Warning - SKY £75 Pay Once Watch Forever problems

NonGeographicalMan

davemurgatroyd wrote: »

The current FSFS installation spec is only for a single output lnb and single cable neither of which are obsolete and still stocked in Sky's warehouses. You certainly would not get a refurb box although Sky did recall stocks of all the new SD standard boxes from their agents when the new box was introduced for multiroom so whether they still have stock is unknown.

I guess I may as well give it a go as I would at least get Sky Sports F1 on this package free for 6 months (unless Sky are going to make Sky Sports F1 chargeable as a specialist sports package only channel before the end of 6 months time?). Or at least I think Sky Sports F1 is still available to Sky subscribers with only SD boxes as well on HD boxes?

davemurgatroyd

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

I guess I may as well give it a go as I would at least get Sky Sports F1 on this package free for 6 months (unless Sky are going to make Sky Sports F1 chargeable as a specialist sports package only channel before the end of 6 months time?). Or at least I think Sky Sports F1 is still available to Sky subscribers with only SD boxes as well on HD boxes?

Sky Sports F1 is NOT available on FreesatFromSky and the cheapest subscription option to receive it is the basic Entertainment pack plus the HD pack at £30.25 per month. If the package you are referring to is the Pay Once View Forever offer - that only included I believe 4 basic SD mixes (which would now be the equivalent of the Entertainment Plus package) but does not include the HD pack. Sky Sports F1 is only available to subscribers taking either the Sports OR HD packages so would require you to commit to an extra subscription and I believe the HD pack is a minimum of 12 months contract.

NonGeographicalMan

davemurgatroyd wrote: »

Pay Once View Forever offer - that only included I believe 4 basic SD mixes

Actually there were two flavours of the Sky Pay Once Watch Forever (as it was actually called) package. The originally released version came with 2 Mixes for 6 Months but Sky then clearly decided this only encouraged a tendency to not become sufficiently hooked to keep on subscribing so they changed it in later sales packs to 4 Mixes for 4 Months.

You say BBC/ITV Freesat wouldn't like it if Sky also had a PVR version of their Freesat box but why should Sky care as they actually want people to buy a box where they can also consume pay tv. The actual reason Sky won't let HD box customers record without paying a subscription is because they fear that a large number of their customers would desubscribe and make do with the FTA and FTV channels only.

almillar

NonGeographicMan - I don't know where on earth you're getting your information from about the F1 channel, but you get it by being a Sky subscriber with at least the basic subscription PLUS EITHER:
the HD pack (£10.25?) OR
Sky Sports 1 AND 2 (£20.50?)

Gratis

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

I guess I may as well give it a go as I would at least get Sky Sports F1 on this package free for 6 months (unless Sky are going to make Sky Sports F1 chargeable as a specialist sports package only channel before the end of 6 months time?). Or at least I think Sky Sports F1 is still available to Sky subscribers with only SD boxes as well on HD boxes?

Sky’s Formula One channel is broadcast, simultaneously, on 408 in HD and on 459 in SD.

Neither can be watched with just a basic Sky subscription.

If you subscribe to the HD pack (£10.25 per month) you can watch either of the two channels. To do this, you need no Sky Sport whatsoever.

If you don’t subscribe to the HD pack but do subscribe to both Sky Sport 1 and Sky Sport 2 (together – it has to be the two of them, not just one of them) you can watch the Formula One channel, only in SD, on 459.

This being so, even if you don’t have an HD television it’s still cheaper to subscribe to Sky’s HD pack (for £10.25 per month) and watch the Formula One in SD on channel 459 than it is to subscribe to Sky Sport 1 and Sky Sport 2 (together) for £20 per month and watch the Formula One on that same SD channel, 459.

The saving would be £9.75 a month, which may not sound a lot but adds up to £197 per year, which is wasted if the rest of Sky Sport has no appeal to you.

Subscribing to the HD pack would also offer you a cheap Sky+HD box upgrade, (particularly if you do it via Quidco or Top Casbback) which subscribing to the Sky Sports channels doesn’t.


This is the situation for the whole of the 2012 Formula One season, which ends in November. What the situation will be for the 2013 Formula One season on Sky is anyone’s guess. I doubt that even Sky has decided on that, yet.

What’s good about it at the moment is that some bright spark at Sky realises that motor racing is actually not a sport at all and that it appeals to a great many people who aren’t remotely interested in sport – and who (like I) wouldn’t pay Sky £20 a month for two channels of it just to watch Formula One. Not everyone likes to spend their time watching men playing with balls (even if those who do seem so to assume).


With regard to the boxes themselves, paying Sky £10 a month (£120 a year) for a Free-to-View recording facility makes no economic sense whatsoever given the purchase price of a Humax FreeSat or Freeview box. Particularly when you take into account that you can add external USB drives to a Humax box for archiving (permanently) and that, in contrast, if you ever stop continuing to pay Sky for a recording facility you will lose access to all the recordings you have ever made on the meagre hard drive facilities that a Sky+ or Sky+HD box provides.



(Sky, incidentally is a company and a company is a single entity; it are not a plural entity.)