ESH

Cone on,

An existing customer with a faulty Sky+ box who has just lost all his content.

"Yes sir we can upgrade you to our HD service for £150 for the box, £10.00 p/m for the HD service (£120pa). Oh and we will also upgrade your current multiroom to Sky+ foc."

Good deal or what? I cannot see whether there is any benefit to paying nearly £300.00 this year for 19 HD channels.

Is it better to cough up £65.00 to have the plus box replaced by itself? Can I push for a free replacement device?

I've got to watch 28 weeks later again now. I was mid way through before I went to work.

hectic

£65.00 callout and 90 day warranty given.
you would be given a refurbished skyplus box.
(one that someone has previously had a problem with)


your call..

Iain Young

If it's the HD that has died, you can replace it yourself with a much larger one than the original, and be able to record a lot more stuff. Shouldn't cost too much either...

Jamz3k

A bit off topic but something that niggles me a bit with existing Sky customers from a retailer perspective.

I get collared by people every week,
Customer, "My Sky box is broken and i WANT A FREE BOX or i'll cancel!"
Me, "how old is the box?"
Customer, "6years old!"
Me, "**** off"

You are sold Sky under the terms that the equipment belongs to YOU and alot of people buy it because of this "selling point" yet when it goes **** up, you cry!

I use my SKY+ box every day and it is on 24/7, it cost me £150 which is cheaper than any decent HD-recorder. If it lasts 2/3years or more I will be happy to pay for a new one because I have got SO MUCH USE OUT OF IT

ESH

A fair point Jay!

I've paid for my box and company has made a profit out of every month I've subscribed. I've seen this as an opportunity to move to HD but my rant is aimed at the high cost of upgrading. Almost £300 for 19 HD channels. A bit of a joke. They should be encouraging people to move to HD not penalising.

£65.00 for a relacement + box is ok. I've had four years from my current + box so the only inconvenience is the lost content.

Esh

Diesel

Once Freesat is up then I hope SKY will delete the ridiculous £10 pm for HD premium. They are coining it as none of that cash goes to the people who invest more in making HD programmes that SKY can then boast about and charge them and us more for.

Even then Freesat doesn't seem to offer a PVR - wish someone would invent a Freesat HD, HDMI connected dual tuner PVR - SHARPISH. Then its bye bye Murdoch and £400 more in the bank PA.

D

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

The point being though is you don't have the option of shopping around or picking which brand of box you want. You've given a box made to Skys specification and we all know they'll be churned out on the cheap. That's why people begrudge paying for a new one when the old one invariably fails.

NACRO

Ring them up and tell them that you'd like to cancel your subscription because your box no longer works.
They'll either give you a free box or you'll be free of the tyranny of sky.

Shark Man

Cancel and get freesat HD

Bear in mind with Sky's cancelations is sometimes they'll give you a deal to stay with them, and sometimes they won't. Seems they've cottoned on to the people advised to cancel subs to get a better discount, so they sometimes like to to call your bluff.

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

this happened with me. due to ongoing financial situ, i rang up sky basically just to downgrade for a while, i the hope that they may offer me an incentive as ive been a customer for 5 years.

nothing. wouldnt do anything. so ive downgraded from the whole package (on a standard box - not sky+ or h.d.) which was costing £45 a month to a bbasic package that is £16 a month. dont get any sports channels, movie channels or decent music channels now. but i get loads of free radio stations and the weird indian/asian stations, which are quite amusing

NACRO

Chocolate why pay 16 quid when you get all you've mentioned for nothing? Is sky one worth 192 quid a year. Tell them where to stick their useless service.

Iain Young

Not everywhere can get freeview at the moment, so perhaps Sky is the only option...

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

i have actually thought about this. tv itself is quite a new one, so was considering a free-view box, but i assume you need an old fashioned exterior ariel for this to gain any sort of picture. all i have is the sky ariel and its been up there for years

do get a few channels, mainly various entertainment ones, but mostly crap.

NACRO

You can still receive a lot of channels without any sky subscription using a sky box and dish.

I do exactly this in both my homes in Europe.

Try removing your viewing card and see what channels are left. As far as I can remember an expired sky viewing card will activate the few channels that aren't yet free to air.

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

ah... this is it though nacro, in europe. in the u.k. (if you were referring to mainland european countries), it may be totally different.

so would i ring the buggers up, cancel, and just be left with a free package?

NACRO

My dish, box and card are all UK supplied - they just happen to be located outside the UK.

If you want to see what you will be left with take out your card and see what channels remain.

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

may well just try that. is there a reset or anything that needs to be done?

and this isnt a trap for the less educated than yourself is it

NACRO

Certainly isn't, no need to reset but if you want to be on the safe side then power off the sky box at the mains before removing and re-inserting yuor viewing card.
After you cancel you can carry on using the viewing card to get the few channels that are not 'free to air' but 'free to view'.

