The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

In article , "Gaz" wrote:
People who have never owned tivo find it hard to understand why us users are
so attatched to it. Tivo must now be the oldest contraption under my tv at
the moment.

its the disconnect between it being the greatest gadget ever devised and the
fact its not being sold commercially in the UK thats hard to understand.

Sky's attempt may be rotten in comparison, but you can still get one from
Sky if you want one. Tivo well you take a chance the ones on Ebay work
properly.

it seems crazy that Thomson just sit on the technology and do nothing with it,
if they are that good surely its a no brainer decision.

Awavey

The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

awavey wrote:
In article , "Gaz"
wrote:
People who have never owned tivo find it hard to understand why us users
are
so attatched to it. Tivo must now be the oldest contraption under my tv
at
the moment.

its the disconnect between it being the greatest gadget ever devised and
the
fact its not being sold commercially in the UK thats hard to understand.


Its hardly the first piece of technology that has fallen by the wayside to
inferior products, due to poor marketing and or poor pricing.

Tivo are a software company not a hardware company, they license the
software to manufacturers, who charge their customer a monthly fee in return
to pay for subsidised hardware and an ongoing epg.

The business model hardly seemed sensible when the product was launched, now
it seems sheer lunacy, indeed is was the *only* reason sky felt they could
get away with a £10 a month charge to use Sky+ when ironically, the consumer
wasnt actually recieving any service for (no subsidised box, or epg that
wasnt already being supplied).

Sky+ has been an amazing success, but it is just an inferior product. Its
interface and useabilty are primative compared to Tivo five years ago, now
they are just a joke. Think of mobile phones, how they have changed over
five years, think of TVs, think of cars, think of pretty much all consumer
electronics. Yet Sky+ is just the same.....

But from Skys perspective, why would they want to be paying a perpetual
software fee to Tivo to do something that they can do for not much effort?

They know that the british consumer was tied to vhs, despite ****ty picture
and sound quality, crude recording options, and unworkable with sky for
unattended recordings. The nature of hard drive based recording, means it
doesnt need much to wow someone used to such a ****ty alternative. They
devise a very very basic pvr, which essentially bolts onto their existing
EPG, and voila, people are amazed.

If you had lived under ground all your life, and you where taken to the
surface, and it was night time, you look up and see the moon, the most
brilliant object you had ever seen, its light is so bright, it feels like it
is blinding you, everywhere around you seems so colourful, you can see
shadows and contrasts like never before, that is going from vhs to sky+. A
few hours later though, and the sun rises, well, thats how it feels to be a
tivo owner.

Gaz

The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

On Tue, 29 May 2007 12:55:31 +0100, "John Russell" wrote:


"Nigel Barker" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 29 May 2007 10:29:26 +0100, "John Russell"
wrote:


So, everyone, go out and buy HD, then they'll reduce the quality of that
and
sell you something else later on, and so on.

I have SKY HD and it is worrying to see the BBC Trial saying 10-12 MPS is
acceptable becuase that's the best they could do with DVB-T. There are
other
groups where "Experts" monitor the HD Sat bitrates and when people comment
on good or poor quality they post the relevent bitrates. Usually "Good"
means "better than 20 mps", "bad" means "less than 12 mps".

Are you sure that you aren't referring to US HDTV? They use MPEG2 whereas
European HDTV uses H.264
MPEG4 AVC which has far more efficient compression. The BBC HD satellite
trial when it started had a
maximum bit rate of about 19.5Mbps versus the 16.5Mbps that they are using
now.

If we can only have Freeview HD at 10-12mps , which then becomes the
"standard" for all Broadcast HD, then Freeview HD should never see the
light
of day imho.

10-12Mbps is 2-3X the current MPEG2 bit rate & will provide decent HD
quality when MPEG4 is used at
that bit rate.

No!

I was referring to UK HD forums where people have the kit to monitor rates
and post them when people moan or praise about ACTUAL UK Sat HD Broadcasts.

Despite what the BBC has said with their trial actual UK Sat HD users
complain about HD at 10-12, and are gobsmacked about HD above 20 to post
about it. These are truly blind tests as those moaning or praising don't
have idea of the rates.

