Sky+

[imamartian]

i have sky.. but haven't made the leap yet... is sky+ worth it?
i pay £41 per month now... how much is sky+?

should i go for hd?

i keep trying to read the 40000 leaflets i get through the post and in papers... but they bamboozle you... i don't want sky internet... or do i?

anyone any thought?

 

[timtheenchanter]

AFAIK sky plus doesn't cost any more per month unless you want the Sky+HD, in which case its the extra cost of the HD pack.

you pay for the sky+box and the installation, (ie guy/gal comes round to fit quad LNB to your dish and an extra cable down)

the sky internet is just broadband, and its free if you have their phone service and TV (although its limited to a 2Gb monthly download limit)

 

[imamartian]

thanks tim.... is it worth the bother over normal sky? is hd worth getting?

 

[ericmark]

As to HD can't really say as have not got it but it does seem by having HD there are more repeats so you can catch something you have missed and the hard drive is bigger.

As to Sky+ it allows you to receive two programs at the same time which has to be an advantage. You can record one or two and of course watch one although to watch a pre-recorded program and also record two seems to over tax the system and sound and vision become out of sinc.

It is very easy to select programs to record however only works a week in advance so although a series using series link could be recorded while on holiday a film which will be on in the second week would be a problem.

The recordings list also has all the electronic guide info stored with it so you can look which episode you have recorded however because it stores as encrypted if you let the Sky membership go or change your package you can't view recorded programs. This also means if you record a pay film you don't pay until you watch so if you delete it costs you nothing.

To use as a temporary store works well however the live re-wind is limited in use and all too often we have missed end of the film by using it far better to set to record as you can still watch while recording.

Comparing against our stand alone recorder sky+ is easier to use but has no way to select quality so hard drive does not store as much as same size on stand alone. It does have fast forward for adverts but you can't set it to skip adverts so for long term storage the stand alone recorder is better plus our stand alone with transfer to DVD so we can share with friends.

Items recorded with Sky+ seem to have odd bits fail with speech and so if possible anything wanted for long term is recorded direct to stand alone Hard drive. And even on lowest setting the stand alone hard drive gives a better reproduction than Sky+ although the picture quality with lowest setting on stand alone is lower than sky+ the sound is A1 and missing a syllable from a word is annoying.

The rewind live TV also works better with stand alone both in the time as it will re-wind 6 hours on stand alone handy if you fall asleep in middle of program likely you will wake within 6 hours but sky + only has one hour. Also if during adds you look to see what is on other channels you lose ability to re-wind.

However one big advantage with sky+ is the use of digi-eye so even when watching in the bed room we can still change programs and have all the control we would have at main TV. Our stand alone recorder needs to be controlled from the room it is in so we have to nip down stairs to re-wind or any other function.

All in all I would say sky+ is better than our stand alone and if I had to have just one it would be Sky+. Mainly as you can watch one and record another. But because I also use the stand alone to record my home cam corder onto DVD and play DVD's I would not want to be without the stand alone either. By buying one without freeview we got Hard-drive and DVD unit for less than £100 and the Hard-drive is used to edit my home films and remove adverts from TV films before writing to DVD so we get more on a DVD then we did when we had just DVD recorder and use write once DVD's where before hard drive we used Re-writeable which cost more.

Because the Sky+ will only record from Sky for us it is no good on it's own we also need stand alone recorder. However as I said to start with Sky + is very easy to use. If watching a program you can ask it to record up to 1 hour after it has started and still record whole program so long as it was on that program whole of the time.

The stand alone is not perfect either. To record a program using built in timer you must turn it to stand by. However to use the 6 hour re-wind it must be running. There are other ways to record and you can convert the 6 hours re-wind into a stored recording then split it and delete what is not wanted but the stand alone is a lot more messing about than the Sky + and it does not auto correct times like sky+ however I can set it to record a program in three weeks time.

The Sky+ seems to keep information as to what you want to record even after a power cut. The stand alone loses all record time data if power is removed. However when moving to sky+ you lose the ability to set the box to auto change channels at set time so harder to set it for evening live viewing.

Also Sky boxes in general use a lot more power than other boxes. Even on stand-by. A free to air box on stand-by only runs the clock and using one of those plug in meters to measure power used they don't even register. However the Sky+ box even in stand-by still powers both LNB's so still uses 10W in stand-by and 20W running approx. Again stand alone hard-drive/DVD uses less than 1W in stand-by and even running a free to air box and stand alone recorder use under half of the power required by the sky+ box. And of course if you un-plug it then it will not record. You can't turn it off without unplugging it.

 

[imamartian]

thanks eric