The living room of a rich fool, yesterday

Not content with blasting 3D Premier League football into our faces in selected pubs earlier in the year, Sky are going the whole hog and launching a specialist 3D channel later in the year, October 1^st to be precise.

Details of programming schedules are somewhere between sketchy and non-existent at the moment, but the aforementioned Premier League, the Ryder Cup, Monsters vs Aliens and Harry Potter And The Something Or Other are among the three-dimensional visual delights lined up. No doubt subscribers will be forced to peel at least another tenner from their thinning cash-bundles in order to see this miraculous content.

Elsewhere, in Sky-related news for people who have a brain, the Murdochian broadcasting overlords have snaffled up the complete catalogue of renowned US cable broadcaster HBO.

The deal will bring new HBO shows to Sky as well as classics such as The Sopranos, The Wire, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Six Feet Under. We wouldn’t be surprised to see that lot eventually snuck away behind some kind of paywall as well. Harrumph.

Not a nanosecond goes by without Sky repeatedly fisting you in the face with the fact that the programme you’re watching is dogshit, but would cause your brain to orgasm if you were watching it in HD. For those who have already made the switch and are paying Sky a small fortune every month for their HD service, disappointing news has begun arriving in their inboxes:

Currently, the HD subscription allows you to watch HD channels you don’t necessarily subscribe to (Sky offers channels in subscription “bundles” which you can mix and match, or receive all), so if you pay your £10 per month HD subscription, you have access to all channels broadcast in HD. From October, you’ll only have access to those channels that are part of your bundles.

According to avid Bitterwallet reader Alan, the changes precede Sky scrapping the monthly subscription, although that isn’t mentioned in the email. That isn’t what’s causing upset for Alan and other customers in forums, however; it’s that the wording states all Sky HD customers will lose these channels, regardless of the contract they signed – unless they contact Sky to keep them for the remainder of their contract. In other words, Sky are making customers opt back into channels they’ve already agreed a contract to receive.

We’re not sure there’s a case for contract cancellation, since Sky are clearly communicating to customers how to continue receiving the channels and providing plenty of notice regarding the change; Sky might therefore argue that removal of the channels is optional. We can’t find the previous terms and conditions for Sky HD online; according to the generic T&Cs: “the Sky+HD box has separate terms and conditions which are supplied with the box“. Helpful.

Regardless, surely the right way to do this, is automatically allow contracted customers to keep these channels, and provide the option to upgrade? If you’re a Sky HD customer, have you contacted Sky about the channels you’ll be losing in October?

Time for our daily look at some of the heatiest bargains around at the moment – today we bring you some Xbox thing that we don’t really understand, a thing that cooks food much slower than it needs to and a nice pink cube that plays tunes.

If that hasn’t made you lick all your lips off in anticipation, then there’s all of that sort of stuff and much more over at HotUKDeals right now…

Xbox owners! Want to watch Sky but don’t fancy having a big dish on your wall? Well there’s a product just for you and it’s down from £29.99 to just £9.99 right now, in a street near you. Hopefully. If they haven’t all gone by now.

It’s the Xbox 360 Sky Sports and Entertainment pack. It’ll allow you to watch Sky via your Xbox, but subject to a £34 per month subscription fee. BUT, you’ll get the first month free. There’s still a few left at this price around the land, so happy hunting…

Now for something that is even cheaper and that will even help to keep you alive, as opposed to a gizmo that will let you watch Blackpool v West Ham and the occasional episode of House.

It’s a slow cooker and it’s currently only £4.89. Yes, rub your eyes all you like, that’s what we said – £4.89. Bung in a couple of chops, some onions, a bit of salt and some Angel Delight, go on holiday for a couple of weeks, come back and it should be ready to eat.

Finally, a nice pink portable speaker for listening to your music on the go. It’s cube-shaped too, so that means you can comfortably sit a leprechaun on it if you need to. Better still, it’s only £3.24.

It’s perfect for listening to the sounds of Pink, The Big Pink and the soundtrack from The Pink Panther. Oh, and Pink Floyd. How could we have forgotten about Pink Floyd? Oh, of course, it’s because they’re really boring.

(deals found by HUKD members taswir1, stockie and G0OSE)

It’s been rumoured for a while but it’s now official – Sky have paid £160 million for Virgin Media’s television channels.

