Free TV box?
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Free TV box?
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Bungle73 said:
Yes I do find the Virgin Media box to be a lot slower but I find the interface on the whole a lot better; for example you can view information in on other programmes through the search and scan banner rather than just the one you are watching. You can also continue to watch and hear the programme you are watching when the full EPG is up, unlike on Sky with their graphical interface (and music) which looks like it is stuck in the mid-1990s.
As to ''Free TV Box,'' it was my understanding that Virgin Media rent all their boxes to their customers (they say "free of charge"), therefore it remains their property. This is why they provide free servicing. Unlike with Sky who either give you a box for free, or sell one to you, and it becomes yours. This is why when our box packed in they basically told us we'd have to buy a new one from them for the best part of £200 (luckily my Dad found one on eBay for less than half the price).
http://store.virginmedia.com/digital-tv.html
You can do that on Sky.
Sky HD's EPG has a box with the currently selected TV channel playing in it.
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But Geezertronic doesn't have their TV service.
I regularly get the leaflets through the door too.
But my situation is quite ridiculous.
A cable runs past my block of flats, about 5m from my living room window, serving houses to both sides.
Enquire about getting connected and they'll turn you down because they aren't prepared to put a junction box thingy in to serve the block of flats.
Virgin have missed an opportunity, because most of my neighbours having been rejected by Virgin have opted for Sky instead.
PS If your Sky box packs up, ring Sky up about getting it repaired and when they quote a price, say you want to cancel your contract instead. Worked a treat for me a few years ago.
Geezertronic
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To clarify, I do have VirginMedia TV but I don't pay for it. Because I have internet and phone with them, they gave me a TV box with a basic TV package free of charge and every so often they ring me and ask me if I want to upgrade - to which the answer is no. The box sits in my bedroom, Sky is in the lounge.
tbh if I wanted to get HD or anything else, I would upgrade my Sky package
We have internet and phone and we don't get that.
WelshBluebird
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It depends on when you started the contract with them I think.
When I was in second year of uni (so not far off 3 years ago now) it was the case that if you had Broadband and a landline with them then you would get a basic TV package (and obviously the TV box) for free. When I finished my second year they had dropped that tv package so the only tv deal you could then get as a new (or upgrading) customer was one that cost £5 (extra) a month.
We've had them since they were Blueyonder.
How? I am watching Olympics Tonight on BBC1 now and scroll along to Sky Living on 107 and press the "i" button and it gives me the information for Olympics Tonight, which is what I'm watching. Similarly if I scroll along to BBC News that starts at 1.00am and press "i" I also get the information for the programme that I am currently watching.
We have a standard Sky+ box.
It works on our Sky HD box.
You can do it on a Sky+ box, where the EPG is cached on the hard drive so you can access it while on another channel. All the HD boxes have this software but perhaps the older ones don't (namely the ones with the old user interface?) so I guess you (Mojo) have a non-HD one?
Previously the now/next information required you being on that channel. If you had two recordings, it meant you couldn't get information on future broadcasts until you stopped one. Pretty lame... like most of the Sky software still is today, despite having a fancy new look.
TiVo runs rings around Sky+, but I can't get TiVo so I put up with it. To be fair, it is getting better and the Anytime+ stuff works really well.
Previously the now/next information required you being on that channel. If you had two recordings, it meant you couldn't get information on future broadcasts until you stopped one. Pretty lame... like most of the Sky software still is today, despite having a fancy new look.
TiVo runs rings around Sky+, but I can't get TiVo so I put up with it. To be fair, it is getting better and the Anytime+ stuff works really well.
WelshBluebird
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The problem is that which ever way you go, there are compromises.
Yes the TiVo box is better from what I can tell (although I haven't used one myself), but if you are with Sky you get access to Sky Go so you can watch stuff on your phone, tablet, laptop, xbox, whatever. Even if you pay for the sky sports channels with Virgin, you don't get that. So you just have to decide what is more important to you. Of course, that is assuming you can actually get cable in the first place.
Yes the TiVo box is better from what I can tell (although I haven't used one myself), but if you are with Sky you get access to Sky Go so you can watch stuff on your phone, tablet, laptop, xbox, whatever. Even if you pay for the sky sports channels with Virgin, you don't get that. So you just have to decide what is more important to you. Of course, that is assuming you can actually get cable in the first place.
SS4
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By phone and tablet you basically mean iPhone and iPad with limited Android support. Sky Go is really nothing more than a flashy gimmick since it must use astronomical amounts of data and data plans aren't that big, hotspots generally disallow video streaming or cost money and I bet it's in the T&C that you can't use it for public viewing (in the office/round a mate's) which are the only places you'd get good enough wifi for free.
