Sky Digital Content is Rubbish.

jez

Since I got my UK Digibox I have finally realised that what is served up on all the channels, ie UK Gold,bravo,mtv,vhi is just repetive rubbish that we just watch from habit.
Now I have a second digibox all I watch is bbc 1,2 ,Itv,C4,C5,BBC News24,BBC4, listen to 5Live. I rarel turn on the Irish box now.Basically we are force fed the Sky Family pack just to get SKysports etc..That cannot be right. They should just sell Skysports at a fixed rate. What does everyone else think.

Not the majority view, but a significant enough minority would agree, I think including myself.
It's over priced-but thats the problem with the lack of competition.
mm

Saruman

If sky added on a Sattelite ISP service included in the price,,,, even one thats only for downloads like Europe Online then it would be well worth it.

I admit i only watch sky digital.. i have NTL cable too but never watch it.. Then again i watch less TV these days... Sky 1 has all the shows i watch and the rest is the movie channels...

BigCon

Jez, I couldn't agree more! I have Sky family pack, and apart from a few programmes the majority of channels are crap:( Roll on RTE!!

Genghis

Somebody here made a good suggestion last week re: digiguide.com, the offline TV planner. I downloaded this and have been able to see something I never really could before.

Last week I would've agreed with you 100%. But now I am not so sure. When you have somehting like the digiguide you can see all that is on TV in a day, and I found myself finding five or six things to look at last night, some of them even clashing!

I think the problem with Sky is that there is a great deal of rubbish, far too much for anybody to sort through, consider and decide to watch / not to watch. The EPG is uselsss as a viewing planner as it would take ages to go through every channel, pick out what you would like to see etc. It is even boring to try to hop through all the channels as there are tons of them.

The big advantage of just having 12 or so channels is that they are manageable - you get familiar with what is on, and even if you don't it just takes a few seconds to flick through.

So, to conclude - Sky show many, many times more crap than other systems, but that does not mean there is not good stuff on there. It's just harder to find. Get something better than an EPG or TV guide to help you choose.

BTW this is why systems like Tivo have worked so well in the states. Tivo helps us to cope ...

tombenjr

I think all of you are stupid.
Cos Sky Digital is the best and there is more than the rest
of the television companies. You would see something good on
it.But the Cable is crap and nothing on as not enough channels
and the picture quality is very bad. When RTE comes on Sky Digital
it will the best televison company in Ireland.The pictures is alway
100%.So stop complainig.It better than NTL and "Crappy" Chorus

chernobyl

Originally posted by madman

It's over priced-but thats the problem with the lack of competition.
mm

then go subscribe to the competition who offer a cut down version fo sky with some bandages to gloss it up and is slightly cheaper...ooh what would we do without chorus?


If you think Sky is rubbish then dont subscribe anymore and enjoy the diverse range of picture fuzzy programmes on RTE.

blah blah..sky is a monopoly..waaa change my diper mammy!

The Cigarette Smoking Man

Originally posted by jez
Since I got my UK Digibox I have finally realised that what is served up on all the channels, ie UK Gold,bravo,mtv,vhi is just repetive rubbish that we just watch from habit.
Now I have a second digibox all I watch is bbc 1,2 ,Itv,C4,C5,BBC News24,BBC4, listen to 5Live. I rarel turn on the Irish box now.Basically we are force fed the Sky Family pack just to get SKysports etc..That cannot be right. They should just sell Skysports at a fixed rate. What does everyone else think.

I agree, 90% of the stuff on Sky is utter sh*te. The BBC channels are definitely the best.

Also I think Genghis is right, the best way to find the good programs is to use Digiguide.

Originally posted by chernobyl


then go subscribe to the competition who offer a cut down version fo sky with some bandages to gloss it up and is slightly cheaper...ooh what would we do without chorus?


If you think Sky is rubbish then dont subscribe anymore and enjoy the diverse range of picture fuzzy programmes on RTE.

blah blah..sky is a monopoly..waaa change my diper mammy!

Can we agree to disagree on that one Chernobyl?
You're very funny though
mm

ShaneOC

Originally posted by chernobyl


then go subscribe to the competition who offer a cut down version fo sky with some bandages to gloss it up and is slightly cheaper...ooh what would we do without chorus?


