Sky: worth it?
Discussion
I am in the market for some kind of HD TV recording setup. I had been looking at freeview HD PVRs, but stuff mag reckons the Sky offerings are currently better for what you get even though they are subscription. So is it worth it or £250 for a 1Tb sky hd box and then 28 a month or whatever it is? If I don't have a dish does fitting cost?
Blown2CV said:
I am in the market for some kind of HD TV recording setup. I had been looking at freeview HD PVRs, but stuff mag reckons the Sky offerings are currently better for what you get even though they are subscription. So is it worth it or £250 for a 1Tb sky hd box and then 28 a month or whatever it is? If I don't have a dish does fitting cost?
If you have a job, then not really as you don't have enough time to watch enough to make it worth the money, IMHO.Jasandjules said:
If you have a job, then not really as you don't have enough time to watch enough to make it worth the money, IMHO.
I don't agree. For me the whole idea of Sky+ (and similar) is that you record things you want and watch them at your convenience. You don't watch any more television, you just watch programmes you want to watch. Otherwise you flop down at 9pm to try and watch something for an hour or so and all you can find is My Celebrity is Fatter than your Kitchen Extra.RicksAlfas said:
I don't agree. For me the whole idea of Sky+ (and similar) is that you record things you want and watch them at your convenience. You don't watch any more television, you just watch programmes you want to watch. Otherwise you flop down at 9pm to try and watch something for an hour or so and all you can find is My Celebrity is Fatter than your Kitchen Extra.
All that happens then IME is that you end up with a load of programmes taped. You still don't get the time to sit down and watch them...Fair enough. You must be super-busy.
But as an example, we've been out the last three Sunday evenings but really wanted to watch Thorne:Sleepyhead. Recorded it on series link, had a cosy night in on Saturday and watched all three back to back (fast forward through the adverts, made about 2:15 of viewing) and frightened ourselves to death!
Certainly better than anything else that was on television that night though.
But as an example, we've been out the last three Sunday evenings but really wanted to watch Thorne:Sleepyhead. Recorded it on series link, had a cosy night in on Saturday and watched all three back to back (fast forward through the adverts, made about 2:15 of viewing) and frightened ourselves to death!
Certainly better than anything else that was on television that night though.We have the Humax Freesat setup. It gives us sky+ style functionality, and HD on BBC and ITV.
Ok, so we don't get sky one and a plethora of sports we don't watch. But then again, the £250 startup cost of the Humax is equivalent to 5 months of Sky!
The recording functionality of the system is as good (if not better) than Sky's - the one drawback being it has to be switched on once per week (or left on) so that the programme guide updates.
I don't regret not having Sky one bit. I love football, but I object to paying vast sums to watch.
Ok, so we don't get sky one and a plethora of sports we don't watch. But then again, the £250 startup cost of the Humax is equivalent to 5 months of Sky!
The recording functionality of the system is as good (if not better) than Sky's - the one drawback being it has to be switched on once per week (or left on) so that the programme guide updates.
I don't regret not having Sky one bit. I love football, but I object to paying vast sums to watch.
I have Sky+ HD, and I can definitely say that its excellent. I pay £30 ish per month and I get everything other than Films and Sport. You can watch what you want, when you want, and there is no need to watch anywhere near as many adverts.
Don't waste your money buying a 1TB box. I have the standard and have never gone past 40% capacity.
Don't waste your money buying a 1TB box. I have the standard and have never gone past 40% capacity.
Jasandjules said:
All that happens then IME is that you end up with a load of programmes taped. You still don't get the time to sit down and watch them...
I have a Three-Episode rule, if I have more than 3 episodes of the same show unwatched then I'm obviously not too fussed about watching it and they get deleted and series-link cancelled.These days the only shows I watch 'live' are sporting events.
well i don't have the greatest amount of TV time, but I did have a normal freeview PVR and it was great being able to only watch the things I wanted, as as people have correctly said a) most of TV is s
te.. and I would also add b) if you sit down to watch TV at the same ish time of day (as tends to be the case if you have a job) then you just end up being faced with the SAME st, not even different st! So, recording totally works for me. I like the idea of getting new series' on sky channels rather than having to wait for it to air on british TV (often this never happens) or get it on DVD set which is not so convenient. The cost of a PVR box is actually more like a year's worth of sky tbh, if you get the basic package and box. That's another thing, 60hrs of TV doesn't sound a lot with the basic box. The 1Tb version is £250 as opposed to free. I reckon you could upgrade the disk yourself, but obviously that would bks the warranty, but might be worth it compared to shelling out that huge sum extra when the disk itself is only about £40 retail.
te.. and I would also add b) if you sit down to watch TV at the same ish time of day (as tends to be the case if you have a job) then you just end up being faced with the SAME st, not even different st! So, recording totally works for me. I like the idea of getting new series' on sky channels rather than having to wait for it to air on british TV (often this never happens) or get it on DVD set which is not so convenient. The cost of a PVR box is actually more like a year's worth of sky tbh, if you get the basic package and box. That's another thing, 60hrs of TV doesn't sound a lot with the basic box. The 1Tb version is £250 as opposed to free. I reckon you could upgrade the disk yourself, but obviously that would bks the warranty, but might be worth it compared to shelling out that huge sum extra when the disk itself is only about £40 retail.
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