Please can you provide a link. I have never observed a UK HD satellite broadcast at over 20Mbps.
--

Cheers

Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur

The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

On Tue, 29 May 2007 22:32:39 +0100, "John Russell" wrote:


"Gaz" wrote in message
...
John Russell wrote:

Now if Tivo decide to put Sat tuners in the thing they could have the
best
FTV Sat PVR going! They seen to want it to record via analog, perhaps to
avoid digital copying legislation in the USA, their main market.

I am not sure if you are following the thread. Sky use a system called NDS
to encrypt their signal. Sky will not allow their Cams to be used in non
sky authorised boxes.

I did explicit use the expression FTV Sat!

FTV uses NDS Videoguard encryption fr C4, five, five US, five Life & Sky Three. Perhaps youe menat
Free To Air?
--

Cheers

Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur

The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

In article ,
says...

So, everyone, go out and buy HD, then they'll reduce the quality of that
and
sell you something else later on, and so on.

I have SKY HD and it is worrying to see the BBC Trial saying 10-12 MPS is
acceptable becuase that's the best they could do with DVB-T. There are other
groups where "Experts" monitor the HD Sat bitrates and when people comment
on good or poor quality they post the relevent bitrates. Usually "Good"
means "better than 20 mps", "bad" means "less than 12 mps".

From what I read about the trial, BBC HD started off at 20Mps before dropping
down to the levels you quote. Following the way SD has gone, all I could think
was, "Here we go again!" :(

If we can only have Freeview HD at 10-12mps , which then becomes the
"standard" for all Broadcast HD, then Freeview HD should never see the light
of day imho.

The government won't give the space for free to HD on Freeview when there's
money to be made from them. Sad but true.

AIUI, we won't get DAB+, we'll just have to rely on DAB. Add to this, all the
environmentalists who want us to be unplugging our TVs at the socket every
moment we might want to use it (okay, a slight exaggeration) and MP David
Milliband wanting us to have slop buckets in our houses for 2 weeks to hold
used food (not an exaggeration)...

Soon, the government will only be happen when we're living in caves with a
sundial for a watch.
--

Dom Robinson Gamertag: DVDfever email: dom at dvdfever dot co dot uk
/* http://DVDfever.co.uk (editor)
/* 1132 DVDs, 347 games, 314 CDs, 110 cinema films, 42 concerts, videos & news
/* antibodies, steve hillage, burning crusade, sega psp, norah jones, kylie
New music charts - http://dvdfever.co.uk/music.shtml
Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=DVDfeverDom

The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

In article ,
says...

"Dom Robinson" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...
On Sun, 27 May 2007 23:32:32 +0100, Mike wrote:

On Sun, 27 May 2007 14:29:36 +0100, "Gaz" wrote:

Imagine xp media centre with cam access to sky and skyhd? It would give
incredible picture and flexibility.

No, the picture "quality" would be typical Sky, i.e full of MPEG
artifacts.

Quality in respect of broadcast TV went irretrievably down the pan
about two decades ago.

Next

Sky are only one of many satellite broadcasters. Picture quality on a
great number of channels is
excellent BBC One & five in standard defintion are particularly good.

BBC on Sky is dreadful compared what it used to be, back before the 2000
Olympics (do a google in Google Groups for 'bbc bitrate 2000 olympics' and
you'll find my posts on this subject)

No that's BBC on Sat. Since the BBC "moved" Sat they are responsible for the
quality, and it can be seen on any FTV sat box, not just SKY'S. Crap Yes,
but that crap is the BBC's fault, not SKY's.

Sorry, I meant BBC on Satellite, such that it was their fault and not that of
Sky (it's force of habit sometimes to write 'Sky' instead of 'satellite'). I
wholeheartedly lay all the blame at the door of the BBC for this, and I do so
gladly.
--

Dom Robinson Gamertag: DVDfever email: dom at dvdfever dot co dot uk
/* http://DVDfever.co.uk (editor)
/* 1132 DVDs, 347 games, 314 CDs, 110 cinema films, 42 concerts, videos & news
/* antibodies, steve hillage, burning crusade, sega psp, norah jones, kylie
New music charts - http://dvdfever.co.uk/music.shtml
Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=DVDfeverDom

The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

In article ,
says...

"Dom Robinson" wrote in message
...


i'm sure i read somewhere before that tivo turned down the chance to have
their service used with the sky+ box way way back.
whether it's true i couldnt say.....

They haven't licenced their software to any PVRs, and I would expect many
have
asked.



directivo ?

In the UK, I meant.

- no reason why there couldnt have been the same with sky -
although as stated, they did turn the opportunity down.