The channels bought by Sky include Bravo (aka “the Knight Rider channel”), Living TV (”Most Haunted 24/7″) and Virgin 1 (”Next, a Chuck and Star Trek double-bill”). Sky will now get to sell advertising for the channels. Virgin Media doesn’t lose out on the deal – their customers will receive Sky’s HD channels.

Content from Sky’s basic and premium channels, including Sky1 and Sky Arts, will be available through Virgin Media’s on-demand TV service.

Yes, we know this one has been floating around for a day or so but we were away for most of yesterday on a team-bonding session where the boss put us in a wind tunnel for five hours while blasting us with hot mashed turnip. To be honest, we needed it.

Anyhow, it concerns Sky and the latest, forthcoming upgrade of their Anytime service. Called Anytime+, it’ll work on a Sky+HD box that is connected to the net and viewers will be able to download and watch from more than 1,000 hours of content from an array of channels. All of the content will be in SD form.

Sky reckon that with a 2MB connection, a 90-minute film will be available to start watching in streaming form in less than a minute or downloaded to store on your Sky+ box in about 40 minutes once the new service is up and running later in the year.

The catch (and it’s a pretty hefty catch) is that upon launch, Anytime+ will only be available to viewers who ALSO subscribe to the Sky Unlimited Broadband package. Clever, spoilsporting bastards.

Now then, how does one go about removing dried turnip from one’s eyeballs…?

If you’ve got a hefty Sky TV bill every month, you might be able to get it reduced over the summer months, as a Sky call centre insider has tipped us off about a new, top secret deal they’re prepared to offer you if you call up and plead poverty.

Our snoop says:

Sky are planning to introduce a new saver tool for the impending loss of Sports channels when the footy season finishes.

Basically, anyone who has the whole sodding lot of its content – i.e films and all the 6 mixes can keep it for free until the football season starts again. Anyone with all the sports and no films can save £15 p/m and if you only have half a sports or ESPN they’ll try and offer you it for free.

Its supposed to be randomly generated but they know that everyone will ditch the Sports package for the World Cup. Best way to get it is to not directly ask for an offer but mention you’ve been a loyal customer, never missed a bill etc.

Sky sometimes go easy on customers who threaten to cancel their contract and go elsewhere, but it looks as though just threatening to downgrade could see you coming up trumps.

3D football is about to hit the TV screens of some of the nation’ finest pubs this weekend, as well as some of the shitty ones.

Following a trial in January, Sky are rolling the 3D TV thing out with the Manchester United v Chelsea match on Saturday lunchtime.

Their 3D pub finder has gone live so you can work out where your nearest booze-hole is that will be handing out the special goggles.

If it’s too far away, just pretend you don’t give a toss.

Even though you do. We know you do.

Football invariably won’t be coming home during the World Cup this summer – you’ll have to settle for the Quarter Finals, or similar – but it is about to get cheaper if you watch it anywhere other than with a Sky subscription. Ofcom has today told Sky to reduce the amount it charges other broadcasters to offer Sky Sports – the likes of Virgin Media and BT – by nearly a quarter.

The Murdoch empire has been told to reduce the wholesale price at which it sells Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 from the current £13.88 to £10.63 per subscriber per month. Over a year, it would mean a saving for the customer on a bundled TV package of around £24. Of course Sky are appealing the decision, so it’s not a done deal just yet; even if the deal does go through, it wouldn’t stop Sky juggling its schedules and perhaps moving key sporting events to other premium channels or pay-per-view.

The regulators are also about to go after Sky concerning their restriction of premium movie rights, because it has a knock-on effect for the subscription video-on-demand market. Also bundled in with the decision, Ofcom gave Sky permission to resurrect Picnic, Sky’s Pay TV service for Freeview. That would mean the end of Sky’s free channels on Freeview, replaced with subscription channels. Bah. So Sky will appeal everything except the decisions in their interests, and nothing good comes of it for the consumer. Good work.

[Guardian]

3D football eh? I bet that’s mental. I bet Richard Key’s hairy hands look even more ghastly when lurching out of the screen like a b-movie monster.

Anyway, BSkyB are going to launch Europe’s first 3D TV channel, Sky 3D, with the Barclays Premier League match between ManUrinals and Chelski on Saturday 3rd April.

It’s not just a one-off though as Sky have announced that they plan to show at least a further five Premier League games (which have yet to be announced… Hull fans, I wouldn’t get your hopes up) before the end of the season on 9th May.

