Sky+ Alternatives?

dermiestv

Can any of the experts provide some advice on this please.

I'd like to get some of the functionality of Sky+ such as recording to hard disk or DVD, pausing live TV, using the Sky EGP but without having to pay Sky €45 every month forever and not being able to use the system if I ever drop SKy.

I already pay for the Family pack and thats more than enough for me. I'd buy the Sky+ box if they didn't insist on the 2 premium channels. Dual recording isn't of interest as I can find enough to watch with just one feed coming in.

Does anyone know if a Tivo (from eBay) can be make to work in the Republic with the Sky channels?

Alternatively would a Phantom PVR box attached to something like a Toshiba RDXS30 HDD or a Philips DVDR70 or DVDR75 work? Or another box?

The Philips boxes apparently can use teletext to programme the recording function, and teletext seems to be available on many Sky stations. The Phantom option would be neater, without the need for a subscription service.

Or are there other options? Thanks

digitaldr

I had considered other options but in the end bit the bullet and went for SKY+ and have to say I'm very pleased with it. I pay the extra €15 a month - the price of 3-4 pints! Tivo doesn't work in Ireland

doh.ie

Tivo does work in Ireland, though it is neither sold nor accounts provided officially.

The important part is the phone calls which update listings. Tivo can be set up to dial a Dublin POP number which then brings in the listings normally. That's just a local call every night for a few minutes.

You certainly can buy one from eBay and set it up for use with Sky Digital here. Listings for RTE1 and Network 2 are provided, but there are none for TV3 or TG4.
All channel numbers can reflect the Sky ROI settings.

Having used both Tivo and Sky+, Sky plus is definitely a stronger product for sheer ease of use (the listings also come through the satellite), and its signals are not redigitised by the box like Tivo's are. However, that said the recording quality is very, very high.

Of course, the downside is that Tivo also requires a subscription, but it is possible to use a UK address for the a/c and an Irish credit card for the payments (there is also a "lifetime" subscription option). Some of the eBay Tivos come with the lifetime option already on them (no need for an a/c), but these will cost about £450.

If you have the Sky World package, or any two premium channels, though, I'd recommend you just go for Sky+ with those as there is no subscription. You also get a total cost (about €42) which comes close to the cost of Family Pack + Subscription.

But you do have your choice of both products for use in Ireland, certainly.

dermiestv

thanks very much guys, I appreciate the feedback.

I'm leaning toward Tivo with a lifetime subscription via eBay. They're selling around £430 which is around €600. No dual record but no monthly subsciption cost either.

I pay the €27 monthly basic Family package at the moment.

Getting Sky+ would cost €300 for the box, €75 installation and €192 extra subscription fees a year, total €567.

Not too much price difference in year one and winning after that. Tivo has some functionality advantages over Sky+ such as learning favourites while Sky+ is very convenient but propietary.

Does the Phantom box exist, that allows you to use the Sky EGP to programme a VCR or is it an April Fools joke? If it exists, would it work with a HDD-DVDR?

Thanks again

shabbyroad

You do have another option. (I'm about to buy one and won't now be getting Sky+ as a result).

The Panasonic DMR HS2 is a HDD/DVD-R machine with RGB in and out.
You can use it to take RGB in from your Sky digibox. It has a 40GB HD and records to DVD-RAM and DVD-R.

Lots of good information here

Basically you record from Sky onto the HD and then can edit/re-arrange as you see fit. Then you can transfer from HDD to DVD-R. According to what I've read from other users on avforums.com it's excellent quality. The 'system-link' that allows you to set timer and record shows on the Sky EPG is supposed to work fine - though not having bought one yet I can't say for sure.

One person's experience is here here

Only problem is that in Ireland the price is around the €1100 mark. You can get it for about £550 (about €780) from the UK. Ok, more than the year 1 Sky+ sub but in the long run much better IMHO.
If watching one channel while recording another is your aim then get a mirror Sky sub....

SRB

I have both TiVo and Sky + and have to say I personally find the TiVo box is much more reliable. It's also not tied to Sky in the way the + box obviously is. I can't say I've ever had an issue with two progs on digi at the same time either, but again it's a matter of personal taste. If I could I'd have UK Drama and UK Gold and not bother with anything else.

daveg

Originally posted by shabbyroad
You do have another option. (I'm about to buy one and won't now be getting Sky+ as a result).

The Panasonic DMR HS2 is a HDD/DVD-R machine with RGB in and out.
You can use it to take RGB in from your Sky digibox. It has a 40GB HD and records to DVD-RAM and DVD-R.

Lots of good information here

Basically you record from Sky onto the HD and then can edit/re-arrange as you see fit. Then you can transfer from HDD to DVD-R. According to what I've read from other users on avforums.com it's excellent quality. The 'system-link' that allows you to set timer and record shows on the Sky EPG is supposed to work fine - though not having bought one yet I can't say for sure.

