SKY HD content on NTL\Telewest

C

Chopper Clake

Guest
I am with NTL, but phoned up to check on availability of HD/TVDrive which they do now offer. Had it installed last week and the engineer told me that on the 14th Feb, the rebranding to Virgin will take place. I already get the Virgin logo on boot up. He told me that on the 14th Feb, all the HD content will be available including Sky One HD, Movies and Sports. Not sure if this is true or not as i can't find any info anywhere on it. Anyone else heard this?
 
I've not heard it and frankly, I don't believe it.
Sky are in the middle of talks and want to charge more for their feeds.
With Branson and Murdoch having it on over ITV, I think it's going to be a long while before there is any HD.
But I look forward to being proved wrong :smashin:
 
Some of the info these engineers give out is completely wrong. I had one Sky engineer telling me that you would only be able to view Sky HD (before it was out) with a Sky branded TV. :rolleyes:

Anyway, like Badger, I will be overjoyed if I'm wrong :)
 
We'd have heard about news that big already, don't believe it for a second.
 
Yeah I thought it sounds too good to be true. Only ray of hope is the fact that NTL can offer the TV Drive and HD, but don't even bother advertising it. Not a single mention on the website and I had to speak to about 10 different people at NTL to find out the even offered it.
 
That would be great, but like the rest of you i doubt it's true, for 2 reasons.

1. When i was in contact with TW last year, at least a couple of call centre people told me that they are not told of new channels, they just appear. Unless a massive improvement in internal communication has ocurred, i think this will still hold true.

2. Again, past experience tells me that news that big would have been made into a press release on their website and there's no news of this on the TW page. It's highly unlikely that they would have told a few engineers, but not the public who are chosing TW vs Sky.
 
May I change the question a bit? WHEN will HD come to NTL/Telewest? if it's true that they're in talks then I don't see it before late 2007 :thumbsdow . Won't there be a mass exodus of all these new HDTV owners going to Sky HD? :rolleyes: . It's a shame because even though most would rather stay with NTL/Telewest, business is business and people will switch.
 
They're supposed to have been in talks since early last year.
But this time, the word is the talks are about what Sky wants to charge for the current feeds. No-one is sure they're even talking about HD.
I feel you'll be lucky to get it this year myself, but perhaps I'm just being pessimistic.
Re the exodus, yes I agree and I'll be one of them.
I got the TVDrive on the understanding there would be HD, along with many others.
Now I feel cheated :(
 
Another one of the imminent exodus here, they're going to get a flood of boxes back in a few months.

I hurried to get the box for the world cup thinking it was a given Sky sports HD would be added, TW told me they couldn't be specific but new channels would get added 'all the time'

Back in June when I got it they were indeed 'in talks' so don't hold your breath.

One HD channel and that's ending in May :thumbsdow
 
OMG, I didn't realise that.

Looks like I'll be going Sky when my 12 months is up in May. Shame really as I'd be quite happy to stay with cable otherwise.

Telewest/NTL/Virgin - whoever you are these days, YOU MUST TRY HARDER or customers will vote witht their feet. You have the perfect opportunity to compete with SKY using the Flextech channels. Oh no, wait, you can't even get 16:9 right can you?

Not impressed... :mad:
 
I wouldn't count on it sticking around what with all the funding issues which are jeopardising even having the olympics in HD in five years time.

I can't imagine there's any incentive for them to keep the channel running.

Not that I can say I'd really miss it, it's so rare anything decent is on I always forget about checking the listings.
 
There's been a few threads on the BBC HD channel and the usual conclusion that it definately will and definately won't stay around.

There are funding issues and issues around the defininition of "trial service" and the internal approvals needed to keep it going. The truth is that the INITIAL period does end in May, but we don't know if the service will stop or it will be renewed. There is a RISK that it will end after the 1 year period.

My OPINION is that it will hang around as they have been making and showing quite a lot on it - more than i would have thought from a trial. I can't see that they would have made "last of the summer wine" as an international commercial venture.
 
