Run in with sky tv

[gti yorks]

I'm taking the mickey - slightly.  Oh, but weren't the German late night channels good, though? 


But in all serious, if someone is paying Sky £88 a month, irrespective their actual 'package', then they really should get the very latest top-spec box for free.  And you quote the 1tb is £200 - surely that is a 'retail' price, cost price to Sky is probably more like £35-£40.  And a 1tb HD install will be no different to an existing 250 or 500gb HD box??

The 1tb box is self installation, just disconnect old HD box and connect 1tb box, if I wanted an engineer to come and do it for me I think it was another £60 on top

[Teutonic_Tamer]

These boxes TT are shipped in from Japan, so shipping costs alone cost a heck of alot more than £35-40 I can assure you.

These boxes are currently a rarity at the moment, due to the floods last year, there is currently a massive short fall in availability ,due to the hard drive production factory in Japan being washed away..

True cost to sky for a HD terabyte is £187.

Hmmmm . . . I thought PACE (a British firm) made all the sky boxes . . . or have they outsourced production to Japan?

Anyway, I really doubt there are 'shortages' due to the Jap Tsunami & floods - most of their roads which were damaged were completely rebuilt in about two weeks!  And no doubt most of their 'industry' would have been quickly rebuilt - or re-located to another area.  The Japanese economy relies very heavily on exports - so I can't see the Japs being this slow with rebuilding their export industries.

And if they are in such short supply, why are they peddling them like fook in most shopping malls?  Trying to rake even more money in from NEW customers whilst ignoring existing ones . . .

I'm staff and the cheapest I can get a TB box is £149. But I don't pay anything a month for subs for all tv,broadband and talk, although tell a lie, I pay £13 and that's my line rental, and that's it.

Good to know some companies can still give perks to their employees. 

[Saintsteve]

Just so you know Shaun, Sky now design all boxes now, they come from Japan, and Bulgaria.

I can very much doubt "your" shortages, but I can tell you 1st hand there is a shortfall of hard disks still coming from there  

Also just to correct you again, Amstrad were bought out by Sky over 2 years ago, and we know make and design our own boxes to our specifications..

Pace went years ago ... We haven't used Pace for 3 years since Mr Sugar Sold up  

If would like to know more about Sky, please Pm me and I'll correct help you with your questions  

[QD MBE]

I have a Sky HD box (don't pay for the HD so rely on the BBC and free HD)

I will be binning Sky at end of this month.  The only channel I will miss is Nat Geo and Discovery (are any of those available on FV?)

Reason - poor programmes, repetitive scheduling, being busy, and Cost.  Sky are no worse that any other providers, however why pay for Shyte TV when you can get it for free............

HD Motorsport and Footie was good as a novelty, but so pricey now.............. and the clutter needs feeding...........

[Teutonic_Tamer]

Just so you know Shaun, Sky now design all boxes now, they come from Japan, and Bulgaria.

I thought, since the dawn of Sky Digitial, Sky have always 'designed' their boxes?  IIRC, it was something to do with their own unique 'MediaGuard' encryption system (may have got that name wrong).  When Sky Digi first came out, the boxes were made by either Pace, Amstrad, Sony and Grundig (or was the latter Panasonic) - all had the MG chip integrated on their own boards.  Sky wouldn't release its MG technology to say a high-end hi-fi specialist like Marantz or Cambridge - and intially, peeps often tought because of this, the boxes were always made 'down to a price' - not that I'd ever agree with that sentiment - my 12 year old Pace 2500B is still going strong - considerably more reliable than other supposedly quality a/v kit such as Panasonic, Kenwood, and a shed load of differing Freeview boxes.  

I can very much doubt "your" shortages, but I can tell you 1st hand there is a shortfall of hard disks still coming from there  

That, I am confused with????  I didn't think Japan made any hard disks - I thought they all came from South Korea (Samsung, Seagate, Western Digital, etc) . . .  

Also just to correct you again, Amstrad were bought out by Sky over 2 years ago, and we know make and design our own boxes to our specifications..

Pace went years ago ... We haven't used Pace for 3 years since Mr Sugar Sold up  

I thought SAS (Sir Alan Sugar  ) owned Amstrad, not Pace?    I know he offloaded all his Amstrad empire a few years ago (probably was 3ish) - but I thought that Sky bought the digi TV part of Amstrad.  But I thought that Pace always remained completely separate from Sky . . . or have I missed that one?

If would like to know more about Sky, please Pm me and I'll correct help you with your questions  

I don't think PMs are necessary for general discussions on Sky - providing we aint discussing trade secrets or similar, then open forums are fine!  

And for all our friendly <cough> banter - I'm not completely bashing Sky.  I think Sky have a BRILLIANT technical platform.  I remember when Sky Digi first came out - and some of the probs with boxes freezing - Sky took a lot of flak over that (and rightly so) - but since getting that initial teething problem solved - Sky now have a truly great technical platform - rock-solid reliability, superb 'user-friendly' method of updating software on the boxes, their Sky Plus was truly revolutionary (it took years for Freeview to catch on an copy this).

