Sky/Virgin TV is it worth the outlay yearly, alternatives?

[embleton]

With the likes of the Kodi media centre with add-ons that allow streaming of almost any TV programme, and streaming content providers like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video on offer are Sky and Virgin Media's broadcast subscription TV offering worth the outlay yearly? It is especially annoying that to take on such a commitment you need to sign a contract for a subscription TV service for a minimum of a year. Will you get bored of TV programme repeats, poor picture quality and heavy censorship offered by these mainstream subscription TV services? Even the on-demand services are poor, offering little new TV programming for the price of such services monthly, that will dent a hole in your bank balance yearly, for programming that is far behind the realities of real life in both quality and quantity.

One of the annoying aspects of commercial mainstream subscription TV packages are the advertisements on channels that offer even minimalistic additional programming above that of free to air (FTA) channels in the UK; and is it really worth the thirty or so pounds additional monthly for such TV programming, and the punishment of crappy endlessly repeating advertisements and TV programmes, when that TV programming can be had elsewhere advertisement free, that is really the question, my answer to this very question is negative, especially for adults only households that are techno savvy.

And it must be remembered that the additional cost monthly for these subscription TV services doesn't even include the film or sports packages that will double or even triple the cost of ones TV subscription package, exceeding fifty to sixty pounds monthly for TV entertainment, are they really worth these sums for a basically a TV push service with censorship, with low refresh rates with its picture jerkiness (judder, 24fps over 1080i/50Hz), the standard quality (SD) channels are awful and a complete joke for the 21st century. The future is pulled TV programming like those offered by those operating on the Internet with higher definition (HD 1080p, and UHD) and refresh rates that use modern codecs, and Sky and Virgin are way behind the times in that respect with their lack of pure quality; with the ever increasing content available from such providers as Apple, etc... these commercial TV subscription organisation will lose out big time. One cannot see a preview of a programme or a film on Sky or Virgin in the majority, that is basically rubbish with a connected service.

[embleton]

Interestingly a Humax HDR-1100S Freesat receiver doesn't suffer from the jerkiness/judder that we were experiencing with the Sky+HD 2TB box that it replaced today. Review of the HDR-1100S freesat+ receiver http://embleton.me.uk/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=218

[embleton]

An interesting fact about this post that I posted on the Sky forum is that a reply that I didn't mark as the solution was done so by a Sky moderator, that is naughty Sky!