Sky HD+ offer

[admin_exported]

After buying a 37inch Panasonic Plasma ive decided i really ought to be getting Hi Def tv now so im taking sky up on there £49 offer.

What i want to know is can i just get the basic Hd pack at £9.75 a month or do i have to get one of the entertainment packs too?

The other thing is at the moment i can record from my pvr player onto dvd, will i be able to record from the skybox onto dvd via scart from skybox to scart on dvd recorder and will a dvd be able to record hi def?

 

[Liam19]

Tangerine dream:
After buying a 37inch Panasonic Plasma ive decided i really ought to be getting Hi Def tv now so im taking sky up on there £49 offer.

What i want to know is can i just get the basic Hd pack at £9.75 a month or do i have to get one of the entertainment packs too?

The other thing is at the moment i can record from my pvr player onto dvd, will i be able to record from the skybox onto dvd via scart from skybox to scart on dvd recorder and will a dvd be able to record hi def?

AFAIK the HD pack only gives you the HD versions of the channels included in your entertainment package. You need to actually subscribe to some Sky channels first before you can get any of them in HD. I think you can get BBC HD and Channel 4 HD without subscription to either, however.

Your second question is confusingly written, hopefully someone else can help you on that one.ÿ

 

[Anonymous]

I Will be subscribing to the basic hd package at £9.75 , is that ok with the £49 deal or do i have to subscribe to a Entertainment pack too or can i get away with just the basic hd package?

I know the entertainment pack is not hd.

 

[Liam19]

The £9.75 'HD Pack' is not a channel package in of itself, as far as I'm aware - it just gives you the HD versions of channels you have otherwise subscribed to. Sky TV starts at £16.50 a month for the most basic package, so you need this at the very least before even thinking about the HD Pack.

 

[daveh75]

Tangerine dream:

I Will be subscribing to the basic hd package at £9.75 , is that ok with the £49 deal or do i have to subscribe to a Entertainment pack too or can i get away with just the basic hd package?

I know the entertainment pack is not hd.

Not really sure what your asking! The £9.75 is for HD subcription on top of a package, the minimum package ATM is £16.50.So it will cost you £26.25 minimum. Oh and no you can't record hi-def via scart and not on to dvd even if you could

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for answering my questions.

So it looks like ill be forking out £26.25 a month, i hope this hd is worth it as some people have said they cant tell any difference.

I await sunday with interest.

 

[mikey2008]

Tangerine dream:

i hope this hd is worth it as some people have said they cant tell any difference.

I await sunday with interest.

You can tell the difference if you have a big enough TV (40 inch plus) and it's full HD. The difference between SD and HD is very noticeable.

 

[tvmog]

There is some confusion over what you get with the Sky HD pack. You certainly don't get Sky Movies or Sky Sports unless you have a separate subscription. However, I have at least two HD channels that are not covered by the packs that I subscribe to ( MTV HD and Eurosport HD). FX HD, National Geographic HD, Discovery HD and History HD all run different programs to their SD equivilents, but I don't know if you have to have an SD pack subscription for these in order to get the HD versions as I already have subscribtions that cover these channels.

It may be worth just getting an HD pack subscription to start with and then upgrading if this does not give you enough channels.

 

[Liam19]

tvmog:
It may be worth just getting an HD pack subscription to start with and then upgrading if this does not give you enough channels.

Will Sky even let you do this? I highly doubt it somehow.

 

[Anonymous]

mikey2008:Tangerine dream:

i hope this hd is worth it as some people have said they cant tell any difference.

I await sunday with interest.

You can tell the difference if you have a big enough TV (40 inch plus) and it's full HD. The difference between SD and HD is very noticeable.

My panasonic plasma 37px80 only goes to 1024 x 720 so are you saying i wont notice any difference between sd and hd?

 

[Alsone]

Tangerine dream:

My panasonic plasma 37px80 only goes to 1024 x 720 so are you saying i wont notice any difference between sd and hd?

You'll notice the difference. How much of a difference depends on the quality of the programme to start with and whether its true HD or upscaled SD.

If you really want to see the true potential of HD, find the FTA LUXE HD channel. Its absolutely sublime.

 

[Sorreltiger]

There's some very misleading information being given out on this thread. ÿThe HD package has NOTHING to do with the other 'mixes' that you choose. ÿOf course, you need to go with the at least the minimum of one 'entertainment pack', but after that, the HD channels are a separate thing entirely. ÿVia that, you can get the HD versions of channels that are NOT in your SD list. ÿIf you're only interested in watching in HD, that can save you money. ÿFor example, I don't bother to subscribe the the mix which gets me Sky Arts, because I can watch Sky HD anyway. ÿThe same applies to the Discovery Channel HD, National Geographic HD etc. ÿThe only exceptions are Sky Movies HD and Sky Sports HD, which cost you extra, of course. ÿTo receive them you have to subscribe to all of the Movie or Sport channels.

