Goodbye NTL, hello Sky

setch · 27-07-2005, 18:53

I called NTL tech support yesterday in a last ditch attempt to get my 3 week old problem sorted. The techie told me that he knew what the issue was and would send a signal to wipe out the information from the STB and reload it. I was prepared to keep NTL Digital TV and cancel the Sky install if NTL worked when I got home from work (better the devil you know). But alas it was still a dead box other than the basic free channels.

The Sky engineer called me at 09:00 this morning to give me an approximate ETA. He arrived as promised and was more than helpful when faced with what was probably a slightly more complex install than he had anticipated.

After playing around with the new Sky+ box for the past couple of hours, I have to admit that dropping the NTL package was probably the correct decision. You get a shed load more channels than NTL supply and a lot of them are for the kids.

Anyway I am glad this saga is over, the kids are now happy which in turn makes the wife happy. So I'm over the moon, it's no longer my fault and I am flavour of the month for short while.

I'm also wise enough to know that Sky could turn out to be just as bad as NTL, but several of my friends have made the switch over the last year and none have had any issues as yet.

Setch

mattley · 27-07-2005, 21:32

Hope the peg artifacts don't bother you

I really like the sky feature package but I can;t watch sky without laughing at the picture quality.

Gareth · 27-07-2005, 21:43

No artefacts here... picture quality is just as good as NTL ever was (that's when it worked and the green cabinet hadn't been vandalised yet again... ever heard of locks, NTL?)

Oh, and just realised, with Sky, I never get my digibox doing weird stuff at 00:10 every day when the EPG is updated. That used to really do my head in. I'd be watching a film and suddenly the picture would disappear for a few seconds, and then come back usually on a different channel to the one I was originally watching. That was a real PITA, but I don't have to worry about it now. Anyone else get the same problem?

simpsonsFAN · 27-07-2005, 22:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gareth

Oh, and just realised, with Sky, I never get my digibox doing weird stuff at 00:10 every day when the EPG is updated.

No, but you will get weird telephone calls back to sky once a month to check youve got your box plugged into the telephone line

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gareth

I'd be watching a film and suddenly the picture would disappear for a few seconds

What kindof film are you watching at 00:10 every day?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gareth

No artefacts here... picture quality is just as good as NTL ever was

That simply isnt true, most of the channels on sky run on ultra super low bitrates. Just look at football on ITV or horse racing on BBC1, with sky it just becomes a feild of blocks.

-Chris

ian@huth · 27-07-2005, 22:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by simpsonsFAN

No, but you will get weird telephone calls back to sky once a month to check youve got your box plugged into the telephone line

You don't pay for the calls and you never know they are being made. NTL also sends information back to them from your STB, just using the return path rather than the telephone line.

Quote:

What kindof film are you watching at 00:10 every day?

Probably some police drama about a detective hunting down a conman who has been fleecing senior citizens.

Quote:

That simply isnt true, most of the channels on sky run on ultra super low bitrates. Just look at football on ITV or horse racing on BBC1, with sky it just becomes a feild of blocks.

-Chris

I can vouch for what Gareth said having had both NTL and Sky+. No problem for me on Sky with either. On the other hand NTL used to freeze and stutter quite regularly. I think you have got things the wrong way round. It's NTL that is short of bandwidth for DTV not Sky.

vileda · 27-07-2005, 22:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by simpsonsFAN

That simply isnt true, most of the channels on sky run on ultra super low bitrates. Just look at football on ITV or horse racing on BBC1, with sky it just becomes a feild of blocks.

-Chris

No, That simply isn't true

The pic on Sky+ is at least equal to and usually better than the NTL Pic I used to have. The Interactive WORKS. STB is Much Much Much more stable and (The reason I left NTL's TV) There is no sound distortion/clipping.

setch · 28-07-2005, 11:11

My kids and wife are both saying that they think the picture is better on Sky.
All of my friends who have switched to Sky say the samething. So I guess that for Sky picture quality is subjective. If you live next to a load of pylons or in a valley you may get some interference.

With NTL, although the picture quality was acceptable, the frequent loss of service was not. The lack of experience of their support staff was also not acceptable. If I could be bothered (which I am not), I could pull all the recordings of the conversations that I have had with NTL over the last 3 weeks regarding my fault. They highlight to a great degree the amount of guess work that takes place and would make interesting listening for those people not privy to the recordings made by NTL for training purposes.

I now look forward to 2006 when HD from Sky arrives as I would guess that it will take NTL years to get it's head out of the sand and roll it out. And when they do, they will probably cock it up or worse still not bother tell their support staff that they are offering it as a service to its client base.

Setch

zoombini · 28-07-2005, 13:02

We love sky+, so much better than anything NTL could ever offer us.

And we have not had a billing error yet!

We'd have at least 2 by now with NTL.

I'm considering looking into the hard drive upgrade next, doing it myself than getting them to charge me more for it.

nidave · 09-08-2005, 16:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by zoombini

We love sky+, so much better than anything NTL could ever offer us.

And we have not had a billing error yet!

We'd have at least 2 by now with NTL.

I'm considering looking into the hard drive upgrade next, doing it myself than getting them to charge me more for it.

We have had nothing but problems with sky+ - not only did he drill through a gas main when installing (without gas for 2 days) they didnt give us the free month then charged us double (and have done so twice now) CS can be a joke - haf have a very mixed experance with them. the box has a habbit of crashing when you try to rewind anything recorded. Sky have already been out about this but could not duplicate the error.

I suppose everyone has thier own experances with diffrent companies and you will never be able to please everyone.
Am going back to ntl once the year is up.