SKY+

"Clueless2" [email protected] wrote in message
...
But it is good to see someone with some sense at last.

No, you mean it is good to see someone agreeing with your point of view.

From my perspective, neither of you are talking sense...


And, in spite of much prompting, you still haven't come up with a
single good reason as to why there should be such a fee for the Sky+
but not for any other type of recorder or indeed any other type of
device.

I think I see now where your missunderstanding is: You think of "Sky+"
as a piece of electronics. But that's dead wrong. Sky+ is an ongoing
service, provided continuesly. You can't "buy" a service like this by
purchasing a piece of electronics. The Digibox is nothing more than the
neccessary infrastructure you need in order to use the service. Think of
it as your PC: Just because you bought a piece of hardware that is
capable of displaying web sites that doesn't mean that you bought the
internet access itself. You still have to pay a monthly fee for your
internet service.

Good explaination, these guys will be bitching next because they will be
wanting free Sky, free GSM, free broadband next because they have already
paidf for the set-top box, GSM handset and the ADSL router.

Stop making analogies. the arguement always breaks down somewhere.
Compare Sky+ to other PVRs. It is the PVR market we are discussing, not
phones, not internet providers, or anything else.

Show me another PVR in the UK that charges for recording "services".
Answer, none.
So how does Sky justify it?
Well they don't. Actually, Sky themselves don't try to justify it which is
interesting. If your arguements were so solid - then why don't Sky use them?
Rather they get away with it because they can, and they are a closed system
where no other PVR manufacturer is allowed to sell their devices.

Take it or leave it. That sounds like a choice to me. Noone forces you
to subscribe to an ISP just because your PC came with the Internet
Explorer preinstalled. If you want to use it, you have to pay. It's the
same with your Digibox: Just because it comes with the neccessary
software and a harddrive doesn't mean that you have the right to use it
for free.

Becareful here, some people just don't understand free choice. They think
they have to do it just becasue their neighbours have it!

I fully realise I have a choice.
I choose to have Sky+ and premium channels that mean I don't have to pay the
Sky+ sub.

But that doesn't mean I have to agree with the charge for the Sky+ sub, or
the illogical arguements that are put forward here to defend it.

Loz

"Joern Bredereck" wrote in message
...
But why does Sky+ need to be a "service", or Sky charge a monthly fee for
it?

Why does your mobile phone provider charge you for sending an receiving
email? They could offer it for free as the neccessary functions are
already implemented in your mobile phone. Couldn't they?

Don't care about mobile phones.
Stick to PVRs please.

Wrong again. If it would have the SAME capability, then it would be
possible to record Sky content with it. I doubt that. Or at least that
would be illegal.

They can record Sky Three, Sky New, etc. quite legally.
They can record encrypted *PAY* channels on DTT (that are also on Sky) quite
legally.
But they don't charge a subscription to do that.

As you can see it is definitely NOT the SAME capability. The difference
is exactly what you pay for:

1. The legal right and
2. the technical ability[*]

to record Sky content. This is exactly the SERVICE that Sky askes money
for. Nothing more, nothing less.

And Sky and other Pay Channels are recordable on DTT PVRs without a monthly
charge because...?

[*] keep in mind that in order to record sky content it is not
sufficiant to have a hard drive built in, but you also need a
VideoGuard-capabel decoder. So those free PVRs are far from having the
same capabilities that the Sky boxes have.

But only because Sky wont let them have it!!!!

So your comparisons with internet access is irrelevent - it is a
different
product.
it was supposed to show you, that we're talking about an ongoing service
and not a technical feature that you buy with the box.

A service offered by every DTT PVR without charge.
So stick to PVRs please

Compare the costs of Sky+ to another PVR - that is the only thing that is
valid.

How can you compare two products with totally different capabilities? As
I showed above those "other PVRs" are not even close to having the same
capabilities. If you are happy with recording BBC or ITV programmes an
alternative PVR could be a way to go. But we'rere talking about
recording Sky content, aren't we?

As discussed above they are *not* different.
Both capable of recording FTA and Pay channels.
Both capable of recording Sky channels that are available on both platforms.

Yet one charges a monthly sub to record, and the other doesn't
Why?

