SD : TV price rises

[Itshim]

Have been staying at a house with SKY . OMG it was it bad. Rugby on at 1.30 `ish kept hanging. EPG very slow to respond kept thinking it simply was not working. Worst of all as we record & watch later normally ( if only 15mins or so) Adverts did not pick up that there were so MANY

[nstokes]

Originally Posted by Itshim

Have been staying at a house with SKY . OMG it was it bad. Rugby on at 1.30 `ish kept hanging. EPG very slow to respond kept thinking it simply was not working. Worst of all as we record & watch later normally ( if only 15mins or so) Adverts did not pick up that there were so MANY

Thats doesnt automatically make Sky bad. That issue could have been a number of things. The EPG may have been awful for you doesnt mean it is for everyone. It may not have been the new EPG and still on the old grey coloured one.

The picture issue may have been interference, signal issue, transmission issue or a number of things.

Im not sure what you mean about the adverts thing

[geordiechris]

Had a phone call just over an hour or so ago from VM asking for my feedback on why I cancelled and boy did I give her the answer!

[MrB]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

No it's not the cheapest deal - as the underlying package is a high level of services, so even when you get a discount it's still more expensive than some TV/BB/Phone combinations

It depends on what the underlying package is as to whether you can remove services without effecting your discount. You should however be able to go for the Line Rental Saver

Thank you Ben, she claimed I couldn't get this mix of services cheaper - I am not bothered about the Mobile or International add ons but would ideally like to keep XL/XL/XL, 2xTivo and 1xV+ (if it helps the Mates Rates offer was XL/XL/XL, phone line plus Talk Mobile/International, V+ and VHD - is this the underlying minimum package?).

Has anyone on Mates Rates any experience of them discounting down/cancelling the price rise please?

Many thanks

MrB

[Chad]

Originally Posted by geordiechris

Had a phone call just over an hour or so ago from VM asking for my feedback on why I cancelled and boy did I give her the answer!

How long ago did you leave Virgin?

[geordiechris]

Originally Posted by Chad

How long ago did you leave Virgin?

End of last month using the price rise get out clause to cancel

[Chad]

Originally Posted by geordiechris

End of last month using the price rise get out clause to cancel

Obviously this forum isn't a fair reflection of Virgin customers in general however it seems more people have left Virgin at this price increase than I remember them doing previously. Usually you'll get people posting how unhappy they are, threatening to leave, but in the end they stay. This time more than ever people are actually cancelling.

[Itshim]

Originally Posted by nstokes

Thats doesnt automatically make Sky bad. That issue could have been a number of things. The EPG may have been awful for you doesnt mean it is for everyone. It may not have been the new EPG and still on the old grey coloured one.

The picture issue may have been interference, signal issue, transmission issue or a number of things.

Im not sure what you mean about the adverts thing

1) Agree it does not make Sky bad - Its has however put me off!!
2) The EPG was blue And sorry I found it very poor, chunky & slow
3) Interference, no doubt it was - HOW do you live with that - shocking in the 21st century.
4) Adverts as we can "record" all the shows we wish to see I had not taken in how many adverts are on these days. A plus for TiVo LOL
Always looking to save money by swapping but Sky would need to be 10`s of £`s cheaper to put up with that service. The next day a family member was using it and the EPG seemed the same to me, as he uses it all the time and made no comment what so ever I take it that that was the norm

[andy_m]

I'm assuming it wasn't a recordable box, Itshim, then? My understanding is the sky + hd epg is different. I haven't used it since it was recently updated, but always found it pretty good. In fact when I first got cable the v+ hd epg had me thinking I'd made an awful mistake. Fortunately TiVo arrived to save the day!

[montehampster]

I think you must have been using an old Sky box.

I moved back to Sky last month and the EPG is much quicker and easier to navigate than the Tivo and is dynamic! I rarely if ever viewed a "suggestion" despite spending several weeks training it with red and green thumbs!

Also the On Demand service using my 60mgb Virgin broadband is equally as fast as my experience with the Tivo. The only downside I have found is the loss of one tuner but with the On Demand service that is manageable on the rare occasion I need three and for a saving of over £300 a year (including the saving from taking the Virgin 12 month line rental deal) is something I can live with.

[eljay]

Its obvious from this thread that, even when you take out the die hard sky/virgin fans, all the individuals experiences are significantly different. I had sky TV for six years as at that time there was no paytv alternative for me. Due to location (Heathrow Airport area) and especially when we had bad weather (remember we are in the UK) I had constant breaking up, freezing or complete loss of picture.

I too was not happy with latest advised VM price hike. So looked again at my package and talked to Sky about possible alternatives. Broaband with Sky was out of the question as only adsl was available and on past experience plus being 3 miles from the exchange if I got a stable 2.5 to 4 Meg I was lucky plus no Infinity upgrade was even planned for my exchange. So just discussed cost for retention of broadband and phone with VM and re-installing sky TV. However, no special return deal (left more than a year ago) was offered just a small introductory deal. End result was a saving of about £36 over the first year. Was tempted but then remembered the picture problems and decided it was not a worthwhile move. The cost after the first year would also have been possibly dearer especially when adding breakdown and support insurance cover.

Maybe I am lucky in that in the last two years with VM I have had no problems with the TV side despite having to change out the first Tivo box on the day of installation.

So to summarize for me I am better off to stick with VM mainly due to signal issues but maybe for someone ten miles further out from Heathrow Sky may be a worthwhile alternative, who knows and who cares - try both over a couple of years and then decide what is best for you.

[andy_m]

Originally Posted by montehampster

I rarely if ever viewed a "suggestion" despite spending several weeks training it with red and green thumbs!

Weeks?!? Good grief!

I've had my TiVo for just over a year now and I have to say I think suggestions are an excellent feature. It's like a extra on demand channel of stuff that I'm probably going to want to watch, and on more than one occasion it's saved us when we've forgotten to set something to record but TiVo hass been clever enough to think we'll like it.

Suffice it to say it is slower, and perhaps less intuitive than Sky+hd, and as a result it can be significantly more frustrating at times, but on the plus side it's not so slow as to be unsuable, it has three tuners and it's capable of some very very clever things.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by andy_m

but on the plus side it's not so slow as to be unsuable

Good grief, you make it sound dreadful! It is tons better than the V+ box, which was certainly slow and clunky. For most people, I'm sure that the TIVO box is as quick as you could expect it to be, given the functionality of it.

I haven't found the Sky+HD box much better, and it froze for me for about two minutes last time I used one!

[Itshim]

Originally Posted by montehampster

I think you must have been using an old Sky box.

I doubt it but not sure. The guy is a bit of a teccy the TV was a big B&O flat screen & the wired in sound system is Bose. Even went out and brought a touch screen PC - why !

My comment was as suggested just about the length & number of ads on TV in general. Do not think I could cope with the lack of not being able to record 3 channels if needed. Can be worked around but why bother
Sorry was so nearly temped to switch but the price difference if there is one at all. Says no not a hope . The wife was looking that night for something she fancied to watch. 10 minutes later ( it felt like hours) she said "what a load of rubbish channels are on Sky" Looks like I will be with Virgin for the present time. O Yes when we were looking Sky Atlantic was offering Star trek in one form or another

[Qtx]

Originally Posted by eljay

I had sky TV for six years as at that time there was no paytv alternative for me. Due to location (Heathrow Airport area) and especially when we had bad weather (remember we are in the UK) I had constant breaking up, freezing or complete loss of picture.

Is there extra interference from Airport related stuff? My sister lived quite close to a police station which had powerful transmitters of all kinds on its roof and had problems getting a normal tv reception. Most people in that area had Sky as it was almost out in the sticks but the reception of channels got better the further away from the station you got.

Between Gatwick and Heathrow myself. Had no problems with picture quality at all since Sky was installed last week. Wondered if there would be any picture degradation during a storm but the one we did have had no effect.

The distance from the exchange can often be a deciding factor. Personally I would have switched years ago if the exchange was closer. Infinity came along here recently and let me escape from the poorly performing broadband.

In one of these threads is a post saying that old customers have been offered a 75% discount to return to Sky.

---------- Post added at 15:09 ---------- Previous post was at 14:57 ----------

Originally Posted by andy_m

I'm assuming it wasn't a recordable box, Itshim, then? My understanding is the sky + hd epg is different. I haven't used it since it was recently updated, but always found it pretty good. In fact when I first got cable the v+ hd epg had me thinking I'd made an awful mistake. Fortunately TiVo arrived to save the day!

Found the little V+HD box laggy in the menu's and it of course had the missing tv guide after midnight. Got a replacement Samsung V+HD box which was much bigger and was a bit faster but it still didn't feel responsive. Glad they sorted it out with the Tivo.

The 2TB HD sky box with the dark blue menu system is blazing fast. Takes a while to get used to where things are but once you do the layout makes a lot of sense.

One thing that stands out for me in normal use is how fast and fluid the fast forward and rewinding is on the Sky box compared to the Virgin one I had. It makes sense due to the fact Sky has a local copy of what is playing compared to the VM box I had which has to stream it from a network source. With the Tivo having local recordings too, does it work much better on those than the standard boxes?

Not had any of the problems Ishtim mentioned.