Alternative to Sky

CliffyG · 24 May 2016 at 13:11

So all my deals have run out with Sky until mid July. My bill is £130 for all the TV packages, HD, multi-room, fibre and phone. BT sport HD with multi-room is another £35 on top of that. So £165 all in, mental!

I do like the product though, the Sky+ boxes are great and I watch a lot of the Sky Atlantic series. I'm not too fussed about movies but football is very important to me and the wife. It's rare we can watch a game as it kicks off and utilise Sky+ quite heavily for televised games. On top of that sometimes we go on media blackout on Saturday afternoons and evenings for the full game replay at 20:00 or the hour highlights at 22:00. Need the kids TV too really.

What is everyone else doing?

BT looks like they are throwing internet at you which would be helpful for BT sports but I don't think the sport is completely free now.

I hate Virgin but they keep sending me leaflets every month with massively discounted rates. Do they maintain these after the first year?

CliffyG · 24 May 2016 at 16:36

I'm starting to think I should ditch Sky fibre, phone and movies see what deals I can get with what's leftover then move phone and internet to BT for cheaper BT sports. Must be some sort of saving in there?

Presumably with the free BT sports I can still view it through my Sky box?

CliffyG · 25 May 2016 at 12:43

Because of my viewing habits, streaming isn't really a solution for me.

CliffyG · 25 May 2016 at 16:33

cactusweasel said:
why do you hate virgin so much? I wish I could get virgin in my town, but I cannot.

I've dealt with them a lot through work and also from other people who use them. I don't like the Tivo either.

CliffyG · 22 Jul 2016 at 13:03

Well I ended up getting the Virgin Big Kahuna bundle with HD Sky. With the deal I save 80 quid a month and only miss out on Sky Atlantic. I can acquire the shows from that channel elsewhere. The ended up changing the install date a day before they were due in to 2 weeks later so ended up using my neighbours wireless temporarily. I did get £60 quid off my first bill and 2 months free HD Sky though. Internet is solid, router is better than Sky's but I'm struggling with the Tivo and the less said about the V+ HD box the better but I'm going to soldier on as the money saving is ridiculous. I got 6 months Netflix with it too as well as a free tablet. Even when it's at full price after a year it will still be a 55 quid saving a month at £115.

CliffyG · 25 Jul 2016 at 12:15

Am getting pixilation occasionally, how is this possible when the cable is supposed to be free from interference.

On top of that my V+ HD box has nearly gone out the window on 2 occasions. Once you get past the even worse than Tivo interface it's just downright shoddy. Occasionally it starts humming quite loud, not particularly suitable for the bedroom. I recorded Vikings the other day, the program just hung at 28 minutes, I couldn't manually go to a point further in time then all programs stopped displaying. Tried to restart the box and it never came back up so I just unplugged it till the morning. Last night pixilation on my UFC recording made it unwatchable, wondered if it was all the FF I was doing to skip adverts etc so tried to reboot the box. Didn't come back up, rebooted it again, still didn't come back up so just left it unplugged. Am going to be ringing up and ranting at their customer service tonight.

I'm so used to Sky just working and being slick that this is quite a transition, poor equipment is just not helping with that. Just gotta keep thinking of the saving!

CliffyG · 25 Jul 2016 at 12:45

I'm going to try and get them to upgrade it to a Tivo for nothing.

CliffyG · 27 Jul 2016 at 12:20

Vertigo1 said:
My parents recently had their V+ box replaced with a TiVo for free. Was a second box, main was already a TiVo.

Apparently they're upgrading the network and the V+ is incompatible so, when you're affected by the upgrades, you'll get a free box. Could try asking them when your area will be done or even complaining that others are getting the upgrade for free so why should you have to wait etc

They flat out refused to swap it for free and said it would be £5 per month extra.

The engineer visited today with a replacement box which wouldn't boot then the next one did the same. Turns out they wouldn't boot while connected to HDMI. He blamed my TV, booted it without the HDMI plugged in, then connected it and buggered off. It's a brand new Panasonic, less than a week old! He didn't even try it on the TV downstairs to see if the problem followed the box.

I've just been emailed some blurb from Virgin:

You get unlimited calls – so bring on the marathon natters.
A midday natter with your friends, or a good old catch up with your family – either way you’ll save as inclusive calls to UK landlines, Virgin Mobile numbers and 0870 numbers come as standard in all our packages.

Yet I only get free weekends and get charged 26ppm at other times! The company really is a shambles and I'm sol close to telling them to take everything away, have till tomorrow to make my mind up.

CliffyG · 28 Jul 2016 at 23:01

Well stuck with them in the end, got a free TiVo box for a year. Will see how it goes, can always go back to Sky next year.