Are You Getting Your Moneys Worth With Digital TV ?
When it comes to digital TV, there are so many options it’s difficult to decide which one is the right one to choose.
Sky Media offers digital TV via digital satellite, and its well-known channels are Sky One, Gold, Comedy Central and a number of Sky film channels. Virgin Media is cable TV, and their packages include a house phone and high-speed internet access via fibre optic cable that allows you to download plenty of your favourite series.
Top up TV Anytime gives you Freeview, with a selection of TV content that downloads into a box during the night. The box supports 100 hours of downloaded content and refreshes every 7 days. You must live in a Freeview area, however. Gold, Comedy Central, Living TV and Home channels come with this package.
Tiscali TV, previously known as Homechoice, provides over 70 channels straight to your TV via your phone line. They offer 1500 on–demand films and over 5000 music videos, plus series and a rewind service.
BT Vision gives you Freeview channels with live pause TV and allows 80 hours of recording time, downloaded via a broadband internet connection. This service is only available to BT Total Broadband customers.
Sky Media versus Virgin
These two network giants each have their pros and cons. Virgin offers TV viewing via fibre optic cable, which takes up less space than a satellite dish, and provides a free V-Box, whereas Sky Media charges for the box.
Unlike Virgin, Sky TV doesn’t charge a compulsory installation fee, however. Both Virgin and Sky TV allow you to pause, rewind and record live programmes, and Virgin lets you record two channels simultaneously while you watch a third channel.
Sky Media offers Sky TV, broadband and phone combination packages, and Sky + gives you remote recording, so you don’t have to be at your box to record a programme. Simply phone Sky TV and pay 25 pence and your box will be recording.
Both Virgin and Sky give you the choice of regular and HD boxes, and Sky’s box is made user-friendly by a series link button, which will download an entire series with the push of a button. Sky + can be taken in combination with a variety, music, sport or world package, and Virgin has a similar concept known as the ‘on demand’ TV package. In the end, the deciding factor may be which provider will install the quickest.