Anyone remember a programme shown every Sunday around 4pm called GLOW?
(The Glamorous Ladies Of Wrestling)?
I remember it well, it was on either Lifestyle or Screensport, which were channels owned by W H Smith.
Terrible sexist rubbish, nothing like WWE or TNA nowadays *cough cough*
I remember when I had my very first Dish fitted. It was an ITT Nokia, it cost me just over £500, (no free boxes then). I had it fitted in April 1991 and I have been with SKY ever since.
I shudder to think how much money I have paid over the years, but in reality I think it has been money well spent for all the entertainment I have received in return.
Now, here and now in 2013, I am Old, Decrepit, Disabled and I don't get out much at all. So my TV is even more important to me as it is my window to the outside world, that is besides the internet.
So in my little opinion SKY is good value for money as I can watch it in my living room or my bedroom anytime I like and all in HD. To me it would be terrible if the day ever came that I could not afford SKY.
I remember it well, it was on either Lifestyle or Screensport, which were channels owned by W H Smith.
Terrible sexist rubbish, nothing like WWE or TNA nowadays *cough cough*
I remember when I had my very first Dish fitted. It was an ITT Nokia, it cost me just over £500, (no free boxes then). I had it fitted in April 1991 and I have been with SKY ever since.
I shudder to think how much money I have paid over the years, but in reality I think it has been money well spent for all the entertainment I have received in return.
Now, here and now in 2013, I am Old, Decrepit, Disabled and I don't get out much at all. So my TV is even more important to me as it is my window to the outside world, that is besides the internet.
So in my little opinion SKY is good value for money as I can watch it in my living room or my bedroom anytime I like and all in HD. To me it would be terrible if the day ever came that I could not afford SKY.
My father first got Sky TV, a year after launch, They had a offer for a free month so he took it up. I remember us getting 7 Channels in English, 6 in German and 1 Dutch, 2 channels were encrypted using the D2-MAC system and were not available. (making up the 16 that Astra 1A broacasted,) We had it for about 6 weeks before he had the dish and receiver taken out because he was not happy with it with the amount of money it was costing him (only £20 a month in 1990). I was still in school so me taking over the payments were impossible. Yet 6 months later he had cable fitted which gave us less channels (only 4) and a poor picture quality caused by RF interference, he was paying more than £20 a month for it and was happy with that, He got satellite TV back in 1993 as he found more English channels were available. We had a Nokia Sat 1500, and that lasted 2 years before it broke down, he sent the Nokia away for repairs and suffered poor picture quality on Videocrypt channels for years until it gave up the ghost completly
My father first got Sky TV, a year after launch, They had a offer for a free month so he took it up. I remember us getting 7 Channels in English, 6 in German and 1 Dutch, 2 channels were encrypted using the D2-MAC system and were not available. (making up the 16 that Astra 1A broacasted,) We had it for about 6 weeks before he had the dish and receiver taken out because he was not happy with it with the amount of money it was costing him (only £20 a month in 1990). I was still in school so me taking over the payments were impossible. Yet 6 months later he had cable fitted which gave us less channels (only 4) and a poor picture quality caused by RF interference, he was paying more than £20 a month for it and was happy with that, He got satellite TV back in 1993 as he found more English channels were available. We had a Nokia Sat 1500, and that lasted 2 years before it broke down, he sent the Nokia away for repairs and suffered poor picture quality on Videocrypt channels for years until it gave up the ghost completly
I thought the Sky channels were all free for quite a while after it launched?
The first one they scrambled and started charging for was Sky Movies and they issued separate decoders for it to go with the original FTA receivers.
The sports channel was the original Eurosport which was FTA and all the entertainment channels were free as well.
Also, why have the system taken out? Surely it was yours anyway unless the system was different then and Sky rented out the equipment or something. I don't remember that being the case. In fact you could buy the receivers in the High Street as you can now for Freesat. As is still the case, the system would have carried on working on all the FTA channels.
I thought the Sky channels were all free for quite a while after it launched?
The first one they scrambled and started charging for was Sky Movies and they issued separate decoders for it to go with the original FTA receivers.
The sports channel was the original Eurosport which was FTA and all the entertainment channels were free as well.
Also, why have the system taken out? Surely it was yours anyway unless the system was different then and Sky rented out the equipment or something. I don't remember that being the case. In fact you could buy the receivers in the High Street as you can now for Freesat. As is still the case, the system would have carried on working on all the FTA channels.
We went to currys and brought a pace Satellite box and dish for £220 in 1995, loved watching sunday late night german channels
My parents didn't go down the sky route at first as my Dad didn't want a ''dustbin lid'' bolted to the side of the house, Instead we had a BSB system and the squarial was bolted to a fence in the back garden, and everybody knows what happened then, but once bsb went off the air from marco polo we had the astra system for free... i still sometimes wonder what would have happened if sky lost out to bsb and bsb prospered instead. But i used to love the old ''Sky One'' days
i still sometimes wonder what would have happened if sky lost out to bsb and bsb prospered instead. But i used to love the old ''Sky One'' days
The BSB system was too restrictive really and the considering the receivers were almost twice the price of a Sky receiver. On top of that BSB was losing considerably more money than Sky was as time so the conclusion was inevitable.
