Just Sky+, for PVR on free channels, is it possible?
 

Hiyas

Phew! I suspect this'll take someone of Jontiem's experience to get a true
answer. :)

Q: Is it possible to have a Sky+ subscription without a SkyDigital one?

We'd like to have just the free (BBC, et-al) channels, plus the PVR
functionality to record just those free channels. That is, we'd like to
subscribe _just_ to the Sky+ service @ £10/month, and nowt else.

We've had a Sky Digital (Movies + Family) subscription for a few years. My
other half signed us up for Sky+ only back in November, so we're still in
the Sky+ minimum contract term.

For financial reasons that I've just discovered about, we now need to reduce
costs a bit drastically where we can.

Reading through the contracts & T&Cs would seem to suggest that the
SkyDigital and Sky+ subscriptions are actually separate entities. All T&Cs
I've read treat the two independantly, and only talk about billing Sky+ with
the SkyDigital subscription "if" you have a SkyDigital subscription.

So, does anyone know if we could downgrade to _just_ the Sky+ functionality,
NOT the SkyDigital channels.

If so... how the heck can we do it?

I've just had half an hour on the phone near-arguing with everyone up to the
2nd-level supervisor, with a lot of chatting going on behind the scenes
there. They kept insisting that, as far as they could tell, you can't have
a Sky+ subscription without the SkyDigital subscription, and that we're in a
minimum 12months contract (which we ARE for the Sky+ subscription, which we
wish to continue, but NOT for SkyDigital, which we wish to cease.)

Any useful magic words to make this happen? The best I've got is an address
to write to them at so far (which we'll do later today, probably with quotes
from their own contracts I suspect.)

Ta-ra,

--
Julie Brandon http://www.computergeeks.co.uk/
__________________________________________________ _____________________________

Julie Brandon wrote:
Hiyas

Phew! I suspect this'll take someone of Jontiem's experience to get a true
answer. :)

Q: Is it possible to have a Sky+ subscription without a SkyDigital one?

Yes, I have such a 'package', but it was a struggle.

[snip]

Any useful magic words to make this happen? The best I've got is an address
to write to them at so far (which we'll do later today, probably with quotes
from their own contracts I suspect.)

I wrote a letter quoting sections of their own T&Cs back at them, I can
post the bits you need in this thread, but not until tomorrow morning.

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply

"Julie Brandon" wrote in
message .me.uk...
Hiyas

Phew! I suspect this'll take someone of Jontiem's experience to get a
true
answer. :)

Q: Is it possible to have a Sky+ subscription without a SkyDigital one?


Not at all, it comes up fairly frequently here. As MC says (and from what
others have reported) its a standard offering but not all the call centre
people seem to be aware of it. Dont blame them, blame the way sky runs its
centres and the training it gives.

--
Tumbleweed

email replies not necessary but to contact use;
tumbleweednews at hotmail dot com So, does anyone know if we could
downgrade to _just_ the Sky+ functionality,

On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 15:10:14 +0000, Mark Carver ) said:

I wrote a letter quoting sections of their own T&Cs back at them, I can
post the bits you need in this thread, but not until tomorrow morning.

Cool. Thanks for the info. Already prepared the relevant quotes from the
T&Cs ready in a file. Will send a letter tomorrow.

Thanks again y'all, and sorry for asking a question that's been asked before
(did google & groups.google before but didn't find anything, must have been
blind!)

--
Julie Brandon http://www.computergeeks.co.uk/
__________________________________________________ _____________________________

Julie Brandon wrote:
On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 15:10:14 +0000, Mark Carver ) said:

I wrote a letter quoting sections of their own T&Cs back at them, I can
post the bits you need in this thread, but not until tomorrow morning.


Cool. Thanks for the info. Already prepared the relevant quotes from the
T&Cs ready in a file. Will send a letter tomorrow.

Thanks again y'all, and sorry for asking a question that's been asked before
(did google & groups.google before but didn't find anything, must have been
blind!)

This is what I wrote (in Nov 2001):-

Godd luck Julie !
____________________________________________

To Subscriber Mgmt Centre
Sky Subscribers Ltd
Po Box 43
Livingstone
West Lothian

Sky Plus and Sky Digital Subscriptions:

Dear Sirs,
I have subscribed to Sky Digital since ..................
This month I had installed a Sky Plus box.

I have no further wish to subscribe to your channels, but I am very
pleased with the features offered with the Sky+ unit.

