BSkyB Share Discussion Threads

[pierre oreilly] 04/3/2014 13:04

So Sky's price rise nothing to do with the £130m cash sky itself has spent on its own shares? As well as an ephemeral and artificially bloated share price, sky also has about £130m less cash that it did before. I suspect that could mean Sky aren't even going to bother to bid for premiership football - no use fighting a battle which they can't win. Maybe that's why Murdoch has indirectly sold fifty odd millions worth during the price support period.

[dmf] 04/3/2014 12:27

SP now back to were it was prior to BTs bid champions league - always knew BSY share price fall over done - BT has more of a problem as it has over paid for football rights - it also must sort out its massive pension deficit

Ofcom needs to come dowm hard on BT follow various price increases !

[pierre oreilly] 04/3/2014 12:10

Sorry if you think it's arguing Zulu, but I'm not going to agree with you if you are simply incorrect (that 1080i is as good as 1080p). I have equipemnt which can drive my tv at virtually any format, and I can quite categorically state that the latter is Much better than the former. Have you done such a comparison? And btw, if I filtered everyone who posts inaccurate information on advfn, then there wouldn't be many left to read. The link yesterday said absolutely nothing which backed up what you stated about 4k. These things may be irrelevant to traders, but to long term investors of course they are - sky is transmitting at a lower quality than most, and don't have the infrastructure to offer higher definition - that looks pretty critical to me long term. No plans for fibre infrastructure.

Minerve - I don't only read the technical video forums, and very rarely, - my view is that many are armchair video nerds who really don't understand much of the technicalities at all, and are about 95% nonsense. The nowtv box forum I stumbled across is enlightening though - you can get a grasp of the viewing experience from customers on there.

hxxp://community.nowtv.com/t5/NOW-TV-Box/bd-p/NOWTVBox/page/7

[zulu001] 04/3/2014 11:45

Pierre:

there is not a big difference between 1080i and 1080p - do you even know your persistence of vision (it varies between people and according to age) or the persistence of your set (plasma/LCD/LED etc)

there was a link to the fact that sky had tested 4k posted yesterday, SKY could transmit that today but it would mean fewer channels.

I am going to filter you for being inaccurate and argumentative and not adding to meaningful discussion of the shareprice.

[minerve] 04/3/2014 11:40

Pierre

That is the point though Pierre, if you read the forums you are only going to get the view of those interested enough to discuss specifications.

[pierre oreilly] 04/3/2014 11:08

Minerve - yes I agree the tech specs won't interest most, or are necessarily a price driver, but they interest me. And true, most, almost 100%) won't know the difference between 1080i and 1080p - but there is a big difference in the viewing experience (just as there is a big difference in the latest 4k hd standard, which is leaving me thinking I want that now). My point is, people will begin to demand 1080p (whether they know it's called that or not) once they've got a big tv, where 1080i doesn't produce the same quality (sometimes worse than 720p depending on the content). My experience is backed by what I've seen, plus even everyday non-subscritpion broadcasts go out at 1080p. If you read the forums for the latest sky £10 box, you'll see plenty of people describing the picture as 'flat', (720p) - probably fine on small tvs, but not larger ones, especially if you are paying £30/40/50 per month.

btw, from what I've read, the Nowtv box is an old 720p Roku design with modified software taking away much of the functionality, so more or less limits you to sky and free to air programs. Roku have 3 newer designs, (all at 1080p) which imo offer better value than even a tenner for the rebadged sky box (if you have a large tv)

zulu - Also it appears they are already in a position to broadcast in 4K when there are sufficient sets to make this profitable. Do you have a link to backup that? Sorry, but I doubt that can be correct - they, all interested parties, are still talking about the 4k standard, while they all do test transmissions from camera to tv - BT started that testing phase over a year ago, and it's relatively easy for bt to supply the requires massive bit rate down their fibre to customers, and sky don't have that infrastructure. Imv 4k for consumers is still at the very least a year or two away, but nothing will happen until the standards have been deifned.

[zulu001] 04/3/2014 10:34

Pierre, you can't see the wood for the trees. SKY have decided to offer twice as many channels at 1080 resolution, that is the sensible commercial decision. Also it appears they are already in a position to broadcast in 4K when there are sufficient sets to make this profitable.

[minerve] 04/3/2014 10:09

Most users will not understand the difference between 1080i or 1080p, or for that matter, notice a difference in the picture quality.

[minerve] 04/3/2014 10:07

Pierre

You are getting way too bogged down in technology specification. At the end-of-the-day it will be price, quality programming, availability, reliability, convenience and other user identifiable parameters that will win. Time and time again superior technology does not guarantee, or indicate anything, towards success.

Remember VHS vs Betamax?

[pierre oreilly] 03/3/2014 20:23

Miata - the link is about standarDs for delivery of programs to sky, not their broadcasting standards. At least it tells us that the maximum quiality sky can theoretically broadcast at is, as you say, 1080i/50, since that is the quality delivered, whatever the actual source quality of the material (eg, standard deff or 4k, it all goes to 1080i/50 when delivered to sKY).

uva BSY are very cutting edge.

Well sky have just released a box for mass sale which outputs at 720p while most other 'intelligent' boxes output true HD at 1080p. Also, as above, the max theoretical hd standard sky can possibly deliver atm is 1080i, (which is half the bit rate of 1080p). Even terrestrial hd tv through the aerial is 1080p.

