We’ve been with Sky for 13 years, as they delight in telling me when I call them to complain that my box is playing up, shortly before they tell us that all they can do is let us have a refurbed box, as an exchange but won’t let us clear the old planner first we have to give the old box to the courier when he delivers the new one. Not massively unreasonable, but seeing as if I’d been with Sky for zero years I’d be paying £15 less per month and having a sky Q box and a free tv and an X-box one it’s a bit galling.

Been trying to get through to them again this week has been a nightmare, on hold for ages, then cut off, if I do get through I just get the scripted offshore call centres trying to sell me Sport, when I’m complaining that I’m paying too much for an already substandard service.

Looking at BT TV as a replacement, the total entertainment package has all the channels we watch other then Bike (which I could live without if I’m honest) and I’d get BT sport so I could watch the MotoGP on the tele again.

But is it any good?

Opinions?

No, it’s shit. HTH.

The free box/recorder takes an age to boot up from sleep, unlike the Sky box, which is pretty much instant. The interface is clunky and unintuitive, the search is poor, the catch-up telly option is a good idea but again, very slow to use. The extra channels never actually worked for me.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/the-joy-of-btpile-of-shit-company-content

I was in exactly your position about a year ago, and made the mistake of thinking exactly like you do. And if you think that getting hold of Sky customer services and getting problems sorted is a nightmare, all I can say is you ain’t seen nothing yet.

If you had simply left Sky, or even threatened to leave, you would have got a series of increasing discounts which would have made it much better value. We’ve gone back to them.

I wouldn’t touch BT with a shitty stick. They are a customer service nightmare in my experience.

Have a go at haggling with SKY. I did and they cut my bill considerably.

If the BT TV interface is the same as YouView (that TalkTalk use) then it’s a pile of poo.

Sooooooo slow and clunky compared to Sky. I thought I could ditch Sky when TalkTalk launched their service and offered me a free TV box with my broadband.

The YouView box now lives in my daughters bedroom and we are still with Sky on the main telly.

Re customer service – in 20 odd years I can’t say I’ve ever really had a problem with Sky.

We have BT – customer service is indeed something to behold. Took me several hours and numerous calls to get the HD channels I was paying for set up on our system.

Its OK when working. Agree that the interface is clunky. I don’t watch that much sport. If it were up to me I would be happy with Freeview and Amazon Prime/ Netflix etc. The Android interface on our TV is better than the BT, but family like to record stuff and we have a contract.

Took me several hours and numerous calls to get the HD channels I was paying for set up on our system.

You actually got the channels? Lucky bastard! 🙂

PS. Anyone want a virtually unused BT TV box? You can apparently use it to record even without any connection to BT. I have a grand total of three of them, and three home hubs as well. I recognise I may not have given it the most stunning review above, mind you.

Well i’ve just been set up with BT. I was paying for their higher speed internet but not getting it, so downgraded to the slower 50mb internet and got the black friday full TV package for half price and i’m paying £1.50 less than what I was before, so worth giving it a go for 12 months to compare with Sky.

The TV comes from Freeview so that is what it is. The box has the pause, fast forward/rewind, record functionality of Sky+, which seems to work better than Sky+, but my Sky box is a good few years old now. Again, the guide works in exactly the same way as with Sky so don’t understand the pretty severe criticism of previous comments. It looks different and behaves slightly differently, but you get used to that and it works slicker and quicker than my few years old Sky box, which is clunky, slow and crashes and freezes alot. I’ve not really had much of a chance to play with their internet services so can’t really comment.

I’ve not had that many issues with BT customer services, you get the usual problems trying to get to actually talk to a real human being as you do with any big service provider these days, but a bit of patience when i’ve got to talk to someone they’ve done a good job for me. I’ve not had to test their customer services that much as i’ve not had a problem with anything yet, but Sky also have a terrible reputation too, so I can’t imagine BT will be any better or worse than Sky.

I just fancy trying something different to Sky. I’ve been an ideal customer for them for many many years and I get nothing back from them and the idea that I could get a better deal by ringing them up makes me think why should I. They should be ringing me up trying to give me a better deal, so as long as BTTV does everything I did with Sky then it will be adios Sky. The only thing i’ll miss is Sky Atlantic for GoT and the new series of Fortitude.

MotoGP is the crack cocaine that keeps us with BT, the coverage is really good. Dunno if it’s worth the £80-odd per month that we pay (telly, phone and interweb) though.

I thought you could pay a fiver a month and watch BT Sport on your Sky Box?

Not had Sky for years (approx. 10), had the bog standard Freeview up until 3 years when I got BT TV, through working for them.

I quite like it good that all the players are there for all the free to air channels. Netflix, Now TV etc also available. Can’t really see a problem with the interface, I have access to VM and Sky and don’t find it any worse than them.

Never really bother with sports channels (except for Eurosport for the Biathlon and cycling coverage) or the ‘entertainment’ channels only so much Alaskan Bush People you can watch.

Would I have it if I wasn’t getting it for cheap, probably not but I wouldn’t bother with Sky or VM either. HTH