RE: OT: The Great Sky Rip-Off

["Mark Hetherington" <mark.egroups@xxxxxxx>]

Kenneth Watt wrote:

> I also find it strange that when I went to Sky Digital when it was fir= st
> released, IIRC, the subscription was about =A324.99 for all the packag= es,
> oh, about five years or so ago. It's now =A337, not a bad increase in = such
> a short space of time, over 50% of the original price in five years, > imagine the car manufacturers trying that! ;)

It was =A329.99 for all packages when SD launched (24.99 was all packages without the sports channels or without the movie channels) and had been for=
a while before that. It went up a couple years later to =A332.99 or somethi= ng
but original subscribers who had paid for their equipment continued on the<= BR> old rate for a couple yeas as "compensation".

The new pricing structure is far more complicated and to be honest I wonder=
if it is to discourage people from dropping channels. I currently pay aroun= d
=A332.99 per month with all movies and all sports. (well +=A310 per month f= or
Sky+) I never use the sports channels and on the old system could "rec= laim"
approx =A35 per month, maybe more, by dropping them. However, since I would=
have to actually choose one of the new style packages to do this, I do not<= BR> think I would get the same saving now and might even lose channels. I keep<= BR> meaning to get around to working out how the packages work cos I could
probably save a packet by changing but never have the time.

> I decide to go for the Sony STB, I know the installer so it wasn't
> really a problem to secure one, which has optical digital out, the
> thinking being that with that I can receive Dolby Digital (DD)
> transmissions when they start.

DD transmission have been running for a while.

> Now since I have a spare Pace digibox I decided to investigate the
> second subscription that Sky are never done advertising, only to find<= BR> > out that on the top package @ =A337 a month you pay =A312 for it. On t= he
> lowest package @ =A313 you pay...yup, =A312! I am not impressed by tha= t in
> the slightest, in fact I think it's not far short of being an outright=
> scam...but it gets worse!

Well on their original system, you had to pay the *full* amount to have the=
same subscription on a second STB so particularly for those with higher
value packages, it is very good value in comparison.

> Sky are promoting Sky+ like it's going out of fashion and seem to be > doing anything to sell it to the masses but this golden goodie just > really cracked me up. Not only does Sky+ carry support for a direct fe= ed
> of the dish, which is fair enough as well as support for DD when they<= BR> > start that and, bear in mind, that no other PVR can offer that (or any=
> recorder AFAIK, yet)...but it would appear that no STB bar Sky+ can > decode the DD signal!!

There are a number of things which were planned for the original Sky Digita= l
platform which were later canned due to the orignal technology being unable=
to cope with it. I guess DD was among them, especially with Sky+ round the<= BR> corner. Did SkyD ever get the timer function promoted in the original
brochure - not Sky planner which is useless given the limited tv guide, the=
simple turn the box on and to this channel at this time?

> So getting back to the Sony STB it turns out that, while it has the > optical out to support DD Sky will not be letting you enjoy those
> transmissions unless you cough up for Sky+, the only platform that doe= s
> support DD.

IIRC Sony and Sky had a fall out. (Nothing new, everyone seems to fall out<= BR> with Sony at some point). The Sony STB, despite being superior to other
STBs, is often crippled thanks to this argument. I forget the details, but<= BR> one of the guys at work bought one and Sky would not even provide software<= BR> updates to the box due to whatever their issue with Sony was! It one of the=
reasons I never bothered to buy a Sony STB and instead went for Sky+.

> Now before some of the folks that have Sky+ start smiling
> smugly to themselves just think what's next, will they charge you per<= BR> > recording, or charge extra to receive two channels at once, or target<= BR> > adverts on you recorder? Who's to say, the technology is largely alrea= dy
> there, a lot can be done the recent incident with TiVo proved that!
I am not familiar with the Tivo incident you refer to.

However, IMO charging per recording won't happen. Apart from the
"protection" in law for private recordings, the platform would co= llapse
overnight. Sky was once on the verge of losing a fortune for putting logos<= BR> on their movie channels, when almost eveyone immediately cancelled the
channels, they relented. =A310 per month guaranted is worth to Sky more tha= n a
nominal recording fee that can be avoided and risks losing that subscriptio= n
money. VHS is still here and "free" so people can easily revert t= o their
already installed technology for timeshifting and when DVDR finallly
stabilises and repalces VHS for recording, it will remain "free" = to record.

Charging to recieve two channels at once... this is part of the =A310 fee (= one
for record + one for view) so is already being done if I follow you
correctly.

Not sure what you refer to by target adverts. If you mean "targetted&q= uot;, then
IMO that is not very different to the general untargetted tea breaks ... I<= BR> mean commercial breaks :). 5 minutes of ads is 5 minutes of ads whether
targetted or not and I still won't watch them.

> And for those of you that crowed when ITVD vanished just remember, Sky=
> is now TV in the UK and without any effective competition, it can
> therefore do what it likes and charge what it thinks it can get away > with, which it strikes me these days as being more than it's worth! We= re
> it not for the fact that I have to get SWMBO her TV back Sky would not=
> have got my business.

If a cable company ever bothered to setup where I live I would consider
moving to cable since it might even get me broadband as well. But with no cable likely Sky is my only option. I didn't much care one way or the other=
when ITVD collapsed, the platform was too far behind Sky to compete so it was not something I could have looked into replacing Sky with during it's brief time. Unless and until an alternative platform can give me what I get=
>from BR> to get cable, it did not offer everything that Sky did but I have not kept<= BR> up on cable developments since I can't get it and probably will never be able to.

ITVD will return in some form if only becoming BBCD and a free to air only<= BR> system which still makes up the majority of people wanting TV provision. Since the infrastructure exists, it is even possible that some PPV services=
could still be offered. The only reason E4 ceased transmission on ITVD was<= BR> that there was nobody to pick up the subscriptions. Given some major
reorganisation, it should be possible to resurrect it in some form. If the<= BR> cable companies got together I am sure they could save each other and
possibly take over the old ITVD network since they at least have all the subscription network in place.

Mark.

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