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Old 15-08-2004, 08:39
BroadbandRules
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Now Homechoice (http://www.homechoice.co.uk) has added Sky Sports & Movies to it's service. Homechoice now has an impressive range of features that really gives Sky and it's Sky Plus box some decent competition, all for a £1 installation.

• Sky Sports & Sky Movies
• 60 TV channels
• 1000 Movies on Demand with Fast Forward & Rewind controls
• 2500 Track Video Jukebox with FF/RW and Skip
• TV on Demand including BBC One & Channel 4 & Chelsea TV Replay Channels & Active Channels like C-One, Disney Treasures, Scamp, Fitness etc
• 512 kb/s to 2 mb/s broadband internet
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Old 15-08-2004, 08:53
artnada
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Originally Posted by BroadbandRules
Now Homechoice has added Sky Sports & Movies to it's service. Homechoice now has an impressive range of features that really gives Sky and it's Sky Plus box some decent competition, all for a £1 installation.

• Sky Sports & Sky Movies
• 60 TV channels
• 1000 Movies on Demand with Fast Forward & Rewind controls
• 2500 Track Video Jukebox with FF/RW and Skip
• TV on Demand including BBC One & Channel 4 & Chelsea TV Replay Channels & Active Channels like C-One, Disney Treasures, Scamp, Fitness etc
• 512 kb/s to 2 mb/s broadband internet

So um...is that an advert then?
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Old 15-08-2004, 12:12
Ron Jeremy
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i've had homechoice, and it's crap, thanks for the advert
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Old 15-08-2004, 22:21
cdon77
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So how much is Sky Sports & Sky Movies on Homechoice? I can't see any pricing info on their website regarding Sky premium channels. Can't imagine it being cheaper than SkyDigital.
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Old 16-08-2004, 07:14
Brush Master
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Homechoice provides an attractive packet with the right technology going forward: true bi-directional, server-based, TCP/IP based broadcasting and VoD. That's all goodness.

It is true, however, that they have a long way to go. Presently, the image quality is improving but just not where it ought to be; I would rate the image quality at "freeview level".

More to the point, there are frequent drop-outs, causing temporary pixelation on TV broadcasts, sharp, load, sudden hissing on radio b'cast, and occasional, transient, service interruptions (a few per day) on the Internet service.

I believe they're on the right track but with quite some way to go.
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Old 16-08-2004, 11:32
Zapomatic
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Originally Posted by Brush Master
More to the point, there are frequent drop-outs, causing temporary pixelation on TV broadcasts, sharp, load, sudden hissing on radio b'cast, and occasional, transient, service interruptions (a few per day) on the Internet service.

I believe they're on the right track but with quite some way to go.
I've never experienced problems like that, though my local telephone exchange (Southwark) is a 5-10 minute walk from here. Initially the ridiculously short DHCP lease time caused problems with my wireless router, but since that's been increased, all is well. Picture quality is certainly improving too. I guess with HomeChoice a lot could be dependant on the quality of your telephone line, after all I'm sure they are pushing the data capacity of a phone line quite hard.
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Old 17-08-2004, 06:54
red_g00ner
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Originally Posted by Brush Master
More to the point, there are frequent drop-outs, causing temporary pixelation on TV broadcasts, sharp, load, sudden hissing on radio b'cast, and occasional, transient, service interruptions (a few per day) on the Internet service.
i would ring customer services. i have never had those problems.
agree picuture quality is not quite there on some channels and VOD
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Old 17-08-2004, 21:29
pissedbob
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I had HomeChoice installed at the weekend - picture quality isn't quite as good as Telewest Broadband (imho) YET - but apparently they are moving over to MPEG4 in a few months which will help matters a LOT.

I've had no problems whatsoever so far (crosses fingers...)

They have only just launched the Sky channels - pricing info is not yet on their website, although I intend to ask for details if it doesn't appear soon.

I'm loving the V:MX channels at the moment, having a video jukebox rocks

The only minor negative point so far is that the box feels slightly slow to react to actions on the remote, though it isn't THAT bad, and I'm sure will improve with upgrades etc in the future.
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Old 18-08-2004, 11:30
Denuvo
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The Sky Movies 1 package (five channels, Sky Movies 1-3-5-7-9) is £23/month. The Sky Sports package (four channels, Sky Sports 1-2-3-Xtra) is £24/month. Both packages together are £31.50/month. Although they plan to make additional Sky channels available in the future, these are the only packages currently available. This means that Sky Movies 2-4-6-8 and Sky Cinema 1-2 are not available, nor are any of the non-premium Sky channels (sorry, no Sky One).
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Old 18-08-2004, 11:36
Schoolboy
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Originally Posted by Denuvo
The Sky Movies 1 package (five channels, Sky Movies 1-3-5-7-9) is £23/month. The Sky Sports package (four channels, Sky Sports 1-2-3-Xtra) is £24/month. Both packages together are £31.50/month. Although they plan to make additional Sky channels available in the future, these are the only packages currently available. This means that Sky Movies 2-4-6-8 and Sky Cinema 1-2 are not available, nor are any of the non-premium Sky channels (sorry, no Sky One).
Which makes it more expensive by some way than Telewest as far as Sky channels go.

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Old 21-08-2004, 17:52
TheBigM
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it is a nice service in its infancy. As they expand I'm sure increased revenue will allow them to improve. P.S> they have V.O.D> that is huge. I'm sure ADSL2 wil help. Sky do not want it grow into a real threat so I suspect that Sky Movies and Sky Sports will be prohibitively expensive.
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Old 21-08-2004, 17:55
TheBigM
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It is step in the right direction
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Old 22-08-2004, 12:09
riggers
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Does anyone know if the interactive elements that sky provide to there subscribers will also available on homechoice?
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Old 22-08-2004, 13:14
pissedbob
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HC doesn't yet support interactive (red-button) services on any of the channels, not even BBCi. So I wouldn't get your hopes up for Sky Sports Xtra interactive just yet

A message pops up telling you that it's not yet available on most channels, so some sort of interactive feature must factor in their plans somewhere.

(mid you, telewest have been saying that about the 'digital text' button for about the last four years...)
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Old 22-08-2004, 14:10
riggers
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oh well based on that and its a years contract means I will not be signing up to a service that still appears to be relatively new.

Will have to try and convince my landlord to let me stick a dish on the side of the flat!
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Old 22-08-2004, 14:56
pissedbob
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Hmmm... interesting that you find find interactive services such an important factor. Certainly those we had on Telewest were nothing but a waste of time, slow and without even as much information as analogue Teletext. (With the notable exception of the occasional BBC sport extra steram).

I was under the impression that most channel providers (except the BBC) were in fact scaling back interactive features these days?
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Old 31-08-2004, 12:06
TheBigM
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considering they give you the internet at high speed, how important is the iteractive to you. Also it is unlikely that Sky will give their best stuff which they pay millions of pounds for t.v. rights to HC because HC is best placed to become a serious threat to Sky with its national coverage. If they did let HC have it, they would charge large, impractical prices for it.
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