Once again: how could they charge for anything? They don't have any
content to record or any content to charge for. Sky has. That's the big
difference, which your are not willing to accept.

Sorry, I am totally lost by your arguement now.
They Sky+ fee is for recording, not content.
I don't get any content when I subscribe to Sky+

I have to pay Sky+ fee to record FTA channels

Loz

loz wrote:

Bingo. You just answered yourself the question why it is neccessary for
the NDS plattform _not_ to open up to other vendors.

I am confused. One minute you are arguing Sky are a service provider not a
PVR manufacturer, then the next you are agreeing that Sky for all intensive
purposes is a PVR manufacturer because it has such tight control over the
boxes.
You cannot have it both ways.

Why would you have to be a manufacturer to have control over a piece of
hardware? The content provider is always in control. The manufacturer
looses control the minute the box leaves the plant.

Once again I have to compare it to the internet: Who has controll over
the way you can use the internet? Is it the manufacturerer of your PC or
is it your internet service provider?

The content provider gets to decide how you can use and access their
services. And if Sky decides, that based on your contract you have no
right to record Sky content, they can legaly switch the recording
function of your box of. Why would they have to be the manufacturer to
do this?

And your mobile provider doesn't have to be the manufacturer in order to
decide, if you can make any more calls or not. If you didn't pay your
phone bill, they will switch the calling function off. Maybe they decide
that you can receive incomming calls... maybe not. Anyway: They have the
control and not e.g. Nokia.

It's like asking the questions: Why is there no free accessabile
entrance to the cinema? Because only when you have to enter through the
box office the cinema owner can make sure, that everyone is paying for
the service. Why doesn't anybody wine about this?

Analogies are pointless. The arguement always break down. We are not talking
about the cinema.
Keep discussing Sky and PVRs - compare it to other PVR is you want to make a
comparison.

agree to disagree. :-)

What distincts showing a movie in the cinema from showing it on sky from
a service point of view?

Name one PVR besides Sky+ boxes that requires any fee for recording?

Every licenced PVR of the German PREMIERE plattform for example. And not
to forget the Italian Sky plattform. The major German TV chains (RTL
Group + German MTV, Pro7/Sat.1 will follow) have just signed a contract
with the new Astra/APS "Dolphin" plattform. The Dolphin receivers also
have the capability to record only if the subscribtion allows it.

So what? This is the UK, not Germany or Italy.
They are just the local equivalents of Sky.
So name one UK PVR besides Sky+ boxes that requires any fee for recording in
the UK.

Name one UK PVR besides Sky+ boxes that can record Sky content at all.
If you find one THEN we can compare their costs. As long as there is no
such compareably PVR this discussion is useless.


My guess is, that sooner or later all major plattform providers in
europe and around the world will use this business modell.

Not DTT providers in the UK.

Are we talking about pay tv or not?

You make the mistake of thinking of PVRs as consumer electronics. This
will not be the case any more in the future. The PVRs will just be a
small part of the infrastructure chain of the plattform providers. The
PVR vendors have no say in the future development of (pay)tv. It's the
plattform providers like Sky that will decide the future of (pay)tv.

Not DTT providers in the UK - who Sky must compete against

You are still comparing FTA to PayTV, right?

But that is an entirely valid comparison in the UK.
Sky channels for example are available on DTT in the UK.
They can be recorded on a DTT PVR without any ongoing monthly fee.

Ok, if this is correct then it would change a lot. Do you have a URL
where I can read about DTT?

So why does Sky charge it if you use Sky+
Why does Sky charge to record BBC and other FTA channels that are available
via satellite if you use a Sky+ box?

Because they use the Sky plattform including the EPG to broadcast. Guess
who's paying the transponder fees from Astra. And guess how those
contracts between the BBC and BSkyB look like.

And after all: The Sky Box is part of the Sky plattform and not an
independent piece of electronics. Sky as the plattform provider has full
control over the box. The BBC decided to sign a contract about using
this plattform. So it was the BBC who agreed to the term that their
programmes can only be recorded by Sky+ customers.


--
Regards,
Joern

"Joern Bredereck" wrote in message
...

