Never had Sky TV – is it worth it?

Currently a freeview viewer.

Depends how much TV you watch. I had it but got rid of it as I found I was hardly watching it and listen to the radio/cd's more. I found it repeated it self a lot but some of the documentaries were good and to be honest the only channel I miss now is Sky 1.

Sky+ box is a big pull for us.

Depending on where you live and what you watch, it's worth looking at Virgin too.

Sky and Virgin seem good for a few months, Sky having by far the better interface of the two. Virgin's so bad that I wouldn't have it. You soon realise the same stuff is coming around and around and around and around over and over again, particularly on the documentary channels.

A hell of a lot of the channel's content is bought in from the BBC and ITV – Discovery's motoring channel is still showing Deals on Wheels etc. The big deal in my view is that you get the really good stuff from HBO before anyone else, which might be worth the subscription for you.

The good stuff does, however, eventually find its way to terrestrial, but is often broadcast at terrible times. The Wire was on the BBC at stupid o'clock at night for example.

End result is, I find that with a PVR, I can record more decent stuff from Freeview than I have the time to watch.

Sky is worth it for the Sky+ box and The Simpsons.

Virgin is worth it for the V+ box and The Simpsons

See what I did there 😉

Plus you can leverage Virgin by telling them you're going to leave for Sky and they apply a nice discount to your monthly bill with 'Sky discount' against it 🙂

no its not worth it i cancelled all mt sky….. still get some free channels tho… looking into getting 'feesat'…. need to check that out… have to get a 'feesat' box tho a one off fee ….

freesat that is…. soddin spell checker… 😆

I think it is. But that's just me.

HTH

No….nowt but repeats and general tosh, the only thing that has any live or non repeated content is the sports.

As has been said, really does depend on how much TV you watch. It's expensive for what it is IMO but I still subscribe and even then sometimes think there's nothing worth watching on so don't think freeview would have enough watchable content for me. Then again I should get out and ride more :p

Virgin is worth it for the V+ box and The Simpsons

See what I did there
Either<>Either doesn't really bother me either way but we have Sky as we don't have cable in our area (which I assume is the only way you can get Virgin still).

But in general people prefer the Sky interface than the Virgin one and the boxes appear to have less failures.

We went for Sky specifically for the Sky+ box, but went for minimum monthly rate which includes stuff like Dave and Gold. Having Sky+ is the only way we could get the facility to watch one program while recording another. No terrestrial/Freeview in our area

As has been said, really does depend on how much TV you watch.

And what programmes you watch. I find that a lot of the stuff I'm interested in gets tucked away at silly times in the schedule, and that if there's something good on at 9pm on one channel, there will almost certainly be a competing programme I also want to watch on another. Recording that kind of stuff very quickly gives you a lot of telly to watch.

We went for Sky specifically for the Sky+ box, but went for minimum monthly rate which includes stuff like Dave and Gold.

That is something that REALLY boils my piss. Dave is free on freeview, as is E4 and the like. Get the most basic Sky or Virgin package, and you realise that you have to pay for stuff you can get for free elsewhere. Bonkers.

No ones mentioned price and for me at £25 a month for HD+ and all the channels its worth it even if i dont watch it much. You need to shop around as you can get ripped off if you go direct to them. There are some good deals to be had if you happy to wait and look around.

Sky having by far the better interface of the two. Virgin's so bad that I wouldn't have it.

That's not my experiance at all.

I prefer the interface on our new(ish) V+ box to our old Sky+ box. Better service and features imo as well. The one thing Sky is better at is HD, but Virgin is getting there with that too.

Tesco do refurb'd Thomson PVR boxes (160Gb) that are almost as good as a Sky+ for around £70. For the amount I watch this was a better deal, especially since Le Tour was more or less live on ITV4 for the duration anyway.

Having to pay a basic sub just to activate Sky+ waas what finished it for me, I've never subscribed to Movies or Sports.

No ones mentioned price ….. at £25 a month

its worth it even if i dont watch it much

You might have to explain that one to me…

We ditched Sky about 5 or 6 years ago. Waste of money unles you want the premium sport content

We went for Sky specifically for the Sky+ box, but went for minimum monthly rate which includes stuff like Dave and Gold.

That is something that REALLY boils my piss. Dave is free on freeview, as is E4 and the like. Get the most basic Sky or Virgin package, and you realise that you have to pay for stuff you can get for free elsewhere. Bonkers.

