Sky

[AndyP & Lenore]

[mounts soapbox]

Been a Sky subscriber for about 12 or 13 years. Been a Sky + Subscriber for about 3 years.

Our Sky + box went faulty about a year ago, so being out of warranty we paid the £65 charge and got the engineer out. He replaced the box with a refurbished box, new warranty for 90 days. 6 months later the box fails again, so, not prepared to pay for another dodgy refurbished box, we bought a new box through Sky for £99.

2 months after that new box was installed it started going wonky. Kept jumping in recordings, missing a few seconds here and there. Really annoying. Knowing that Sky would ask me to wipe the hard drive in a service telephone call, I put off calling them until about a month ago. Sure enough, hard drive wiped, lost everything. Couldn't be avoided. But it didn't fix the fault, and our recordings kept skipping wee bits.

So, another call to Sky, and an engineer arranged for today between 8am and 1pm. Engineer arrived at 6.30PM!!! And agreed we need a new box. but it would be a refurbished box. No chance I say, that was a brand new box we bought and is still under warranty. So 2 calls to sky later and they are refusing to replace the faulty box with a new box, had to be a refurb job.

So sent the engineer away with a "thank you, but no thank you" message.

Still left with a faulty box, 6 months to go on our subscription and Sky simply don't care.

They've had the monopoly for far too long IMHO.

Don't get me wrong, when Sky + boxes work, it is a great service, but Sky themselves are greedy and uncaring towards their loyal customers.

Off to look into Free Sat, a mate mentioned to me a while ago.

[/dismounts soapbox]

A.:mad:

[Burple]

Don't blame ya matey.. they're pretty bad for stuff like that.
I'm getting Virgin in the flat soon, you only rent that box, so if it goes wrong, no matter how, they whack in a nice new one for you..

..Well that and the cable Broadband :cool: I;m going for the 3 for £30 thing. I'll miss Sky1 for Lost and the like (*cof*download! ..Oh.. hello offic..);), and a couple of other channels, but most of them are there on the Virgin pack, and their Movies on Demand are pretty damn good :cool:

[AndyP & Lenore]

Don't blame ya matey.. they're pretty bad for stuff like that.
I'm getting Virgin in the flat soon, you only rent that box, so if it goes wrong, no matter how, they whack in a nice new one for you..

..Well that and the cable Broadband :cool: I;m going for the 3 for £30 thing. I'll miss Sky1 for Lost and the like (*cof*download! ..Oh.. hello offic..);), and a couple of other channels, but most of them are there on the Virgin pack, and their Movies on Demand are pretty damn good :cool:

Sadly, no Cable in the sleepy Borders.

A.:(

[Scottie]

we had a couple of our SKY+ boxes doing the same thing and getting replaced by refurbished ones from Sky which were just as bad. Right from the day they were replaced. Eventually decided to buy a new box from shop@panasonic in Inverness and to date that one has been fine.

We had a free view down here the one that records it was a nightmare also and not as good as SKy + but that was a couple years back.

As much as SKY take the mick I wouldn't be without it.

[Craig]

I have no option, I must use sky as I have no cable in what is the centre of scotland. :eek: :rolleyes: :(

their service is terrible, you have to pay for everything they do AND they seem to have worse customer service than MINI.. :rolleyes: ;)

hope you get a satisfactory conclusion A & L. :)

[Scottie]

I have no option, I must use sky as I have no cable in what is the centre of scotland. :eek: :rolleyes: :(

their service is terrible, you have to pay for everything they do AND they seem to have worse customer service than MINI.. :rolleyes: ;)

hope you get a satisfactory conclusion A & L. :)

there is cable in Larbert.:D

[The Dogfather]

I ditched Sky when we moved south, we've got a Sony Freeview recorder thingy. It's not as good as Sky+ but it's paid for itself in the time we've been down here.

I still have an old Sky+ box in our cupboard just in case we decided to reconnect but so far I haven't been tempted.

[euan]

I have to admit, I ditched everything for Freeview over two years ago. Reckon I've saved about a grand in that time (used to pay 40 quid a month on cable). I miss the live football but to be honest I didn't really watch it enough to warrant the cost. So a new Freeview recorder is coming my way once the wedding is out of the way with Setanta which gives me some of the games.

What about BT Vision? Same idea, you rent the box and it's all done via broadband?

[GAJ]

I have a Topfield Freeview recorder - fantasticc piece of kit. Highly recommended!

[AndyP & Lenore]

I have a Topfield Freeview recorder - fantasticc piece of kit. Highly recommended!

I've seen on www.avforums.com the Topfield is very highly spoken of.;)

We've just always wanted more than what Freeview offers.:o

A.

[AndyP & Lenore]

So, Freesat.....

Freesat web linky (http://www.freesat.co.uk/home.php).

It looks like this will just be Freeview by satalite. They are being careful not to say that, but that's how it looks to me. Although it has some HD channels as well. That's something I've refused to pay Sky for - an extra £10 a month for essentially 3 usable HD channels. I don't think so!

I just hope the boxes are good quality, 'cos the Sky boxes are really unreliable. Thomson, Pace, Amstrad - none of them seem to last.

A.:D

[Colin]

I've got a Humax Freeview recorder with twin tuners, cracking piece of kit, by far the best Freeview pic quality I've seen. :cool:

[duncan]

Freeview? 40% of Dundee gets nothing, and Virgin/Telewest don't cover the whole city, so to get any decent signal it has to be Sky.

The V Box seems to be a good bit of kit, but the customer service is appalling.

BT Vision? I have a BT Vision box still in the packaging. They kindly omitted to say you needed to get freeview before I ordered it. Plus you need their Broadband to get it to work.

[AndyP & Lenore]

Freeview? 40% of Dundee gets nothing, and Virgin/Telewest don't cover the whole city, so to get any decent signal it has to be Sky.

The V Box seems to be a good bit of kit, but the customer service is appalling.

BT Vision? I have a BT Vision box still in the packaging. They kindly omitted to say you needed to get freeview before I ordered it. Plus you need their Broadband to get it to work.

Whats the "V" Box?

[duncan]

Whats the "V" Box?

Virgins version of Sky +

[Gismo]

If it's just the hard drive that's faulty, try fitting a larger one rather than contacting sky at all.
If it's broke now you can't break it any more :rolleyes:

[AndyP & Lenore]

If it's just the hard drive that's faulty, try fitting a larger one rather than contacting sky at all.
If it's broke now you can't break it any more :rolleyes:

I might just do that BS.

Are you familiar with the process? If so, I may get you to talk me through it. I'm guessing there's some software on it that may require transferring to a new hd dv.

A.:confused:

[AndyP & Lenore]

Virgins version of Sky +

Ah right. Got ya.

A.;)

[Gismo]

Are you familiar with the process?I used to have a step by step guide, but, i'm pretty sure it's a straight swap, i don't even think you have to format the drive.
Also, i think you need a fast spin one, ie, 7200rpm at least.

You'll have to check what type of interface though, cause in the past it's been an IDE :)

[john]

I had no choice but to use SKY, when we moved in the normal reception only gave us 2 watchable channels and the free view only slightly more as we are surrounded by Granite higher than the house 3/4 of the way round the house.

The SKY box has been playing up for some time now but is still working at the moment.

[KenL]

Did they offer you a refurb box that would honour your existing guarantee? I think they HAVE to do that.

I once had to call them. My box was goosed and I got another brand new one as a replacement.

[Gismo]

For the times i've had a replacement box i've always gotten a 12 month warranty with it