The evidence doesn't match your assertion.

[undervaluedassets] 03/3/2014 15:38

BSY are very cutting edge.

I worked for a helicopter company and we filmed the whole of the UK from the Air in 3D for SKY over 6 weeks.

Incredible what this company does.

They are like Apple and Disney rolled into one.

[miata] 03/3/2014 14:01

Sky is 1080i/25


You don't upscale it, its only the interlaced refresh rate that is the difference.


4K might even be here this year:

[albany30] 03/3/2014 12:50

Filter button . . . we offer you our gratitude. Pierre Oreilly - 03 Mar 2014 - 09:51 - 1441 of 1444 - (Filtered)Pierre Oreilly - 03 Mar 2014 - 10:06 - 1442 of 1444 - (Filtered)Pierre Oreilly - 03 Mar 2014 - 11:02 - 1444 of 1444 - (Filtered)

[pierre oreilly] 03/3/2014 11:02

First sentence - That doesn't agree with what I read Miata, have you got a link? (btw, I haven't read anything definitive on this yet)

I read that sky broadcast at 720p, and upscale to 1080i in some of their boxes.

And upscaled 1080i isn't as good as broadcast 1080i. Yeah, the i means interlaced, meaning every other 'line' is skipped alternately, hence half the bandwidth required. I have various equipment which upscales from 1080i to 1090p basically by a very simple algorithm - and the result is not the same at all as broadcast 1080p.

Basically, anything not broadcast is 1080p isn't good enough for my big tv - and almost everyone has big tvs these days.

I saw a panasonic '4K' hd yesterday - even makes 1080p look pretty poor in comparison - but that will be a few years until that becomes commonplace.

[miata] 03/3/2014 10:33

Sky broadcast at 1080i.

Whilst 1080i is the same resolution as 1080p it requires half the bandwidth, modern TVs will automatically process the signal to 1080p though you might get slight ghosting on fast moving footballs or tennis balls because 1080i only paints every other column every 1/25th of a second rather than all of them.

The NOW tv box uses an adaptive bit-rate, so the quality varies depending on your connection speed, at around 5Mbit/s, you can get 720p video.

The Western Digital WDBGXT0000NBK WD TV Live box (£72) supports full HD (1080p).

[pierre oreilly] 03/3/2014 10:06

The latest NOW TV box from sky, 720p

My talktalk box and most others 1080p.

For large TVs, 1080p is necessary for picture clarity imo.

If Sky are actually broadcasting at a max of 720p from their hardware (quite possible because it was probably thought of a 'future proof' several years ago), then Sky faces some serious upgrade issues imv.

Terrestrial is 1080p, bog standard HD beeb and many others through your aerial.

[pierre oreilly] 03/3/2014 09:51

Why 'chum'?

The silence on here about facing the competition is matched only by the silence from Sky themselves.

Do people here actually realise that the situation with Sky has now changed from the last 10 years? That Sky had an easy and profitable ride for that time, but noiw it's over, with new competition taking away its most valuable assets? Sheesh, don't shareholders think about these things? Later this year, Sky will have no Championship league games, and later still, my view is they're evern likely to have no premiership soccer games too, again likely to be outbid by BT, just as they were for the premiership rugby and cl. I'm not sure whether 400 channels of US soaps and other low value commodity channels will support Sky in the future, but it appears to me that that is what Sky themselves think.

[albany30] 02/3/2014 23:02

undervalued - what possible reason can you have to not place the unhinged troll that is Rodney O'Reilly on filter, as everyone else has?Don't waste space on here encouraging him. The man (or woman) is clearly deranged.

[pierre oreilly] 02/3/2014 21:51

It what they do and its is why profits have grown by 1000% in since 2003...

but in sep 13 profits dropped 8%.

between 2003 and 2013 sky faced no substantive competition.

[undervaluedassets] 02/3/2014 12:42

Pierre have you got a week - So many revenue streams available to this compaany. And Customer base still growing. 11 million customers paying £570 per annum (a new record)

BSY are an extremely experienced media player. Media is what they do - They are specialists and a media behemoth and its is why profits have grown by 1000% in since 2003...

But Pierre...

chum

What are you doing here Pierre? What is it that you are trying to achieve?

I think you are beginning to fascinate us all - clinically that is.

[pierre oreilly] 01/3/2014 10:42

UVA -

1433, that's puzzling to me since I don't read the other poster's posts, and haven't done for a couple of weeks now for the reasons I have already given.

'The High Growth profile still is still intact here as it has been for the last decade.'

Is that really your opinion? To me, that seems to not acknowledge either the recently reported fall in profits and neither the changed business circumstances Sky now faces (which is what has caused the first point). Sky for the first time faces serious competition, at least for its sports interests. That is hard to deny imv, just as much as it is hard to deny that in all the competitive battles so far, sky has lost to the new competition. Companies facing competition isn't the end of the world of course if it were known how that new competition was going to be faced. Any idea of sky's plans to react to the new competition which has substantially greater resources to deploy?

[undervaluedassets] 28/2/2014 14:14

I think what the market is finally catching onto is that SKY is not just about sports broadcasting .

BSY is a multi-trick pony with endless revenue streams.

The High Growth profile still is still intact here as it has been for the last decade.

The neglect of this stock may finally be over.

[undervaluedassets] 28/2/2014 10:11

Albany and Pierre. Come on guys.