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[MSE Archna]

This thread is specifically to discuss the content of the

Digital TV Cost Cutting Article
and to discuss what deals you've been offered to help others in their haggling.

To discuss or ask a question about the article: click reply

[raeble]

It is a well known fact that if you phone up threatening to cancel Sky the cancellations department will offer you three months half price or something similar. Never pay for the maintence of the box because you can get them to fix it for free if it stops working and you phone up to cancel because of this. You may have to say you can't afford it or something. You do have to be firm in your intention to cancel, and slip into the conversation descretly what you are willing to accept and know what you are talking about. Of course you might get a miserable blighter who doesn't offer you anything. However every single time I have phoned up to cancel sky, they have offered me three months half price (about 5 times). I now no longer subscribe to sky but they have sent me a letter offering me three months half price if I re-subscribe for three months - trying to get their christmas figures up methinks.

[gatra]

I had the full movie package inc Disney, I cancelled the movie package unfortunatly I now have to pay the £10 for my Sky+

BUT It is still cheaper to pay the £10 sky+ fee and to rent movies from Tesco DVD rental at £7.99 a month for unlimited discs the faster you get them back the more you can watch.

But unknown to me:

I had recorded a ton of movies from sky before I cancelled my package hoping to watch later, sky had a block put on these, meaning even though I had them recorded to hard drive on my Sky+ I couldn't play them back after I cancelled.

One to me for saving money and one to sky for closing a loophole.

So if you have any movies make sure you get them off your sky+ hdd before you cancel.

[gatra]

Oh I forgot to say

I'm now enjoying up to the minute movies just as soon as they are released and not have to wait for them to finish on box office first before finally coming on to sky movies.........

[scoobysnaks]

I just received 25% off for the next 12 months from sky for the sky world package. A saving of £127.??

[deanos]

The freephone number in Martins article for Sky was turned off about a month or so ago and is no longer in use

[Gem+Dave+Kaci]

I've been on the Sky half price offer for about a year now!! (Paying about £18 for the Sky with Movie + Disney channels package?)

Basically, I phone up when there's only a month left of the half price offer and explain that the line rental is too much so I'd like to give my months notice. I explain that I can afford the half price but not the full price and as I've got Sky +, it's work out just as much if I dropped to the lowest package (Sky + is free if your package is over £30 but you have to pay an extra £10 if it's under £30).

They might try to offer you 40% off instead but if you persevere and ask them to speak to their manager then they'll usually cave in! They will always try to make out like they're doing you a major favour and they'll use all kinds of excuses to get out of it like saying they can only offer it a certain amount of times or it's only available to people that haven't had an offer yet. So far we've had it about 6 times so DON'T BELIEVE THEM!! If they really won't budge then say you'll think about it, and chances are when you phone back you'll end up speaking to someone else!!

One word of warning though... one time they didn't offer it so I said 'fine, I'll go ahead and cancel' thinking I'd just phone up a few days later and try for the offer again. As I'd gone into 'cancellation mode' they took me off of the half price package I was on (not sure if they were allowed to do this or not?!?) and I had to re-instate my account before I could threaten to cancel again (which I did a few days later and got the half price deal again anyway!! )

Hope this helps someone!!!

[Nick1969]

I have normal Sky and Id like sky plus. How do I get it without paying the £80+ they want from you as an existing customer.

[bobsa1]

I'm just coming to the end of my six months half price. They rang me last week and I said I was going to cancel. I know have anothr two months at 40% discount. Not great but not bad.

[tin]

Just one thing I notice slips through a lot in these forums so I thought it worth mentioning:- If you cancel an active (normal) Sky package your card turns into the same as you'd get with "freesat from Sky". So DON'T fork out the extra 20 quid if you decide to go down that route.

[Wayne1]

Maplin electronics are launcing a Free to Air Digital Satellite Kit
Includes Satellite dish, receiver for £79.99 http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...ce=1&doy=21m11

[barron]

Does anyone realise,that if you sign up for sky+ and multiroom,as an existing customer.
They use your old sky receiver as the multi room box,charge you £10 a month extra,but DO NOT extend the warranty.
But if you are a new customer,you get a completely new system for the same price.
If your box goes pop,then you have to pay £69 to get it fixed or replaced.
Wish i could change but we live in a rural area with no other providers.
Tried talking to sky, but they dont want to know.
Its about time their monopolising was stopped.
ANY COMMENTS?????!!!!????................

