SKY HD Box

Advantages: See Review
Disadvantages: See Review

...I was very exited when my SKY HD box arived. I was very anxeious to get it set up. I knew there wasen't going to be that many sky HD channels to choose from but exited none the less. To prevent any ranting I will list the main advantages and disadvantages below. Dual tuner: This means that I can record and watch two different channels at the same time. Good for me as I watch loads of TV. This also has its draw backs because you have to have two seperate areal cables for each tuner don't ask me why. I would have been happyer if there was three tuners like the V+ boxes. The major draw back for SKY HD is there are a combination of things you can't do that you should be able to do with the dual tuner. For one you can't view the TV guid while two recordings are in progress. And it seems to prioritise recording an extra three minutes...

spamemailaccount2008 10.12.2008 · Read review
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Review of SKY SKY HD BOX

Sky HD Box

Advantages: Great picture quality
Disadvantages: Quite costly, HD became a novelty after a while

...Bought this item a year and a Half ago, And i have to say its had it ups and downs. Don't get me wrong, this is a great item to have producing the full glory of HD on your TV, But is It worth the cost? I'd been looking around for a while at HD in the stores, seeing how amazing the picture quality seemed to be compared to SD. So we bought a HD TV, and had nothing to show it off. So I decided to pay the £250 for the Box when sky had a deal on. It seemed like a great deal, contained Sky + Built in which we had wanted for some time. The Engeneer came, and if I can remember back that, It was quite quickly. Set it up within an hour and off we go. Picture I had already experienced a bit of HD through my xbox, but no actual TV. When It was set up, it was great, the picture was just as expected, Just sat there watching the BBC...

Kovu123 23.01.2009 · Read review
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Review of SKY SKY HD BOX

SKY HD

Advantages: Superb picture quality
Disadvantages: Initial price and set up

...After all the hype I managed to get my Dad to invest in the HD box. He phoned the good people at Sky and managed to haggle the price down to around £100 off the advertised price and then had the cheek to also ask 'what happens to the old Sky+ box - can we have it installed in the bedroom thrown in'? Gosh Sky even agreed to that - so it's well worth having a chat on the phone and seeing what Sky can do for you! The box itself is simply Sky+ with extra's. The installation is a little irritating as the engineer told us that Sky are mega-security conscious. He said we had to leave everything turned on and wait at least 4 hours for the set up to be complete. He had to phone 'headquarters' to verify codes with them and actually said that took more of his time than the actual installation. He also said that he wouldnt be surprised if we had...

whosdexter92 19.08.2007 (31.07.2008) · Read review
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Review of SKY SKY HD BOX

SKY HD, true High Def or not?

Advantages: Brilliant if just want the HD part, picture quality much improved for HD
Disadvantages: 1080i, true is 1080p, limited channels

...buy basic equipment making the advanced feature on your TV redundant. Moreover, if you try watching normal channels with SKY HD on a HD TV, the downscaling is very notable when comparing with either the CRT's or even the freesat pictures. THE EQUIPMENT In any HD scenario, the TV is important as well as the HDMI cables. But SKY HD, cannot reproduce to the quality of say a Blue Ray simply because of the nature of the broadcast. For example, if you were to buy a 1080p latest Panasonic Viera or Samsung Series 6 with contrast ratios of 30000:1 (ie the higher the ratio, the deeper the colours and the more 'real' the picture becomes), you will notice the difference when you play a Blue Ray disc and Sky HD - the picture would be much better on Blue ray. The box itself comes with a 160GB free storage hard drive and is pretty much similar...

makro74 31.07.2008 · Read review
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Review of SKY SKY HD BOX

Sky+HD, a bit of a rip-off really

Advantages: They're almost giving them away.
Disadvantages: Not the best quality, not enough HD channels to support extra £10 charge.

...I ordered a Sky HD box a couple of months ago after enjoying movies on my HD player and HD gaming on my Xbox. I was very excited and looking forward to watching all those lovely HD channels (I think 30 channels were being boasted at the time) The box prices and installation charges differ depending on the particular offer but I paid £49 for the box and £30 for installation . I was already a Sky+ TV and phone customer. To take Sky HD you will have to enter into another 12 month contract regardless of what contract you have currently. Please note that HD channels are £10 per month over anything else you are paying. If you don't have any premium channels like movies or sports then you have to pay another £10 to use the recording facility as well. The 30 or so HD channels that Sky are saying are available are only available if you...