If that was the case then I'd guess TiVo's UK management are stubborn. They
certainly didn't know how to handle marketing, hence why they went down the
pan, as I've covered before.
--

Dom Robinson Gamertag: DVDfever email: dom at dvdfever dot co dot uk
/* http://DVDfever.co.uk (editor)
/* 1132 DVDs, 347 games, 314 CDs, 110 cinema films, 42 concerts, videos & news
/* antibodies, steve hillage, burning crusade, sega psp, norah jones, kylie
New music charts - http://dvdfever.co.uk/music.shtml
Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=DVDfeverDom

The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

"Nigel Barker" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 29 May 2007 12:55:31 +0100, "John Russell"
wrote:


"Nigel Barker" wrote in message
. ..
On Tue, 29 May 2007 10:29:26 +0100, "John Russell"
wrote:


So, everyone, go out and buy HD, then they'll reduce the quality of
that
and
sell you something else later on, and so on.

I have SKY HD and it is worrying to see the BBC Trial saying 10-12 MPS
is
acceptable becuase that's the best they could do with DVB-T. There are
other
groups where "Experts" monitor the HD Sat bitrates and when people
comment
on good or poor quality they post the relevent bitrates. Usually "Good"
means "better than 20 mps", "bad" means "less than 12 mps".

Are you sure that you aren't referring to US HDTV? They use MPEG2
whereas
European HDTV uses H.264
MPEG4 AVC which has far more efficient compression. The BBC HD satellite
trial when it started had a
maximum bit rate of about 19.5Mbps versus the 16.5Mbps that they are
using
now.

If we can only have Freeview HD at 10-12mps , which then becomes the
"standard" for all Broadcast HD, then Freeview HD should never see the
light
of day imho.

10-12Mbps is 2-3X the current MPEG2 bit rate & will provide decent HD
quality when MPEG4 is used at
that bit rate.

No!

I was referring to UK HD forums where people have the kit to monitor rates
and post them when people moan or praise about ACTUAL UK Sat HD
Broadcasts.

Despite what the BBC has said with their trial actual UK Sat HD users
complain about HD at 10-12, and are gobsmacked about HD above 20 to post
about it. These are truly blind tests as those moaning or praising don't
have idea of the rates.

Please can you provide a link. I have never observed a UK HD satellite
broadcast at over 20Mbps.

It's regularly debated on the digitalspy forum

The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

Think of mobile phones, how they have changed over
five years, think of TVs, think of cars, think of pretty much all consumer
electronics. Yet Sky+ is just the same.....

Which reminds me of the Top Gear episode where Clarkson couldn't turn the
BMW Sat Nav voice off!

Complexity doesn't mean progress other that to Gadget Boy's. You can have
improved functionality (such as the SKY+) which hides the complexity much
better than you bog standard VCR.

The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

"Dom Robinson" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...

"Dom Robinson" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...
On Sun, 27 May 2007 23:32:32 +0100, Mike wrote:

On Sun, 27 May 2007 14:29:36 +0100, "Gaz" wrote:

Imagine xp media centre with cam access to sky and skyhd? It would
give
incredible picture and flexibility.

No, the picture "quality" would be typical Sky, i.e full of MPEG
artifacts.

Quality in respect of broadcast TV went irretrievably down the pan
about two decades ago.

Next

Sky are only one of many satellite broadcasters. Picture quality on a
great number of channels is
excellent BBC One & five in standard defintion are particularly good.

BBC on Sky is dreadful compared what it used to be, back before the
2000
Olympics (do a google in Google Groups for 'bbc bitrate 2000 olympics'
and
you'll find my posts on this subject)

No that's BBC on Sat. Since the BBC "moved" Sat they are responsible for
the
quality, and it can be seen on any FTV sat box, not just SKY'S. Crap Yes,
but that crap is the BBC's fault, not SKY's.

Sorry, I meant BBC on Satellite, such that it was their fault and not that
of
Sky (it's force of habit sometimes to write 'Sky' instead of 'satellite').
I
wholeheartedly lay all the blame at the door of the BBC for this, and I do
so
gladly.
--

This is an important point. If people keep reading how bad BBC/ITV are on
"SKY", rather than "Sat", they may start to think Freesat will improve
things. Freesat is a marketing exercise. The BBC/ITV Sat broadcasts received
by a SKY or Freesat box will be the same.