You can get all that kind of stuff free on Freesat but Freesat doesn't give you a very good hard disk recorder, the ability to watch one channel while recording another, or free dish installation.

Agree about the Sky+ box. I hardly watch any TV, but at least I can now reliably catch the stuff I do watch. The kids channels are good too (if you have kids of course)

Freesat with a Humax recorder box thing for us works very well.

the ability to watch one channel while recording another

or in Virgin's case, the ability to record two channels while watching a third – sounds like a gimmick but is actually suprisingly useful when things overlap.

having had one of those dodgy boxes that decodes everything down your cable for just the basic subscription for three years, i can say with some certainty that when they switch the encryption in our area, we won't bother to subscribe to either sky or cable – we'll just go freeview. there's been some stuff that i've enjoyed watching, but there's been a number of occasions of 'nothing on', and really, life's too short…

no because you have to give money to an evil bitter old man……

Agree with Kimbers. Hate giving money to Murdoch, but unfortunately no choice

You might have to explain that one to me…

We ditched Sky about 5 or 6 years ago. Waste of money unless you want the premium sport content

I have been on the look out for sky hd for some time and a month back there was a promotion which included free box, free installation, free HD for the year and 50% off all packages so i went for the whole hog. Sports, movies, kids, history, entertainment the works bar ESPN and porn and it costs me £24.99 a month for a year after which i will ditch it and look for the next promotion and put it in the wife’s name as sky treat there new customers better than their existing. A new customer is someone who has not had sky for 12months or more.

Its worth it for me as I like to watch the motorsport on Sky, Eurosport and MotorsTV. Sky+ is essential to get the best from it though.

Only you can decide if its worth it for you.

800 channels of crap and about 3-4 that we actually watch. Not worth it in my opinion and I really should get the finger out and cancel it.

and fwiw i have a freeview recorder and its brilliant

its HD compatible 250gb memory, dvd player/recorder and as someone else says it records way more stuff than i can ever reasonably watch, unless i break my leg or something!?

I remember there were many more & longer ad breaks – so bad I didn't watch the sky channels

Not entirely sure it's worth it but the Sky+ box is very good, HD is brilliant and the selection of movies is nice. I don't bother with the Sport as not a huge sport fan.

Still if you can afford it and are willing to pay the monthly fee then why not.

That is something that REALLY boils my piss. Dave is free on freeview, as is E4 and the like. Get the most basic Sky or Virgin package, and you realise that you have to pay for stuff you can get for free elsewhere. Bonkers

But if you have a TV bought in pretty much the last 5 years you can get those channels anyway without the need of an extra box.

We're only on it cos of a deal ~132 for a year for all bar one of the packages, free HD, free sky+ box and free install.
A month or so down the line, and I don't think it's worth even that. We've followed a lot of the big American series over the last few years on torrents, but have quickly realised that on Sky most channels seem to have one or two decent shows, repeated a lot, with lots of filler and ads. HD is really nice (it was great having Eurosport for the tdf), but a lot of stuff on the HD channels is broadcast in SD. TCM is the only thing I think we'll miss. After the year's up, if we think HD's worthwhile we'll go freesat, else just go back to freeview and a pvr, and keep downloading torrents.

isnt freeview going HD soon anyway?

Anyone know of any decent deals on Sky at the minute? Moving at the end of the week and will be getting it in my new place.

Cheers

One thing worth considering when costing up Sky, is you might be able to claw back some of your monthly costs by moving your broadband to Sky. When I changed over, the price of Sky TV plus Sky Broadband was about a fiver more than I was already paying just for ADSL. Looking at it like that, it was suddenly a no-brainer.

You can get £65 off plus £50 in vouchers by going through TopCashBack.

(Note that this link contains my referrer ID so I'll get a few pence if you use it, click here instead if you really object to such things)

as above…

sky+ is great, had it for years, but when you look at how much we pay, (got the phone and internet) and actually how much TV we watch we would be better going back to normal freesat and getting tHE broadband back with BT.

TV has never been worse IMO but i have to persuade the wife.

its true though i think i spend more time actually surfing the channels for something tidy to watch than actually watching a programme!

the only downside to getting rid of sky is you wont have the sky+ facility, i have tried PVR's in the past but they are sh*te!

as for HD i would only go this route if you love your sport, apart form sport and the natural history channels its not worth it IMO

then again what do i know!

PVRs have come a long way in recent years, incidentally.

, i have tried PVR's in the past but they are sh*te!

you want one of these, much prefer it to my parents sky+ for the interface and functionality to be honest