Sky HD box

*flutterby*

My OH is about to buy a sky HD box and if it was left to him he'd phone sky and just pay whatever price they said...

I don't know much about these things but I'm sure it's worth me finding out if we can get it cheaper etc...?

Anyone any tips for me please, have tried searching the forum and nothing came up... all help much appreciated!

illmonkey

http://electronics.search.ebay.co.uk/sky-hd-box_Satellite-Cable-Freeview_W0QQcatrefZC12QQfromZR8QQfsooZ1QQfsopZ1QQsacatZ15069

You wont get them much cheaper else where.

Dont forget the £10 a month charge!

I've also PM'd you

slowen

The box is £299 directly from SKY I think that includes installation but not 100% sure, from what I remember you only have to pay the £10 monthly charge if you don't subscribe to either the movies or sports channels

You could see if they offer any deal to drop the price or offer some extra channels for a cheaper price etc...

I presume you already have a High Definition TV

I am thinking of getting a HD box but seeing that their is not much in HD at the moment apart from sports and movie channels I am going to wait and after seeing a report on the Gadget show last week saying that even though some channels are described as "high definition" they still show programmes in normal definition as you have to check the individual programme listings to see if it says "shown in HD"

nicolarichard

i recently got rid of sky, but when we rang to cancel they offered loads of deals, one of them was an upgrade to sky plus - that was before HD. So if you have sky already make sure you ring them and bargain with them for a good deal, they'll do owt to keep your business!!!!

zorber

slowen wrote:

The box is £299 directly from SKY I think that includes installation but not 100% sure, from what I remember you only have to pay the £10 monthly charge if you don't subscribe to either the movies or sports channels

You could see if they offer any deal to drop the price or offer some extra channels for a cheaper price etc...

I presume you already have a High Definition TV

I am thinking of getting a HD box but seeing that their is not much in HD at the moment apart from sports and movie channels I am going to wait and after seeing a report on the Gadget show last week saying that even though some channels are described as "high definition" they still show programmes in normal definition as you have to check the individual programme listings to see if it says "shown in HD"

I beleive they charge £10 A MONTH on top of what ever package you already have even the premium package

NilesD

Installation of a Sky HD box is not free, and costs £60 extra.

However, if you are looking for a Sky HD and HD Television, if you pop down to Curry's and buy yourself a HD television you can get the Sky HD box for £199 (installation excluded), so £260 incl. installation.

However, if you take Sky HD on multiroom and get a Sky+ or standard Sky digibox (ie, have atleast 2 boxes) then installation is absolutely free.

The £10 a month charge is for the subscription to the HD channels. You don't have to have this subscription, however, it's pretty pointless buying a Sky HD box and not having the HD channels (other than the HD box has 160gb of recording space, whereas the Sky+ has 80gb (unless it's an old Sky+ 160 model which has now been discontinued to make way for the Sky HD)).

So.

If you take the top package, with all the premium sports and movies channels, it comes to £42.50 a month. Then, adding your HD Subscription, it is £52.50 a month.

You do not need to pay for your Sky+ subscription (which enables you to record tv shows and rewind and pause on your HD box) when taking the top package as it comes as a free bonus offer (Free Sky+ when taking 2 or more premium channels is the exact promotional descriptory)).

I used to work for Sky, this is how I know this.

Other offers from Sky lately that you may find interesting are the 4 months half price offer. This offer can be redeemed by visiting an independant Sky salesman (the guys you see in shopping malls or working off of Sky trucks or selling Sky in their shops).

This offer gives you 50% off for 4 months, but you must make an up-front payment. So, when you sign up, you must agree to pay up front the first month's bill (50% off the first months bill ofcourse).

All in all, a nice little bargain.

mpython

As others have said, Sky HD currently costs £299 (box) + £60 (installation) but you need a HD ready TV (I was one of the lucky ones who got the 40" LCD from Aldi). I signed up to Sky through Quidco and will get £50 back. Alternatively you can by a non Sky HD box and just get BBC HD (& other channels if you've a motorised dish).

With Sky, you can sign up for a variety of packages, the cheapest is £15 a month, the max is £43 and I got half price for first three months. For HD you add £10 a month to get the HD packages within the relevant package. Only BBC HD is free to air on the sky satellite and broadcasts 1 - 4 hours each evening, the rest of the day is a long spooling advert for HD. Mind you this Sat coming has an England Game, 2 of the new Robin hood episodes and Jools Holland. For the £15 package you can get SKY1 HD plus Nat Geographic or Artsworld (neither of which I've watched) but not everything is broadcast in HD on these channels either, so you get Star Trek & Stargate in HD but Simpsons is only ordinary broadcast quality.

There are 2 sky sports HD channels which have the same content as ordinary sky sports channels but a fair amount of the programmes are in HD, e.g. Sunday & Monday Football, Ryder Cup, but as I say some content isn't HD e.g. Spanish football.

There are 2 Sky movie HD channels and these have nearly all HD movies, e.g. Sat had Revenge of the Sith, Sun had Collateral and yesterday had Son of the Mask. there are also 2 Sky Box Office channels which have extra films or sport events for an extra charge.

Despite the paucity of content on some of the HD channels I find the HD picture quality is fantastic and am really, really pleased. If you do go for it, just be aware of what is available for the price you're paying.

I intend to offset the high monthly charge with Sky broadband (if they ever get back to me - see separate thread on Vent Chat forum) and Sky credit card (which suits me as I pay off in full every month)

*flutterby*

Thanks for all your help...

We do indeed already have a HD TV, at the moment we have a sky plus box and have the full sky subscription. We know about the £10 extra a month but my bf is not MSE at all and this doesn't seem to bother him- I'm sure he does it just to tell everyone in the pub!

As for the channels available, again we are aware of this and we have done all the research we need, we're simply just looking for the best deal on the actual box as the installation is very simple and we can do this ourselves!

Thanks again for all your help

mpython

Ahh, one more thing then. if you don't let Sky install it (& connect to your phone line) the box is £399, not £299!

Best of luck. Hope you enjoy it as much I do at the moment.