All posts by Trevor Harris
Below are all of Trevor Harris's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
I am not a sky employee and I don't have any shares.
Don't know why you are so interested in my subscription.
Sky Fibre broadband (38mb/s) is being offered to everyone at half price for a year.
And now for the advert
I get multiscreen for £2.50 month saving £8.75 pm. I get movies at half price at £4 pm. Sky sports I usually can negotiate half price for 6 months a year. Line rental £119.40 paid upfront for a year.
Will drop multiscreen and movies at end of offer. I switch off sports out of season if I cannot get discount. Will re-evaluate broadband at end of contract which is only a year.
Got a new free HD+ box with multiscreen so it was a no brainer. Broadband includes free access to the cloud wifi. Multiscreen includes Sky Go extra so I can use two more mobile devices and download to them.
I get about 73 HD channels including 5HD, ITV2HD, ITV3HD and ITV4HD.
So all in all I think I got a pretty good deal considering the BBC has only 5 channels.
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@peter
To answer your questions
1) The licence fee negotiation was a bit of a disaster. The BBC seem to cave in to every Government demand. For instance making the BBC pay for the World Service has no justification. Regional HD is a question financial priorities. The BBC finds the money the now famous payoffs but can't finance HD properly. Even some of the new HD channels are not available in many areas.
2) Sorry I am dyslexic.
3) No confict just hate the BBC waisting my money.
4) I have not looked at the bitrates recently. Last I checked ITV was using about 12. It is very easy to see the difference between BBC1 HD and Sky Sports 1 HD.
5) EBU recomendation has not changed as far as I know. They do do tests on hardware encoders but keep the results secret. Don't forget this is a minimum. Blu-ray uses up to 40mb/s.
6) Unfortunatly there is no restriction on picture quality. The analogue 625 line pal system had a very strict quality control standard.
One thing I should say that poor BBC HD quality is not a refletion on the BBC R&D department. It is just that the management ignores them. The previous head of BBC HD is on record as saying that Bitrate has no effect on picture quality!.
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Sky has been building up an archive of 4k material. I guess they will start a 4k service in pubs like they did with HD. I also suspect they will go 4k for 3D as well. Sky also has access to a big range of 4k films.
BBC has been dabling with 4k as they did with 3D.
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Unfortunatly the site has crashed just after ed vaseys speach.
Did not even mention the switchoff date
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Yet another provocative posting from Brianist.
The first thing to say is that it is a criminal offence not to have a TV licence if you watch broadcast television. The BBC will send you to prison if you don't pay. That is draconian.
Many people now avoid paying by only watching catchup tv etc.
The fact that we are all forced to pay the BBC makes it impossible to evaluate if the BBC is good value for money. Sky has over 11 miilion subscribers who clearly think that Sky is worth paying for. We have no idea how many people would choose to pay for the BBC because we are forced by criminal law to pay.
Brianist says
The BBC runs two channels of first-run UK content
Not true the BBC has admitted that 65% of BBC One are repeats.
Rant start
I feel at times the the BBC does an awfull lot of adverts. I am particulary offended by the clips they show of Eastenders of people continuously SHOUTING at each other. I just don't want to watch any of this mindless dribble. The BBC has also been heavily promoting Pure Dab Radios in both adverts and in programs.
Rant end!
The licence fee is an outdated way to finance a broadcasting service.
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Just found this
Courts Jail 107 People For Not Paying BBC TV Licence Fines
"The BBC has come under fire after official figures showed that 107 people had been jailed in just over two years for failing to paying fines for not having a TV licence."
"Previously it was revealed that over 180,000 people appeared in court during 2012 over accusations of watching television without paying for a licence, which comprised a tenth of all court cases."
This must be costing a fortune. We could reduce the crime rate by 10% just by getting rid of the licence fee.
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According to the Daily Mail (yes I know) a third of BBC 1 programs were repeats in 2012. Across all BBC channels it is 2 thirds. The 8.4% is for peak times only (6:30 to 10:30)
http://www.dailymail.co.u…html
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One of the problems with the BBC is that it has become a law unto itself while being funded by taxation with criminal sanctions. The concept of a public broadcasting service is no longer relavent. Why should the BBC have the extensive privaleges not afforded to other television companies.
Another problem is the left wing political bias now so evident in the BBC. The BBC One show tonight attacked channel 4 for its "Benefits Streets" program in a very unbalanced way. There are 2 issues here. Firstly it attacked a competing TV channel without giving a responce from Channel 4. Secondly the attack was clearly politically motivated as the presenters raised Paul Ogradys political affiliation to give support for the Labour party. It certainly made it perfectly clear what the politcal views of the presenters are.
The BBC should be denationalised.
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In 1923 things were very different. There was only one broadcaster and so if you wanted to listen to the BBC you should pay for doing so. As we know the BBC had a monopoly which introduced its own issues. For instance the BBC was very reluctent to start a television service in 1932. Again in 1967 the BBC had to start Radio 1 after pressure from the Pirates who were getting massive audiences. Commercial radio did not start till 1973 although there was a big demand. So the BBC monopoly had a significant bad affect on broadcasting in the UK. Even today the BBC has been very slow in adopting HD television.
In the day of mulitimedia there is no logic to the tv licence. How come I have to pay the for the BBC if I watch or record anything that is broadcast but I don't have to pay if I watch the same programs on catchup tv. IIlogical!
Of course I think the forced licence fee should be stopped thereby reducing the crime rate by 10%. Some people support the decriminalisation for not paying and making it a civil offence.
Actually voluntary financing of radio stations is viable. Premiere Christian Radio raises very big voluntary donations.
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Wednesday 11 December 2013 11:15AM
@Peter
Yes Sky is alot more than the licence fee but it does provide the services which I am willing to pay for. These include Premiereship Football, F1 and various other programs and movies. As a bonus the picture quality is better than the BBC and nearly all programs are in dolby surround.
I also have Sky fibre which I get a £10 per month (the cheapest I have seen for unlimited fibre).
Sky does have about 11 million customers so I am not alone.