Soldato
- Joined
- 11 May 2007
- Posts
- 9,094
- Location
- Surrey
I've never seen the point in paying to watch adverts.
Are Sky & Virgin really worth it?
- Thread starter Michelle Horne
- Start date
We were paying £100 a month for SkyQ. Loved it, especially the 4K stuff. Then moved to a house which doesn't get Sky (we're at the foot of a hill), and no Virgin either. Tried BT which was terrible. The kit alone was seriously inferior to the SkyQ boxes. Ended up plugging an aerial in to the back of the TV and lived off Freeview ever since. We do subscribe to NowTV, Netflix and Amazon + with BBC iPlayer, ITV whatever and 4OD we have plenty to watch and save a load. Miss not having a recorder sometimes (like pausing live TV etc). Though someone said we can plug a USB stick into the TV? It's a KS8000.
However - as soon as Sky go Dishless, I'll most likely go back!
However - as soon as Sky go Dishless, I'll most likely go back!
Soldato
- Joined
- 22 Nov 2007
- Posts
- 3,758
- Location
- Ayr, Scotland
I would bet your sister-in-law was watching the SD version of BBC2, I have done it myself with other channels as well. HD quality is excellent as far as I'm concerned and the equal of Sky, if not better. I watch a lot of Sky Sports and BT Sports footie on Virgin and its also excellent. No UHD football sadly which is something Virgin need to address though I'm guessing Sky and BT Sport wont supply it to Virgin.
Thanks mate. Nope, I selected the channel BBC2HD while Top Gear was on .Just looked noisy and soft, though saying that there were scenes where it looked good so it could have been some of the scenes but that's odd nowadays.
Once my term is up sky I'll give it a shot.
I had Sky Q installed a couple years ago. I now no longer have it. But I still use the dish for my freesat no problem. I didn't ask the engineer who changed the dish to instal a hybrid LNB or anything, but it still works with the freesat tuner in my GT30 fine. I don't use it for recording though, as I haven't plugged in a HDD, so can't comment on that aspect.
You say here you have a Sky connection. That suggests a satellite dish.
Does this actually work though? I spent an hour or so researching and it seems you either need a Virgin/Sky subscription anyway? Is a freesat dish the same as an aerial?It's very confusing...
Yes it does work. A freesat tuner or an old sky box without a subscription should still give you all the freesat channels. That's how I use my dish. You just take the satellite dish feed and plug it into your freesat tuner.
Now I am confused. You said in your first post here that you DID have a Sky connection. Now you are saying you don't?
My bill is £70 a month for
SkyQ 2tb all channels and boxsets
Movies
Sports (inc HD pack)
SkyQ mini with multiroom
80mb Fibre
Landline with evening and weekend calls
If that's not enough we also have Amazon via prime, Netflix and ifollow (for league games) via VPN.
We are a family of four and get our moneys worth. Premier league and F1 for me
The big question is, are you getting your moneys worth? fairly simple question, and if you aren't cancel.
We are going wrong somewhere as our bill is just over the 100 mark for
standard sky+ box and all channels
movies
sports, no bt and non HD
1 multiroom standard box
adsl broardband
phone with free local numbers
Also if you change the main room to skyq, does the rest of the boxes needs tobe the skyq boxes aswel? As I would like to leave my box in my bedroom as the normal sky+ box
Last edited:
Soldato
- Joined
- 30 Sep 2005
- Posts
- 16,735
We are going wrong somewhere as our bill is just over the 100 mark for
standard sky+ box and all channels
movies
sports, no bt and non HD
1 multiroom standard box
adsl broardband
phone with free local numbers
Also if you change the main room to skyq, does the rest of the boxes needs tobe the skyq boxes aswel? As I would like to leave my box in my bedroom as the normal sky+ box
You need to ring them up. If you swap to skyq they will try and install a q mini in the bedroom. It's a bit crap though. Not sure if you can mix and match boxes as you only get one viewing card. Worth asking.
Today I have made the switch back from Virgin to Sky. I am with Sky mobile so in doing so I get £10 off my bill, so when I sign up to £11 a month its technically £1 a month for Sky. I added Bundles and HD to that for an extra £5 so paying £6 a month for Sky. £72 a year for HD Sky...oh and then then gave me £50 to come back to them, so £22 for a whole year of Sky.
I am still paying £55 a month for Virgins 300mb (normally 370-380mb/s), phone and line rental too. So Virgin and Sky is £57 a month for everything I need.
I am still paying £55 a month for Virgins 300mb (normally 370-380mb/s), phone and line rental too. So Virgin and Sky is £57 a month for everything I need.
Thats a bit of a shame, because when I had sky multiroom they gave me a standard non plus box, so I bought myself a plus box from a kind welsh guy from this forum. Anyway at least if they change my box to skyq, I'll will still be able the record and all the rest of it. But Im I rightly thinking all the recordings go onto the main box and everything happens over wifi?
Or Ethernet but yes, it's all stored on the main box and streamed to the mini box(es).
Not really. But I'll be honest I know very little about Sky/Virgin and the information I got from my landlords is all secondhand. All they told me was that it was "wired up for Virgin or Sky" and when I said where's the normal TV aerial socket they were like "Oh, err, we just assumed you'd have Sky or Virgin". Like I say, I've been happy with Freeview/streaming services all my life so perhaps I am confused about what they've done. However, I know for a fact there is a TV aerial on the roof; due to the fact we lived there before they renovated it (we used Freeview) -- and there's aerial sockets in the bedroom.
Here's a pic of what we have in our lounge; https://imgur.com/a/snJQY
Feel free to explain what is going on there, the Virgin guy came and chucked the cable in the wall as shown. The builders who renovated had fitted the sockets and everything. I was assuming the second socket was for Sky
And, what I've just realised is that my TV (Panasonic GT60) I believe has a Freesat tuner. So how would I go about testing if that works through the TV? Yank the Virgin cable out of the V60 box and put it in my TV?
As said, I'm not under any illusion of knowing all about this but it's hard when you get all your information secondhand from a landlord
Both of those sockets are F plug connections typical of use in the UK for Satellite and cable connections.
If the plug on the left is currently running Virgin then thats a cable connection and won't work in a satellite tuner, but the one on the right might be a single sat feed.
If the plug on the left is currently running Virgin then thats a cable connection and won't work in a satellite tuner, but the one on the right might be a single sat feed.
And, what I've just realised is that my TV (Panasonic GT60) I believe has a Freesat tuner. So how would I go about testing if that works through the TV? Yank the Virgin cable out of the V60 box and put it in my TV?
As said, I'm not under any illusion of knowing all about this but it's hard when you get all your information secondhand from a landlord
Assuming the right hand cable is the sky connection, since the left seems to be cable, then take the cable out the cable side, and box, and stick it into the "sky" socket and your TV's sat input. Then try to tune in the freesat channels. It'll either work or not.
Have you asked your neighbours how their media is hooked up ?
I would have thought there is a centralized 'mux' box for the appartments where your two F connectors can be connected to a virgin cable feed, or both to a satellite feed so that you can watch one channel and record another (you would need two satellite connections for a sky Q box)
I would have thought there is a centralized 'mux' box for the appartments where your two F connectors can be connected to a virgin cable feed, or both to a satellite feed so that you can watch one channel and record another (you would need two satellite connections for a sky Q box)