I've just had a cable bloke round to swap my TVDrive (HDMI socket).
I was having a chat with him.
He estimates a third of TVDrives have been swapped :eek:

Anyway, more to the point, I was moaning about the lack of HD.
He said that loads of people are complaining about it.
So I asked him what he knew.
His answer was "nothing", but an educated guess, from what he gets to hear back at the base, was that we'll get nothing before august/september.
His opinion was that TW's campaign about getting the world cup in HD has given Sky the right hump, so they've basically said "sod you, you ain't getting it".
He started going on about Virgin's financial year, but I didn't quite follow that bit.
Anyway, I'm not holding my breath :thumbsdow
Still looks like Sky for me in May.
Oh, he also agreed with my opinion about there being a big exodus.
 
I phoned last week and threatened to leave. I'm paying £90 a month for supreme tv, 10mb bb and telephone. 24 and Lost are two of our favourite series and to hear they are available in HD on sky was annoying.

The lady I spoke to said that there will be a lot more HD content in coming months when the virgin stuff is sorted out.

She's given me half price broadband for the next three months with a note to extend that to a further 9 months if I phone back and I'm still not happy with the content.

She seemed pretty confident new HD content was coming soon and that sky has been offering good discounts recently as they are "quaking in their boots" about the virgin deal.

We shall see..... :rolleyes:
 
The problem seems to me that the easiest route for TW is to buy HD channels from sky, who are no doubt also aware of this upcoming exodus and are therefore incentivised to be difficult for now. If i was in sky's position i would tell TWVirgin to shove it for now and watch the flood of new subscribers.

At some point this will calm down and then sky can see the benefit of increased advertising revenue from TW people. But in my logical mind, since the sky HD channels are mainly sim-casts, they can probably rely on most of the viewers just watching in SD - so they wouldnt be new viewers for the advertisers. I'm missing 24 in HD, but i'm still watching the SD version.

They should start to develop their own HD content or develop more arrangements with existing non TW channels. That might encourage sky to feel more like sharing.

In the meantime sky are sitting pretty in my view and its a damn shame i cant have a dish..
 
I have read these posts and have decided to gamble on telewest/virgin media. I dont know of a Richard Branson company that has failed to produce a great service yet. I used "The Great Exodus" arguement on the phone to telewest and managed to get:

10 meg broadband
supreme TV with TV drive
2nd TV box
Phone line
wireless router

All this for £45! for 12 months. Even if there HD content doesnt improve I`m saving myself £50 a month.
And I`m not tied in so if SKY have some HD offers in the future I will be a new customer so get the best ones.
 
There's £1.84 million reasons they won't be quaking, their monthly HD subs have doubled. The outcome is Sky won't be under any financial pressure from shareholders so won't have to sell and chances are don't want to sell HD channels to NTL/TW.
 
I have read these posts and have decided to gamble on telewest/virgin media. I dont know of a Richard Branson company that has failed to produce a great service yet. I used "The Great Exodus" arguement on the phone to telewest and managed to get:

10 meg broadband
supreme TV with TV drive
2nd TV box
Phone line
wireless router

All this for £45! for 12 months. Even if there HD content doesnt improve I`m saving myself £50 a month.
And I`m not tied in so if SKY have some HD offers in the future I will be a new customer so get the best ones.

Damn, if i can get that for that price i'm going for TW/V
 
What on earth are the new Virgins going to do about this situation? :suicide: All Sky have to do is say "tough tits" and all the new HDTV owners will just switch to Sky. There won't be anyone left come 2008! :eek: Surely a lot of people must have got HDTVs this Christmas and will do throughout this year.
 
While Sky One, Movie channels and Sky Sports are covered by the rate card and OFT agreements, Sky's HD channels aren't. Sky can simply tell NTL/TW where to go for the HD channels. Sky are not denying cable customer of the ability to watch programmes on Sky One etc you simply can't watch Sky's HD channels so gets round the orignal OFT ruling and the revised one from 2002
 
:confused:
Er, so Sky are saying to cable "you can't have it"?
Not being funny, but tell us something we don't know :rolleyes:
 

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