LawrenceP 06.05.2009 · Read review
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Review of SKY SKY HD BOX

SKY HD, go on, you know you want it!

Advantages: Phenomenal Picture quality
Disadvantages: A bit costly

...I have had Sky HD for almost 2 years, initially, I had several problems with faulty boxes, however, I have had the current one for over 12 months now, and (i am touching wood at this point) it has been fine. As with all Sky boxes, the thing will occasionally 'freeze', simply unplugging it from the mains, plugging it straight back in again, and leaving the box for a minute before turning on, rectifies the problem. The box connects to your HD ready TV via an HDMI lead, a sort of digital scart lead, this gives an improvement in picture quality, not only on HD channels, but on all the SD channels as well. There is a 160GB hard drive built in, much larger than the standard Sky+ box, but it needs to be, HD programmes contain so much more information, they take up a much larger slice of the available memory, however, SD programmes take...

bobbob455 07.08.2008 (26.11.2008) · Read review
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Review of SKY SKY HD BOX

THIS SKY BOX IS ONE HELL OF A +

Advantages: Series links, user friendly, simutaneous recording
Disadvantages: Losing series links, cancelling programmes when recording 2

...After much humming and arring I managed to get a free upgrade onto Sky + and I'm so pleased that I did. When I received the box I was really excited and after it was all set up I soon got to setting up my favourite programmes so that I would never miss another programme. I instantly found that finding and setting my programmes to record was so easy. Using the normal TV guide I was able to search through the days and times as you normally would when checking programmes and setting reminders. When hitting the REC button, you are whisked off to what was normally the reminders screen. From here you are able to set up various things for your programme like if there is a series, you can click the series button so that you don't miss a programme all series. This is fantastic for programmes like Lost, Heroes, Bones etc etc. You can...

crispy79 25.08.2008 · Read review
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Review of Sky + (Plus)

Is SKY HD worth the money

Advantages: Fantastic picture, Ease of use, Box looks good
Disadvantages: a little expensive

...We had a 'normal' SKY box for about 2 years and then my daughter wanted us to get multi room so she can watch what she wanted and she said she will pay the £10 per month extra it cost (surprise surprise i have yet to see any money ) but we said OK anyway. As we needed another box we might as well go the whole hog and get HD as we had recently purchased a large (50") HD TV and all the reviews said you need HD imput to realy appreciate the TV. So about 12 months ago we took the plunge and ordered the multi room with a new HD box. Multi room at £10 per month and HD chanels at £10 per month. We managed to get free instalation with the HD box which was i think £150.00 as we asked if they would do a special deal as we were also ordering multiroom at the same time. I dont know if this is a particularly good deal but it was cheaper than...

philz750 05.01.2009 (04.01.2009) · Read review
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Review of SKY SKY HD BOX

Sky HD! Worth The Hype?

Advantages: True HD Quality Pictures, Sleek Looks
Disadvantages: Price, HD Channels

...The answer is..... probably, and only then if you own a HD tv. The immediate concern when buying the Sky HD box is the price, £299, then there is the extra £10 per month for the HD service. This becomes more so apparent when you realise that not all the channels are HD, and the ones that are HD don't always broadcast HD programmes, a major example of this is Sky One HD which shows exactly what is on Sky One. My partner is a Sky Engineer and the amount of houses he has been to where the customer has been mis-sold the product by electronic chain store salesman is unbelievable, especially elderly people who believe every channel is going to be in glorious HD. Anyway enough of the downside, the positives can out way the negatives, depending on your viewing tastes. In our house we watch a lot of sport and movies, and sport...

dazzmandoo 30.01.2007 · Read review
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Review of SKY SKY HD BOX

Sky HD - the future?

Advantages: Fantastic Picture, looks good
Disadvantages: Price, lack of HD Material, bugs

...Starting with the physical look of the box, the new design looks really cool and the black paint gives it a mean look! led's are now blue instead of previous yellow - really good looking, but subtle too. The features apart from the HD are the same as the sky+ box, but with a 320Gb hard drive in (mysteriously this is claimed by sky to be 160Gb and they say the other 160Gb is for future developments) The picture on normal broadcasts is as good as any other sky box, the HD picture quality varies considerably. For example most of the programs on the limited HD channels were not originated in HD and is upscaled to HD, this gives a pretty poor picture and looks better on the non HD version of the channel eg the simpsons on sky one hd looks bad, but looks fine on sky one normal! But switch to a program that was filmed in HD, eg planet...

nig6 10.08.2006 · Read review
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Review of SKY SKY HD BOX