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Before I call Sky...HD box without subscription

stoofa

stoofa

stoofa

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Before I go through the fun & games of phoning Sky I thought I'd see if anybody was "in the know" here as it would potentially save me a frustrating call.

As some people may know, Sky+ is now a free feature (as of the beginning of the month) so you don't have to pay the extra £10 for it.
This is great, despite already owning a PVR I like the idea of being able to record one Sky channel whilst watching another.

I can buy a Sky+ box from Sky (or second hand) - a one-off fee and away I go.
However I got to thinking, at some point in the future Sky HD is going to be something I'm interested in.
I still haven't made the jump to an HD LCD television, it is something we are going to look into doing at the backend of the year.
However I'm extremely reluctant to buy a Sky+ box now and then buy a Sky HD box in a few months time.

So, does anybody know if I can buy a Sky HD box from Sky (at their current price to people who already have a subscription of £279) have it "installed" but not actually take out the HD subscription (at £10 per month) and simply use the HD box as a Sky+ box for the time being?
The only reason I ask is that quite often you are only entitled to better pricing on things if you also subscribe.
Example - buy a Sky HD box for £279 *but only if you subscribe to Sky HD at £10 per month" kind of thing.

I'd just like to basically upgrade from our current Sky Basic box to the HD box for a one-off fee and then upgrade our subscription to include HD at a future point.

Ta to anyone in the know.
 
As a Sky+ or HD box has two tuners you need to supply it with two LNB feeds.

This means replacing your current single output LNB with a quad output LNB and running a second cable to the Sky box.

As you have said you are going to get a fancy TV in a few months time I would opt for a HD box now if it's available at not additional monthly expense. You can have a HD box and not a HD subscription. It will work as a Sky+ box but with the added bonus of receiving BBC HD and also operating faster than a Sky+ box.
 
stoofa, i have just bought an HD telly and was in the same position as you. Except i already have sky+ and i can tell u now the sky HD is NOT worthit. There are only a handful of HD channels and therefore you will not be getting your moneys worth at all in my opinion. See what the price difference between buying an SKY+ and HD box is first. But in my opinion i would wait a while before deciding to buy anything atm.
 
Personally, I don't think paying all that money for an HD box without the subscription to the channels is worth it. Hell, it's not really worth it with the paltry of amount of channels that you do get with the subscription.

Especially, since you can get an upgrade to Sky+ for peanuts. I recently upgraded and negotiated SKy down from £99 (box) and £30 (install) to £49 for all inclusive (new box and install). If you push further you could probably get it all for free.

So, it may be best to do the above now, and then later on, when you decide that you want to commit to HD (or Sky launch more channels :p) you can upgrade then. The HD box may even be cheaper then.
 
I had a leaflet from sky offering the HD box at an okay price. However, when I phoned up it was dependent on paying for the subscription.

Having sincelooked around, you can get the HD boxes from auction sites for £173 iirc, which is a massive saving and I am probably going to do as my upgraded v2 box can't do sky anytime.
 
The biggest problem I have is that at the moment we just have the standard Sky Digital.
I understand that there is "other" things that need doing to part of the dish and an extra cable being connected.
I've seen Sky+ boxes on EBay at a good price, even some HD boxes but it's the rest of the fitting I'm not sure about.
I've read through some of the guides - it seems easy enough, but being scared of heights (to the point of there is no way I'm going up a ladder to work on our dish) it's just as easy to get Sky to do that fitting for us.

I think I'm going to try and negotiate a good price on the Sky+ box from Sky and see if I can wangle free installation too.
Heck, I think I'd be happy to pay the £99 for the Plus box if they will come and do the install for free.
 
stoofa said:
The biggest problem I have is that at the moment we just have the standard Sky Digital.
I understand that there is "other" things that need doing to part of the dish and an extra cable being connected.
I've seen Sky+ boxes on EBay at a good price, even some HD boxes but it's the rest of the fitting I'm not sure about.
I've read through some of the guides - it seems easy enough, but being scared of heights (to the point of there is no way I'm going up a ladder to work on our dish) it's just as easy to get Sky to do that fitting for us.

I think I'm going to try and negotiate a good price on the Sky+ box from Sky and see if I can wangle free installation too.
Heck, I think I'd be happy to pay the £99 for the Plus box if they will come and do the install for free.
Click to expand...


I rang them, asked to speak to cancellations. Told the guy I had taken on a new contract working nights and I wouldn't be around to watch what I want so was just going to use my freeview. He asked me if I knew what Sky+ was, I said no and played dumb and said it sounds expensive.

Got it installed for free a couple of days later :) quite a result.

If you do this. Should you choose to get a HD box all you need to do is plug it in and ring Sky to pair your viewing card to the new box - apparently no questions are asked. The Quad LNB will already be installed. Keep the Sky+ box and have that installed in the bedroom.

Job jobbed!
 
stoofa said:
Heck, I think I'd be happy to pay the £99 for the Plus box if they will come and do the install for free.
Click to expand...

If you take out multi-room using your old box and paying the £10 per month extra the instalation of Sky+ is waived.

But try what eddscott said - i did that a few months ago after all the movie channel changes and also got a free (new) Sky+ box with free installation and also took the multi-room. I was mainly trying to get the free sky+ box not the installation though.

But as mentioned don't speak to customer service as you will get no where , go straight through to cancellations.
 
stoofa said:
As some people may know, Sky+ is now a free feature (as of the beginning of the month) so you don't have to pay the extra £10 for it.
Click to expand...

what's this? I have sky+ and have sky movies because I was told it was either that or pay £10 a month extra. Does this mean I can now drop movies (I never EVER watch sky movies but I figured better have something for £10 than nothing??).

Would I still be able to record 2 channels etc?

Sorry for the threat hijack.
 
matt100 said:
what's this? I have sky+ and have sky movies because I was told it was either that or pay £10 a month extra. Does this mean I can now drop movies (I never EVER watch sky movies but I figured better have something for £10 than nothing??).

Would I still be able to record 2 channels etc?

Sorry for the threat hijack.
Click to expand...

I've never heard of that :s. My m8 has sky+ and he has hardly any channels, and it still works fine :/.
 
yeah I know you can, you can have sky+ with any package and pay £10 a month extra for the service OR choose a premium package and get sky+ free.

What I want to know is if you can ditch the premium package and have sky plus free :)

bound to happen sooner or later.

EDIT: Just called sky and after a very tense phonecall with someone who just didn't understand english at all I was finally put through to a charming scottish lady who has just taken the movies off and saved me over £120 a year. w00t!
 
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If you can wait, it could be worth it. There are major romours flying about just now that a new box is coming very soon, hopefully the end of the year, Amstrad supposidly building it. With sky now buying over Amstrad seems even more likely.

Not got a clue what kind of prices it will be going for though!
 
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