[TonyB]

So if you have any movies make sure you get them off your sky+ hdd before you cancel.[

gatra,
I have just signed up as a new customer for Sky+ using the choice of two of their preset programme blocks plus movies @ £34pm & £17pm for first 3 months I had phoned to use their "Refer a Friend " thingy which would have enabled brother in law as an existing user to upgrade to SKY+ FOR FREE. I also tried the "New Subscriber Reward" route where YOU can have + for free. Further I tried the "others have also been given a free dvd player as per Daily Mirror offer". All I got (from an agent named Blair with a nickname of Tony!!!) was the free Sky plus with 3 months half price.
So, my present setup which is stupidly complex involving a DVD recorder (R-ROM) with its own digibox & also a cinema surround system which uses as amplifier a Samsung unit which is a DVD player for R+system AND combines a Video recorder which I thought would be useful to play all old or cheap new videos, (& serve as second recorder if two choice progs coincided) It also has its own Digibox. If I'm sober I can sometimes get the required syncronisation with splitters etc. but have sadly failed on too many occasions to record satisfactorily hence the Sky+ requirement.A further complication is that this setup which in the front room uses a boosted aerial in the roof which will only tune to Yorkshire regional progs (analogue) & will not allow any freeview BBC !!! Whilst the little telly in the kitchen uses another smaller outdoor aerial & picks up NorthEast transmissions AND NO ITV digital through its boosted digibox.
Be patient!!! I'm nearly there!

1/ Is it possible to copy to other recorder from Sky hard drive?

2/ Is the saving of £1 a month plus all the hassle of posting etc worth the end result. IE £10 + £7.99 vs. £19

3/ I understand that you can cancel Sky in the first callendar month but otherwise you are initially tied to a 12 month contract. Can the threats to alter subscription etc work in this first 12 months or is it only after that period that you can argue?

4/ Does wireless transmission work to serve tellies in other rooms?

5/ I did in fact subscribe to Sky many years ago & may still have old box upstairs tucked away for whatever reason. I guess that this would need a special activation card to make it work & is therefore still useless?

Any help here will be most welcome!

TonyB

[gatra]

Originally Posted by TonyB

1/ Is it possible to copy to other recorder from Sky hard drive?

2/ Is the saving of £1 a month plus all the hassle of posting etc worth the end result. IE £10 + £7.99 vs. £19

3/ I understand that you can cancel Sky in the first callendar month but otherwise you are initially tied to a 12 month contract. Can the threats to alter subscription etc work in this first 12 months or is it only after that period that you can argue?

4/ Does wireless transmission work to serve tellies in other rooms?

5/ I did in fact subscribe to Sky many years ago & may still have old box upstairs tucked away for whatever reason. I guess that this would need a special activation card to make it work & is therefore still useless?

Any help here will be most welcome!

TonyB

Hi Tony

1. The only way to copy from sky + is to record from your AV socket in to a video or dvd recorder, you can do it by the RF route but will lose quality.
I have even tried taking out the hard drive and fixing it to my computer but with no joy. I did this when I upgraded my Sky+ HDD to 250gb form the 40gb fitted in my box.

2. it's the principal that counts here, not the saving, I have been with sky for a good 15 or 20 years or so now. When I first joined them, the movie channel gave you the new and up to date films. now the films are a year or two old before they appear on the movie channels, if you wish to see the new films you have to pay up more cash on box office.

3 I think you are tied in for 12 months the only exception is if you move house. Or at least tell them that. I did move house before a 12 month contract was up and they finished the contract with no penaltys.

4 ????? don't know I have all my tv's working through a loft box that sends sky and all channels to all rooms in the house I can even work the sky+ box in the lounge from my bedroom.

5 You can use a Sky box without the card and get the freeview channels if you put an old card in it may block out some of these channels.

Don't take my words here as gospel only as general advice as I'm only a regular Jo that has played around with Sky over the years and is p~ssed off with the way sky works to con the cash out of the viewers.