One person's experience is here here

Only problem is that in Ireland the price is around the €1100 mark. You can get it for about £550 (about €780) from the UK. Ok, more than the year 1 Sky+ sub but in the long run much better IMHO.
If watching one channel while recording another is your aim then get a mirror Sky sub....

This is a great option for those looking for a route away from sky. The DVD-R record fuctionality is what I would look for. Just think of it.... the likes of Alan Partridge (or whatever floats your boat) new series has started. Record them all to the hard drive and when you have the whole series on the HD you can then burn to DVD-R which will play on 99% of DVD players and also on your PC. Sky+ or Tivo do not offer the functionality, and personally I think the HD only option isn't great.

However it is my firm belief that over the next 12 months or so we are gonna see a flood of HD recorders and DVD writers on the market. Video is dead... this is gonna be the replacement. I'm holding off for a while as I'd say at the very least DVD recorders will be nearly the same price as players are at present.

shabbyroad

However it is my firm belief that over the next 12 months or so we are gonna see a flood of HD recorders and DVD writers on the market. Video is dead... this is gonna be the replacement. I'm holding off for a while as I'd say at the very least DVD recorders will be nearly the same price as players are at present.

Your belief is correct and they'll come down in price quite a lot in the next 12 months but.... dammit I'm a gadget freak and just ordered one from the UK (still much cheaper than ordering it locally). Hopefully it'll arrive by Christmas (lots of Jools Holland shows on over Christmas.

The Phantom PVR looks very very useful and might be the ideal companion for this.

dermiestv

thanks for all your feedback. I'm surprised that no-one seems to have tried the Phantom yet.
I've decided to wait until the price of the HDD-DVDRs drop a little in the next few months and I've placed an order for a Tivo in the meantime.

Good to know there are genuine alternatives to Sky+ for those who don't want Premium channels.

thanks again

Mike 1972

Why would anyone take out a "lifetime subscription" to TIVO when the hardware itself will probably either breakdown or become obsolete in a few years ?

Surely ten years would be a more realistic subscription period ?

dermiestv

I guess you have to look past the marketing jargon. "Lifetime" in this case means the life of the hardware only.

5 or more years is a reasonable period to write the hardware off.

The choice for Tivo subscribers is either £10 per month (€14.23 to the rest of us) or £200 (€284) for the "lifetime". So after 20 months, the once off Lifetime option makes more economic sense.

I hope to have the hardware a lot longer than that.

Add to that the fact that the upgrade to get Sky+ to two premium channels from the basic Family pack would cost €192 each and every year. After 17 months Tivo becomes more economical.

Thats the theory on the money side anyway.

I'd still like to add a HDD-DVDR once the price drops next year.

dermiestv

Doh.ie, could you please let me know the Dublin POP number that I should use for Tivo listing updates?

I'm closer to Drogheda, is there is a local number for there too?

thanks

doh.ie

Dermiestv,

Sorry for the delay in replying to your message. Completely forgot to check this thread for ages.

There are four international PoP (Point of Presence) numbers for Ireland:

Cork - 021-2360200
Dublin - 01-4311000
Galway - 091-460500
Limerick - 061-260200

Full details at: http://global.mci.com/about/network/pops/index.xml?find=+FIND+&popsCtry=IRL&pops_city=&pops_ac=&pops_state=

This means, from Drogheda, you could have Tivo make a Dublin call once a week (though you'd miss out on schedule changes if there were any.) I find most calls are under five minutes, sometimes on for as little as 1m30s.

Good luck!

watty

Tivo record quality is worse than my S-VHS, they ONLY advantage to Tivo is that it is a PVR, a £60 card in a PC van be a simlar quality ANLOG PVR like Tivo (You can even add Linux and then it is very like Tivo).

Sky+ records the satellite data stream and plays this back, so quality is IDENTICAL to live Sky digibox viewing.

Tivo is general PVR alternative which you "rent" recording feature and if Tivo goes broke or pulls out of Europe is is a big silver brick.

Sky+ you have to "rent" recording too. Non-Sky PVR satellite receivers exist but Sky won't let you have a CAM so you can only use them for FTA or non-Sky owned European Pay packages.

Sky+ highlights need for stronger EU/ Irish regulation of the Foriegn Pay TV provider Sky. Though Irish Regulation hasn't done much to improve NTL and Chorus, other than force NTL to roll out digital (which other wise there would be NO digital TV from NTL).

There really is NO alternative to Sky+ for Sky Pay TV channels, only for Terrestrial PVR and FTA Digital PVR.

watty

Originally posted by dermiestv
IThe choice for Tivo subscribers is either £10 per month (€14.23 to the rest of us) or £200 (€284) for the "lifetime". So after 20 months, the once off Lifetime option makes more economic sense.
<SNIP>I'd still like to add a HDD-DVDR once the price drops next year.

Cost of Tivo + Lifetime is much the same as HDD/DVD PVR now, and more than a HDD only FTA only Satellite PVR.

Tivo was obsolete about 20 moths ago, never mind in 20 months time.

