HD TV - Are Sky taking the proverbial?

**Housemaster300** · 08-03-2010,11:41 PM

Originally Posted by Ben

I agree with spinney.

When i bought my wii, i wanted the cable that connected it to my component sockets rather than the standard that went to the scart. Instead of paying 10 to 15 quid for the lead, i bought one off ebay for £250 delivered.

That seems a little steep lol.Or did i read it wrong?

**turbine2** · 09-03-2010,09:48 AM

Okay, proviso, I work for VM so I'm going to be biased.

Short version, it's better than SD. VM don't have as much HD stuff as Sky but there's more and more of it getting out there and being made available. If you like what you've got now you'll probably love HD.

**Housemaster300** · 09-03-2010,01:52 PM

It ok i don't mind it at all but when the virgin man came round to tell me the reason my digibox was turning over to midsomer murders just at the same time when the only program i avidly watched was top gear or just generally switching from channel to channel,was because i had low energy lightbulbs in my house.
At which point i asked him to leave and send somebody with a brain.
His mate came the next day and swapped the remote.....job's a gud'n lol

**SpinneyA6** · 09-03-2010,02:13 PM

Originally Posted by Housemaster300

At which point i asked him to leave and send somebody with a brain.

What i have noticed with Sky is that the picture quality on SD is getting worse.

After doing a liitle research it would seem that Sky have started to compress the SD picture more, thus decreasing it's quality, in order to free up bandwidth to supply more HD content.

You really notice it especially if you have a 100Hz or 200Hz TV and there is a dark area in the picture, it appears blocky and pixelated. I've also seen it in SD broadcasts of footbal matches.

**MalcQV** · 09-03-2010,03:23 PM

Originally Posted by Housemaster300

Ive just got a spangly new 47"LED tv and have a full virgin package with 50mb broadband xl tv and medium phone package.
Im just about to move so need to swap it all over,im considering getting Virgin HD but dont know of anyone that has it.
Any good or bad stories about it?
Ive just built a media pc so i can watch blu-ray and play the odd game(racing of course) but hd tv is the next step me thinks.

Got VM too, love it, love the Catch Up. Got to admit I have always had Sky (though not HD) and would swear by it. I got VM purely down to my personal circumstances (read that as "where I am living at present already had VM"

).
The Virgin HD+ is great and as mentioned the HD content I believe will get better, though I guess at some point Virgin will then like Sky charge

**richard t** · 09-03-2010,03:53 PM

I have just got sky HD and can't see a big difference in quality niether can my missis. we have a 42" plasma LG tv

**SpinneyA6** · 09-03-2010,03:54 PM

The main differences between Sky and VM as I can see it are

* VM has alot less HD content at present but this will change over the next 18 months or so as they buy more from Sky.

* You can get ITV HD on VM and Sky but it doesn't apppear in the main channel listings on Sky, you have to add it as an extra chanel.

* VM HD has 3 tuners so you can record 2 programmes whilst watching 1 or record 3 programmes and watch something in the planner. Sky HD only has 2 tuners.

* Picture on VM is not affected by adverse weather conditions??? I think??

I've got VM broadband but use Sky HD, the only experience I've had with VM HD is through a friend and they seem quite pleased with it. I'm not sure how they compare price wise.

**SpinneyA6** · 09-03-2010,04:03 PM

Originally Posted by richard t

I have just got sky HD and can't see a big difference in quality niether can my missis. we have a 42" plasma LG tv

Should have gone to Specsavers

But seriously, that does suprise me. The bigger the TV the worse the picture as it's still made up of the same number of dots, just that each dot is bigger and therfore picture is not as crisp. This is not as noticable in HD as there are lots more dots, but on a large TV with an SD picture, to me, it looks really quite fuzzy.

It's like going from VHS to DVD.

**Housemaster300** · 09-03-2010,05:39 PM

Originally Posted by MalcQV

Got VM too, love it, love the Catch Up. Got to admit I have always had Sky (though not HD) and would swear by it. I got VM purely down to my personal circumstances (read that as "where I am living at present already had VM"

).
The Virgin HD+ is great and as mentioned the HD content I believe will get better, though I guess at some point Virgin will then like Sky charge

I only found out i had catch up tv a couple of weeks ago lol ive only had the stuff in a year or so ha ha

Shows how much tv i watch