Sky TV cancelled and fingers crossed..........

[dickymint]

that BT TV Ultra HD Box will satisfy!!

£5/month reduction on my Broadband cost (infinity 2) now £45/month
£10/month their top package including Sports (HD now included so another £6/month saving)
Line rental included.

Sly was costing nearly £80/month incuded Sly Sports. plus my BT broadband and line rental.

Question is will 45Mbs linespeed be ok or borderline?
Not having a 4K tv anybody know if the downscaling to 1080i is any good?
and in general what's your views on this setup?

[anonymous-user]

I'm ringing BT tonight, if I have it right I can get unlimited 1 infinity and TV for £36 a month. Considering I am paying Sky £80 at the moment plus another £15 to BT for sport it will be a huge saving. I wont have Sky Sports but BT have most of the sport I actually want anyway

[mathmos]

dickymint said:

Question is will 45Mbs linespeed be ok or borderline?

It depends what your doing....I generally get 5-6Mbps and it's enough to stream Netflix in HD with no issues....no chance of seeing 4k though.

[LHRFlightman]

Don't you need a Freeview box for BT? I didn't think everything came down the fibre connection?

[Lucas Ayde]

LHRFlightman said:

Don't you need a Freeview box for BT? I didn't think everything came down the fibre connection?

The regular BT Box includes a twin-tuner, HD capable, Freeview PVR (Youview compatible).

Their pay channels are delivered via streaming and they have a catch-up service for them via their 'BT Player' which is on the box. You can also record the streamed shows to the box via the EPG.

Like all Youview boxes it has built in support for the catchup Players of the big broadcasters and the EPG goes back a week, letting you watch older shows directly from it.

Taking the online element into account, it's a pretty good deal for what it costs. Nowhere near as comprehensive as Sky, but nowhere near as expensive either. Until now they've thrown BT Sport in for free but from August they will charge if you want it.

[dickymint]

Lucas Ayde said:

The regular BT Box includes a twin-tuner, HD capable, Freeview PVR (Youview compatible).

Their pay channels are delivered via streaming and they have a catch-up service for them via their 'BT Player' which is on the box. You can also record the streamed shows to the box via the EPG.

Like all Youview boxes it has built in support for the catchup Players of the big broadcasters and the EPG goes back a week, letting you watch older shows directly from it.

Taking the online element into account, it's a pretty good deal for what it costs. Nowhere near as comprehensive as Sky, but nowhere near as expensive either. Until now they've thrown BT Sport in for free but from August they will charge if you want it.

My BT Sports in HD and HD Ultra is free for duration of my new contract 12months

[Martyn76]

I did the same back in November, went for the UHD box as it worked out cheaper then getting the regular box and then adding channels to it(got BT Sport for free), went for the infinity 1 fibre package (up to 38Mb), don't miss SKY at all and save £30 per month.

Also the HD picture for the Freeview channels seems to be better than the same one broadcast by SKY.

Would recommend it to anyone.

[LHRFlightman]

Lucas Ayde said:

The regular BT Box includes a twin-tuner, HD capable, Freeview PVR (Youview compatible).

Their pay channels are delivered via streaming and they have a catch-up service for them via their 'BT Player' which is on the box. You can also record the streamed shows to the box via the EPG.

Like all Youview boxes it has built in support for the catchup Players of the big broadcasters and the EPG goes back a week, letting you watch older shows directly from it.

Taking the online element into account, it's a pretty good deal for what it costs. Nowhere near as comprehensive as Sky, but nowhere near as expensive either. Until now they've thrown BT Sport in for free but from August they will charge if you want it.

Thanks. Do you also need an aerial?

[Derek Smith]

Martyn76 said:

Would recommend it to anyone.

I've had BT for over a year, changing from SKY. It was more or less half the price with Netflix replacing Sky movies and BT sport - I'm a rugby fan - replacing Sky sports. I miss F1, but go via Now! on those races not covered by Ch4, and not all of them now the race count is so high. I should have done it earlier. I have a BT land line and both my wife and I use EE and there are savings there as well.

I changed because of a daughter's wedding. I have no intention of going back.

I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for a bit more, but Sky seems to charge a lot more for very little extra.

I watch football, but it doesn't enthuse me. Eurosport HD is good for Le Mans.

All in all a good decision.

[condor]

LHRFlightman said:

Lucas Ayde said:

The regular BT Box includes a twin-tuner, HD capable, Freeview PVR (Youview compatible).

Their pay channels are delivered via streaming and they have a catch-up service for them via their 'BT Player' which is on the box. You can also record the streamed shows to the box via the EPG.

Like all Youview boxes it has built in support for the catchup Players of the big broadcasters and the EPG goes back a week, letting you watch older shows directly from it.

Taking the online element into account, it's a pretty good deal for what it costs. Nowhere near as comprehensive as Sky, but nowhere near as expensive either. Until now they've thrown BT Sport in for free but from August they will charge if you want it.

Thanks. Do you also need an aerial?

I'd also like to know if an aerial is needed ( or satellite dish for that matter).