The Sky+ terms and conditions in Section B1, paragraph (b)
[copy attached] states that I may "also have a Sky Digital Subscription"

My interpretation of this is that either may be held separately, and I
do not need to hold a Sky Digital subscription in order to use Sky+.
(I only wish to record BBC,ITV, C4 and C5 programmes with it)
Furthermore the same paragraph states that payments for Sky + will be
collected with my Sky Digital subscription together or separately.
Yesterday I phoned Sky customer services, requesting they terminate my
Sky Digital subscription, but continue the £10 per month Sky+ sub.
I was told this was not possible, despite pointing out the terms and
conditions to your operator. I would still need to subscribe to at least
the 'Value Pack' at £10/month.
I note also from your promotional material, that Sky Plus is available
to non-subscribers, and nowhere is it mentioned that you must subscribe
to Sky Digital.

I am not happy to pay effectively £20/month for a service advertised as
being only £10/month.

I would be grateful if you could clarify this position, and indicate
where it is outlined in my Sky+ terms and conditions, my obligation to
carry on subscribing to Sky Digital ?

Yours sincerely


--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

Julie Brandon wrote:

Phew! I suspect this'll take someone of Jontiem's experience to get a true
answer. :)

Q: Is it possible to have a Sky+ subscription without a SkyDigital one?

You see? The answer is "yes" and many people here know it. :-)

AFAIK the option you want appears at the very bottom of the list on
the Sky operator's screen.

--
Digibox problem? : A reboot solves 90% of these.
The Sky Digital FAQ: http://tinyurl.com/6u4p9
How to get UK TV overseas: http://tinyurl.com/6p73
Fed up with logos / red buttons? : http://logofreetv.org/
BBC gone? : http://www.astra2d.co.uk/
----
Only the truth as I see it.
No monies return'd. ;-)

On Fri, 04 Feb 2005 07:27:28 +0000, Mark Carver ) said:
This is what I wrote (in Nov 2001):-

Godd luck Julie !

Heh, lovely, thanks for that. Very much appreciated!

--
Julie Brandon http://www.computergeeks.co.uk/
__________________________________________________ _____________________________

Why not just buy a normal pvr? (One with a hard drive and a dvd recorder) It
is a bit more fiddly to select
what you want to watch. But the quality is better because you can select
your bit rate and you can
record to dvd. Also save £120 a year subscription.
"Julie Brandon" wrote in
message .me.uk...
Hiyas

Phew! I suspect this'll take someone of Jontiem's experience to get a
true
answer. :)

Q: Is it possible to have a Sky+ subscription without a SkyDigital one?

We'd like to have just the free (BBC, et-al) channels, plus the PVR
functionality to record just those free channels. That is, we'd like to
subscribe _just_ to the Sky+ service @ £10/month, and nowt else.

We've had a Sky Digital (Movies + Family) subscription for a few years.
My
other half signed us up for Sky+ only back in November, so we're still in
the Sky+ minimum contract term.

For financial reasons that I've just discovered about, we now need to
reduce
costs a bit drastically where we can.

Reading through the contracts & T&Cs would seem to suggest that the
SkyDigital and Sky+ subscriptions are actually separate entities. All
T&Cs
I've read treat the two independantly, and only talk about billing Sky+
with
the SkyDigital subscription "if" you have a SkyDigital subscription.

So, does anyone know if we could downgrade to _just_ the Sky+
functionality,
NOT the SkyDigital channels.

If so... how the heck can we do it?

I've just had half an hour on the phone near-arguing with everyone up to
the
2nd-level supervisor, with a lot of chatting going on behind the scenes
there. They kept insisting that, as far as they could tell, you can't
have
a Sky+ subscription without the SkyDigital subscription, and that we're in
a
minimum 12months contract (which we ARE for the Sky+ subscription, which
we
wish to continue, but NOT for SkyDigital, which we wish to cease.)

Any useful magic words to make this happen? The best I've got is an
address
to write to them at so far (which we'll do later today, probably with
quotes
from their own contracts I suspect.)

Ta-ra,

--
Julie Brandon
http://www.computergeeks.co.uk/
__________________________________________________ _____________________________

On Sat, 5 Feb 2005 08:41:55 -0000, "Alraftter" wrote:

Why not just buy a normal pvr? (One with a hard drive and a dvd recorder) It
is a bit more fiddly to select
what you want to watch. But the quality is better because you can select
your bit rate and you can
record to dvd. Also save £120 a year subscription.