Freeview on the other hand, is truly shyte.  Sky can have a stable platform, so why cant Freeview?  I don't know if it is the 'DVB-S' (Digital Video Broadcasting - Satellite) standards being so much stricter than the 'DVB-T'  (Digital Video Broadcasting - Terrestrial) standard - or weather it is Sky just being considerably stricter in its' own design specs of its boxes?  I've had a number of Freeview receivers - all are shyte: Sagem (useless in anything bar super strong signal strength), Nokia (just awful in every respect), Topfield (OK until the DSO - now a crock of shyte which can't cope with the latest DVB-T signals), Hitachi (confusing and limited operational capabilities), Humax (where do I start with this one).  Humax aside, ALL other Freeview equipment manufactures seem to fail to support upgrades in DVB-T specs; yet Sky still supports my jurassic Pace box.  Whenever Freeview decide to 'change' the channel frequencies, users have to manually fcuk around re-tuning (often loosing all your favourites and timer settings) - yet Sky can do this without any user intervention.  So Sky DO have an awful lot of very good positives.

But Sky are still masters in the art of p!ssing off customers - their pricing IS grossly extortionate, their TV subscription packages are still way too inflexible (sports: I personally am only interested in motorsports and sailing, yet Sky Sports subscription will bombard me with a gazillion hours of football [which I detest], golf [which bores me to tears], and a load of other totally irrelevant sports)

[Thor]

The days of 4 channels have changed Shaun... Add a few 0's to that now 

 

[BeezerDiesel]

^^^ Ain't that the truth!


The prices of hard drives were affected by the floods in Thailand btw, not Japan, as that is where most of them are assembled and where the factories got washed out. 

[Saintsteve]

Just so you know Shaun, Sky now design all boxes now, they come from Japan, and Bulgaria.

I thought, since the dawn of Sky Digitial, Sky have always 'designed' their boxes?  IIRC, it was something to do with their own unique 'MediaGuard' encryption system (may have got that name wrong).  When Sky Digi first came out, the boxes were made by either Pace, Amstrad, Sony and Grundig (or was the latter Panasonic) - all had the MG chip integrated on their own boards.  Sky wouldn't release its MG technology to say a high-end hi-fi specialist like Marantz or Cambridge - and intially, peeps often tought because of this, the boxes were always made 'down to a price' - not that I'd ever agree with that sentiment - my 12 year old Pace 2500B is still going strong - considerably more reliable than other supposedly quality a/v kit such as Panasonic, Kenwood, and a shed load of differing Freeview boxes.  

I can very much doubt "your" shortages, but I can tell you 1st hand there is a shortfall of hard disks still coming from there  

That, I am confused with????  I didn't think Japan made any hard disks - I thought they all came from South Korea (Samsung, Seagate, Western Digital, etc) . . .  

Also just to correct you again, Amstrad were bought out by Sky over 2 years ago, and we know make and design our own boxes to our specifications..

Pace went years ago ... We haven't used Pace for 3 years since Mr Sugar Sold up  

I thought SAS (Sir Alan Sugar  ) owned Amstrad, not Pace?    I know he offloaded all his Amstrad empire a few years ago (probably was 3ish) - but I thought that Sky bought the digi TV part of Amstrad.  But I thought that Pace always remained completely separate from Sky . . . or have I missed that one?

If would like to know more about Sky, please Pm me and I'll correct help you with your questions  

I don't think PMs are necessary for general discussions on Sky - providing we aint discussing trade secrets or similar, then open forums are fine!  

And for all our friendly <cough> banter - I'm not completely bashing Sky.  I think Sky have a BRILLIANT technical platform.  I remember when Sky Digi first came out - and some of the probs with boxes freezing - Sky took a lot of flak over that (and rightly so) - but since getting that initial teething problem solved - Sky now have a truly great technical platform - rock-solid reliability, superb 'user-friendly' method of updating software on the boxes, their Sky Plus was truly revolutionary (it took years for Freeview to catch on an copy this).

Freeview on the other hand, is truly shyte.  Sky can have a stable platform, so why cant Freeview?  I don't know if it is the 'DVB-S' (Digital Video Broadcasting - Satellite) standards being so much stricter than the 'DVB-T'  (Digital Video Broadcasting - Terrestrial) standard - or weather it is Sky just being considerably stricter in its' own design specs of its boxes?  I've had a number of Freeview receivers - all are shyte: Sagem (useless in anything bar super strong signal strength), Nokia (just awful in every respect), Topfield (OK until the DSO - now a crock of shyte which can't cope with the latest DVB-T signals), Hitachi (confusing and limited operational capabilities), Humax (where do I start with this one).  Humax aside, ALL other Freeview equipment manufactures seem to fail to support upgrades in DVB-T specs; yet Sky still supports my jurassic Pace box.  Whenever Freeview decide to 'change' the channel frequencies, users have to manually fcuk around re-tuning (often loosing all your favourites and timer settings) - yet Sky can do this without any user intervention.  So Sky DO have an awful lot of very good positives.

But Sky are still masters in the art of p!ssing off customers - their pricing IS grossly extortionate, their TV subscription packages are still way too inflexible (sports: I personally am only interested in motorsports and sailing, yet Sky Sports subscription will bombard me with a gazillion hours of football [which I detest], golf [which bores me to tears], and a load of other totally irrelevant sports)

All down to spending the money on research and development TT, finally our Sky operating software is fairly robust compared to a few years ago with various tv/set top compatibility issues, which now seemed to be nipped in the bud.

freeview's operating system is total pants I agree, but in the same respect that we have spents millions on finally getting its O.S sorted, Freeview  haven't got the funding to make the same performance in platform.

 

Oh and so you know, head of Pace design and Tech joined sky a few years back to help produce our Amstrad 890 and 895 hd machines