If you think Sky is rubbish then dont subscribe anymore and enjoy the diverse range of picture fuzzy programmes on RTE.

blah blah..sky is a monopoly..waaa change my diper mammy!

Hopefully from now on (or the next day or two anyway) you will be able to enjoy the rubbish on RTÉ in perfect digital quality.

chernobyl

Certainly madman, agree to disagree:beautiful when it works.

ShaneOC i will indeed, is their anything genuinely worth looking at on either RTE/TV3 (real request for info)?.

carrolls

I think one of the European satellite companies
has an EPG that has a mode where you can view in tiny screens
what in presently on in a particular category. You can then scroll through the screens like Sky News Active, only much faster.
And you can do this with your favourite channel menu as well.
This system would add icing to the Sky cake.
The only thing thats stopping Sky doing this is a good software designer. (And being a tight arsed shower)

cableskeptic

Originally posted by Genghis
Somebody here made a good suggestion last week re: digiguide.com, the offline TV planner.

Credit where credit is due.


Hadn't tried digiguide before. It's really good and will consider paying the £6 or £7 when the trial licence runs out. If they include the Irish channels I will definitely pay for this excellent service. Anyone know if they plan to?

They do include the Irish listings.
You add them under the channels listed for NTL Ireland.
mm

DMC

Maybe me and Charles should charge commission on each sale

irishgeo

i just purchased digiguide. its the best purchase ever. its so easy to use.
i bought it after months of trying to get it to work for free.
but never mind that.

It will be much better to me when i go home for the summer and can leave the computer on all day and have digiguide remind me when its time to sit down and watch a good 5 star film or a good documentary.

Its the best and with RTE its going to be bliss i nearly wetting my pants here in thought of it.

And my fancy new computer will be purchased soon and its got a DVD player and renting of DVDrentals will make it even better not forgetting of course this board where i hope to continue being a part.

Thanks guys

Gadgie

Originally posted by madman
They do include the Irish listings.
You add them under the channels listed for NTL Ireland.
mm

... or indeed under 'All Channels', in a subsection named 'Irish'.

Glenn

bkehoe

Couldn't you also say that you're being force-fed rubbish on RTE as you have to pay a tv licence no matter whether you look at them or not?

carrolls, that would be Canal+ in France I think. Something else stopping Sky is the digiboxes; did you ever use one of the first digiboxes with the modern software and compare it with a box like the DSB31? You'd soon see what I'm talking about.

BTW, I agree that there is a lot of rubbish on the family pack, and even the movies (repeats), but that's not going to stop me from happily handing over my money each month and getting a great service in return.

Brendan

chernobyl

Originally posted by bkehoe
Something else stopping Sky is the digiboxes; did you ever use one of the first digiboxes with the modern software and compare it with a box like the DSB31? You'd soon see what I'm talking about.

chernobyl : action = "press page down"

chernobyl ages some : result = "page down result stutters from top to bottom"

I want my Pani back!

Charles Slane

Originally posted by DamoDMC
Maybe me and Charles should charge commission on each sale

I hate to go on about it, but a great example of how good it is was during the funeral arrangements of the Queen Mum (bless 'er !!).

When you go online it asks if you want to update. It takes maybe 15 seconds, and then you've got the latest listings, including the four hour Queen Mother funeral, and all the changes afterwards.

The Radio Times/Tv Times/RTE Guide are printed a couple of weeks in advance and can't cope with late schedule changes like that.

Plus their episode details for most programmes are spot on.

Give it a try.

carrolls

Something else stopping Sky is the digiboxes; did you ever use one of the first digiboxes with the modern software and compare it with a box like the DSB31?

This is not the case at all.
With a suitable RISC C++ compiler and a lot of programming experience, you could even turn your Digibox into a PC.
In fact you could program it to do anything.
It has a fairly standard RISC CPU, fairly standard memory modules and a built in Transport stream input processor (ASIC)
to download the software by Satellite.

The software downloaded from the Satellite does not have to be the EPG program,
It could be anything that complies with the specs of the input and output devices.

Therefore BkyB could download a much improved EPG if they wanted to, as long as it complied to the Digibox Hardware specs..