COME JOIN US - READ THIS OFFER (Sky HD)

Member Name: leeanne160480

Product:	Sky HD
Date:	02/02/09 (334 review reads)
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Are we sitting comfortably? then I'll begin. Hopefully I can tell you lots about HD.

HD had been in the pipeline for about the last 5 years I think. When Plasma and LCD TV's became big in the shops there were 2 setting on these TV's. The earlier ones were HD compatible, and the later ones were HD ready. The HD compatible ones had the functions and facility to handle the 1080i picture format that HD broadcast in, and HD ready was fully ready, no questions asked to work fully with HD. We bought our Plasma in 2005. At that time SKy HD wasn't out, so we didn't care about being HD compatible - after all what did it mean?

Sky HD launched in June 2006. It became an instant hit, and SKy chose to launch it at this time for the World Cup. There was a long and lenghtly waiting list for the latest must have and due to supply and demand issues the demand was split into World Cup - people who would be installed before and during the world cup, and After World Cup - not a chance of install during the season and probably up to 2 months after World Cup. With the £299 price tag it wasn't cheap and this angered a lot of customers that did want it for launch of World Cup and after paying all that money they couldn't get it for the very reason they wanted it. Within the first year of launch Sky quickly reached over 900 thousand subscribers and it has continued to grow at quite a rapid rate. Since at this time I used to deal with Television fault at Sky, you used to find that a lot of customers came on the phone and added a bit smugly "i've got an HD box", like they were the only one in the country that had one, I got that all day. Used to make me smile if anything.

So we've explained the launch, what is the product?

HD is High Definition. The boxes used to be just known as Sky HD but recently they have ben rebranded as Sky+ HD, not a huge change, but I guess not everyone assumed the boxes dealt with SKy+ as well.

The box looks the same since launch. It is a black box with a silver coloured wavy-ish band on the front where al the buttons sit. There is the Play, Pause, record, Stop, Rewind and fast forward in small buttons. On the top of the box is a circular panel of other buttons such as Back up, Standby, and select. I think it is a bad idea to have the standby and back up button at the top because 1 of my HD boxes is in my bedroom and I have a 20" tv on the top of the box. Ocassionally the tv works its way forward on the box and if it presses down on the back up button, this puts the box into a software update programme or it just turns the box off - nothing worse if you're settled comfy watching something. The boxes were made by Thompson, but now there is Samsung boxes manufactuered and Pace is the next name to get in on the action.

So what's the big difference between this box and just a Sky+ box? Well the HD box gives a crisper, clearer, sharper picture. You find that the colours are more vivid and I find the most difference with the Reds - deeper, and Greens - more lucious. Football grass looks more real. The again standard TVs ran on a resolution of 576 and HD is on 1080i and 1080p. What does that mean? Well it's all to do with the flashes per second and pixels and so on. HD runs on more information per second, so it is transmitting more to the picture, that's why it is sharper and brighter.

A SKY+ box has 40 hours recording capability, but the HD box has 80 hours. If you were to record an movie, which say lasts 2 hours then you would find it would use up 2% in your planner, but if you record the same movie from the HD channel it can use anything up to 10%, so the 80 hour thing can be a bit misleading, as if you were to record absolutely everything in HD content then it may only last you 20-25 hours, but if you recorded in standard tv, it could end up lasting 100 hours!

Ok, what's a Planner? Since the box is a digital recorder then the planner is the place where you can find the programmes you have recorded. To get into it you press TV guide, then your green button on your remote. The HD boxes have just underwent a software change and you now get a minature tv screen at the top of your screen with the programme on the channel you were just on. You can search for programmes 7 days in advance, press the R button to put it into your planner to record at the time and if you are recording a series, if you press the green button on Eastenders say, it will pick up any future episode without you having to look for them and it automatically records them for you. Pretty cool.

Another function, which is the same as the Sky+ boxes is Sky Anytime. For those of you that don't know about Anytime, it was branded as TV on demand, which I think is a bit misleading. When you press your TV guide button if you press the red button on the remote it takes you to a menu listing which has about 20 programmes in it. This is kind of the pick of curent tv, such as Lost, 24 and so on. These always seem to come on here after they have been shown on main tv, so if you have already seen them, then you may not want to see them again. With the movies that are coming on Sky Premier on saturday, they seem to pop up here on the thursday or friday, so you can actually catch these before they are premiered. This is the reason I look out for things on Anytime. The other good thing about this is that there is no adverts at all in the shows - they've all been removed. Great, can't they do that on normal tv?

Not every channel has an HD partner anyway. The channels on HD are

Channel 4
BBC
Sky 1
FX
Bio
Sci Fi
Sky Arts
Luxe TV
Sky Real Lives
Sky Premier
Sky Screen 1
Sky Screen 2
Sky Comedy
Sky Action
Sky Family
Sky Drama
Sky Sci Fi/Horror
Sky Modern Greats
MTVN
Sky Sports 1
Sky Sports 2
Eurosports
Sky Sports 3
Rush
Discovery
National Geographic
History
Crime
Disney Cinemagic
Sky Box Office 1
Sky Box Office 2

Certainly sounds like a lot? Depends on what you watch I guess. When HD first launched they only had 11 HD Channels. Here comes the technical bit.

Some customers were choosing to have a HD box, but choosing to not take the HD channels? It is perfectly alright to do this, and you'd be surprised how many customer took this option. What was the point of that? Well the HD subscription costs £10 a month just for the HD channels (£9.75 with the vat reductions just now). That wouldn't necessary give you all the channels listed above. depending on what mix you are on with your main television pack, you get the HD channels that are in that pack, so say for example you subscribe to the sports mix, and the music mix you will only get MUTV and the sports 1 2 and 3 on HD and still have to pay the £9.75, or if you only had the Music mix, you would only get the 1 music channel in HD for the same price. Bit of a waste of money, Sky has only upped their HD channels as of November, so you can technically getting better value for money than when you used to just get the handful of channels.

Sounds good? Surely it is still expensive? Well last week Sky launched their best deal ever and if you were sitting on the fence about HD then I suggest with this deal you go for it as soon as possible.

TELL ME THE DEAL THEN?

OK

This deal is for new customers and exisiting customer. You get a brand new HD box for a bargain £49. Installation is half price at £30. You must subscribe to the HD mix for the 12 months, BUT as a thank you if you sign up to Sky's line rental as well - £10 a month, (cheaper than BT who are putting their prices back up again in april,) you are getting line rental half price for 6 months as well. This is a popular offer and so far Sky hasn't put a closing date on it, but it is advised to sign up sooner rather than later, and if demand outstrips supply - again, then we are back to the waiting lists again, which isn't bad, as Sky is honouring all the pricing.

I don't have a HD television - help! Well strictly you don't NEED one to have a HD box. You can connect these up with HDMI connections if you have a HD ready television. On my HD compatible TV I have mine connected by componant leads and you can also connect by scart as well.

So what are you waiting for? Come join us. Phone any number for Sky and you will be able to take advantage of this brilliant offer!!!

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