Name one UK PVR besides Sky+ boxes that can record Sky content at all.
If you find one THEN we can compare their costs. As long as there is no
such compareably PVR this discussion is useless.

EVERY DTT PVR!!!!

Every DTT PVR can record Sky channels that are available on both DTT and
Sky.
Every DTT PVR that has a cam slot can record encryped pay channels - many of
which are available on both Sky and DTT
NO DTT PVR has a monthly charge for doing this.

You don't know much about UK DTT PVRs do you....

Loz

"Joern Bredereck" wrote in message
...
My guess is, that sooner or later all major plattform providers in
europe and around the world will use this business modell.

Not DTT providers in the UK.

Are we talking about pay tv or not?
Not DTT providers in the UK - who Sky must compete against

You are still comparing FTA to PayTV, right?

UK DTT supports Pay TV.
UK DTT PVRs enable recoding of Pay TV.
UK DTT PVRs don't change a monthly fee to record pay TV

So, what's the next twist in your arguement.

You going to justify it based on the fact that Sky begins with the letter S?
It's about as logical

Loz

loz wrote:

But why does Sky+ need to be a "service", or Sky charge a monthly fee for
it?

Why does your mobile phone provider charge you for sending an receiving
email? They could offer it for free as the neccessary functions are
already implemented in your mobile phone. Couldn't they?

Don't care about mobile phones.

How can I explain Sky's motivation to you if I'm not supposed to use
analogies? Sky does it for the same reason that other service providers
do it in similar businesses.

Can you explain to me, why Sky should act differently than hundreds or
thousands of other service and content providers in other business
fields?

Wrong again. If it would have the SAME capability, then it would be
possible to record Sky content with it. I doubt that. Or at least that
would be illegal.

They can record Sky Three, Sky New, etc. quite legally.

They can record ALL the channels, that the Sky+ boxes can? Or just a
small subset of those? This would explain, why they can do it for free:
Less content, less content charges form the content owners (eg. movie
studios etc...).

Hint: If you have smaller costs you can sell cheaper products/services.

As you can see it is definitely NOT the SAME capability. The difference
is exactly what you pay for:

1. The legal right and
2. the technical ability[*]

to record Sky content. This is exactly the SERVICE that Sky askes money
for. Nothing more, nothing less.

And Sky and other Pay Channels are recordable on DTT PVRs without a monthly
charge because...?

.... it is only a subset of the channels that Sky+ customers can record?

[*] keep in mind that in order to record sky content it is not
sufficiant to have a hard drive built in, but you also need a
VideoGuard-capabel decoder. So those free PVRs are far from having the
same capabilities that the Sky boxes have.

But only because Sky wont let them have it!!!!

Guess who pays the bill for the nesseccary infrastructure! Why should
Sky give away their business advantage which they build up very costly
over many years? The VideoGuard/NDS-System is one of Sky's (or should I
say Murdochs) biggest assets. It would be business suicide to give that
away!

it was supposed to show you, that we're talking about an ongoing service
and not a technical feature that you buy with the box.

A service offered by every DTT PVR without charge.
So stick to PVRs please

Well you could probably say it's a missing restriction. I wouldn't call
it a service since DTT customers can only see what Murdoch wants them to
see, cant' they? Maybe Sky thinks of this as a free promotion for their
other content.

But I have to admit I don't know much about DTT. Maybe you could
provider me with some URLs so I can close this "wisdom gap"? :-)

How can you compare two products with totally different capabilities? As
I showed above those "other PVRs" are not even close to having the same
capabilities. If you are happy with recording BBC or ITV programmes an
alternative PVR could be a way to go. But we'rere talking about
recording Sky content, aren't we?

As discussed above they are *not* different.
Both capable of recording FTA and Pay channels.

One again: ALL Pay channels? If it's just a subset I wouldn't call it
"not different".

Both capable of recording Sky channels that are available on both platforms.

which are?

Yet one charges a monthly sub to record, and the other doesn't
Why?

look above... maybe different costs. Maybe Sky want's to give the DTT
viewers a glimpse of their content for free.

Once again: how could they charge for anything? They don't have any
content to record or any content to charge for. Sky has. That's the big
difference, which your are not willing to accept.

Sorry, I am totally lost by your arguement now.
They Sky+ fee is for recording, not content.
I don't get any content when I subscribe to Sky+

You don't? As far as I know Sky+ is a *substitutional* contract for the
regular Sky contract and not just an *additional* contract. Isn't it?

So you either subscribed to regular sky OR to sky+ instead of
subscribing to Sky plus an additional fee, right?

I don't want to split hairs here but as far as I understand this, as a
sky+ customer you pay for the content with your contract while in this
contract there is one restriction missing which occours to "regular" Sky
subscribers.

I have to pay Sky+ fee to record FTA channels

With an additional contract or is it another contract than regular Sky
customers?

My point is: Do you specifically pay for being able to record, or do you
have a regular pay tv subscribtion which includes the right to access
Sky's content and lacks the restriction not to be able to record?

And how on earth could a DTT provider do anything like it? They don't
have their own content. The only service they have to offer is a subset
of Sky's content, right?


--
Regards,
Joern

loz wrote:

You are still comparing FTA to PayTV, right?

UK DTT supports Pay TV.
UK DTT PVRs enable recoding of Pay TV.
UK DTT PVRs don't change a monthly fee to record pay TV

So, what's the next twist in your arguement.

Your twist would be that you compare the content and service of Sky+
with the content that DTT vierwes have access to.

As long as this content is not equal any comparison is nonsense as DTT
isn't a valid alternative to Sky+.

Or let me ask in another way: Could I cancel my Sky+ subscribtion and
switch do DTT without having to miss any channels? If not, what makes
you think DTT would be even close to being a valid or considerable
alternative to sky+?

And if it's no real alternative: What makes you think, that comparing
those totally different systems could be in any way a valid argument in
this discussion?

It's good to know that DTT doesn't have any restrictions for recording,
but how does that help anyone with a Sky+ contract? It's a totally
different product with possible other catches. One of those catches
would be that you can't watch the channels anymore that you were used to
while being a Sky+ customer.


--
Regards,
Joern

"Joern Bredereck" wrote in message
...
Sorry, I am totally lost by your arguement now.
They Sky+ fee is for recording, not content.
I don't get any content when I subscribe to Sky+

You don't? As far as I know Sky+ is a *substitutional* contract for the
regular Sky contract and not just an *additional* contract. Isn't it?

So you either subscribed to regular sky OR to sky+ instead of
subscribing to Sky plus an additional fee, right?

No. Totally wrong.

It seems like your whole arguement has been based on a misunderstanding.

Sky content subscriptions are totally separate to Sky+.

You have to pay sky+ just to record FTA channels even if you don't have a
content subscription.

The top content subscriptions just happen to bundle in Sky+ for free.

Sky+ does *not* provide any content above the normal content subscriptions.

Loz

"Joern Bredereck" wrote in message
...
You are still comparing FTA to PayTV, right?

UK DTT supports Pay TV.
UK DTT PVRs enable recoding of Pay TV.
UK DTT PVRs don't change a monthly fee to record pay TV

Your twist would be that you compare the content and service of Sky+
with the content that DTT vierwes have access to.

But content and sky+ are totally different things.


As long as this content is not equal any comparison is nonsense as DTT
isn't a valid alternative to Sky+.

It is in the minds of many people in the UK.
On current rate of takeup DTT penetration is expected to overtake satellite
by Christmas this year

Or let me ask in another way: Could I cancel my Sky+ subscribtion and
switch do DTT without having to miss any channels? If not, what makes
you think DTT would be even close to being a valid or considerable
alternative to sky+?

Sky+ has nothing to do with channel availability.

It's good to know that DTT doesn't have any restrictions for recording,
but how does that help anyone with a Sky+ contract? It's a totally
different product with possible other catches. One of those catches
would be that you can't watch the channels anymore that you were used to
while being a Sky+ customer.

I could ask the opposite, why do I need to pay a Sky+ subscription to record
FTA channels on Sky?
Sky+ doesn't provide content - as you now understand - it provides nothing
more than the recording function.

Loz

On Sun, 3 Sep 2006 17:48:34 +0100, "loz"
wrote:

So name one UK PVR besides Sky+ boxes that requires any fee for recording in
the UK.

TiVo.
--