Thanks for bringing me up to date Bob.
When I last worked emails were as rare as hens teeth.
Also, jon41, I'll learn to use www.readnotify.com, thanks.

Happily for me, the Sky person was very civilised in the end.
My concern was others hanging on to an 0871 number. I've been there !!
It may even have deterred some from cancelling.

SWIZZ?

Like I said, there are small quantities left in some shops, and no more available - so advertising something that you can't get would be pretty pointless.

No you didn't:


You said they weren't available.

They are.

I've even posted a link to where you can buy them.

You were wrong.


Edit: Here's somewhere else from whom you can buy one. Look Here
Last edited by Tern : 03-02-2009 at 22:23

As Sky are losing a few people like you and gaining far more than are leaving it the opposite of the stampede to Fresat you are attempting to imply!

There will also be, quite likely, other people who like HD a lot on Freesat but who are unsatisfied with the (even long term!) prospects for much more going the other way!

I'm not attempting to imply any such thing. That is just a figment of your imagination. All I said was that I had dropped Sky in favour of Freesat and so had other people that I knew. Also many people have reported doing so here and on other forums.

As such, by any definition of competition understood by people who are not desperate to grind some axe, Freesat is competition for Sky.

It's a fact of life so you may as well try to learn to live with it rather than pretending it isn't.

????????????????????????????????


Check the above quote, part of which you even quoted yourself.


Still 100% correct, there are small quantities left in the shops, and no more available - why do you have trouble understanding that?, try checking all the other posts that mention it.

I'll say again, why pay to advertise something that people can't buy - or at least only VERY few people would be able to buy.

There are SD FS tuners availible if you look around but personally I would imagine companies concentrating on HD boxes more, as that is where the demand seems to be.

Yes it is true that there was a shortage of Humax HDR boxes after Christmas because they under estimated the demand for the units, Humax admited that. It also said on the Humax direct site under the HDR "Out of stock until 2009 due to high street demand". It took them a while after the Christmas break to catch up but they are availible now in shops and on the web. This in itself says something, that people know about FS and what it is at least, let alone want it for the boxes to have become in short supply.

To say that FS is not compitition to Sky because you pay for Sky and not FS is not only idiotic but I would be embarrassed to admit I thought that. FS is offering a service for no charge (after purchasing the equipment) that Sky are charging for that is not only compitition but the hardest sort of compitition to combat.

FV is also compitition because that offers FOC all that some people want in all the BBC,ITV,CH4 and CH5 channels, which at one time they would have had no option but to subscribe to Sky to get (Not including BBC1,BBC2,ITV1,CH4 & in some areas CH5). Also if you want some of the channels on Sky they are availible from TopUp on the FV platform for les money and whithout subscribing to a 12 month contract. Sky did have a finger in the FS pie which is why it kicked of with Sky Travel, Sky News and Sky Sports News. I am not sure if Sky still have a finger in the pie.

As for advertising there is advertising for FS, not only on ITV for the ITV HD channel. "Only availible on Freesat." but on the web and in publication too. Sky managed to acheive its subscription figures partly by having a strangle hold on sport but it has lost that now!! I personally know 3 Sky subscribers who are seriously thinking about going to FS.

As I have said before it is probably now harder to go out and buy a TV without an itergrated FV tuner then one with. In time the same will be said for TV's with intergrated FS tuners. Panasonic have already started it of, LG have anounced they are fetching out FS TV's and so long as they can get an FS license other manufactureres will do the same. When that time comes and FS has grown in content, (as it will do as Sky contracts run out) that is when Sky will start to feel the heat and things will start to change.

Instead of Sky subscribers coming on to the FS forum trying to put FS down they should be greatful that in time they will get for free what they are paying for now.

I forgot to ask why you think Sky has suddenly knocked £100 off the price of their HD box if they do not consider FS as compition and everybody is going over to Sky HD as you say.

That's easy! It's very little (probably nothing!) to do with FS and all to do with Sky seeing the potential for their excellent HD content- and getting the HD subscriber base increased as fast as possible!

It led on from the £79 HD STB offer last October/November - which increased their HD subscribers by over 300000!

My oh my.

This thread is beginning to look like the PS3 /XBox360 fanboy threads.

It's not in the remit of Freesat to compete with Pay TV broadcasters.

Its sole purpose is to allow people who can't get a Digital Terrestrial signal to access Digital TV.

The BBC and ITV have said they can't, don't and wont want to compete with Sky.

Which contridics what you said earlier about everybody rushing over to Sky HD. If they were then there would be no need for Sky to offer such an offer!! You only offer offers and sales when you need to!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh and that offer you are talking about would it be the one a work mate of mine enquired about and was told by Sky it was being withdrawn because they couldn't keep up with demand, but yet when he spoke to a Sky installer, he said that he was not installing many more HD boxes then normal? If they could not keep up with demand by selling it for £75 how the hell are they going to keep up with it by selling the box for £49? Oh and by the way he is one of the 3 I was talking about who is now seriously thinking about going over to FS. Another 1 is a pewrsonal friend of mine who is a Sky HD subscriber who is fed up with paying what he calls over the top subscription charges.

If Sky's subscriptions are rocketing as Sky subscribers say, then why is it Sky are ignoring cancilation requests from the people who took the £75 Sky offer as a cheap way to get FS? Read around these forums there are plenty of people moaning about it.

By offering the service they do, they are compitition to Sky regardless of if they want to be or not. If they don't want to be compitition to Sky they should scrap the platform now. They cant work along side Sky as nobody is going to have both because what is on FS in availible on Sky except for ITV HD which does not offer that much at the moment.

