Virgin Media offers Sky Sports and Sky Movies in HD for the first time
Virgin Media customers will be able to receive Sky Sports 1 and 2, and Sky Movies, in high definition from August 2nd.
They'll have to pay a £7/month premium on top of their existing Sky package from Virgin, but that's less than the £10 Sky charges for its HD pack.
Virgin claims its subscribers can save up to £144 a year compared to the cost of the same services on Sky HD.
Sky Sports HD1 and HD2 include Premier League football, cricket and rugby union in high definition. Any Virgin customer who currently subscribes to the single or dual Sky Sports Pack in standard definition will be able to add the HD sports channels for an extra £7/month.
Film fans with a subscription to Virgin's single movies Pack 1, Pack 2 or dual movies Pack 1 and 2 will also be able to add up to ten Sky Movie channels in high definition for £7/month (excludes Sky Movies Classics, Sky Movies Premiere +1 and Disney Cinemagic).
The addition of Sky's HD services follows Virgin Media's deal with Sky to bring its customers a wide range of new HD channels and red button interactive services. The deal also adds Sky 1HD and Sky Arts HD (launch date to be confirmed), taking the total number of high-definition channels on Virgin to 30.
High-definition versions of non-Sky channels such as BBC HD, ITV 1 HD, 4HD, Film 4HD and Five HD remain free of additional subscription costs.
Cindy Rose, executive director of digital entertainment at Virgin Media, says: "As the new home of HD telly, we're delighted to bring our customers Sky Sports in HD at incredibly competitive rates."
To capitalise on the start of the new football season, Virgin today launches an extensive marketing campaign aimed at footy fans.
Last month Virgin slashed the cost of Sky's standard-definition Sports and Movie packages.
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Comments
Hi just read again that virgin have slashed there prices from july, well the film package you say is now 19.50 a month ? well that is what i paid at christmas for a while and its been that since then. There has been a lot of hyp with the deal with sky but the price for us cusomers has not changed.
dickbee 1.
as one already paying over the odds for the so called ultimate service,Virgin can stuff it.
I most certainly will not be paying an extra £7.
Wakey Wakey Virgin !
I looked at Sky's HD about 6 months ago (as Virgin didn't appear to have many HD channels coming out) and found that to get Sky's HD channels you must already subscribe to the SD channels first then when you pay your £10 a month for HD you get the SD channels in HD.
So as long as Virgin offers the film or sport packages for the same price or less than Sky do then you're saving £3 a month over Sky.
Though aren't Sky's prices going up in September? Will Virgin's too?
I'm not sure where you're getting the seven pounds for SD from, both.of.me.
As with Sky, you have to pay a monthly subscription for the SD channels (£20.50 for the SD Sky Sports Pack for example), then a £7 fee on top of that to get them in HD.
This is a complete rip-off ! £7 extra to watch something your already paying over £20 a month already in HD ! FORGET IT! i've got ESPN HD for nothing and can watch footie on ITV 1 HD AND BBC HD..can't see this being popular at all.
so with sky hd you pay �10 per month and get movies and sport in HD and SD but with virgin hd it's �7 for SD and an additional �7 if you want the channels in hd?
seems like a bit of a rip off to me?
The �7 a month is in addition to your standard subscription charges.
I hope they are joking about the extra �7 a month I have the full wack with them 50mb bb, telephone with the talk unlimited, and tv xl with sky movies and sports. Virgin are getting more like sky by the day.
Humm one question is that a additional �7 per month or included in the �7 a month i currently pay for sky sports and movies? if they are charging extra i can see a lot of complaints as it is included with sky hd when you take out their sports & movies package!
They lie, would still not go with them, they told me when I was going to join for the 50mb BB they said no 100% you will not have to pay for HD like I do with sky, also they said they would call me back 4 times to go through prices and costs and they never did. They still have not changed the NTL ways and will stick with sky, 13mb BB is fast enough for now, and every time I called sky with a problem an engineer was out within 24 hours.