Sky HD for a fiver

[Covenant]

Sky has offered me HD for a fiver a month as I "have been a loyal Sky customer for 10 years". I have accepted but can cancel in the first month if its no good.
Is it worth the extra?

[Ali Tait]

Yes definately IMO,as long as you have a tv that will show it to full advantage.Soundtracks are better too,some of the stuff on Arts HD sounds superb.Stuff like "Coast" looks amazing too,and Discovery and Net Geo hd are great too.

[Covenant]

TBH the picture quality on my Pioneer plasma is outstanding in standard definition. I route it through a Yamaha processor that upscales the picture to near HD. The extra fiver is really just for a few more channels.

[Ali Tait]

Well to me it's easy to tell the difference between upsampled stuff and that filmed with HD cameras,so I think you'll find "proper" HD quite a bit better.For a fiver a month it's a no brainer IMO.

[Reid Malenfant]

I may be wrong on this but it's not 1080P that they are broadcasting so don't think it'll be like watching a decent blu ray ;)

As far as i know they are broadcasting two types of transmission program dependant. Either one will result in your own equipment doing some work :rolleyes:

The only progressive transmissions are 720P which means something will have to scale up to 1080P. The alternative is 1080i in which case something will need to do some de-interlacing. From various reviews on blu ray sites there is a definate increase in picture quality of transmitted HD programs (such as Lost) when they are available on blu ray some time later.

I agree with Ali though, for £5 extra a month it really is likely to be a no brainer :eyebrows:

[Alex_UK]

Even if you just have it to avoid the really nasty SD ITV1 it is worth it IMO - and some of the BBC HD stuff is just stunning. If the package applies to sport and movies ANY are vastly improved in HD. For a one month trial it is definitely a no-brainer to try it! I'd be surprised if you cancel...

[DSJR]

Doesn't apply to those of us who rarely watch TV as a main source (and spend too much time on AOS...). Our old 28" widescreen CRT Panasonic only just shows up freeview colour/brightness "crushing" and the pixellation is only noticed when viewing very close up. I reckon LCD TV's tend to magnify everything too much - contrast and colour saturation set too high and an un-natural, over-exposed quality to the picture.

By the time we need to change our telly, these awful pictures on show in TV shops should have improved...

[aquapiranha]

Murdoch will be the death of the media in this country. Sorry for the OT!

[Reid Malenfant]

By the time we need to change our telly, these awful pictures on show in TV shops should have improved...
Only if they are receiving Freeview HD :eyebrows:

The TVs you are looking at in shops deliberately set the colour & contrast ratio miles too high so the picture is at least kind of watchable under a few KW of fluorescent lighting ;) They aren't calibrated & they are fed standard freeview leaving the TV to scale up. No idea of the signal strength of the transmission either, probably like most people at home they stick up a crap aerial & expect to get a good picture :lol:

[MartinT]

Sky HD set to 1080i is a definite step-up from standard def even if your plasma does good upscaling. Go for it.