Lower down the leagues, Sky also plan to show the Coca-Cola Football League play-off finals from Wembley Stadium in 3D in summer.

Over a thousand pubs have signed up to show Sky 3D. So from April, once word gets around to which ale-houses have it, we’ll all be able to pile in and watch footy matches popping out of the screen, with clearances heading directly toward our eyeballs. It’s likely that more and more pubs will sign up in the next few weeks.

Brian Lenz, director of product design and TV product development at Sky, called the 3D channel’s launch with the title-contender clash “fitting”. I don’t know why he said that, but he did.

Anyway, even if it’s only a novelty, it should be great fun.

[BrandRepublic]

If you were sickened by the fact that you missed out on seeing Sky’s recent one-off trial of 3D Premier League football, you won’t have to wait too long for another go at it.

LG are crowing over the fact that they’ve just flogged 15,000 3D TV sets to Sky for the broadcaster to sprinkle into pubs across the land… and it’s going to happen sooner rather than later.

The broadcaster we all hate to love tried out the 3D experience in January for the Manchester United v Arsenal league match, which turned out to be a huge success, prompting the speedy return of 3D.

Sky are said to be planning a rapid rollout of the 3D footy this spring, and as there’s only about ten weekends of Premier League matches remaining, we reckon we’re looking at days rather than weeks before we’re all down the juicer turning the place into a scene akin to a pissed-up Roy Orbison convention.

Tough times for Britain’s eyes and livers, but we’ll cope…

[Engadget]

We’re so jam-packed full of bargains today that we’re not even going to bother banging on about the latest great offer on Cadburys Creme Eggs (because it isn’t Easter) or the mega-cheap DVD of Elf (because it isn’t Christmas).

So here’s some other stuff, brought to you in conjunction with HotUKDeals…

We kick off with a deal that will help you get Sky through your Xbox 360. That includes Sky Sports and a remote control and an Xbox Live membership. Sadly there isn’t a towel for you to mop your fevered brow with the excitement of it all, but you can’t have everything.

But you can have the deal we’ve just outlined in the previous paragraph (look up ever so slightly, ah, yes, there it is!) for a 50% off price of only £14.99. There’s more info along with much of the usual speculation, fear and confusion over at HotUKDeals.

Next, we turn to Manchester City Football Club. They’re possibly the richest club in the world but they’re still never more than a couple of incidents away from catastrophe. What’s more – they’re struggling to fill their cavernous stadium.

Which is where you come in. You can get a ticket for their upcoming match against Wigan Athletic that will admit an adult and an under-15. Added to that, you’ll get a junior 2009/10 home shirt, and all of that will set you back the small sum of £30. That’s a tiny percentage of what the club paid for the services of Robinho, but we can’t be arsed to work out what it is.

Finally today, we inevitably turn to fish, namely the brightly coloured ones that mill about in brightly lit tanks. Sounds like an impossible dream but it doesn’t have to be – you can have fish like that in your own living room.

What you’ll need for starters is a tank, and this one should fit the bill – an Orca NT50 Nano 80 litre affair, including a pump, filter system, and light. It’s yours for only £89.95, leaving you plenty of spare cash for fish. Just make you sure you remember to put some water in it first.

(deals found by HUKD members Yatton, andywedge, mattyf and mamboboy)

It’s Friday and that means your weekly dose of our true or false guessing game. No more sailing blankly through the round-up of bargains like you do the rest of the week – this is serious.

More bargains and less bullshit over at HotUKDeals.

THE DEAL: For new Sky customers, your first year’s subscription at half-price. Plus free HD pack and free Sky+ HD box.

TRUE OR FALSE?  HD TV has not even begun to reach its full potential. By 2020, experts believe levels will rise somewhere between 254-256. With the addition of as-yet-unpredictable stremifying boosts, the levels could reach a dizzying 257.

THE DEAL: Mixer taps. Three designs to choose from. Only £17.99.

TRUE OR FALSE?  Get the settings just right and these mixer taps could provide you with a mixture of water, barbecue sauce, hot syrup, olive oil and Labrador urine.

THE DEAL:  £19 hotel room sale starts at 6am tomorrow. It covers stays from 12^th March to 31^st May

TRUE OR FALSE?  You get an extra 10% off the price of your room if you bring your own bedding and 15% off if you bring someone else’s bedding.

