From NTL to Sky, is BT line-rental the only one I can have?

girish_2

Firstly HEINZ "So, if you cancel TV, your bill will show £10.50 plus whatever BB costs." WHAT'S BB?

My broadband is connected to my set-top box. SILVERCAR how did you know you needed an indepen cable modem if you didn't need to swap, did they ask you when you said you wanted to cancel your TV? Also I know they require 30 days notice to cancel their services, but do you have to pay ntl any money to do that etc?

ok well this is a typical bill of ours:

1 PremPlus Season Ticket -
1 Family Plus Duel Sports £45.50
1 Zee TV £6.00
1 Digital Set top box rent -
1 Unlimited 1Mb £17.99
1 Standard 321 -
1 Fully Itemised Billing £1.00
1 Line rental with TV Pack -

Total Service Charges £70.49

* I think I''m right in splitting the digital television (which is supplied by Ntl) as follows:

Family Pack £19.50 per month
Duel Sports £15.50 per month
Total = £35

Therefore the 'hidden line rental of £10.50 makes the total to £45.50" but this was where I was confused, as it seems weird they would include the hidden line rental cost in the tv package of £45.50 as surely it's part of the phone and nothing to do with the digital television.

Can I clarify SILVERCAR is it possible to

1)cancel all of my tv channels that ntl give me. This is the best scenario, so I would still be paying £10.50 line rental for the call plan as shown in bill and keep my existing broadband connection with ntl 2.

2)Would I be able to keep Zee TV as the only channel (which is an additional subscription of £6 p/month on ntl's digital and cancel all others (e.g. their basic package.) I say this as it's cheaper on ntl than Sky. And if I have to have ntl's basic digital TV package as a minimum and couldn't just have one channel on it then it's something to consider.

I say this as one thing concerning me was that ntl could say you cannot cancel all of your tv packages as you have to have their basic TV package as a minimum in order to continue using our calling plan etc

If I can cancel all of my TV channels on NTL, thus leaving my existing calling plan of paying for what you use, the £10.50 line rental and £17.99 broadband, then how quickly

girish_2

Heinz wrote:

I'm confused too but I think I can clarify this one point for you.

If you have TV from NTL, your telephone 'line rental' (currently £10.50 per month) is included and so doesn't show on your bill.

If you don't have TV from NTL, the line rental (currently £10.50) appears on your bill.

So, if you cancel TV, your bill will show £10.50 plus whatever BB costs.

...A typical bill of ours-
1 PremPlus Season Ticket -
1 Family Plus Duel Sports £45.50
1 Zee TV £6.00
1 Digital Set top box rent -
1 Unlimited 1Mb £17.99
1 Standard 321 -
1 Fully Itemised Billing £1.00
1 Line rental with TV Pack -

Total Service Charges £70.49

* I think I''m right in splitting the digital television (which is supplied by Ntl) as follows:

Family Pack £19.50 per month
Duel Sports £15.50 per month
Total = £35

Therefore the 'hidden line rental of £10.50 makes the total to £45.50" but this was where I was confused, as it seems weird they would include the hidden line rental cost in the tv package of £45.50 as surely it's part of the phone and nothing to do with the digital television.

...we do have digital tv from ntl (as shown in the breakdown so if i was to cancel my digital television from ntl, £10.50 line-rental would eppear on my bill. That line rental can only be for use of the telephone as it isn't for broadband, and television would have been cancelled so it can't have been for that.

So my final question is, if i cancel my digital tv from ntl, £10.50 line rental appears on my bill: at the monent is says the following on my bill-

1 Standard 321 -
1 Fully Itemised Billing £1.00
1 Line rental with TV Pack -

Basically if the £10.50 line rental continues to therefore appear on my bill, am i to premsume that that means that my telephone calling package with ntl will continue, even if i have no digital television channels with them?

Heinz

girish wrote:

Basically if the £10.50 line rental continues to therefore appear on my bill, am i to premsume that that means that my telephone calling package with ntl will continue, even if i have no digital television channels with them?

It should do but it'd be prudent to call and ask.

Lunar-Tech

I was considering leaving NTL to go to FreeSat now that film four is going free to air.
I currently on the three for thirty pound package.
To just have the phone and broadband would cost me £28.50 so the basic TV costs me only £1.50 PM.
Now i'm not sure its worth changing.

girish_2

i guess it's upto what the individual wants.

