MySky HD

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9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#137543 12-Jun-2008 09:05

I imagine that the $15per month rental is a contract for 12 months ie can't get out of it which would cover there admin and installation charges, however you will still be expected to pay $15per month after the 12 months is up in order to have SKY HD (instead of paying $599). They are not going to give it to you for $180.. Thats my take anyway Cheers

allstarnz

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#137547 12-Jun-2008 09:12

so $599 is just the right to use the box while you subscribe to Sky I take it.

Dingbatt

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#137553 12-Jun-2008 09:22

TameIti: Wait, only a 12 month contract? That is only $180, rather than $600 upfront. Or is it still continuous after 12 months?

Please remember Sky are in this to make money not friends! It would appear that you have to take the SkyHD box for a MINIMUM of 12 months @ $15/month, then after that, as long as you keep stumping up for the rental you hang on to the box. If you stop paying the rental they take the box back. So the break even point is 40 months. But that is at the currently announced rental rate, who's to say they won't jack the price in 12 months + 1 day, or when they activate one of the currently disused functions in the box. They wouldn't do that you cry! Just compare what you were paying 2 years ago for the same service to what you pay today.

2 movie plus 2 sport is a bit of a waste when compared to foxtel's offering of 2 sport, 1 movie, 2 documentary and BBC-HD.

Does anyone know if the HD movies will follow the SM1, SM2 model of a 2 hour time slip?

Sorry if above has already been covered but I speed read the thread.

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timbosan

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#137556 12-Jun-2008 09:54

Just to confirm pricing for everyone, you have two choices (according to the CSR I spoke to), either a one off payment of $599 which means you can use the box for life, but you never own it, and you have to pay $15 a month to get the SKY HD channels (there is no charge that I am aware of to receive TV3 or Prime in HD), this is VERY similar to the way Tivo operates overseas.

If you don't want to stump up the $599 then you have to sign a 12 month contract and pay $15 plus the $10 for the HD channels. Since the contract is only 12 months you could give the box back after that. But why would you? You are effectivley renting it, and Sky are responsible for ensuring it works 100%, so I feel that's a pretty good deal and it one of the reasons I signed up for it.

Dont forget there is still the $49 fee for the call, covering the technician swapping the box and making sure everything works.

Personally I think Sky make the right choice and this should enable them to vastly increase the takeup over the current (relativly low) MySky takeup.

LostPacket

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Master Geek

#137563 12-Jun-2008 10:25

Just called to get Hdi, but they to busy and will call me back in 24 hours :(

BarTender

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#137569 12-Jun-2008 11:11

timbosan: If you don't want to stump up the $599 then you have to sign a 12 month contract and pay $15 plus the $10 for the HD channels. Since the contract is only 12 months you could give the box back after that. But why would you? You are effectivley renting it, and Sky are responsible for ensuring it works 100%, so I feel that's a pretty good deal and it one of the reasons I signed up for it.

But this is one of the things I never understand with slightly techie people (as many who are on Geekzone are) with this argument. Essentially MySky customers pay $599 to rent a box that they have no control over.
1) You have no digital access the content. The only way to play content is via their on screen display.
2) If the HDD or Box or your Smartcard dies you loose everything, with no chance of backup (ala Copy+ in the UK) since you can't open the box because you rent it not own it.
3) There is no real upgrade path from MySky or HD as it's a box swap, and you loose any recorded content again.
4) For exactly the same box you only pay $200 for the box in Aus. Plus you have more HD (BBC, Nat Geo etc) offerings across the ditch for less monthly fee? Foxtel Pricing.
5) All you can do with it is play the content you have recorded, no other PVR or media centre options are available.

What staggers me the most is people have posted here saying that they have 2 MySkys and 1 regular digital decoder... dang, that's a lot of clams to shell out for something that isn't even 10% of what a fully featured PVR offers you.

I think for $599, you should be able to own and sell the box yourself (as they do in the UK) that way you could upgrade the HDD, and have a little more control over what you can and cannot do, plus in the UK for example you can tune in your own Satellites. If that was the case in NZ, you would be able to tune in the Freeview TP's on your Sky box, and watch them instead of the Sky ones.

But there is no competition in NZ for Satellite TV, so essentially we all need to put up, or shutup.

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LostPacket

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Master Geek

#137574 12-Jun-2008 11:26

Bartender, i thougth with Foxtel you pay $10 a month extra for the Rent on the box ?

wazzab

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#137575 12-Jun-2008 11:30

Should they not have split off the $10 HD content fee? I subscibe to Sky Sport and not movies, but I will have to shell out $10 for HD content which is for Movies and Sport. Like the main packages, would have been nice to pay $5 HD content for Sport only. I'm sure many of there customers have only Sport or Movies.

JC1600

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Geek

#137577 12-Jun-2008 11:38

do you think sky would consider offering a STB that doesnt have the advanced features like Hard drives and multiple tuners and just allow me to watch the HD content like I do now with my normal sky digital?

i am sport only subscriber too so yea wouldnt really want to pay for movies and sport

LostPacket

92 posts

Master Geek

#137579 12-Jun-2008 11:42

wazzab: Should they not have split off the $10 HD content fee? I subscibe to Sky Sport and not movies, but I will have to shell out $10 for HD content which is for Movies and Sport. Like the main packages, would have been nice to pay $5 HD content for Sport only. I'm sure many of there customers have only Sport or Movies.