Sky Go sounds good but it's not really. It works on very few devices (Android) and there are many things you can't watch - and I hear that it doesn't work very well on the latest Android OSes either - and Sky will no doubt take weeks/months to fix it. It also requires a pretty fast Internet connection to stream at any decent quality, now that we have large screened devices with HD resolutions (not good for watching a scaled up image that's really pixelated and at a low frame rate). Even if you have an all-you-can-eat 3G data plan, you still need a good speed because it doesn't seem to cope as well as other streaming services.
Then there's the limit of how many devices you can use, and the 30 day wait to change things. In fact, I don't understand why - given it's a service that requires a connection - it can't work like Netflix or Spotify and simply detect if there's more than one (or two) users simultaneously accessing content.
If someone did decide to share a single account with someone else, they'd always need to watch something at separate times which would soon put people off!
I think people should believe in better... which probably means looking beyond Sky. Now TV might suit some people though, but I think Sky runs the risk of actually losing satellite subscribers if it is good, so they will probably cripple it in some way.
Then there's the limit of how many devices you can use, and the 30 day wait to change things. In fact, I don't understand why - given it's a service that requires a connection - it can't work like Netflix or Spotify and simply detect if there's more than one (or two) users simultaneously accessing content.
If someone did decide to share a single account with someone else, they'd always need to watch something at separate times which would soon put people off!
I think people should believe in better... which probably means looking beyond Sky. Now TV might suit some people though, but I think Sky runs the risk of actually losing satellite subscribers if it is good, so they will probably cripple it in some way.
SS4
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That could sum up Sky as a whole really. They're my ISP and internet speed has halved since Friday, I could understand if I lived in London but in Birmingham?
The Internet is slow here, and I'm on TalkTalk. Twitter is grinding to a halt and I'm suffering DNS issues with some sites.
I doubt you geographical location matters too much, as there's simply a LOT of traffic everywhere (ironically, not so much on the roads or trains!!).
If it's any consolation, and I am sure it isn't (!), then I'm also finding that mobile data is even more unreliable with incredibly high latency and slow throughput.
I doubt you geographical location matters too much, as there's simply a LOT of traffic everywhere (ironically, not so much on the roads or trains!!).
If it's any consolation, and I am sure it isn't (!), then I'm also finding that mobile data is even more unreliable with incredibly high latency and slow throughput.
WelshBluebird
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You see, I have had pretty good experiences with it. I don't have to worry about mobile data usage as I have unlimited data with Three and the speeds are usually pretty damn good. Certainly enough to stream video on my phone anyway (and if I have good signal its fast enough to stream a pretty good picture to my laptop). And I also have access to hotspots provided by the Cloud (thanks to having Sky Broadband), and while there may be something in the T&C's about streaming, I have not seen it and streaming works fine in most circumstances.
In terms of on the PC, again I really can't fault it. Streaming at 2.3Mbps and it looks really good on my laptop. Not as good as the BBC's 3.2Mbps HD streams, but still it looks fine even plugged into my TV (granted its only 22").
Although I agree android support right now is pathetic, and the two device limit is ridiculous considering the range of devices a household now can easily own. The problem sky have though is that something like Sky Go can seriously eat into their profits. Multiroom subscriptions are at risk and people can obviously share the account. The problem with not allowing simultaneous viewings is that it would likely annoy people even more than the two device limit (no more letting the teenager watch sports in their room on their laptop while you watch a film on yours etc).
I think Netflix has a higher amount of simultaneous users allowed, so there are other options than what Sky has done. Or at least make it quicker to change your devices, than the nonsense at the moment (and the chance of accidentally making a device your primary one!).
Clearly Sky can fix these things, if it chooses to. But, having limits and things to frustrate will probably be to ensure you still use Multiroom (easy money).
I've got a Three broadband account and have been most disappointed by the slow speeds in recent weeks (congestion, not the Traffic Sense system that was quickly disabled after it affected almost everyone by mistake!). Anyone using an Orange transmitter with the 3G roaming in place is likely to suffer the worst.. but that's now going a bit off topic.
Clearly Sky can fix these things, if it chooses to. But, having limits and things to frustrate will probably be to ensure you still use Multiroom (easy money).
I've got a Three broadband account and have been most disappointed by the slow speeds in recent weeks (congestion, not the Traffic Sense system that was quickly disabled after it affected almost everyone by mistake!). Anyone using an Orange transmitter with the 3G roaming in place is likely to suffer the worst.. but that's now going a bit off topic.
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