I was not saying that Sky do not have a good offering. They certainly have the best HD service in the UK but at a high price. But how many HDTV sets have been sold in the UK over the last couple of years? I am sure it is a significant multiple of 500,000 so Sky have just scratched the surface of potential HD viewers so far. Most of them will be looking for something cheaper than Sky and will be happy with Freesat.
I didn't say that you didn't think Sky had a good offering. I was just questioning why you thought Sky should discount that good offering, when the alternative is a single channel that only has four hours of mostly repeats a day?
Because not everyone wants the maximum number of HD channels irrespective of cost. I did not say they might reduce the cost of their premium HD service which includes sport and movies. I think that Freesat will make them consider lowering the cost of the entry level HD package. There have been a surprising number of people in the Freesat forums saying they have cancelled Sky HD or are thinking of cancelling to take up Freesat instead.
The HD package costs £10 a month (33p a day), IMHO that's not a great deal of money to pay for 18 HD channels. The HD subscription mirrors your existing SD package, so Sports & Movies are only included if you subscribe to the SD versions of those channels. It's difficult to quantify the 'surprising' number of people that have cancelled Sky HD to go to Freesat from these Forums. Personally, I think that those people would have cancelled anyway. They don't suit the Pay TV model, why would anyone give up 18 HD channels for one part time HD channel? Unless they didn't see the Sky service as value for money, in which case they were prime to cancel anyway. Particularly as BBC HD can be received on the Sky HD box without subscription anyway.
It may not be much but it's subscription free and will already be quite an attractive package for the people with an HDTV who are currently watching freeview only. By this time next year there will be more HD channels on Freesat and HDTVs will be sold with HD Freesat receivers built in at just a little extra cost. How can you think this wont have an impact on Sky HD pricing?
IMHO it won't have an impact on Sky's pricing in the short to medium term, because there's only one four hour HD channel available on Freesat. There is no need for Sky to discount it's product. One thing you haven't considered, is that it could well work the other way. People could take up Freesat, installing a dish for the first time because it's a free service and then realise they want HD Films and HD Sport and ditch Freesat for Sky! The majority of the viewing public will continue to watch Freeview, just as they do now. Recieving TV via an aerial is the norm in the UK and shouldn't be overlooked.
I have started to quite appreciate watching programs like Grand Design on Ch4 HD even though it is not sourced from HD. Video that is upscaled to HD from a high bandwidth SD source is much closer to HD than SD in quality. Purists may moan that it is not real HD but most people will appreciate what their eyes see.
But you won't be able to watch that on Freesat will you? Upscaled or otherwise, because CH4 HD isn't part of the Freesat offering. So the 'purists' won't be able to make a judgement on it. You can watch it on your Sky HD box without subscription though. It may, or may not come to Freesat later.
It is if it's free, and when it is joined by ITV HD, Ch4 HD, Five HD, Filmfour HD etc, it will start to look quite respectable. Of course it will never match the Sky HD premium offering and serious football fans will always have to pay that premium but cost is a factor for most people.
It is free, at the moment the Freesat HD offering is a continuous preview loop and four hours of mainly repeats. Apart from ITV HD, which we know is on the horizon, all the other HD channels are pure speculation on your part. It wouldn't do for me, but for those who don't want to pay for a TV service it will be fine I'm sure.
I have indeed already cancelled my Sky subscription completely and have saved enough to buy an HD PVR box several times over. It was great to have SkyHD when it first launched but once HD-DVD became available I stopped using the film channels and you can only watch so many HD wildlife films on Discovery HD before you feel you've seen them all. Soon I found that I only used Sky HD to watch BBC HD. I know there are many sports fans and hard core Movie fans who love Sky HD and are willing to pay the price but I know from these forums that I am not the only one to have cancelled.
That's fine, as I said earlier, you're obviously one of those people who don't see the Sky offering as value for money and you're right to cancel. You choose to pay more for your movies by buying HD DVD (although they are cheap right now because the format has failed) but ultimately HD media on disk is much more expensive than Sky Movies HD. We've also had films like all six Star Wars movies in HD, I don't think they're available on BD or HD DVD. But Sky HD isn't just about movies and sport, it's about top TV series and documentaries too. I'm quite the opposite to you, I watch very little BBC HD these days. You can only watch repeats of Gardeners World, Jools Holland and Bleak House so many times. BBC was better as a 'Trial', than it now is as a 'Channel'. I was expecting to see 'Rome' & 'Life In Cold Blood' shown in HD to coincide with their showing on BBC One, it never happened.
I have already explained above why I dont think Sky will drop the PVR charge for non-subscribers so I wont repeat it here.
The charge to subscribers was dropped, Sky are quite likely to drop the charges for PVR to non subscribers, it would stop people leaving for Freesat. Why then would people want to ditch a box they had already paid for, to buy another one to receive less channels? It wouldn't make sense and there would always be the possibility that people would re-subscribe, an opportunity that would be lost if people buy into Freesat.
Nobody says they will. It's a strawman. I was talking about the rest of us.
We're agreed on that then!
ATB
Max
