A video is cheaper (Sky Box Office)

Member Name: ben_83

Product:	Sky Box Office
Date:	15/08/00 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great for housebound occasional movie watchers

Disadvantages: There's a better alternative for everyone else

Unlike all the other film channels available on Sky, 'Sky Box Office' is available to every subscriber, no matter what package they have. The films are newer than those on 'Sky Premier', 'Sky Moviemax', 'Sky Cinema', 'TCM' and 'Film Four' (they usually appear a little bit after they come out on video) but you pay per film rather than a flat monthly rate for everything on the channel.

The films are basically everything that was on at the cinema about eighteen months earlier and there's usually twenty or so available at any one time. However, not all the big films get shown on there and there is often a lot of straight-to-video rubbish available to order. Also, the whole exercise is very expensive. You pay £3 per film (added automatically to your next Sky bill) which is not very good value because it's more than I pay to rent a video and the video shop carries newer films than 'Sky Box Office'. Also, if you're going to order two or more films a month, you might as well get a package that includes the standard movie channels and not bother ordering from 'Sky Box Office'. The 'Sky Sports World' package on Sky Digital, which is everything channel but the movie ones, is only £5 a month cheaper than the 'Sky World' package which is the same except including the fifteen or so movie channels (not 'Film Four' though, that's £5 a month on it's own). Movies tend to get shown on 'Sky Premier' a couple of months after their run stops on 'Sky Box Office' so you don?t even have to wait that long.

Having said that, ordering movies on 'Sky Box Office' couldn't be simpler. You just press the 'Box Office' button on your remote control, choose which film you want to watch and when and remember that you ordered it. For the more popular films, they do this thing called 'multiplay' which means that, for your £3, you can wa
tch the film as many times as you want that day. Which is nice. Still, why bother ordering when all you have to do is switch your telly on and watch with 'Sky Premier'?

I can't really see the point of 'Sky Box Office'. For someone who only wants to watch the occasional movie and wants to choose when to watch it, there's the video shop (which is also cheaper) and for someone who wants to watch loads of movies, there's the subscription film channels on Sky. 'Sky Box Office' is a novelty, like interactive football on 'Sky Sports Extra', you'll try it a couple of times and then realise that the old way was better after all.

Summary: