Sky + Box question

[purpleprincess]

I would really like to get Sky+ as fed up of recording on bad quality video and never being able to find it - also have tried Sky+ at friends while babysitting. Phoned Sky up and because we currently only subscribe to a few channels we would have to pay £199 for the box, £60 for installation and another £10 a month on top of that which seems astronomical to me! If we had 'multiroom' would cost about £89 but as we only have one tv this wouldnt really work. I'm sure you can get the boxes (or some equivalent) and install themselves but would this still work? Would they try and get you to pay the £10 subscription??

Anyone tried it or got any advice please.

Many thanks

If you buy one of the more expensive packages then you don't have the £10 a month on top for Sky+ (we just have the sport extra package, not the movies as we never watch them - but you still get box office). Usually there are deals where you get free installation or something - I'm pretty sure we didn't pay all that when we had ours put in. I'd wait a bit and look out for the offers.

Thanks GDG - yes I checked this out - we would have to pay £32 a month (currently on £15 package) And then would still have to pay for box and installation charge! I've seen offers on the website before but they are invariably for new customers. Want to know if anyone has bought a box from somewhere else and installed it themselves. It is not that i'm a complete cheapskate just think it is a cheek being charged 3 times over - for the product, the installation and then a monthly charge!

Thanks

I agree. Hmmm, I'm sure we had sky before sky+ and still got the offer though.

There is someone on here that works for sky - hope they come along soon and can help!

Just spoken to DH who has found out that you need two wires coming down from your satellite dish as need two inputs (one to record and one to watch kind of thing) so that is why needs installing properly. Still a cheek if you ask me!

Thanks again

You can't just put Sky+ in to replace Sky, for 2 reasons (at least!). Firstly you need something called a quad LNB I think, which normal sky doesn't have, and secondly you need a sky+ subscription. You cant get round the £10 a month unless you go for the more expensive subscription. What you CAN do is ask to be put through to the cancellations dept and say something like the reason you want to cancel is because its too costly to upgrade, compared to what new customers get. This isn't 100% foolproof, but this works for most people. I know some who actually had to cancel and wait for sky to get in touch to offer them a deal. Worst case scenario though is you call day before you're due to be cut off and they reinstate you.
This has been talked about 100s of times on www.avforums.com, the sky+ forum.

Thanks MaryBS - are you the one who works for Sky? I now realise that technically you cant get round it but would be prepared to pay the subscription on it's own if the initial outlay is not as much. Might be worth a go with the cancellation thing?

Thanks for your advice

No I don't work for Sky (and I think I upset the lady last time I posted this advice! ). However last time I posted this for someone in the same boat as you and it worked for them.

I regularly look in on Avforums for several reasons:
They post DVD bargains
They post advice on problems to do with TVs, videos, DVDs, Sky, mobile phones etc - also special deals on the same.
They seem to know whats coming out when before anyone else. For example Sky HD (the new high resolution broadcasting)

yes that makes sense actually - doh!! Thanks anyway might try it if i'm feeling brave at some point but if it didnt work DS would be heartbroken if we couldnt get Nick Jr. How sad is that - what a society we live in!!

Thanks

Aah, but if it does go wrong, you have to give a month's notice to cancel sky, but you can reinstate yourself at no cost any time before the month is up and its as if you never cancelled!