It always seems to be the way, the superior system loses out to an inferior one just like Betamax lost out to VHS.
I thought the Sky channels were all free for quite a while after it launched?
The first one they scrambled and started charging for was Sky Movies and they issued separate decoders for it to go with the original FTA receivers.
They were free. When they started encryption you got a dreadful standalone decoder which my engineer wired up wrong! Still they were interesting days!
Except it was only a 'merger' in name, in reality Sky just took them over - and at the 'request' of the UK government.
BSB was completely mismanaged, they wasted their money on expensive premises, and never had a prayer of surviving.
Correct!
The British Television establishment(and we know who they were) making a howling arse of the whole thing in a spectacular way and very public.
D-MAC was only ever going to be a stop gap any way.
I thought the Sky channels were all free for quite a while after it launched?
The first one they scrambled and started charging for was Sky Movies and they issued separate decoders for it to go with the original FTA receivers.
The sports channel was the original Eurosport which was FTA and all the entertainment channels were free as well.
Also, why have the system taken out? Surely it was yours anyway unless the system was different then and Sky rented out the equipment or something. I don't remember that being the case. In fact you could buy the receivers in the High Street as you can now for Freesat. As is still the case, the system would have carried on working on all the FTA channels.
Back in 1990 you could 'rent the systems' with the option to buy after a month or 2, we had a Videocrypt decoder for Sky Movies, the receiver was a Amstrad SRX 200, We had a problem with the LNB (horizontal white lines on the screen over the picture with a high pitched screaming sound), which was replaced for free, when my father had the system removed, the rental company took the dish, receiver and decoder, but left us the cable. I think the price for Sky Movies was £9.99 a month and the rental of the equipment was around £10 a month, I think Sky Movies started at about 2:00 in the afternoon and a shopping channel was shown in the downtime back then,.
I remember cable it was £12pm for 4 channels. Sky One, Movies, Sports and TCC I think.
I think we paid more than £12 a month, we had a channel changer dial fitted on the window sill which had 12 channels on it but only 4 were used, a small white 'receiver ' was hooked up to the VCR via a Y shape splitter so we could record off it if we wanted to along with the terrestrial channels, If we had bad weather we would get nothing because the Cable TV wire was above ground normally running along the facia boards of people's homes, the cable was not maintained properly, so the engineers had to go out and do repairs. We had Sky News from 2:00 am to 9:00 am and Eurosport from 9:00 am to 2:00 am on channel A, Eurosport did close down and the cable company retuned their receiver to get Sky Sports., Sky Movies was 24 hours on Channel B. TCC was available via from 6:00 am to 12:00 pm and MTV was on from 12:00 pm to 6:00 am, TCC was broadcasting from Intelsat 27.5 west then as well as Astra so we had the Intelsat feed, the cable company replaced those with The Movie Channel for 24 hours on channel C, Sky One took channel D for 24 hours. When the Movie Channel started the price for the cable went up (a special filter was fitted in the channel changer for it). The cable company had 2 very large dishes for the weaker satellites along with the 2 Astra dishes, the larger dishes were removed sometime after TCC was taken from us. The cable company ceased trading in 2001 after Sky Analogue finished and all the cables for the service were removed.
Yes, the separate Videocrypt decoders were as big as the receivers and spectacularly ugly!
Actually they were taller and very slightly wider. I just had to go rooting around at the back of the shed and there it was, sitting atop an Amstrad Fidelity SRX200.
And spectacularly ugly is an understatement!
The Nokia that replaced it (on top of the Videocrypt) could grace any room even today -Scandinavian style.
Its amazing really that the sky analogue days were only available for a max of about 11-12 years (1989-2001), yet we all remember them due to the limited channels & foreign broadcasts that were available.
I only got Sky when I was 18 in 1995, then we went digital as soon as it came out in 1998 & HD in 2006.
I had satellite tv installed in November 1989, it was a 90cm dish fitted on the rooftop. It was rented along with a Salora analogue box for £12 a month. I remember fuming when it went up to £15:D Sky was free back then with movies such as Predator and A Nightmare On Elm Street 3. Daytime tv was mostly 70's/80's american game shows. Who remembers Friday Fright Night on Sky1:D
When I saw the title of this thread I hoped that I'd find talk about the pre Sky days of the eighties. I have very little recollection of the channels on satellite at this time as I only ever saw satellite tv in hotels and a very few pubs.
