Sky + subscription, you cannot just pay £10 a month

In article ,
says...
On Fri, 12 Jan 2007 14:51:36 -0000, "John Rowland"
wrote:

Ed wrote:

So I called today, and the bloke said you cannot pay the £10 a month
unless you have a Sky subscription, so the minimum you can pay is now
£25 a month (2 mixes basic sub plus the £10)

Bin it and spend 400 quid on a second hand TiVo with lifetime subscription
off Ebay. Plug the thing in, tell it your favourite programmes and actors
and sit back and be fed everything you could want for the rest of time.

Or get a twin tuner Topfield for £230, install a couple of extensions
and get the same feature in digital instead of analogue. My Tivo was
relegated to the back room years ago now.

I had a look at these on a site since the sound pop issues just cannot be
resolved on my TiVo, and that's after changing the hard drive and PSU so it's
neither of those that were causing the problem*, but I see the Topfield can
only record from its in-built tuner and I can't stick the Sky box through it
which rather cancels out the point of getting it

(*I posted this on the TiVo Community site, but while others are getting the
problem, no-one has found a solution that solves it)

(And while I thought the problem only started when I put the new hard drive
in, in October 2006, since I don't recall noticing it beforehand, I got round
to authoring some DVDs of content I'd recorded prior to October and noticed
the pops on them!

Surely, as you get older, your hearing deteriorates, it doesn't improve?!)
--

Dom Robinson Gamertag: DVDfever email: dom at dvdfever dot co dot uk
/* http://DVDfever.co.uk (editor)
/* 1125 DVDs, 344 games, 299 CDs, 110 cinema films, 41 concerts, videos & news
/* gears of war, beatles week, ridge racer 2 psp, call of duty 3, jarhead

New music charts - http://dvdfever.co.uk/music.shtml
DVDfever Youtube Channel - http://youtube.com/user/DVDfever

Ed wrote:

So I called today, and the bloke said you cannot pay the £10 a month
unless you have a Sky subscription,

Call again.

--
Digibox problem? : A reboot solves 90% of these.
The Sky Digital FAQ: http://tinyurl.com/8vef5
UK TV overseas: http://tinyurl.com/6p73
BBC/ITV reception trouble? ; http://www.astra2d.com/
----
Only the truth as I see it.
No monies return'd. ;-)

Dom Robinson wrote:

but I see the Topfield can only record from its in-built
tuner and I can't stick the Sky box through it which rather cancels
out the point of getting it

True, nearly all freeview DVRs just copy the mpeg stream, and don't
have an mpeg encoder chip so can't record from an external source.

Look for one with a DVD recorder built in, as it will need an mpeg
encoder for that, so should also be capable of recording from an
external source. It won't change sky channel for you though, or
have sky in its EPG.

There is a method of using the sky "autoview" function to
wake up any standard DVD recorder from standby and record,
but its a bit fiddly and not always reliable IMO

If you want to record sky on a DVR, and want the DVR to "know"
the EPG and programme titles, you only really have these options:

Sky+ - records the stream
TVDrive (and go cable for the sky channels), records the stream
Tivo - well you know this one is really the best
MCE - expensive and fiddly, but flexible with xboxes as extenders

--
Mike

On Fri, 12 Jan 2007 19:46:01 -0000, "Heracles Pollux"
wrote:

Assuming you can receive Freeview, a Topfield TF5800PVR exceeds all your
expectations for less than £276.

How do you find the user interface on the Topfield? Any good?

I've not yet come across a Freeview PVR that wasn't rendered almost
completely unusable by poor software and/or a poor interface.

--

"Zero Tolerance" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 12 Jan 2007 19:46:01 -0000, "Heracles Pollux"
wrote:

Assuming you can receive Freeview, a Topfield TF5800PVR exceeds all your
expectations for less than £276.

How do you find the user interface on the Topfield? Any good?

I've not yet come across a Freeview PVR that wasn't rendered almost
completely unusable by poor software and/or a poor interface.

--



Well the Toppy is probably the only consumer PVR device that allows the user
to "skin" it using its unique free TAP facility.

Topfields's own EPG is crap.

I swear by JAGS 2.5 EPG.

Others use EPG Navigator.

Within 30 minutes I was able to suitably reconfigure EPG Navigator's skin to
my own tastes.

It's good and the free-coders who provide this stuff tend to respond to any
issues and make any obvious improvements.

Most of all, the flaws that Sky really shouldn't build in to a premium
product like (such as RED DOTs) can be turned off on the Toppy.

The Toppy Remote Control is good too.

And there is two great features that I think Sky may not have: 1. Twin
tuners supports Picture-In-Picture. 2. You can run JAGS and EPG Navigator
without interrupting your recording, so you can multi-task.

The Toppy's reliability is, IMHO, ok. It's self supported instead of 0870
supported, which is what you get for free-view.



Sky is a really mass market device: 10s of millions of users.

The Toppy is an expert user's product: Probably 250,000 users.



I wrote to Sky's Directors several times saying how they should offer power
user services and control over DOGs and RED DOTs. They don't do that because
their product like the first Ford Model T is monolithic.

I think Sky needs to adapt to different customer's needs just like the car,
coffee, and PC industries do, and capitalise on the configurability of the
hardware and TV programme content. You can understand their resistance.

"Zero Tolerance" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 12 Jan 2007 19:46:01 -0000, "Heracles Pollux"
wrote:

Assuming you can receive Freeview, a Topfield TF5800PVR exceeds all your
expectations for less than £276.

How do you find the user interface on the Topfield? Any good?

