I'm with virgin,good all round service and broadband outstanding,remember it not matters a jot who supplies your broadband it all come down the same old telephone line and there lies your problem. Virgin well i'm 40 mters from the cabinet hence great speeds,20Mbts soon to go upto 60Mbts at no extra cost.The tv picture i get is brilliant as well full HD,the phone is a tad pricey but overall o.k. I also have my mobile with them £10.24 for 500 mins 01/02/03 numbers and 3000 texts/virgin to virgin mobile minutes.

Are you asking which is best for you, or more generally? If the former, then it is necessary to know which options are available to you, whether you are prepared to pay on an ongoing basis and do you wish to have access to sports coverage.

In general,I would say the Virgin is probably best in the sense that it provides access to most channels with high picture quality and is independent of weather interfernce.

"What I really want is to watch all the HBO shows and other dramas of similar standard whilst paying as little as possible"

Don't we all!

You've really not got much alternative to Sky.