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    Sky HD

    Famously this was one technology that I wasn't an early adopter for after Sky mucked up my pre-order and I quickly lost interest. Anyway, given the recent "price drop" where you can get a box from Indies for ?149 (something which Sky now seem to be following suit with) I decided to go for it. The monthly ?10 charge is still a bit annoying, but given that Lost, 24 and Rescue me are all in HD, along with the football, its not really that bad value for money. Of course, you could argue that with the football in particular, you're paying ?10 a month to fix some of the problems that Sky should be sorting out as part of their service.

    Anyway, I ordered the box and a card for my plasma on Friday so everything showed up yesterday morning. Interestingly, the card for my plasma has also dropped in price, by about ?50, so all in I've saved a fair bit by hanging off.

    I was up and running in about 10 minutes. Just swapped all the cables over from my Sky+ box and called up Sky to get them to pair the card with the new box.

    Firstly, SD picture quality over HDMI is considerably better than it was over the old SCART. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that, but its a nice extra.

    As for the HD stuff, the quality difference is pretty amazing. I have an HD drive for my Xbox, so am aware of what you can get from it, but I was pleasantly surprised by what I've seen so far.

    Last night the wife had some Graham Norton presented Andrew Lloyd Webber thing on BBC HD and the picture quality was simply stunning. One of the best things I've ever seen in HD, so that was a big surprise from the Beeb.

    Checking out a film, Final Destination 3, the increase in quality over SD was immediately apparent, although not as impressive as the BBC thing. I've not checked out many of the other channels, not that there are many to check out to be honest.

    As for Sky Sports, the football is kind of surreal. They're not exaggerating when they say that you can literally see every blade of grass. The detail is amazing and I've never seen fast moving images in this much clarity, sharpness and lifelike colour. Am looking forward to the Chelski match later and the CL final this month.

    The downsides? Well, the fans on the box are a bit noisy. Nowhere near 360 levels, but you can hear them if the TV isn't on or is very, very quiet.

    Amount of content is limited. There's no getting away from that and its one of the reasons I didn't buy a box when they were ?300. There's a lot of American content out there in HD, so it would be good to see some more channels launching or Sky starting to buy in more of the other top series that the US is producing at the moment.

    The fast forward doesn't seem to be as smooth as on existing Sky+. However, its nowhere near as bad as I'd read. It seems to be the same situation as when Sky+ first came out, that software upgrades will come along to fix any of the niggling issues.

    So, the verdict? I'm delighted with it and its even exceeded my expectations which is a real surprise. I'd seen some of the demo material in local stores, but that really doesn't do the quality justice.

    #2
    Great impressions. Got a link to where you bought a box for £149?

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      #3
      Originally posted by Randicoot View Post
      Great impressions. Got a link to where you bought a box for ?149?
      I got mine from http://lincsat.org/, great service and a great price. Looks like quite a few indies are doing it for this price although I've seen a couple of postings on AV Forums suggesting they won't be able to do it this cheap forever.

      Also, Sky are sending out mailers to existing customers offering them an HD box for ?199 or ?149 depending on what their computer says. Seems to be bit of a random mail-out at the moment, but its obviously a sign that the price will drop sooner rather than later.

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        #4
        Sky HD is brilliant and a very good way of getting not only a great picture but also a Sky + box if you didn't already own one, we didn't

        Regarding the footy, wait til you really get used to it then watch a European game on ITV or something, ATROCIOUS picture on ITV compared to this BBC HD is the best looking channel I think.

        The trouble is, now HD-DVD and Blu-Ray is available it has started (for me) to show up the picture on Sky. I always though Sky HD was ****ing mint picture wise, but now I've seen some HD-DVDs it's still good but not that good. I suppose that's to be expected when a HD-DVD has all the data stored on the disc, and Sky HD has to beam it to us

        My two ONLY real complaints are

        1. The amount of upscaling they do badly! Check out SkyOneHD and watch the simpsons, they upscale it so badly that it forces the picture into an odd shape, it also shows up the poor source they have for some of the episodes, scroll back to SkyOne (Std) and it's better in some ways.

        2. Sound : It's lower, MUCH lower than SD channels. Now that wouldn't be a problem but there aren't THAT many channels in HD so you do still need to watch SD channels.

        What I would say is...where is my ****ing reward for paying £399.99 when it launched? YET AGAIN Sky **** over the early adopters, it wouldn't be so bad but I've been with them nearly 15 years and I get NOTHING. NO discounts of any kind, NOTHING. All we ever see is "Get sky for £14.99 a month for 6 months" etc...it's insulting, and about time they gave something to the customers who've always been there.

        But Sky Sports HD1 and HD2, and PremPlus HD...****ing mint...heaven.
        Last edited by Jebus; 06-05-2007, 15:20.

        Comment


          #5
          Yes, the shoddy upscaling of cartoons is just bizarre.

