Reasons Not to get Sky+
Just quickly for non-UK readers: Sky+ is the local equivalent of TiVO, and is a DVR for the Sky satellite TV service.
I’ve been considering buying (or upgrading) my satelllite TV service to include recording features. We do (and have done) a lot of work on live satellite programs or support for Interactive TV/SMS to screen applications, so I’ve had a Sky satellite subscription for several years now. I’d like to be able to record some programs to watch later, or to rewatch, so a DVR seems like a logical way to go.
However Sky penalise existing customers wanting to upgrade.
If you have a look at the following table, you will see what I mean:
| New Customer | Existing Customer with Multiroom | Existing Customer without Multiroom | |
| Sky+ Box | £49 (Usually £89) | £49 | £199 |
| Sky+ Subscription | Free if already premium subscriber (£10 otherwise) | £10 | Free if already premium subscriber (£10 otherwise) |
| Standard Installation | Free | Free | £60 |
| Total | £49 (£59) | £59 | £259 (£269) |
Basically, this means if I am an existing customer and want to simply upgrade to Sky+, it will cost me £259 up front, and an extra £10 per month. Whereas if I was a new customer, it would only cost me £49 for exactly the same service.
I’m also slightly confused: If a Sky+ box is normally £89 (as advertised for new customers), why does it cost me £199 instead? Isn;t that £110 more than what the Sky+ box is ‘normally’?
I could go for the multiroom option, but that comes with certain conditions - such as having both Sky boxes connected to the phone line, and allowing them to phone home whenever they like. Given that I don’t actually own two televisions, but I do already own two Sky satellite receivers, the multiroom option is not actually an option I can take up. Oh, and I also pay an extra £10 for the multiroom subscription that I can’t use.
And I have to pay the installation fee regardless of whether or not someone actually comes around and plugs in the new box (even though I feel I am quite capable of doing that job myself, given that I installed the last two satellite receivers I used)
My only other option to make use of DVR facilities is to purchase a third party DVR, however this gives me exactly the same recording facilities as my existing VHS recorder (i.e. I have to leave the satellite receiver on the channel I am recording), which defeats the purpose of a satellite service DVR in the first place (no recording one channel while watching another, no integration with the EPG and so on).
I guess I’ll have to give Sky+ a miss for now.
Technorati Tags: Sky, Satellite TV, DVR, Digital Video Recorder
November 19th, 2005 at 12:23 pm
Reasons Not to get Sky+
[Source: Tom on Identity] quoted: My only other option to make use of DVR facilities is to purchase a third party DVR, however this gives me exactly the same recording facilities as my existing VHS recorder (i.e. I have to leave the satellite receiver …
November 29th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
Buy the sky plus box and a quad LNB from ebay (£75). Then get a local installer to put in your quad LNB and run the extra cable (cost me £16).
Once its all installed, ring up sky and tell them to activate the sky plus service. They will try and arrange for an installer to call, just tell them its already installed!
Worked a charm for me.