Page 1 of sky or ntl/ telewest

sky or ntl/ telewest

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Hi
i currently have sky + but am coming towards the end of my contract, we are about to buy a hd tv but i`m not sure that i want to pay sky the £300 for the hd box as in a year i know they will be cheaper, I don`t think we are in a telewest area but can get ntl (are they now the same company) what i love about the sky + is the ability to record more than one show at a time and the easy use epg does the ntl service offer the same, What is tv on demand? can you set the ntl box to record future progs, can you record and play at the same time etc, i`ve checked out the website but none of the basics seem to be covered
cheers
n

I am in a similair position. I am moving from a house to a block of flats that have cable, where I currently have sky+. No dishes on the flats. From what I have read, assuming I understand it, On Demand means that when a program has been transmitted for the first time, it is then available for 1 week to play from a menu directly over the cable when ever you want. So rather that being recorded and played back locally on your set top box, NTL pipe the requested program just to you, when you want it.

Cant answer the rest, someone here has NTL but she doesnt know how it works.

TV on demand is like Sashenden said, although it`s fairly limited, the free stuff anyway. Mostly the popluar BBC programmes from the last week like Eastenders, dramas like Life on Mars etc. The other stuff you have to buy using your remote, no thanks, we pay enough already.

As for the hard drive recorder, I`ve been hanging on for it for well over a year, putting off buying my own PVR as it was supposed to be an all singing all dancing, Sky+ beating box.

I was going to have 3 tuners, so you could watch one channel and record another, and they supposedly signed the deal late last year with Scientific Atlanta to make the boxes. Then they took over Telewest, got a new boss who was looking at cost cutting. Gues whats gone, the Sky+ beating box, they`ve opted to use the lesser model Telewest already has up and running, but in any case they reckon it`s going to be early next year before it comes out (and ntl deadlines are known to keep shifting).

I got sick of waiting for them to bring one out, so I bit the bullet about 4 weeks ago and bought my own hard drive, dvd recorder. Ok you have to set the timer on the cable box, and on the PVR rather than via an all in one Guide, but it`s no hassle really. It does all the other stuff, time shift, record and play etc. I`ve got all my mp3s stored on it, so it`s like a jukebox. All our photos are on it too, which you can play as a slideshow with an mp3 as background music, and currently backing up all the old camcorder tapes of the kids onto the hard drive, and burning to dvd, much easier than doing it on the PC.

I got the LiteOn 5055GDL+ which has a 250gb hard drive, and dual layer dvd recorder (thinking more storage is better, and the drive is future proof for when dual layer disks get cheaper). It`s multi region, plays Divx, mp3, mp4, just about everything you would want. The big drive was a good choice, as I`ve got 2500 mp3s, over 1000 photos, and still got 105hrs of recording time left at high quality. It also has a bypass feature where you can record from the aerial and still watch another channel via cable or vice versa.

It`s got analogue and firewire connections for old and new camcorders, so easy to record your old tapes. Also has basic editing functions, such as spilt, merge, add and delete chapters etc.

Very pleased with it. It`s been used more in the last 4 weeks, than our VCR was all the time we had it. I got mine from Amazon for about £260. If you wait for ntl you`ll wait forever, and it will just work with the TV, I don`t think it was going to have a DVD drive to get stuff into and out of it. This is the newer model to the one with some problems SVP are selling, so hopefully they`ve ironed the bugs out. There`s also a cheaper 160gb version...no, I`m not on commission....lol :)

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This item was edited on Monday, 26th June 2006, 21:01

I recently dumped NTL TV as I never used it as I have two Humax Freeview PVRs.

The latest the PVR9200T is well worth looking at as it does a lot more than Sky+ (obviously with only the Freeview channels) - record 2 programmes while watching a 3rd (a clever trick effectively gives the box 3 tuners) / edit adverts out of programmes / download recorded programmes to your PC for archiving to DVD / you can upload JPG and MP3 files to it etc etc.

And for a one off payment of around £189.

just get a DBOX2 from ebay.