I've not yet come across a Freeview PVR that wasn't rendered almost
completely unusable by poor software and/or a poor interface.

--


PS. I agree. A lot of DTT set top boxes are crap compared to the strengths
of the centrally controlled Sky zombie box.

I had a look at these on a site since the sound pop issues just cannot be
resolved on my TiVo, and that's after changing the hard drive and PSU so
it's
neither of those that were causing the problem*, but I see the Topfield can
only record from its in-built tuner and I can't stick the Sky box through it
which rather cancels out the point of getting it

(*I posted this on the TiVo Community site, but while others are getting the
problem, no-one has found a solution that solves it)






Yes this is a strength and weakness with the Toppy.

You can only "record" two DTT channels at once (plus watch a third on the
same multiplex).

The strength is that the recording is stored as the stream. On playback, you
can switch on and off subtitles and change aspect ratios.

You can also export the raw .REC file via the USB port to PC and then
convert to MPG using VideoRedo. The quality is excellent and as good as DTT
permits.



Obviously, you can not record from Sky or Cam Corder.

Candidly, I have a seperate DVD+RW recorder for that which plugs into
Toppy's input scart socket and thus the Toppy RGB scart will pass through
the DVD in RGB (not composite).

The Toppy also shares its scart input via its RF modulator around the
mansion house. ;-)

"Heracles Pollux" wrote in message
...

"Ed" wrote in message
ups.com...
I am considering cancelling Sky, because my year free thanks to Virgin
Radio is almost up.

But I am not sure I can live without Sky+ functionality, so I was
resigned to paying the £10 a month.

So I called today, and the bloke said you cannot pay the £10 a month
unless you have a Sky subscription, so the minimum you can pay is now
£25 a month (2 mixes basic sub plus the £10)

You may as well pay for the movies or sports package!

This is a disgrace, surely it is illegal to call the recording
funcionality of the box a 'service' and charge for its use!



According to the terms and conditions on their web site
http://www.sky.com/portal/site/skyco...le?contentid=1
0836203

"Sky digital subscription required for Sky digital programming. Sky+ can
store an average of 40 hours of programmes at a time. Sky+ subscription
required to use the Personal Video features of Sky+ boxes. Sky+ subscription
is free when you subscribe to one or more of Sky Premium mixes i.e. Sky
Sports mix, Sky Movies mix, otherwise £10 per month."

I'd take that as you have to pay the tenner, no way around that.

But the first line saying "Sky digital subs for Sky digital progs"
....obviously if you want to record Sky digital progs (be it Sky One, or UK
Gold, which is part of the sky digital package) they you have to subscribe.
But if you just want to record the free-to-air stuff (BBC, ITV, E4, and god
knows how many other free channels), then NO, you should be allowed to
record these as they are not part of Sky Digital.

Phone back and argue the toss - tell them you've upheld your end of the Sky+
contract by being connected to the phone and subscribing for the year. I
would assume the only cost you SHOULD have to pay is the ten quid a month,
plus perhaps a £20 fee to swap over to freesat.

In article ,
"RegTheDonk" wrote:

But the first line saying "Sky digital subs for Sky digital progs"
...obviously if you want to record Sky digital progs (be it Sky One, or UK
Gold, which is part of the sky digital package) they you have to subscribe.
But if you just want to record the free-to-air stuff (BBC, ITV, E4, and god
knows how many other free channels), then NO, you should be allowed to
record these as they are not part of Sky Digital.

Not E4; that's subscription-only on Sky Digital unfortunately.

Phone back and argue the toss - tell them you've upheld your end of the Sky+
contract by being connected to the phone and subscribing for the year. I
would assume the only cost you SHOULD have to pay is the ten quid a month,
plus perhaps a £20 fee to swap over to freesat.

I was offered the £10 a month option as a last resort when I cancelled
recently. It does exist and there is no £20 fee.

On Sat, 13 Jan 2007 19:31:53 -0000, "Heracles Pollux"
wrote:

Topfields's own EPG is crap.
I swear by JAGS 2.5 EPG.
Others use EPG Navigator.

I must say, I do like the sound of how configurable the Topfield is.

And there is two great features that I think Sky may not have: 1. Twin
tuners supports Picture-In-Picture. 2. You can run JAGS and EPG Navigator
without interrupting your recording, so you can multi-task.

Nice.

Sky is a really mass market device: 10s of millions of users.
The Toppy is an expert user's product: Probably 250,000 users.

Sounds a bit like Tivo! But that absolutely makes sense. I've really
spent a good long while looking for a well-specified Freeview PVR
(e.g. twin tuners) that "works just like you'd expect" but so far it's
been the supplied software that's been the letdown every time. Perhaps
with the Topfield having something of the 'open source' about it, that
could be a good basis for, as you say, an expert user to build
something that works just how they want it to.

I'd still offer my right arm for a twin-tuner TiVo, but there you go..

I think Sky needs to adapt to different customer's needs just like the car,
coffee, and PC industries do, and capitalise on the configurability of the
hardware and TV programme content. You can understand their resistance.

Perhaps, but it's in their interests to make people happy. Even if
only one tenth of one percent of people find red dots annoying, then
that's still 8,000 people and several million quid a year of income.
Makes a lot of sense to give people the option if you can. How hard
would it be to change that 'On-screen icon timeout' option into
something you could set as 'On', 'Off after 30s', 'Always Off'?

Don't Topfield make a similar satellite box? Maybe armed with a few of
those unofficial CAMs it would be possible to put together something
pretty decent and flexible. Writing a TAP to decode the Sky EPG? Must
be possible...
--