(deals found by HUKD members darlowad, hotmik and noiy)

TRUE OR FALSE: All statements are FALSE!

That picture we always see whenever clueless media types try and show us how football fans behave. Now with the addition of silly spectacles.

People, the future is finally here – and better still, you’ll have to go down the pub to witness it in all its majestic glory.

Sky, the broadcasting monster that we all love to hate and hate to love but secretly love a bit anyway are the providers of the great leap forward – it’s your real, actual 3D football on the telly.

It’ll happen as soon as this Sunday in a smattering of pubs around the country where the Arsenal v Manchester United Premier League skirmish will be broadcast in all three magnificent dimensions. Sky claim it will be it will be the first transmission of a live 3D TV sports event to a public audience.

Better still, if you want to see it, you’ll need to work out where to go, as Sky are refusing to reveal the identity of the nine pubs, in order to avoid a series of stampedes.

All they will say is that four of the screenings will be in London, with two in Manchester and one each in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Dublin.

The service will be increased in April, when hundreds of pubs will be kitted out with 3D screening equipment, with scores of grown adults standing around all sporting silly 3D glasses as they watch Burnley and Birmingham grind out a miserable 0-0 draw.

By the end of the year, Sky 3D should be available in the living rooms of Sky HD subscribers who take their film and movie packages.

Where will it all end? Smell-o-vision we hope, with the chance to opt in for the whiff of stale beer and meat pies, or if you choose the retro option, Silk Cuts and male urine.

Little by little, inch by inch, Sky will have your life. It starts off as a basic TV package, then they throw in a landline for free. Then there’s packages, HD channels if you want them, or watch Sky in other rooms of the house. Then they throw in broadband if you’ll pay for the landline and before you know it, you’re handing over £70 a month to Sky, not £20.

Their latest sleight-of-hand, which we mentioned several months ago, is to strictly monitor broadband usage – not that they sold it to the consumer like that. Sky provided a usage tool so you could monitor how much of your broadband allowance you used every month, but of course this monitoring then allowed Sky to impose sanctions. Specifically, if you exceed your allowance twice in six months you are automatically upgraded to the next price plan.

Are you automatically downgraded if you fail to reach your previous allowance the following month? No, that can only be done manually, obviously – Sky dictate which functions are automatic and which are manual to suit their bottom line, because plenty of customers won’t notice or indeed care enough to query an extra fiver a month.

The reason it’s worth mentioning is because home broadband usage is bound to have been abnormally high during December and January’s bad weather (with work and school closures, usage tripled in our household), meaning Sky get their two strikes in six months and increase your bill accordingly. You can find Sky’s broadband usage tool here; if Sky try subscribing you to a more expensive pacakage, check your usage next month – make sure you don’t end up paying too much to Sky for broadband allowance you don’t use.

EDIT: After studying our reports of voting patterns, we have learned that the results of the second semi-final were tainted by multiple votes for DSGi, a stunt that was probably pulled by a paedophile or someone with an unfeasibly tiny penis, like a chipolata as viewed through the wrong end of a telescope.

As a result, the DSGi votes have been disregarded and Paypal and Orange have been put forward into Monday’s final. Bitterwallet’s decision is final so don’t even bother not shutting the fuck up about it. This is not Tehran – democracy will prevail.

Welcome, dear reader, to the second semi-final in our Bitterwallet Worst Company in Britain 2009 spectacular, with the remaining TWO places in the grand final up for grabs from today’s contenders.

We would like to apologise again for yesterday’s cock-up which saw the voting scrapped shortly before noon after it was discovered that Barclays had mistakenly snuck into the draw instead of Royal Mail. Voting has been extended until noon today if you’d still like to join in.

So, with all mistakes behind us, we look forward to today’s juicy tear-up between the four other companies who have staggered through rounds one and two – namely Clarks shoe shops, Marlboro, Cheltenham Town FC and Echo & The Bunnymen.

Hang on – that’s not quite right. In actual fact, you can choose between Orange, DSGi, Sky and Paypal. A motley crew and no mistake, and, unless some kind of unseen screw-up is spotted, the voting will end at midnight tonight. Remember, the two highest-polling companies will reach the final.

The final will commence on Monday and voting will go on for the whole of 2010. Not really. You can check out who the victors of the first semi-final were here from noon and go down memory lane with all of the results so far here.

Well – what are you waiting for? START VOTING, YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARDS!