*** Sky TV Cancellation & Negotiation Thread ***

TheVoice said:
I dunno, I listen to a lot of 129Kbps streams and 192Kbps MP3s and none of it sounds as bad as many of the SD channels on Sky do.

Also, I'm rather stunned that Sky expect you to start paying full-price again after giving you a year cheap through an F&F deal. There's no way in hell I'll be doing that, if they're not going to be willing to negotiate I'll simply cancel it.
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Yep because the broadcasting networks use horrible compression such as AAC to compress it to as small size as possible and then play it at rubbish bitrates... end result is horrible audio quality which makes owning a high end stereo a bit pointless for TV because if anything it sounds worse on high quality revealing hifi equipment...

If anything the audio quality on sky is actually good compared to freeview... especially the HD channels.... Freeview is appalingly bad quality.
 
Clairvoyant said:
How do you get US catalogue access and is it upto date.
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Originally, I did it on the xbox and it was simple matter of changing the DNS settings. I found the right numbers after a good google.

On the PC, I'm currently using a VPN (Hotspot shield) which is a little hit and miss and hasn't been up to the quality of the xbox so far.
I haven't really put much more effort into it, but I'm sure there are better ways.

As for up to date, do you mean the catalogue or the method of getting it?
 
dumped sky again as my better than half price deals up, the guy was trying to offer all sorts and saying "do you really need hd", he did let slip that theres talk of a sports only package in the works.
 
NirK said:
Yep because the broadcasting networks use horrible compression such as AAC to compress it to as small size as possible and then play it at rubbish bitrates... end result is horrible audio quality which makes owning a high end stereo a bit pointless for TV because if anything it sounds worse on high quality revealing hifi equipment...

If anything the audio quality on sky is actually good compared to freeview... especially the HD channels.... Freeview is appalingly bad quality.
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Nothing wrong with AAC for SD, it's more efficient than MP3 so i don't see the gripe.
 
NZB said:
Nothing wrong with AAC for SD, it's more efficient than MP3 so i don't see the gripe.
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Hmmm I am not convinced.... AAC seems to sound worse and more sibilance...

Basically the more you are compressing the original audio the worse the quality is.
 
I know how compression works and AAC is still more efficient at it than MP3. Encode the audio to the same size for either codec and the AAC will be the higher quality. If there's something wrong with sky's AAC it's down to them not the codec ;)
 
I just asked for a 2TB box for 49 quid. But they want me to pay 60 quid for install.

Refused install cost so I asked to be put through to cancellations. No way I'm paying sky 60 quid for a guy to hand me a box lol

I have 2 x multiroom already out of contract.So Jane in cancellations sorted me a 2TB box and half price multiroom. I said I will cancel the current multiroom as its out of contract.

Pleased with result.
 
NZB said:
I know how compression works and AAC is still more efficient at it than MP3. Encode the audio to the same size for either codec and the AAC will be the higher quality. If there's something wrong with sky's AAC it's down to them not the codec ;)
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My point was that they compress the absolute **** out of all the audio and it is broadcast at 96kbps-128kbps and if you are lucky on a HD channel it might be 192kbps....

Frankly that is very poor and almost makes listening to TV through a decent stereo worse depending on the speakers... If you have revealing speakers such as Dynaudio or similar the quality of audio sounds horrible.

AAC seems to sound more sibilant and harsh to me... Maybe it is something else other than AAC and just the low bitrate.

It is not even as if audio is very bandwidth hungry compared to video.... They could easily broadcast at 320kbps MP3 and at least that would sound decent as opposed to 96kbps which just sounds plain bad and it is not even neccessary to compress it THAT much. /rant
 
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Well its been 20 days since our sky was turned off.

Not had any phone calls or leaflets regarding offers.

When I called to cancel she asked me the reason why, and I explained it was due to the cost, she cancelled it there and then, and it was turned off after the 30 day notice period.

She made absolutely no attempt to keep our business, and that's after over 10 years of the full sky package, we still have the phone line and broadband, which to be honest is not worth switching.

I'm really going to miss watching all the F1 in HD.
 