I am in the same boat,

i think i will get the movie channels if the movies are in HD it's an extra $20 thats about 2-3 Blu Ray Rentals

timbosan

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#137580 12-Jun-2008 11:45

BarTender:
timbosan: If you don't want to stump up the $599 then you have to sign a 12 month contract and pay $15 plus the $10 for the HD channels. Since the contract is only 12 months you could give the box back after that. But why would you? You are effectivley renting it, and Sky are responsible for ensuring it works 100%, so I feel that's a pretty good deal and it one of the reasons I signed up for it.

But this is one of the things I never understand with slightly techie people (as many who are on Geekzone are) with this argument. Essentially MySky customers pay $599 to rent a box that they have no control over.
1) You have no digital access the content. The only way to play content is via their on screen display.
2) If the HDD or Box or your Smartcard dies you loose everything, with no chance of backup (ala Copy+ in the UK) since you can't open the box because you rent it not own it.
3) There is no real upgrade path from MySky or HD as it's a box swap, and you loose any recorded content again.
4) For exactly the same box you only pay $200 for the box in Aus. Plus you have more HD (BBC, Nat Geo etc) offerings across the ditch for less monthly fee? Foxtel Pricing.
5) All you can do with it is play the content you have recorded, no other PVR or media centre options are available.

What staggers me the most is people have posted here saying that they have 2 MySkys and 1 regular digital decoder... dang, that's a lot of clams to shell out for something that isn't even 10% of what a fully featured PVR offers you.

I think for $599, you should be able to own and sell the box yourself (as they do in the UK) that way you could upgrade the HDD, and have a little more control over what you can and cannot do, plus in the UK for example you can tune in your own Satellites. If that was the case in NZ, you would be able to tune in the Freeview TP's on your Sky box, and watch them instead of the Sky ones.

But there is no competition in NZ for Satellite TV, so essentially we all need to put up, or shutup.

Personally, for me, it's not the level of 'techie-ness' (new word for the day!) but more about usability, especially for the rest of the family. Comparing a HTPC (which I also have) to a CE item when it is used by the kids, the CE items always win. You turn them on, they work (99% of the time) and you dont have to worry about them. HTPC need feeding and watering, and whilst I admit they offer far greater flexibility, they tend to cost more, especially the more powerful models.

As for only being able to playback recorded content, thats what most people would do anyway. I have a DVD recorder and the HDD in it died, so I lost over a years worth of recordings, the same can happen to a PC (yes, I know you can always back it up, but how many people would be backing up multi-gigabyte recordings of HD programs, or in fact have the ability to do this?). If I really wanted to backup something I would just copy it is DVD or if its HD like a movie, buy it on Blu-Ray.

I do too find it amazing that some people say they have 2 MySky boxes plus a seperate decoder, that is a HUGE outlay!

You could (ignoring the obvious warrenty issues) open the box and clone the drive at the byte level using something like Ghost, then you would have a backup, not convienient but then in this world of DRM nothing is!

I still stand that the $15/month rental is a good option, a way to get a device that does a job without forking out large up front costs. 12 months is not a long time for a contract.

Oh, and I know you can get Sky using a HTPC as previously discussed on geekzone, but how easy is it going to be to get Sky HD on a HTPC?

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Zippity

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#137581 12-Jun-2008 11:47

What about us mugs who are already paying the extra so that we can watch both the movies and sport

Are we going to have to fork out even more dosh so that we can see them in HD?

BarTender

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#137586 12-Jun-2008 11:57

timbosan: You could (ignoring the obvious warrenty issues) open the box and clone the drive at the byte level using something like Ghost, then you would have a backup, not convienient but then in this world of DRM nothing is!

Well you could, but I suspect Sky would not be happy as you don't own the box. I am happy to void warrenty if I own it, but you could be up for a nasty charge if you open a box you don't own. (I heard that if you lost the Foxtel IQ, they charged you $1200 for it, at least that way you would own it, but in NZ, after paying $600 for install + $1200.. OUCH!)

timbosan: Oh, and I know you can get Sky using a HTPC as previously discussed on geekzone, but how easy is it going to be to get Sky HD on a HTPC?

Challenging, sinch the HD channels would be just like any other channels, you need to be subscribed to them, and the only way to be subscribed to them is to have a MySky HD, but if you did pay for MySkyHD I suspect it would work just fine in a HTPC as per the thread in the HTPC forum... but that's just my assumption :)

suthland

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#137623 12-Jun-2008 13:43

I currently have Mysky & 1 standard digital decoder (ie multiroom). Received my upgrade offer from Sky today and must say I am very happy with it.

Rang Sky and have arranged upgrade on 29th July to HDi plus I keep my old My Sky unit as the multiroom decoder and hand back standard unit.

Cost is $49 upgrade fee but no $10 per mth HD fee because of multiroom plus I get 4 mths multiroom free ($25 x 4 = $100) which I would be paying anyway so I calculate that as a $51 saving to upgrade - Outstanding

Plus I solve the problem I thought I was going to have in replacing the Mysky feed I have around the house to bedrooms over the coaxial cable connection (HDi has no RF out), I will just stick with current Mysky setup and reserve HD for the Plasma in the Lounge.

Further I will also have ability to record 4 Sky channels at once, it just gets better & better.

Thanks Sky I never dreamed it would work out so well.

LostPacket

92 posts

Master Geek

#137638 12-Jun-2008 14:51

Sky called back,

im getting Hdi installed on the 6th of August :)

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