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- Ian Hammond's review
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| Customer Service | 4.1/10   |
|---|---|
| Features | 6.1/10 |
| Value for Money | 4.8/10 |
| Reviewer Rating | 4.3/10 |
| Overall Rating | 4.8/10 |
By Ian Hammond on 4th Mar 2004
| Value for money | 9/10 |
|---|---|
| Overall value | 10/10 |
 Ian Hammond's recommendation | |
Good looking box, very easy to use, ability to pause and rewind live TV, superb recording facility.
Can occasionally "crash" and needs resetting.
First of all there's the installation. I thought I would take advantage of Skys online offer of £199 for the Sky+ Digital TV box plus £1 installation. I filled in all the details online and clicked send. A few hours later I recieved an E-mail to tell me that my application had been accepted and that my £200 had been debited from my account. However, the earlist they could come and install the system would be in 5 weeks time. I rang Sky to complain about the delay and they explained that the engineers were extremely busy due to "everyone wanting Sky Plus". I pointed out that they'd been quick enough to take my money though. I duly waited the 5 weeks and the Sky engineer arived early one Sunday morning. He got out of his van, took one look at my house and told me that he couldn't install the system. When aked why, he told me that my house was wood cladded and that he was not allowed to fix the satellite dish directly to wood, it had to be fixed to brick. I suggested that he fix it to the chimney, to which he replied that he wasn't allowed to go up on the roof due to Skys health and safety regulations! On top of this he told me that I wouldn't get a signal anyway due to tall trees at the back of the house. Needless to say I wasn't very impressed and promptly rang Sky for a refund. Moral of the story, unless you live in a brick built bungalow on top of a hill with not a tree in sight, don't even bother ringing Sky to get it installed. Determined not to put off, I decided to ring a local aerial specailist who told me they charged £269 inclusive of fitting and that they could fit it the following day. I agreed and the engineer turned up promptly the following morning. One hour later and the system was installed and working, the engineer said that the trees were blocking the signal a bit but it was still within limits. I've now had the system a month and I think it's brilliant, you can pause live TV, rewind live TV, record 2 channels at once, even start watching something you've recorded before it's actually finished recording. There's no more entering start and finish times into your VCR, all you have to do is highlight the programme that you want to record on the sky guide page, then just press the record button. It even automatically records a couple of minites before and after the start and finish times to make sure you don't miss anything if the programme starts early or runs late. Theres no messing around looking for tapes, all your recordings are listed in the sky planner and can be watched and deleted instantly, all in perfect digital quality. Sky are constantly updating the system so your box will always have the latest features and never be out of date. This really is the future of TV and I reckon once Sky start bringing down the price of the box everybody will have one.
| Helpful | Unhelpful | Agree | Disagree |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Total Respect: +3
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