I'm on 75% off deal until June; Sky world, all HD/3d etc and 2 x multi-room for £43.
No way i'll pay approx. £90 when the contract is up. Doubt they'll offer me a deal tbh, so we'll cancel.
They are eejits to think those on an offer will be willing to pay double for the same, half crap service. We have every channel and i struggle to find something to watch mosts night.
BUT....there is usally something i like on a channel that is on a different package, so to have the maybe a dozen channels i like, i'd still have to subscribe to everything.
Bad form Sky!
 
I ditched Sky for Virgin as the ADSL was poor. Not Sky's fault it's the distance to the local exchange. That was 3+ years go. Ditched Virgin about 8 months ago as we only ever put Cbeebies on for my two boys. Freeview has it for no additional cost. I still have Cable Broadband though.

I was gutted to find Sky took F1. Since then I have a personal grudge with them as I am not a sport man so the one and only sport I watched is now no longer available to me. I refuse to give Sky a single penny. I really hate the fact they have a clear monopoly in TV programming and get away with it :(
 
Swarfega said:
I ditched Sky for Virgin as the ADSL was poor. Not Sky's fault it's the distance to the local exchange. That was 3+ years go. Ditched Virgin about 8 months ago as we only ever put Cbeebies on for my two boys. Freeview has it for no additional cost. I still have Cable Broadband though.

I was gutted to find Sky took F1. Since then I have a personal grudge with them as I am not a sport man so the one and only sport I watched is now no longer available to me. I refuse to give Sky a single penny. I really hate the fact they have a clear monopoly in TV programming and get away with it :(
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Be mad with the BBC not Sky, It was the BBC who wanted to off load it. Sky just came along with the right offer. Ch4 had a offer also at the time which would have seen it free to air still but the BBC refused it.
 
BBC are rubbish tbh.... Hardly any good programmes ever and we have to pay £14 a month for a TV licence even if you don't like / watch BBC...
 
Raging!! Phone up to cancel sky got though all my details and checks to be told the line was not very clear and she ring back in 3 mins... That was yesterday grrrrr
 
NirK said:
My point was that they compress the absolute **** out of all the audio and it is broadcast at 96kbps-128kbps and if you are lucky on a HD channel it might be 192kbps....

Frankly that is very poor and almost makes listening to TV through a decent stereo worse depending on the speakers... If you have revealing speakers such as Dynaudio or similar the quality of audio sounds horrible.

AAC seems to sound more sibilant and harsh to me... Maybe it is something else other than AAC and just the low bitrate.

It is not even as if audio is very bandwidth hungry compared to video.... They could easily broadcast at 320kbps MP3 and at least that would sound decent as opposed to 96kbps which just sounds plain bad and it is not even neccessary to compress it THAT much. /rant
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I was so shocked to see The Avengers picture quality and all the... what looked like 16bit banding through the dark skies and some blocks in the dark sky gradients.

I've also noticed lately the past year, I've had to start turning up the sharpen filter for Sky HD. I used to have it at 0. Now it's nearly 10 - 16. For Blu-Ray it's always 0 since it's pin sharp.

NirK said:
BBC are rubbish tbh.... Hardly any good programmes ever and we have to pay £14 a month for a TV licence even if you don't like / watch BBC...
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I agree. I hardly ever watch 1 - 5. Or rather 101 - 105.

Heh, if I do watch BBC1 it's just to see Susanna Reid or Alex Jones or somebody along those lines.
 
It does not bother me that the BBC do not show many good programmes (well it does but that is not my point here) .... The problem I have is that it is called "FREEview" under the premise that you are paying your TV license for BBC channels and then the others (all the other freeview channels such as Dave etc.) are "free" which are funded by advert breaks etc....

If this was the case then why can't we just not pay a TV license and not watch BBC? Most of the time I just watch the other freeview channels anyway (along with what seems like almost constant advert breaks!) and maybe an hour or so a day I might watch the occasional decent thing on the BBC channels... The amount of original (non repeat) content on the BBC is very poor considering it costs £14 a month. Technically calling it freeview is actually false advertising because it is not actually free at all....
 
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