FS has been availible for about a year and they had 100,000 sales in the first 5 months of launch, I think it is over 200,000 now. That is 200,000 potential subscribers Sky could have had. That in itself is compitition.

FS said they wanted to have 200 channels by the end of 2008, but they did not manage that target but they are still working on it. As they attract more channels and more channels want go to FS when their Sky contracts expire FS will be more compitition to Sky whether BBC,ITV like it or not.

FS was indeed mainly launched due to the DSO and the amount of households who can not get FV, and FS said they are surprised by the amount of sales. Because FS offers more then FV, and it has the protential to offer even more including HD content then people will naturally pick it over FV which will increase its popularity even more. It took Sky time to build its HD content and it will take FS time to, but as we all know CH4 say they hope to get CH4 HD on FS this year and I guess as Sky contracts expire more will follow. If FS dont want to be compitition to Sky why do they use slogans like HD TV subscription free?

I am surprised that nobody has picked you up on the fact that those are HD Freesat boxes on the Argos web site whereas the Freesat deniers were specifically talking about unavailability of SD receivers.

Personally I think that it would have been betterer if Freesat had specified HD receivers only to stake out a distinctive profile with future proof technology & ignored SD only boxes.

Coming at the this from a slightly different perspective, I think it is this attitude (which is largely imposed on freesat) which is ultimately the undoing of the format. While freesat may not be in competition with Sky, Sky are in competition with freesat. If they weren't, they wouldn't have binding contracts with channels such as Dave, C4HD, Virgin 1 etc on the DSAT platform. They seem perfectly ok for these channels to be on Freeview (well, not C4HD for obvious technical reasons!), but not freesat. That, right there, is competition.

But freesat can't come back with anything (such as aggressive advertising, pointing out how much Sky costs people vs freesat). They're not allowed to. That's why I've changed my about freesat - I think it will now be a poor man's freeview, not the other way round. When Freeview HD is available, this will be the superior platform, against all the odds...

You're arguing from a completely invalid viewpoint - the channels you listed get financial advantage from Sky, so obviously sign contracts with them. It's most likely that they will sign new contracts when the current ones expire, moving to Freesat is going to lose them too much money.

Sky aren't 'forcing them to stay off Freesat', simple economics are doing that - the subscription channels get money from Sky, and CH4 HD (supposedly - no one knows) get some kind of financial advantage from it.

Notice that Sky also don't care that the said channels are on VM either, who are Sky's competitor. If Dave etc. could get paid by Freesat by appearing there, they would be there like a flash.

You originally said this:


When I picked you up on that you started putting 'SD' into your statements.

What you originally said was wrong.

As to this:



Nigel, I understand it perfectly. It is you who seems to have a severe comprehension problem with simple English.

"A small quantity available" = "Available".

"Not available" = "None available".

This is standard English that even today's schoolchildren can understand. If you want to have your own version where something is "unavailable" even when it is available that's your businesss but expect to get picked up on it (and expect people to point and laugh).

Nigel Goodwin originally stated that there were no boxes available. Only when I picked him up on that did he start to qualify that with 'SD' boxes.
Now it turns out that his "unavailable" in his language actually means "a small quantity available".

Er.... I think you've just made my point for me! What part of "C4HD is offered money to be exclusive to Sky" is not active competition? C4 HD is a FTA channel. Or did you think "forcing them to say off freesat" meant there is a literal gun to the head of C4's head? Even I don't think Sky are that bad...

The point is - there is competition on DSAT, and freesat can't come back with anything. Whether or not things are written into contracts (which as you say is thought to be the case with C4HD) or whether that's unnecessary cos the market dominance of Sky is something of a moot point. It's just a fact that there is - and probably will always be - competition on DSAT.

And there's nothing freesat can do to compete. Unless, that is, the exclusivity of ITV HD is evidence that for all of freesat's protestations, they ARE in competition after all...

ITV HD is simply because ITV can't afford an HD channel, yet they had promised one for the launch of Freesat - the red button fiasco is the bodged result.

However, it can't stay like that, it has to become a proper channel to avoid remaining a laughing stock, and to give the potential for earning at least some money.

ITV HD will appear on Sky HD boxes, it has to, likewise CH4 HD will appear on Freesat, again it has to (but not for the same reasons) - it's just a question of when?.

Assuming DTT HD actually happens that could well 'kickstart' some action? - but where is the money coming from for it?, if ITV can't afford a 'low cost' satellite HD channel, then they can't afford the massively more expensive DTT option.

freesat is proving popular due to the fact it is, as intended providing a service where freeview fails in providing a decent enough coverage.

freeview is a poor choice to satellite and whilst the aerial to many people is the way to recieve a signal for the telly ( and a snobbish view ) satellite will eventually overtake the choice of reception for the main living room in peoples homes.

whilst I still have my faithful CRT telly, there is no rush for me to get HD

As I travel round Glasgow and other places I cant help but think that 6 aerials on one chimney stack for one home is a lot more untidy than a dish

Great for drying 6 pairs of knickers though, try doing that on 1 LNB arm.

eh with satellite 0.7 % behind aerial viewing in peoples living rooms and that was when freesat had about 30,000 viewers AND ITV in dire straits .............. I think you will find that the 5 original broadcasters may be more worried than Sky will ever be.

Of course you could have dropped your sky package and received freesatfromsky a lot earlier if you felt that way

200,000 boxes sold is a long way off 9 million sky boxes

freesat is proving popular as BBC/ ITV didnt realise that large parts of the country cant get a service that people are willing to put up with in todays society

at least the glasgow neds havent started dangling their trainers from them !!

They will, now that you have enlightened them.