Plus you can't record from box office as it will faze in an out

[The Bargain Hunters]

Hi, I like many others have just got fed up with SKY hiking up their prices, so have finally managed to cancel after 6 months of offers to keep me. It would seem, bythe amount of ads on TV and junk mail, that they are getting a bit desperate to keep and enlist new customers as many, like myself are leaving in droves.

We still get a lot of channels, however I do miss E4 & hubby misses Sky sports news, which are both on freeview, my question is, if we get a freeview box will we loose a lot of the "Free" channels we are still getting ?(Like Sky 3, Horror channel, and a few music channels,) to name a few! I know these are not listed as on the free to view sky list nor are they on the freeview list, but will they be there anyway?????

[Jimbo333]

Ebay is full of offers of "Free satalite TV via your PC" - pay someone on EBAY 3 quid and they tell you how.

Anyone know how this works? (or doesn't work more likely!!).

[deanos]

Originally Posted by Jimbo333

Ebay is full of offers of "Free satalite TV via your PC" - pay someone on EBAY 3 quid and they tell you how.

Anyone know how this works? (or doesn't work more likely!!).

Save your money, its just websites that stream channels onto your PC via the internet

[Mr Badger]

I have a digital TV query that I hope some of you well informed people can help me with

I have an old Amstrad satelite dish and receiver that I have not used for many years. I recently moved house and as I have no terestrial channel 5 and poor channel 4 reception. To releive this I reinstalled the satellite equipment, however, I could no longer view channels 4 or 5 via the dish as I had done previously. It seems my decrypting card has expired and I need one with a yellow house upon it?!?


Can anyone suggest a cheap way of getting a replacement free-to-view card or recommend a cheap sky package I can join, quickly, quit and keep the sky card for free-to-view viewing

Many thanks for reading

[deanos]

Originally Posted by Mr Badger

Can anyone suggest a cheap way of getting a replacement free-to-view card or recommend a cheap sky package I can join, quickly, quit and keep the sky card for free-to-view viewing

Many thanks for reading

http://www.freesatfromsky.com/

£20 for the card

[TonyB]

Hi gatra
Won 3 out of 6 @ local 5s& 3s last night so stopping in tonite to recover.
(all that counting!!!)
Right:-
"1. The only way to copy from sky + is to record from your AV socket" ?? in which piece of equipt. telly or sky box?? & connected to what socket in the recorder. in to a video or dvd recorder, you can do it by the RF route but will lose quality. I asssume this is an alternative to the AV socket method???
2. it's the principal that counts here, not the saving, I have been with sky for a good 15 or 20 years or so now. When I first joined them, the movie channel gave you the new and up to date films. now the films are a year or two old before they appear on the movie channels, if you wish to see the new films you have to pay up more cash on box office. Point taken,I gave up with them many years ago because of constant repeats like "I Saw Mummy Kissing Santa Clause" even in July & Aug etc. & the regular price increases. However for a while I guess that 1 or 2 yr old movies will be O.K for a year & then change or perhaps try to reduce & pay the £10 pm.
The real reason I'm signing up is to solve the reception problems mentioned previously. No doubt I will succeed in creating another monster system by trying to include recorders of 1 sort or another & the cinema surround system.!!! Tomorrow will tell the tale I guess.

4 ????? don't know I have all my tv's working through a loft box that sends sky and all channels to all rooms in the house I can even work the sky+ box in the lounge from my bedroom.I guess I could ask the installation engineers & if nec bribe them to do a little extra!!!!!
5 You can use a Sky box without the card and get the freeview channels if you put an old card in it may block out some of these channels. Tried this a year or so back but altho it worked ok for a while eventually all I got was a screen message saying the card needed updating

Don't take my words here as gospel only as general advice as I'm only a regular Jo that has played around with Sky over the years and is p~ssed off with the way sky works to con the cash out of the viewers. I won't! but I do appreciate being able to discuss with someone who doesn't lose me in tech stuff.
Obviously as mentioned elsewhere here Sky are seemingly getting more & more desperate to keep customers. I did hear somewhere that the PC will eventually take over!!? PROGRESS!!!!!

Plus you can't record from box office as it will faze in an out EVEN on the hard drive or do you mean when transfering to video?


Would like to keep in contact over this topic if ok with you.

Anyway thanks so far.

No pub tonite -- thick fog & thick ice so 3 ltrs tempranillo under threat!!!! Cheers, TonyB.