The only channel that I remember was called Premiere. Can anyone enlighten me on any others and what their content was? Was satellite tv something that was just for commercial premises or was there also a domestic market? How much did a system cost? How were the channels financed?
Sorry about all the questions but my curiosity has been sparked?
Comments
Terrible sexist rubbish, nothing like WWE or TNA nowadays *cough cough*
I shudder to think how much money I have paid over the years, but in reality I think it has been money well spent for all the entertainment I have received in return.
Now, here and now in 2013, I am Old, Decrepit, Disabled and I don't get out much at all. So my TV is even more important to me as it is my window to the outside world, that is besides the internet.
So in my little opinion SKY is good value for money as I can watch it in my living room or my bedroom anytime I like and all in HD. To me it would be terrible if the day ever came that I could not afford SKY.
I bet you remember Tutti fruiti as well:D:o
I hope that day never comes.
Oh! yes!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZeQ-b1z_6c
Also the Dutch channel Veronica used to show Veronique Erotique after 11pm (UK time) but soon scrambled it.
The first one they scrambled and started charging for was Sky Movies and they issued separate decoders for it to go with the original FTA receivers.
The sports channel was the original Eurosport which was FTA and all the entertainment channels were free as well.
Also, why have the system taken out? Surely it was yours anyway unless the system was different then and Sky rented out the equipment or something. I don't remember that being the case. In fact you could buy the receivers in the High Street as you can now for Freesat. As is still the case, the system would have carried on working on all the FTA channels.
We went to currys and brought a pace Satellite box and dish for £220 in 1995, loved watching sunday late night german channels
It always seems to be the way, the superior system loses out to an inferior one just like Betamax lost out to VHS.
Except it was only a 'merger' in name, in reality Sky just took them over - and at the 'request' of the UK government.
BSB was completely mismanaged, they wasted their money on expensive premises, and never had a prayer of surviving.
Sky did four channels, plus there was Supersport? and a WHSmith channel which featured episodes of The Cisco Kid from the 50's.
And there was Tutti Frutti on RTL?
The WHSmith Channel was Lifestyle
They were free. When they started encryption you got a dreadful standalone decoder which my engineer wired up wrong! Still they were interesting days!
Correct!
The British Television establishment(and we know who they were) making a howling arse of the whole thing in a spectacular way and very public.
D-MAC was only ever going to be a stop gap any way.
Back in 1990 you could 'rent the systems' with the option to buy after a month or 2, we had a Videocrypt decoder for Sky Movies, the receiver was a Amstrad SRX 200, We had a problem with the LNB (horizontal white lines on the screen over the picture with a high pitched screaming sound), which was replaced for free, when my father had the system removed, the rental company took the dish, receiver and decoder, but left us the cable. I think the price for Sky Movies was £9.99 a month and the rental of the equipment was around £10 a month, I think Sky Movies started at about 2:00 in the afternoon and a shopping channel was shown in the downtime back then,.
and the decoders used to get quite hot as well.
I think we paid more than £12 a month, we had a channel changer dial fitted on the window sill which had 12 channels on it but only 4 were used, a small white 'receiver ' was hooked up to the VCR via a Y shape splitter so we could record off it if we wanted to along with the terrestrial channels, If we had bad weather we would get nothing because the Cable TV wire was above ground normally running along the facia boards of people's homes, the cable was not maintained properly, so the engineers had to go out and do repairs. We had Sky News from 2:00 am to 9:00 am and Eurosport from 9:00 am to 2:00 am on channel A, Eurosport did close down and the cable company retuned their receiver to get Sky Sports., Sky Movies was 24 hours on Channel B. TCC was available via from 6:00 am to 12:00 pm and MTV was on from 12:00 pm to 6:00 am, TCC was broadcasting from Intelsat 27.5 west then as well as Astra so we had the Intelsat feed, the cable company replaced those with The Movie Channel for 24 hours on channel C, Sky One took channel D for 24 hours. When the Movie Channel started the price for the cable went up (a special filter was fitted in the channel changer for it). The cable company had 2 very large dishes for the weaker satellites along with the 2 Astra dishes, the larger dishes were removed sometime after TCC was taken from us. The cable company ceased trading in 2001 after Sky Analogue finished and all the cables for the service were removed.
Actually they were taller and very slightly wider. I just had to go rooting around at the back of the shed and there it was, sitting atop an Amstrad Fidelity SRX200.
And spectacularly ugly is an understatement!
The Nokia that replaced it (on top of the Videocrypt) could grace any room even today -Scandinavian style.
I only got Sky when I was 18 in 1995, then we went digital as soon as it came out in 1998 & HD in 2006.
The only channel that I remember was called Premiere. Can anyone enlighten me on any others and what their content was? Was satellite tv something that was just for commercial premises or was there also a domestic market? How much did a system cost? How were the channels financed?
Sorry about all the questions but my curiosity has been sparked?