Thinking of switching TV from Virgin to Sky

Cromulent

Cromulent

Cromulent

Soldato
Joined
1 Nov 2007
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Location
England
We currently have the Virgin Media big bundle (160Mbps internet, all TV channels, free telephone calls) but I'm thinking we would get a better service if we went with Sky for TV (and BT Broadband for internet) but I'm having trouble coming up with a decisive argument as to why we should switch to Sky.

Does anyone know of any reasons that Sky is a much better bet than Virgin Media for TV? We watch quite a lot of Sky Sports and use Sky Movies as well and watch quite a lot of the other TV channels as well (mainly the documentary channels and a few of the others).

Sky Go Extra sounds cool as I'll be able to watch TV in my study rather than having to go downstairs which will mean I can watch TV and work at the same time and it works on tablets and phones which is another bonus. I also heard you get more channels with Sky?

Another question I have is what size hard drive does the free Sky+ HD box have? If it is 500GBs or more then it will be the same size as our current TIVO box which would be a big advantage.

If we did sign up for Sky we'd basically get it with all the addons available which according to their website comes out at £81 a month. Would it be possible to get any discount on that as a new customer? It sounds quite high.

I'm not very good at organising discounts when we sign up for new services even though I think we could get them if we pushed for them.
 
We went with Sky as Virgin don't offer Sky Atlantic (afaik) which my missus records a lot of.
Find MissChief on the forums somewhere and ask about a deal.

Our internet is still with Virgin as no Infinity in this area yet.
 
I have a good experience of both services, TV wise sky is better, the guide is easier to use, its faster than TiVo and the remote is much simpler to use than TiVo and the layout is better. on the same tv I believe that sky offer a slightly better picture, this is probably down to the bit rate the channels are broadcast at over sat and cable but that COULD be a placebo, but to me, its noticeable.

my sky hd box also offered hdmi cec which meant pressing one button turned on the box, tv and flicked it to the right input. I don't believe TiVo do this, although I haven't looked for the setting, I don't believe its there. I'll look tonight when I'm home.
 
I have both and wouldnt say sky is any better than virgin or vise versa.

Tbh im thinking of ditching sky all together for one of the free TV boxes, along with netflix and prime. When i thought about what i actually watch i didnt see much benefit of paying for a TV subscription. When i thought about what i watch on sky the only thing i couldnt get elsewhere was sky1 and thats mostly just simpsons repeats anyway.
 
ci_newman said:
Wait for a few weeks until Sky-Q is launched, then you'll get the new STB :)
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Hmm haven't heard of Sky-Q. I'll do some reading about it. Thanks.

Showboat said:
Why not get BB with sky as well? You would get a better deal.
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Not sure I trust Sky broadband. Anyway BT don't do any traffic management at all which is the thing that got me thinking about switching in the first place.

Edit: Just checked Sky broadband and the fastest download is only 38Mbps which is rubbish. I'd need the full 76Mbps from BT.
 
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over last few years went from full virgin to full sky (sports, films everything) to nowtv, Netflix and amazon prime.

figure out what you actually watch, if you need multiple tv tuners at all, or if it's all on, on demand. once you write down what you actually watch you can see what the cheapest and easiest way to watch it is,
 
Subbed to thread out of Interest as after coming home to Virgin I find the quality & the options ****.
 
Sky-Q looks amazing. It basically costs the same as we are already paying but you can watch TV in 2 rooms and watch it on your tablets as well and you can record more programmes at the same time as well. I'm definitely going to get this is just looks so much better than what we have at the moment.
 
I have Virgin currently (had sky in old house). The Tivo box is slow to load anything, the menus clunky, requiring about 3 extra button presses than seems necessary just to do something and it is constantly recording crap it thinks I may watch that I then have to go and delete. If anyone knows how to turn this off please share!

Virgin BB is far superior and I use it more than TV viewing so it balances out for me.
 
Sadly there are no current IAF discounts on SkyQ but if you are happy with standard Sky+HD then I can do 50% off TV. Trust message me if you're interested.
 
Mak3R said:
I have Virgin currently (had sky in old house). The Tivo box is slow to load anything, the menus clunky, requiring about 3 extra button presses than seems necessary just to do something and it is constantly recording crap it thinks I may watch that I then have to go and delete. If anyone knows how to turn this off please share!

Virgin BB is far superior and I use it more than TV viewing so it balances out for me.
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Turn off suggestions. Help & settings-settings-recordings-suggestions - no don't record suggestions.

Amazing how many people never just google turn off tivo suggestions :D
 
pepp77 said:
Turn off suggestions. Help & settings-settings-recordings-suggestions - no don't record suggestions.

Amazing how many people never just google turn off tivo suggestions :D
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Ah thanks! I did look through all the menus under "my shows" or whatever its called but couldnt find it there.
 
Cromulent said:
Hmm haven't heard of Sky-Q. I'll do some reading about it. Thanks.



Not sure I trust Sky broadband. Anyway BT don't do any traffic management at all which is the thing that got me thinking about switching in the first place.

Edit: Just checked Sky broadband and the fastest download is only 38Mbps which is rubbish. I'd need the full 76Mbps from BT.
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They also do the full speed package but just don't advertise it... you can upgrade after you have the base package.

Be warned Fibre does not work like virgin... speed will be dependent on the distance to your cabinet if your cabinet is fibre enabled... have you checked this info out?
 
Calgar117 said:
how come they dont advertise it? and i am on the 12 month 27.50 deal for 38mbps at the moment would it be £30 inc rental charges etc do you know?
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No, it's £30 just for the fibre package. It sounds like you're on the half price fibre deal. You will lose this as well so will pay £30+£17.40.
 
So we rang up Sky yesterday all ready to subscribe to Sky Q but apparently at the moment they are only taking on new orders if you take Sky Broadband with them as well which is something we really do not want to do. I've read far too many horror stories from people on Sky Broadband.

So we were thinking of switching to normal Sky with Sky+HD box and then at a later date upgrading to Sky Q. We were told we could upgrade even if the contract hadn't ended so that might be what we have to do.
 
Cromulent said:
So we rang up Sky yesterday all ready to subscribe to Sky Q but apparently at the moment they are only taking on new orders if you take Sky Broadband with them as well which is something we really do not want to do. I've read far too many horror stories from people on Sky Broadband.

So we were thinking of switching to normal Sky with Sky+HD box and then at a later date upgrading to Sky Q. We were told we could upgrade even if the contract hadn't ended so that might be what we have to do.
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The only horror stories generally you hear for sky broadband were on the old ADSL package that used to piggy back off BT old system.

I have been with Sky for many years and had there broadband and never had any problems.. Truly unlimited and no caps.
 
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