Thinking of dropping UPC tv

gar

Hi,
I would love to post this in satellite forum too.

Got a letter saying our basic tv and bb is going up from e58 to e65ish.
Got onto upc and they are offering us select tv package plus phone plus bb for 61 for a year.
Still not too pushed as i cant see a great advantage in the "higher" tv package. On demand selection is still great. We dont use a land line.
If they threw in free HD i may stay.
Seriously thinking of dropping tv and going saorview & freesat. The selection of channels are similar plus the +1 channels are free.
Only channel i think we'll miss is sky living & criminal minds.

Just looking for some thoughts?


Gar

jack presley

gar wrote: »

Hi,
I would love to post this in satellite forum too.

Got a letter saying our basic tv and bb is going up from e58 to e65ish.
Got onto upc and they are offering us select tv package plus phone plus bb for 61 for a year.
Still not too pushed as i cant see a great advantage in the "higher" tv package. On demand selection is still great. We dont use a land line.
If they threw in free HD i may stay.
Seriously thinking of dropping tv and going saorview & freesat. The selection of channels are similar plus the +1 channels are free.
Only channel i think we'll miss is sky living & criminal minds.

Just looking for some thoughts?


Gar

Give them a ring again, tell them you want to cancel. They'll put you through to their loyalty department and you see what kind of deal they'll offer you then. It's well worth doing. if you've been with them any length of time they'll knock a few quid off and throw in stuff like free HD for a year.

gar

Rang there again.
Best they will do is e61 for the triple play (30 meg, Digital Select Extra, anytime 100). No HD.
e67 with HD.
Saving myself e17/month by dropping the tv & going Saorview & Freesat...

ted1

theres a much higher outlay for going free sat + saorview. and you'll find ti hard to get the same DVR functionality

STB

ted1 wrote: »

theres a much higher outlay for going free sat + saorview. and you'll find ti hard to get the same DVR functionality

Really ? Everything is relative.

Buying a Free to Air combo box a dish and an aerial will cost less than €200.

For the OP the choice he is making, i.e. a saving at €17 per month would mean that the immediate hardware costs would pay for itself within a year. Even better the equipment will always be his.

In the immediate and long term the op will have no ongoing monthly subscription costs for television.

DVR functionality is not a problem with FTA. UPC might wish that people would believe that were the case. It isn't.

Also the OP will have access to many HD channels and channels he didn't have whilst paying for subscription TV.

This is a public forum. I wouldn't like to see anyone scared off alternatives by throw away and incorrect one liners.

ted1

With the combo box, can you record any channel while watching any other channel? If you want a second box how much will the setup cost?

Does the fTA box include a high quality hard drive?

STB

ted1 wrote: »

With the combo box, can you record any channel while watching any other channel? If you want a second box how much will the setup cost?

Does the fTA box include a high quality hard drive?

Good questions.

HD Combo boxes vary in price and functionality.

For example, typical HD boxes.

The Ferguson Ariva 150 costs approx €82-€95. It will allow you to record a Saorview channels whilst recording Satellite channel and vice versa. So fairly limited in terms of recording. But it also has Youtube functionality and plays XVID/DIVX and MKV/MP4 files from an attached hard drive.

On the other hand the Golden Media Triplex costs €169 allows you record up to 2 programmes at one time and watch another.
It also runs Android, Netflix, Youtube, Facebook, Web browsing etc and plays XVID/Divx/MKV/MP4 etc.

Cost Savings

Most importantly given the title of this thread I would like to point out that savings can be made as is the OPs want. For comparison here is a list of the channels one might pay for if with UPC and one that is free with the system the OP is thinking of switching to. The range of programmes that one might typically pay for versus those at are free might also be important to people like the OP.

UPC Basic Channel list (€27.50 per month)



_________________________________________________________________________________________

HD Combo Box Channel list (Free - No Monthly Subscription)

gar

Thanks for the replies.

still in 2 minds. the initial out lay is not too bad from a satellite point of view as there is an unused sky dish on the side of the house from the previous owners. That box looks interesting. I had played with ITGates in the past. Is there much tinkering involved with getting the weekly epg up and running?I dont think we will be missing out tv show wise. Been trying to find what the selection on netflix is like and just use that for stuff thats not on the other channels. the selection on upcs ondemand is nothing special.
I had asked upc about the extra cost of HD and they said e5 extra a month plus a e70 setup fee for a self install!!!!
Ill have to make a decision next week.

zg3409

gar wrote: »

Is there much tinkering involved with getting the weekly epg up and running?

If you get a genuine FreeSAT + HD box and connect it to the dish via 2 cables then you will get recording, series link and 7 day guide on UK channels with no fuss and no monthly bill.

No need to retune etc

http://www.freesat.co.uk

However you will need a seperate TV aerial and a Saorview box for the Irish channels.

gar wrote: »

Been trying to find what the selection on netflix is like and just use that for stuff thats not on the other channels. .

Netflix is free for first month but be sure to cancel before the end. There seems to be very little added to the collection each month and a lot of the shows are old. The also list the same films over and over again in different categories. You need good broadband for it such as UPC.

gar

If I'm dropping it i'd want a single box and you can't get a freesat saorview combi that the epg works on which is why the Linux box sounds interesting.

Keeping the UPC bb.

STB

gar wrote: »

If I'm dropping it i'd want a single box and you can't get a freesat saorview combi that the epg works on which is why the Linux box sounds interesting.

Keeping the UPC bb.

The Golden Media Spark Triplex processor runs @ 600MhZ. It has a dual boot function, booting with the Spark software system (have an app store etc) OR you can also load Enigma 2 images for 7 day epg support etc.

blindsider

STB wrote: »

Good questions.

HD Combo boxes vary in price and functionality.

For example, typical HD boxes.

The Ferguson Ariva 150 costs approx €82-€95. It will allow you to record a Saorview channels whilst recording Satellite channel and vice versa. So fairly limited in terms of recording. But it also has Youtube functionality and plays XVID/DIVX and MKV/MP4 files from an attached hard drive.

On the other hand the Golden Media Triplex costs €169 allows you record up to 2 programmes at one time and watch another.
It also runs Android, Netflix, Youtube, Facebook, Web browsing etc and plays XVID/Divx/MKV/MP4 etc.

Cost Savings

Most importantly given the title of this thread I would like to point out that savings can be made as is the OPs want. For comparison here is a list of the channels one might pay for if with UPC and one that is free with the system the OP is thinking of switching to. The range of programmes that one might typically pay for versus those at are free might also be important to people like the OP.

UPC Basic Channel list (€27.50 per month)


_________________________________________________________________________________________

HD Combo Box Channel list (Free - No Monthly Subscription)

STB - the OP has Digital Select Extra which (acc. to UPC) has an extra 30 channels to those you have listed. It's important to compare like with like.

http://www.upc.ie/television/

xxyyxx

Like with like? How does that work when one of the options is subscription free?

frozenfrozen

xxyyxx wrote: »

Like with like? How does that work when one of the options is subscription free?

it's a comparison for the OP, the op was getting more than the channels shown in the picture so it is fair that all the channels they are currently receiving be compared with what they would be getting elsewhere.

I agree that it's not like for like if you're talking in general about subscription based vs non sub though.

STB

blindsider wrote: »

STB - the OP has Digital Select Extra which (acc. to UPC) has an extra 30 channels to those you have listed. It's important to compare like with like.

http://www.upc.ie/television/

Okay well when he said basic I assumed thats what he was getting the Digital Value Plus.

The package I quoted is the basic UPC channel list which costs €26.50 per month.

For the sake of confusion the going down the free alternative is actually free.