You would save the money on the Sky+ subscription but you certainly wouldn't get
better picture quality. Sky+ records the MPEG2 stream direct to disk & when the
show is played back the quality is identical to the original broadcast. Even
with a good PVR you would record from the RGB SCART of the digibox & then
compress into MPEG2 on the HDD. The other disadvantage is that you cannot record
two shows at once with your solution.

A much better alternative if you can receive Freeview is to get one of the DVB-T
PVRs which give you arguably a better selection of channels plus there is no
subscription. Argos have currently got the DigiFusion twin tuner model with 80GB
disk for 180 pounds.

--
Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur

He doesn't want the Sky channels and from this, I assume most of the
channels he will watch will be
ordinary analogue( BBC, ITV). I still think analogue gives a much better
picture when watched using a good aerial.
A Hard Drive recorder such as the Panasonics RGB can record at a higher bit
rate than Sky broadcasts,
and therefore recording anologue would be better.You can save anything you
want to keep direct to DVD
As for freeview the picture is worse than Sky.

"Nigel Barker" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 5 Feb 2005 08:41:55 -0000, "Alraftter"
wrote:

Why not just buy a normal pvr? (One with a hard drive and a dvd recorder)
It
is a bit more fiddly to select
what you want to watch. But the quality is better because you can select
your bit rate and you can
record to dvd. Also save £120 a year subscription.

You would save the money on the Sky+ subscription but you certainly
wouldn't get
better picture quality. Sky+ records the MPEG2 stream direct to disk &
when the
show is played back the quality is identical to the original broadcast.
Even
with a good PVR you would record from the RGB SCART of the digibox & then
compress into MPEG2 on the HDD. The other disadvantage is that you cannot
record
two shows at once with your solution.

A much better alternative if you can receive Freeview is to get one of the
DVB-T
PVRs which give you arguably a better selection of channels plus there is
no
subscription. Argos have currently got the DigiFusion twin tuner model
with 80GB
disk for 180 pounds.

--
Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur

"Alraftter" wrote in message
...
Why not just buy a normal pvr? (One with a hard drive and a dvd recorder)
It is a bit more fiddly to select
what you want to watch. But the quality is better because you can select
your bit rate and you can
record to dvd. Also save £120 a year subscription.


Quality is *better* because you can select your bit rate?? I dont think so.
Since the SKy+ records exactly what is broadcast, you cannot possibly
improve upon that, and all the variable bit rate lets you do is hold more,
not improve the picture. Having a built in DVD recorder is nice though.

--
Tumbleweed

email replies not necessary but to contact use;
tumbleweednews at hotmail dot com

Alraftter wrote:
He doesn't want the Sky channels and from this, I assume most of the
channels he will watch will be
ordinary analogue( BBC, ITV). I still think analogue gives a much better
picture when watched using a good aerial.
A Hard Drive recorder such as the Panasonics RGB can record at a higher bit
rate than Sky broadcasts,
and therefore recording anologue would be better.

Err, how would that be an advantage when the analogue signal has to be
decoded from composite PAL ? How do you propose the OP might record
ITV 2, ITV 3, BBC 3 and BBC 4, how do you propose making anamorphic
widescreen recordings ?

As for freeview the picture is worse than Sky.

'Freeview/DTT' BBC, ITV , and C4 pictures are no worse than on 'D-Sat'
(aka Sky) IMO some are better, but I agree that C5 is far better on D-Sat.

A DTT PVR might be a better bet for the OP, I'll certainly be ditching
my Sky+ as soon as a DTT model with equivalent functionality, and stable
s/w appears.

BTW I think you've might have got the OP's gender wrong ?

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

Alraftter wrote:

He doesn't want the Sky channels and from this, I assume most of the
channels he will watch will be
ordinary analogue( BBC, ITV). I still think analogue gives a much better
picture when watched using a good aerial.

Analogue RF = no widescreen and only 5 channels.

--
Digibox problem? : A reboot solves 90% of these.
The Sky Digital FAQ: http://tinyurl.com/6u4p9
How to get UK TV overseas: http://tinyurl.com/6p73
Fed up with logos / red buttons? : http://logofreetv.org/
BBC gone? : http://www.astra2d.co.uk/
----
Only the truth as I see it.
No monies return'd. ;-)