Received a letter from Sky this morning stating that my install date has been changed from the 27th of May to the 10th of June. The excuse given is that there are not enough boxes to go round. In return I get a £20 refund.

If I wanted to delay my install date further until after the 10th of July I could get another £20 off.

Considering they still have the £300 upfront payment for the box.........................

Anyone else had this letter?

No, my box arrives in the next hour or so, can't wait. Those date are obviously driven by the World Cup...
John

Got a call on Friday informing me of the same thing, and yes i got £20 of my next bill! My new date is the 30th May!

hi john,
please let us all know what you think of your new box of tricks as i like many i suspect intend to get one.
regards, scotty

The Sky HD box is here amd first impressions are good. Despite the rumours otherwise it is fairly quiet, certainly no worse than my previous Sky+ box and this may be helped by the very squidgy feet it has. With the HD format set to automatic, my TV is reporting Sky Sports HD as 1050i. You can manually override this so I will play around with it later. Picture quality is clearly better than the standard Sky Sports channel which looks crude and edgy by comparison. More later when I've spent a bit more time playing with it!
John

thanks for that brief update john, congrats on your new toy. enjoy
scotty

A few quick piccies...

quote:

Originally posted by nap-ster:
Received a letter from Sky this morning stating that my install date has been changed from the 27th of May to the 10th of June. The excuse given is that there are not enough boxes to go round. In return I get a £20 refund.

If I wanted to delay my install date further until after the 10th of July I could get another £20 off.

Considering they still have the £300 upfront payment for the box.........................

Anyone else had this letter?

Hi nap-ster

Yep...exactly the same letter. Mine also due 27th May, now coming 10th June. After the world cup starts!.

These guys sure know how to make friends!

John Channing - nice setup - same tv as we have, hope you're as pleased as we are.

Out of interest, I don't see a centre speaker? do you have it set up with an AV precessor?

Regards

Gary

quote:

John Channing - nice setup - same tv as we have, hope you're as pleased as we are.

I am delighted with it, the picture quality is superb and is simply stunning with HD.

quote:

Out of interest, I don't see a centre speaker? do you have it set up with an AV precessor?

I have a Neat Motive C that matches the Motives 1s which is not in use yet and not shown in the picture. At present I have the Sky HD box feeding the two stereo speakers which works quite nicely. I plan, in the near future to buy an nVi to replace my mid range Sony DVD player. I will then probably wall mount the Motive C above the TV and maybe add some Motive 3s for the rear.
John

Mine was coming on the 27th now its coming on the 12 june ,what a pain.

Trevor

hi john,
all looks great. whats the difference between the plasma you have and the xde model ?
very good fight that but i thought barrera lost!!
scotty

quote:

all looks great. whats the difference between the plasma you have and the xde model ?

The XDE model has a separate "media box" which contains the tuner and removable speakers and it first came out in 2005. Mine is one of the 2006 models and is an "all in one" TV with an internal tuner and speakers. Have a look at Pioneer PDP436 for more details.
John

hi john,
is it not better to have off board tuner ?
what are the advantages of on board tuner over above.
scotty

If you are in the market for a Pioneer plasma, i do beleive they no longer make the panel with the seperate media box. So its all cables to the plasma.

John,

You have slimline Hutter - in what looks like maple finish - I have been looking for pictures of this for ages! And you have Neat Motive 1 speakers as well - excellent taste if I may say so. I recently bought a pair of Motive 2s and they are superb

Cheers,

Jon

Scotty

I use the same as John which is the SXE model. The problem I had with the XDE model is that I simply didn't have the space for the off board tuner/control box. This is about the same size as say a NAP250 and I could only fit 3 boxes below the TV (DVD, SKY & AV processor)

Also the SXE model comes with the stand and integral speakers, both of which are extra on the XDE. The downside is that the SXE only has one HDMI input (2 on the SXE) and is very slightly thicker - but only by about 20mm.

The screen and picture quality are however both the same...superb.

Regards

Gary

thanks for clearing that up gary as im in the market for a 43" plasma and my choices have been whittled down to the pioneer and panasonic.
as a matter of interest how many cables route from the plasma then ?
regards, scotty

Scotty

Not entirely sure what you mean by "route from the plasma", but I have 2 scarts (1 from DVD and 1 from sky box) plus a coax from aerial, if that helps. Obviously, once the sky HD arrives the connection will be HDMI.

Something else I forgot to mention is the SXE model has an inbuilt freeview tuner.

Here's mine (sorry not a brilliant picture), complete with my MA Radius speakers.


Regards

Gary

thanks gary and john,
notice you guys havent hung your screens on the wall any particular reason why not ?
scotty

It looks like John has, Scotty - I can't see it sitting on the rack, unless I am mistaken..

oh yes . sorry on first glance looked like it was on a bracket over the rear of hutter.

Only wish I could Scotty, but the only place in our room for a TV is across the corner (fireplace where TV needs to be).

We've tried rearranging the furniture, but it simply doesn't work.

Gary

ok, shame as i think they look at their best on a wall. yours still looks the biz though.
regards, scotty

quote:

You have slimline Hutter - in what looks like maple finish - I have been looking for pictures of this for ages!

That's right the racks are a custom size in maple which looks great with Naim. I imported them directly from Austria about 5 years ago at quite a nice saving. A few other well known forum members did the same at the same time.

quote:

And you have Neat Motive 1 speakers as well - excellent taste if I may say so. I recently bought a pair of Motive 2s and they are superb

I bought the Motive 1s after hearing them and the Motive 2s at the Bristol show. I am very happy with them and think they are great value for money.
John

quote:

notice you guys havent hung your screens on the wall any particular reason why not ?

My TV is wall mounted with the official Pioneer bracket and four heavy duty mounting bolts (the kind you would use to fit a staircase, I wasn't taking any chances!) The only problem with the plasmas without a media box is that the HDMI and scart sockets are round the back and hard to get to. I therefore had to take mine of the bracket today to slot in the HDMI cable, not a big deal, but a minor inconvenience.
John

quote:

Originally posted by John Channing:
I bought the Motive 1s after hearing them and the Motive 2s at the Bristol show. I am very happy with them and think they are great value for money.

The Motive 2s have also proved to be tremendous value for money. I took them to a bake-off the other day and the ran the host's Wilson Benesch Arcs very close indeed, and they are three times the price!

Cheers,

Jon

From my vague memory, wit ha seperate box and a panel, all your inputs go to the box, with just one cable (i think) from the box to the panel.

Now (if you want hidden cables with plasma on the wall) you will need to hide scarts, hdmi, component etc becase these will all need to be plugged into the plasma instaed of the seperate box.

See here: http://www.pioneer.co.uk/uk/product_media.jsp?product_i...43&taxonomy_id=62-63

It would seem Sky have pissed off more than a few people over this issue - just have a read of this

Gary

Yikes, it looks very expensive because an equivalent HD box here in Ontario costs half what the Sky one does (I rent mine for about a fiver per month). Infact for the price of the Sky HD box you can buy an HD PVR here. I also read that they charge an extra tenner a month for HD programming - are you sure they're not taking the p*&s? Perhaps with Sky you get loads more HD channels than we do here....


timster