£1.50 for television? how does that work. i thought ntl's cheapest package was £5.50.

btw i have just noticed that it says the £5.50 excludes the standard £11 line rental (gone up from £10.50.) i will phone ntl up tomorrow anyway to check if i cancel my digital television channels, whether i can keep by calling package.

i guess if i can't, ill have to get the basic tv pack, but i worked it out and it's slightly cheaper than way as we want to keep asian channels- which are 2x the cost ntl does them at.

at the mo i just have to find out which package we are on, tv&telephone&broadband, telephone&broadband etc. but i guess ntl till let me know. ill find out at let you know

girish_2

ok so there's a new snag.

we intended to get sky hd. bought a tv 6 months ago from a local shop. its hd compatible and he told us before we got it it was hd ready.

then my parents questioned him a month ago and he told them it has hdmi and that is high definition so its hd ready.

ive done more research now to know it's bull and now the differences so we are going back at some point telling him we want to be compensated in some sort of way as he sold the goods under false pretences, which is against the law.

we have a good r'ship with him as my aunt also bought a tv from him after we did and he gave us a present for that. im sure it wont go as far as court but if he says no then i will tell him i will go to a consumer watchdog. we spent 2k which included thee LG42XPRVA with wall bracket, 2 installations (had to be lowered 2nd time) and 5 yrs insurance. good deal but thats the situation.

the current sky offer of 6 months free sports or movie is good and next week we will order it. what one im not sure.

i know we could get sky hd as it plugs into an hdmi socket but havent seen sky hd on hd com tv it's all on hd ready ones. failing that we will deffo get sky+,however may be worthwile buying standard sky for the meantime as the hd box is 300quid and about 100 i think for the sky+ one.

btw called ntl and they said if i cancelled my packages and wanted just the basic pack at 5.50 with zee then they could do that immediately over the phone and i wouldnt be billed for the remainder of the months (eg if i calcelled 1 week into a month, i wouldnt be charged for the other 3 weeks)

we missed the prem plus cancellation deadline so am going to get basic pack and zee on ntl for a year and get rest of channels on sly. keeping ntl broadband.

BexTech

Your post makes very little sense.

Yes if the TV has HDMI then it's HD Ready, however it should be HDCP too.

Now there are many HD Ready TVs out there that are just that, they take the HD signal and display on their poor resolution screen.

You get screen with resolutions of 1024 x 1024 of 1336 x 768 these are just old panels TV/screen manufacturers are trying to get rid off, what you want it True HD screens these will be either the minimum spec 1280 x 720 or the higher spec 1920 x 1080.

girish_2

http://www.lge.com/products/model/detail/42px3rva.jhtml

even in the spec it says not hd ready due to native resolution.

this is the link to the other forum i have been looking at my problem with:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=367882

so yes i know the tv can receive the hd signel but because the res is so low it compreses the pixels down so that what i really see is standard def.

BexTech

girish wrote:

http://www.lge.com/products/model/detail/42px3rva.jhtml

even in the spec it says not hd ready due to native resolution.

this is the link to the other forum i have been looking at my problem with:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=367882

so yes i know the tv can receive the hd signel but because the res is so low it compreses the pixels down so that what i really see is standard def.

Right, I see, I thought you meant it was a HD Ready labelled TV, not just the retailer said it was, as your other post was impossible to work out was was being said, most just didn't make sense. Reading the link you posted, I can see the TV isn't labelled HDy Ready.

This is just a very very poorer spec screen with HDMI port, the resolution is lower than UK SD PAL (*576 lines) this is 852 x 480 which means you are throwing away 100 lines even on standard broadcasts.

I would demand a full refund, as you were sold something that wasn't as described.

BexTech

If you are going down the HD route you really want a True HD HDTV and not just HD Ready, as you read on AV Forum, it just means it can display at least 720 lines, it may do this by upscaling and downscaling, as some screens are only 1024 x 768 when it should be 1280 x 720, some 1337 x 769, some 1024 x 1024.

Still CRT screens give a much better picture than LCD or Plasma, but if you want to take HD seriously, then look for True HD screens, which will have either the minumum spec of 1280 x 720 or the top spec of of 1920 x 1080.