ÿ

Hope that helps. ÿBTW, Luxe may have a great picture, but I'd only recommend it if you're suffering from insomnia.ÿ

 

[The_Lhc]

Tangerine dream:ÿi hope this hd is worth it as some people have said they cant tell any difference.ÿ

They might be referring to Sky's own HD channels.

There are two types of HD channel, the way Sky does it and the way most other broadcasters do it.

For example; BBC HD is an entirely separate channel, ie it shows different programs to what is currently showing on BBC1 or 2 (it also only runs for a few hours a day, they don't have enough HD material for more but that will change, I don't understand why they say that either because I understood that the BBC have been filming all their shows in HD for a number of years, anyway...) and ONLY shows HD-recorded programs.

Sky do it differently, Sky1 HD, and Sky Sports 1,2 and 3 HD are simulcasts, ie they show exactly the same programs that are showing on the SD versions of the channels, REGARDLESS (and this is the important bit) of whether the program being broadcast was recorded in HD or not, so what you end up with is four HD channels that actually show quite a lot of SD programs, which is probably where people say they can't see any difference (because there isn't any difference!).

Nevertheless if you watch HD channels that are purely HD then you WILL see a difference, even on your set.

 

[The_Lhc]

Tangerine dream:ÿMy panasonic plasma 37px80 only goes to 1024 x 720

That doesn't matter, the SkyHD box only goes to 720p or 1080i anyway, you can't transmit 1080p over satellite, it requires too much bandwidth.

 

[Anonymous]

What i will be watching mainly is Eurosport for the motorcycle racing plus Discovery, nat geographic or anything else related to nature/travel.

Cant see the point in watching soaps in hd (not that i watch soaps anyway).

I watched Natures great events in standard digital mode and that looked superb without hd so it must look mindblowing in hd.

Ill probably end up subscribing to one entertainment pack and the hd pack, i think thats the standard minimum package anyway when taking out a new 12 month contract.

 

[tvmog]

Tangerine dream:

What i will be watching mainly is Eurosport for the motorcycle racing plus Discovery, nat geographic or anything else related to nature/travel.

Eurosport HD has a different programming schedule to the other SD Eurosport channels. A lot of what is on the SD versions doesn't get shown on the HD channel. I have seen motorcycle racing on it in the past, but not that much.

Natures Great Events in HD is indeed mindblowing.

 

[Anonymous]

well the sky guy as been and gone and ive set up the tv to show off sky hd at its best and at the moment the jury is out.

I watched natures great events on normal digital last week and at 6pm this eve ill watch it in hd and see if there is a big difference .

Tvmog, yes you are right Europsort hd as a different content to normal Eurosport so ill have to keep both subscriptions going as i dont want to miss any motorcycle racing.

I recorded rush hd to sky + then recorded it to dvd via scart and it worked, now im not saying its recorded in hd quality but its still impresive quality all the same as long as you set the quality on dvd recording to 1 or 2 hours.

Which brings me to the question that if you record hd to dvd and your watching it on a good quality tv then who can say its not hd quality?

If you buy a dvd thats been filmed with hi def cameras does the hd get downgraded to dvd quality or is dvd quality as good as hd?

Its one to ponder and im sure the more knowledgable forum members will be able to answer.

 

[robjcooper]

Tangerine Dream,ÿ

Simple answer to your HD - DVD quality question is no. DVD is a standard def format in that its image has a frame resolution of 720 x 576 pixels whereas Full HD on Blu-ray has a frame resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. Doing the maths tells us that a single frame of SD contains 414,720 pixels whereas a frame of HD contains 2,073,600 pixels which illustrates why DVD is not High Def.

DVD's made from HD-sources are made by sending a downconverted standard def signal either off the back of an HD-VTR into the DVD encoder or via a standalone downconverter like the Teranex. The DVD you recorded from your Sky+ box is a standard def recording, albeit one made from a high quality original - and one that was downconverted from a digital HD signal on your Sky+ hard disc to a standard def analogue signal to be output from your scart socket into your dvd recorder. It was then digitally encoded and compressed as an Mpeg signal onto your DVD - so HD it most surely ain't.ÿ

Sure, the quality of upconverters in DVD players and in TVs are getting better all the time, but what you are seeing is not a true HD picture whatever HD TV you watch it on. What you are seeing is some very clever mathematical algorithms generating picture information which was never recorded to fill in all those missing pixels from an SD image to fill your HD TV screen.

Hope that explains just a bit !ÿ

ÿ

ÿ

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the very informative reply Robjcooper.