem is when you are wanting to record more than 20 hours of TV whilst you are on holiday. That 20 hours isn't set in stone though and is dependent on the bitrate of the channel being recorded. Some people have claimed to have recorded as much as 35 hours on the standard Sky+.

There are a number of features that I like about Sky+. The ability to fast forward at 30x speed through adverts whilst still being able to see the picture. The option where to start viewing the recording, either from the start, from the position last viewed or at a user definable number of minutes after the start. The last one is particularly useful if you record a football match where the programme starts way befor the kick off. You can either watch all the pre-match talk or set the start to be near the kick off time. Say the programme starts at 03:00pm and kick off is at 04:00pm you can tell the box to start replay after 60 minutes and cut out all the pre-match cr@p. I have the Sky+ box set to buffer 60 minutes which means that if I switch the TV on and a programme is showing that the box is tuned into I can record that programme from the start if it was less than an hour before switching the TV on and watch the part I missed.

Originally Posted by skunk4u

With Sky + I take it you can record over old stuff that you have all ready recorded. If this is the case it would not be worth getting the bigger drive surley?

It depends on how much you "buffer" or "time shift" recordings.

There have been occasions where I've had three tapes, all recorded at LP so containing around 18 hours of recordings that I haven't felt like watching at the time, but which I will watch at *some* time.

It also lets you store up all the episodes of a series etc for later transfer to another media.

Of course if you don't watch TV in this way, then maybe you don't need the larger HDD.

[moffmeister]

Sky is fantastic, but due to a pis-poor installation (where half of it wasn't even wired in) we occasionally get a picure break-up. Other than that, SUPERB!!!!

[Nugget]

We've got Sky and occasionally have picture break-up. Having said that, it only happens when it's absolutely hurling with rain - other than that, we've had no problem

Originally Posted by paulyoung666

dont think the op is bothered about the price , more of a case of which is better quality , which in my opinion is sky

define quality!

price is part of the quality equation

[Chris]

Originally Posted by skunk4u

Now I know this has been done before but I dont care theres loads of new members whos opinion counts also.

My contract with NTL has ended and I'm thinking weather to continue the contract or try sky.

What do you think?

On paper, $ky beats NTL convincingly. But when I compare only those services I actually use ... well I never thought I'd say it, but for me NTL is the clear winner.

NTL's EPG is streets ahead of Sky's. You can sort it to put your favourites at the top, and when you go channel hopping + or - the STB goes through them via your favourites first. Sky's favourites option is pathetic - you can only cycle up the now-and-next pane by repeatedly hitting the blue button, you can't scan back down the list and you can't channel-hop from favourite to favourite.

NTL's EPG allows you to see a synopsis of any programme you can display in the now-and-next pane, while you continue to watch the programme that's on. Sky will only give you a synopsis of the programme now showing on the channel you're viewing.

When you go to the full-screen programme schedule guide, NTL allows you to continue to see a small window showing the programme you were watching, and you can still hear it. Sky is still stuck playing you dreadful lift muzak. Admittedly you can only look three days ahead on NTL compared to a week with Sky. However in terms of the features I actually use day-to-day, that's not much of a problem for me.

Sky's interactive service is light-years ahead of NTL but I find now I have Sky I barely use the red button more than I did with NTL.

What I miss most of all though, is the channels in the base pack. You get a lot more channels on NTL than you do on Sky, including Sky Mix and E4 (the only ones worth having, actually).

[STONEISLAND]

Arrrrh but what about Sky + ?

[Chris]

Originally Posted by skunk4u

Arrrrh but what about Sky + ?

Well, NTL has no response to that. But I did say comparing 'only those services I actually use' ... I've never used Sky+, TiVo or anything of the kind, and I don't particularly intend to. I wouldn't have taken an NTL version of the service, had they ever offered it to me.

[STONEISLAND]

Hate to But I have SKY + now and it rocks

Thanks for advise Guys, and a choice well made I think its great a must have