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Has anyone used both of these services for TV in the past and could give me a rounded opinion?

Am moving soon and because of logistical reasons might have to give up sky and get Virgin until my next house which I'm loathed to do unless I have to. I'll probably get the Virgin full monty package with sport, internet, phone and just about everything included.

What are the channels like compared to sky?
Are there any HD channels included in this?
Whats the V+ set top box like? Is it as good as the Sky one for taping stuff etc, pausing, rewinding etc?
Are the channels easy to navigate and use etc?

Any other comments please..........

I think the V+ box includes HD so is one up on Sky straight away.  Setanta is also included with the full package.  They've also got Sky1 now.   Sky's menus are just the best though.   My folks are on Virgin and I find it not as good as Sky to use, it's just a bit basic whereas Sky is very sleek (as you well know)  I guess it's just what you get used too.   The controller itself isn't as nice as the Sky one either.  I know it shouldnt' matter, but Sky's has a nice feel to it :D  I think the basic operations are pretty much the same, easy to use and do what they're supposed to. 

Virgins broadband is the business though, much faster than phone line broadband (being cable) and I hardly ever have a problem with it.

If you are getting everything in one, I'd go for Virgin though, they do some good deals.   I couldn't imagine not having cable broadband, it really is superb.   I'm all over the place with my suppliers and could save money by combining if I wasn't tied up in all sorts of contracts.

What Graham said really.

Cable broadband is the dog's licky bits, but I prefer Sky+ to Virgin's TV offering.  Not that I use either now... ;)

Cheers mate am keeping virgin internet and phone regardless, just the TV stuff I'm interested in.

agree sky is slicker but imo virgin ftw esp if you like your footie as setanta is free

OK I know you want to keep Virgin Broadband but, just to get it off my chest, I have been without a service since Saturday morning. Reported the fault and after making me check, again, it wasn't my set up they then said it was a fault they knew about and were on to it now. Today I find it was a different fault and they haven't started work on it, perhaps send a tech on Wednesday to check the local box. Richard B, F off. Oh and the guy on the end of the fault line was useless. /rant off.

How old its your modem?  I had one problem with my Virgin broadband, and they said this and that and the other, and eventually someone said my modem was old and probably the problem.It was.

Virgins CS isn't great ,but you hardly need to call them for internet.   If money is no object, I'd go Virgin for internet and phone, Sky for TV.

Installed last November. I was in the van until then.

ie had both and vigin is much much better 

you get more channels and setana completly free.

you also get ondemand which has millions of recordings of old stuff and automaticly records most programs..

and music ondemand almost every song to watch anytime for free

you dnt get a bad picture when its windy either

I think you get iPlayer on Virgin too, that'd be worth it.

Damn, perhaps I should switch :D

I'm actually running both at the moment because I can't be arsed to unplug my Sky box after recently switching.

TBH the Sky picture is slightly better but barely noticable. You get occasional flicker with V+ which I didn't notice with Sky. To be fair the picture on Sky is shit as well so if you're really bothered about that you need to buy DVDs or wait for everything to go HD.

Obviously an advantage with Virgin is that you don't lose everything when it's foggy or pissing it down. Very annoying when you've set something to record and you get that error message.

The broadband seems better on Virgin and it's not let me down once compared to loads of times with Sky broadband. I'm not a huge user anyway so others know more about this.

The controller / user interface is miles better with Sky but you get used to the Virgin set up after a while. At first you'll hate it though.

All the HD channels are included with the top Virgin package so you don't have to pay through the fookin eyeballs for about 4 extra channels!!

The on demand stuff is brilliant and they seem to change it regularly enough so that it doesn't become too stale.

So far I've been fortunate enough to not require customer service for anything that couldn't be solved over the phone. I know some have said that Virgin are crap at this but I also know that my sister had major problems with Sky customer services as well. It was the crappy service that made her switch to Virgin after she got fed up of telling them that her Sky+ box didn't work and they just "didn't give a shit". Her words not mine. I wouldn't expect that either are any good so it's just a case of hoping you don't have a problem.

Overall I prefer Virgin to Sky. They're very similar but Virgin is cheaper so that gives it the big tick in my book. If they were the same cost for the same packages I'd probably go for Sky because of the slightly better picture and UI but they're not so it's V+ for me.

Looking to switch from sky to Virgin as well - noticed there was a download cap thing going on with Virgin.   Something about if you exceed XXX megs then your speed drops down for a set amount of time.

Something like that (memory fails me, it was just a quick glance).

So questions for me are: 1)  Does playing poker online count as downloading in some way  (is it streaming??)   and 2) Really heavy film downloading going on so have any Virgin users that download a lot ever experienced any differences with internet speed?

Internet poker accounts for bugger all in terms of download usage.  Streaming video, downloading films and music are the things that will take up any allocation.  I've never been close to the limit though (that I'm aware of).

each film is between 1 gig (standard def) and 4 .5 gigs (HD)

so if you download and watch 1 film per day at standard def then youwill only download 30gigs

but if you are using a file sharing program to download them then you can double that as you will have to upload as well as download and they both count in the fair usage

I've had both and when I switched to Sky the Basic TV package with Phone (Sky Talk unlimited with free international calls) and 8 meg broadband package, the cost was £30 per month.  The problem with Virgin (aside from the crap customer service) is they lure people in with cheap introductory offers ie. 10 meg broadband is £5 for the first 3 months but then goes up to £14 after that.  When I switched to Sky I saved around £20 per month.

Another thing to bear in mind is are going to watch TV in other rooms in the house ?  If your new house doesn't have a Digital aerial you won't be able to receive TV signals once the digital switchover takes place.  If you get Sky you can use your dish to receive the Freesat channels (I had to pay £100 to get someone to run the cable and modify the dish for me).  If you go with Virgin you will have to pay for a multiroom subscription or get a new aerial. 

Cheers for all your advice, top Virgin package shipped as of this weekend.

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/websales/product.do?id=11029

If you are using Virgin internet then make sure you are running encryption, as they like to look at whats going through their servers which is one step too close to big brother is you ask me.

Whats encryption?

have been onthis package for 9 months, very good package imo

http://www.mycrypto.net/ (http://www.mycrypto.net/)

Maybe i'm thick but i can't see the reason that package is £86 when if you build your own triple bundle and add in v+ you get that package plus faster broadband for a fair bit less.

Sandy

Not if u want 20mb broadband and all the premium channels, its the extra channels that cost a fair whack sport/movies etc. FWIW I currently have internet and phone with Virgin and the full sky TV package and its gonna cost me about the same as that, so no difference.

I assumed when you put the tv up to the highest it'd let you you'd get it all. I don't stay in a cable area so couldn't proceed to check.

Sandy

Can you get Sky sports on Virgin?

yup and setanta

ive changed my mind

dont get any

400 odd channels and ive went thro them all and fuck all on

im watchin nightwatch on itv now

My verdict: If you go for the best package, the top dog, virgin is better.

If you are going for a more basic package sky is better. The reason:

Simply because sky has more "less premium" channels for example sky 1 etc are standard