[dickymint]

condor said:

LHRFlightman said:

Lucas Ayde said:

The regular BT Box includes a twin-tuner, HD capable, Freeview PVR (Youview compatible).

Their pay channels are delivered via streaming and they have a catch-up service for them via their 'BT Player' which is on the box. You can also record the streamed shows to the box via the EPG.

Like all Youview boxes it has built in support for the catchup Players of the big broadcasters and the EPG goes back a week, letting you watch older shows directly from it.

Taking the online element into account, it's a pretty good deal for what it costs. Nowhere near as comprehensive as Sky, but nowhere near as expensive either. Until now they've thrown BT Sport in for free but from August they will charge if you want it.

Thanks. Do you also need an aerial?

I'd also like to know if an aerial is needed ( or satellite dish for that matter).

Aerial is needed for the Freeview channels but obviously not for the streamed stuff.

But you could keep your Sly Box and dish (if you have them) for the free stuff.

Edited by dickymint on Wednesday 22 February 23:14

[Lucas Ayde]

condor said:

I'd also like to know if an aerial is needed ( or satellite dish for that matter).

You'll almost certainly need a rooftop aerial to get the full range of Freeview channels. Typically costs between £75-100 to get one installed, assuming you don't already have one.

[Lucas Ayde]

Derek Smith said:

I've had BT for over a year, changing from SKY. It was more or less half the price with Netflix replacing Sky movies and BT sport - I'm a rugby fan - replacing Sky sports. I miss F1, but go via Now! on those races not covered by Ch4, and not all of them now the race count is so high. I should have done it earlier. I have a BT land line and both my wife and I use EE and there are savings there as well.

I changed because of a daughter's wedding. I have no intention of going back.

I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for a bit more, but Sky seems to charge a lot more for very little extra.

I watch football, but it doesn't enthuse me. Eurosport HD is good for Le Mans.

All in all a good decision.

Sky have a business model of offering large, monolithic, bundles of channels (they try to incentivise you to take all their bundles) which they charge a lot of money for. They also pretty much hold full control over UK pay TV distribution via satellite as they succeeded in making their proprietary equipment the de-facto standard.

However, it looks like the market is moving away from paying large amounts of money for a big choice of broadcast TV and more towards buying shows/ events/ series a la carte via streaming (or smaller, cheaper and more targeted packages).

After years of insisting that you need to buy an expensive package of channels to watch a few 'must see' big-name shows, Sky really seem to have been caught out by developments in the way people consume TV. Probably explains why they are pushing NowTV so hard as a way to get into the streaming market.

[eybic]

I'm seriously considering this option too. For £10 it's crazy not to imho. The only thing that concerns me is the EPG with being so used to the Sky one. Is there any way to record 2 things at once like with sky?

I also need to look into some sort of powerline adaptor for the box as apparently it doesn't have WiFi

[dickymint]

Just plumbed it all in which took all of ten minutes

My existing loft aerial is pre-digital but still picks up 40 odd Freeview channels albeit not the best signal strength (could be due to storm Dorris?) so will be renewing it soon as I'm fairly certain Sly News should be available?

All the HD streamed channels are spot on and better than Sky! Sky was dropping out badly this morning due to the storm.

UHD is brilliant even though my TV isn't 4K, it downscales to 1080i at 50fps.

Will I miss Sky? Answer is yes for the short term. EPG and remote will take time to master though. I will miss Sly Sports but at the end of the day the exercise is all about saving a chunk of money. The choice of News channels is a negative and so is not being able to get At The Races channel

Was amazed how small the BT box is compared to Sly's monster HD box (which had to be re-booted regularly).

So there we have it I'm a happy chappy

[dickymint]

eybic said:

I'm seriously considering this option too. For £10 it's crazy not to imho. The only thing that concerns me is the EPG with being so used to the Sky one. Is there any way to record 2 things at once like with sky?

I also need to look into some sort of powerline adaptor for the box as apparently it doesn't have WiFi

Yes two channels can be recorded at once.

I opted to buy the BT Mini Connector kit for £20 and it's fine

[PaulV]

dickymint said:

My existing loft aerial is pre-digital but still picks up 40 odd Freeview channels albeit not the best signal strength (could be due to storm Dorris?) so will be renewing it soon as I'm fairly certain Sly News should be available?

This site is a great resource about aerials, no connection other than as a happy customer
http://aerialsandtv.com/

[eybic]

dickymint said:

Yes two channels can be recorded at once.

I opted to buy the BT Mini Connector kit for £20 and it's fine

Thank you. Does it have a socket on it? I'm not sure I have any spare sockets and apparently they shouldn't be plugged into an extension lead.

[dickymint]

eybic said:

dickymint said:

Yes two channels can be recorded at once.

I opted to buy the BT Mini Connector kit for £20 and it's fine

Thank you. Does it have a socket on it? I'm not sure I have any spare sockets and apparently they shouldn't be plugged into an extension lead.

Yes thankfully they both do. And two Ethernet sockets on each.

[whoami]

What broadband speed do you need for BT UHD?