          Noticed the sound thing too as you end up having to turn up and down constantly when flicking around.

          I know what you're saying about Sky, I've been with them from the start and a little something here and there would be appreciated.

          Comment


            #6
            Luxe TV channel 286

            Couldn't be bothered starting a new thread, so I'm hijacking this one

            My question... WTF is this channel 286 supposed to be? Luxe.TV HD?

            That "luxury" or "Luxembourg" because at the moment its some hotel tour. Quite possibly the oddest choice of HD channels to add. Nice to have it though, none the less...

            I think its supposed to be "Luxury"...

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              #7
              Any new offers worth knowing. As I am going to jump into Sky HD in next few weeks.
              Last edited by Salsa Party Animal; 06-12-2007, 10:14.

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                #8
                I checked it out last week and was impressed. Some channels loads better than others, but overall, seems like a vast improvement, especially on large screensizes. However, there's no way I'm paying for it I'm using freesat.... heheh

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by Legendary View Post
                  Any new offers worth knowing. As I am going to jump into Sky HD in next few weeks.
                  Check out the Suppliers or the Bargains forums at TheDVDForums, I'm sure I saw a Sky HD thread in there recently. The site is blocked from here though so I can't link directly.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    I'm looking at getting this at the moment and can't decide whether it's worth it or if I should wait.

                    I can get the box for £75 + £30 installation with the refer a friend thing but it's quite a bit of money just for tv.

                    For anyone who has this, what's it like upscaling, how does the native stuff compair to a Blu-ray and really do you think it's worth the extra?

                    I'll be getting Sky Sports for my HD footie.

                    Edit - I know some of this has been answered previously but that was many months ago, things may have changed for better or worse since then.
                    Last edited by Myth; 06-08-2008, 22:30.

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                      #11
                      sports films & docs are brilliant.

                      the upscaling adds nothing to non native material, its really about the HD source stuff. Most Sky host broadcasting is in HD now for sport (except darts & boxing), footy is great and a huge improvement over SD broadcasts, curiously though I tend to find cricket & rugby the killer sporting apps mainly as you are watching more in close ups, in footy you tend to get a zoomed back 'pro evo' view so tend to get a lot of pretty HD grass. Eurosport also recently added their own HD channel so you get lots of different stuff to watch, like tour de france or summer ski jumping in HD !

                      docs are amazing if they are your thing with 3 free to air channels now.

                      films are also very good, I'd say not quite the same standard as a good blu-ray transfer but again a big improvement over SD.

                      overall well worth it, with more & more general entertainment stuff coming in on HD now on BBC, C4, FX & Sky.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Will be interesting to compare Sky HD to freesat HD (and possibly Freeview HD if they get the spectrum).

                        The place where HD will really shine is the football for me. It's distracting sometimes watching SD and noticing all the compression artifacts around the players.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Sports are excellent, especially premier league football which is out of this world in terms of picture quality. The colours, contrasts *and* definition are all superb.

                          The films are good...... but there are some lazy encodes out there which produce bad quality HD material. And the sound quality, whilst it seems improved and is certianly 5.1 seems less dynamic than soundtracks off Blu-Ray.

                          The picture quality of films from Blu-Ray is better also, in that it is more consistently brilliant. Whereas on Sky HD, you can be watching Star Wars 3 which is excellent, then watch something else which looks more akin to DVD quality.

                          Overall though, worth getting especially for sports.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Gone for it with the sports, will add movies if I start seeing films I like the looks of but we have Virgin downstairs and the on demand films on that seem to suit me more than what I've seen on Sky.

                            Only bad thing is I have to wait until the 20th August.

                            Cheers for the advice lads.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              We have just cancelled our movie and sports package after 21months. I got HD free with my Sony X on the deal that I had to sub for a year for the lot and we kept it longer than that as my parents watched the films on standard Sky + (as we got multiroom with their old system). I talked them into last week though of cancelling em as I can afford to get 3-4 films a month on BR now Ive paid my computer off and as Im not keen on alot of the bitrate on movie HD channels and get very annoyed at the quality of 5.1 on em they have agreed as Im going to get my JPN PS3 BR lens fixed later on and their going to have it in living room. Its pointless to loose films without sports as you only save something daft like £5 so we done both and the £20 odd extra we save will buy near enough two films on BR.

                              I got to admit I only watched films on movies for first 6months and it was a great 6months then got sick of em as their repeated so much and some of em are dreadfull quality (ie saving private ryan). I got spoiled buy watching BR stuff more after that on PS3 and its worlds apart and I just cant go back after that. Yep you do get the odd good one but you just cant beat uncompressed 5.1 or DTS HD MA.

                              I wouldnt be without my documentary and sky/ FX HD etc.. though. I think best for me has been BBC HD torchwood looked gorgeous as did stuff like Hotel Babylon. Even the footy looks good on HD but for me the movies just arent worth it if you have a good alternative

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