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

just tried this and all i could recieve (without the insert card debacle) was bb1 and bbc2

P1Fanatic

No one is forcing Sky HD on you. You either sign up or wait and see if they drop the £10 pm sub.

Arent the Freesat Panny TV's about £300 more than the sets without? Ok no HD sub but then you dont get HD Films or Sky Sports (mostly what Id want it for).

Also rumour has it they are using newer HD boxes (samsung?) soon rather than the current Pace models.

Simon

NACRO

No ITV, CH4 and 5?? At the very least you should have all 'free to air' ie unencrypted channels BBC3, 4 and all the other 'junk' channels.

EddScott

I've heard they'll be new Sky HD boxes shortly.

I was going to change to HD but I think I'll wait and see if the BBC shows F1 in HD if they do I buy if not I won't.

What Freesat should really do is go all out to get the kids channels like Nick etc. If they do that people will leave Sky in droves.

GC8WRX

Sky will drop the 10 hd charge soon, just like they did with skyplus!

Shark Man

Sorry, off topic Rant:

For as long as sky only allow me to use their own branded and restricted equipment to use their service. I will treat Sky like my mobile phone company:

My phone is technically mine, but is provided by the phone company at a discounted rate (or free). What I pay for the phone is down to what deal I negotiate. After a year of subscription, I expect a new phone of at least equal quality than the existing one for free. If the phone goes faulty at any time (with exception to obvious physical abuse) whilst I'm under subscription I expect it to be replaced or repaired for free regardless of of the warranty has expired or not. The subscription I pay easily covers the phone's costs, so they are happy to do this (with a little prodding ).

On the flip side, we have Virgin: the equipment is theirs and treated as such; They will replace or repair for free at any time.

The difference with Sky and mobile phones, is I can get any phone I want, and should I change provider, its an easy painless swap of sim cards. Some maybe locked, but its an easy legitimate task to unlock it (and I've only ever had one phone that was locked on to a provider). After all, if its my phone, I should be able to do whatever I want with it and use whatever provider I please.

Sky just want their bread buttered on both sides; If you want to receive their broadcasts they force you to buy their own approved satellite receivers that are further restricted, so that the only broadcasts they can pick up are via Sky. The receivers are locked so you can't use any other provider's encryption card. The tuner is restricted so that you can't tune in non-sky package channels and have it as a normal line up (you have to go to "other channels" etc, where it quite often "forgets" the tuned channels you stored earlier ).

What's the problem? To most people none. But its a principal; if they say its MY box, then why is it locked on to sky? Why can't I use to to pick up Canal or Digital+, or use setanta's own viewing card? There are over 20 content providers in Europe that these receivers have the capability of receiving - if it was derestricted. So if Sky say its MY box, then why are THEY restricting what I can watch with it?

Likewise; If I, the consumer am responsible for the receiver, then why can't I purchase a non-sky satellite receiver, like a Dreambox and legitimately make it work with Sky? Again, these boxes have the capability to work with sky subscriptions, but Sky choose not to allow it - they want you to buy their own branded and restricted receiver.




Sorry about that, I just remember the days of analogue; when I could buy any satelite reciever I want and pick up any channel I want providing I had the correct viewing card (if required) and pointed the dish in the right direction.

NACRO

Ok choco

This link might help- your cancelled sky subscription card left in your digibox will work as a 'freesat' card
Freeview or Free To View or Free To Air

Rang up SWMBO and got her to check something out for me- with our 'freesat' 20 quid card from sky removed we get

BBC1, 2, 3 and 4. Also ITV, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4,E4, more 4, men and motors and the other crap channels.

What we miss without the card is CH4, CH5 and 5US, fiver etc.

You should be able to get rid of sky subscription and have all these channels I've mentioned plus radio. Try powering off your decoder completely and then seeing what channels you get.

GC8WRX

Or cancel your subsription to sky, get a "pirated card" for about a ton, that will unlock every channel on sky, even the **** ones!

My brother has one and its paid for itself many times over, have to buy a new one every 12 months though!

EddScott

Sbradley

Shark Man, if you want to use someone else's equipment to watch Sky you can - you just need a Pro IRD rather than a consumer box...

P1F, boxes are currently Thomson with a (very) few Samsung ones out there as well. New ones are Pace.

There's a lot of people downstairs from me working bloody hard on making the boxes as reliable as possible and testing very rigorously before they get released to the public. I'm just a contractor so don't get to hear everything, but I do know that the new box was rejected at least three times before they accepted the current spec for field trials. So Sky aren't quite as cavalier about it as you might think.

SB

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

no, seriously! i didnt get it too

i would have assumed the 5 above channels to be ok and a few of the free sky ones, but nothing, apart from 2

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

pm me details please