The USA Tivo *HAS* got satellite direct MPEG recording like Sky+ instead of poor real time encoder of analog and Re-encoding MPEG artifacts (Picture quality is better on Tivo with perfect off air Analog UHF, than from Digibox). But that "DirecTV PVR won't work here.

Expect analog in (like Tivo) PVRs standalone for under €100 by next Christmas.

dermiestv

Thanks very much for the Tivo dial up numbers Doh.ie.

The Tivo arrived last week and is up and running fine although you have to provide an address in the U.K. to have the account set up. There was no problem letting them know that I was using the Tivo from the Republic.

As a HDD recorder, I think it is very good, but I've nothing to compare against as I've not seen Sky+.

I can honestly say that the picture quality is excellent, I can see no difference between it and the Digibox reception. Maybe others can, but its beyond my eyesight.

I don't have any Sky premium channels and I'm delighted to not have to get any. One advantage of Tivo is that it does support the full Sky EGP, which is a big advantage. However only RTE 1 and Network 2 listings are provided. The suggestions, wishlist and season pass features are very impressive on Tivo. I'm not sure which other PVRs offer this functionality.

If we could only receive Freeview in most of the Republic, I'd be very happy.

I would also be very pleased if LurkingIcon is right and the price of standalone PVRs do fall to under €100 by Christmas. If they offer the same software features as the Tivo, I'll buy another!

I found several other forums debating the merits of Tivo v Sky+ v other HDD solutions. There is plenty of information out there. But in the meantime, I'm enjoying the new toy very much.

Even the children and wife are impressed!

doh.ie

"However only RTE 1 and Network 2 listings are provided."

I was impressed even those two were there. Remember, this service never targetted Ireland (ROI).

As for TV3 - rarely anything decent on - and for TG4, I have several manual recordings for shows which don't shift timeslots.

I agree with you - despite not recording the satellite MPEG signal directly, the picture is superb (on the highest setting anyway - only use the others for things you're not too fussed about.)

I use Sky+ and Tivo and I have to say, there is no discernible different (to my eye anyway) between the quality of the recordings.

Tivo is superior for its season passes and intelligent recordings (particularly if also connected to a FTV box for stuff which I tend to miss or forget is on UK terrestrial,
since ITV, C4 and Five aren't available with Sky+ for recording purposes here). Sky+ is probably easier to use menu-wise and you can set a programme to record with Sky+ in about 10 seconds (time to locate it in EPG), whereas Tivo can (sometimes) take a little longer (30 seconds+).

Since you didn't want to have to pay premium channel subscriptions, I think you made the right choice.

Tivo is a pretty damn fine piece of technology, and hey, it may not be the "bee's knees" in the TV recording world any more, but wait until you start spotting references to it in US dramas and movies; it's considered a truly cool item to own! (So far I've spotted mentions in Joan of Arcadia "You kids don't know anything about books or reading - you just know about Tivos and cellphones!", Everwood, The OC ("I Tivo'ed some stuff - you can come over and watch later") and, of course, that Sex And The City episode where one of them broke her Tivo and had to set Steve-o to fix it. Bit like Apple products which are everywhere in TV and movies - the iPod is turning up in every show I watch!

doh.ie

"However only RTE 1 and Network 2 listings are provided."

I was impressed even those two were there. Remember, this service never targetted Ireland (ROI).

As for TV3 - rarely anything decent on - and for TG4, I have several manual recordings for shows which don't shift timeslots.

I agree with you - despite not recording the satellite MPEG signal directly, the picture is superb (on the highest setting anyway - only use the others for things you're not too fussed about.)

I use Sky+ and Tivo and I have to say, there is no discernible different (to my eye anyway) between the quality of the recordings.

Tivo is superior for its season passes and intelligent recordings (particularly if also connected to a FTV box for stuff which I tend to miss or forget is on UK terrestrial,
since ITV, C4 and Five aren't available with Sky+ for recording purposes here). Sky+ is probably easier to use menu-wise and you can set a programme to record with Sky+ in about 10 seconds (time to locate it in EPG), whereas Tivo can (sometimes) take a little longer (30 seconds+).

Since you didn't want to have to pay premium channel subscriptions, I think you made the right choice.

Tivo is a pretty damn fine piece of technology, and hey, it may not be the "bee's knees" in the TV recording world any more, but wait until you start spotting references to it in US dramas and movies; it's considered a truly cool item to own! (So far I've spotted mentions in Joan of Arcadia "You kids don't know anything about books or reading - you just know about Tivos and cellphones!", Everwood, The OC ("I Tivo'ed some stuff - you can come over and watch later") and, of course, that Sex And The City episode where one of them broke her Tivo and had to set Steve-o to fix it. Bit like Apple products which are everywhere in TV and movies - the iPod is turning up in every show I watch!

doh.ie

Gah! Sorry for double post. Must've hit submit twice.

carryo

The Panasonic DMR HS2 HDD/DVD-R is the ideal VCR replacement & Time-shift tv viewer. It links up really easily to my Digibox for recording programs selected through my EPG. Excellent quality compared to Tivo and I only use the SP setting not the high quality XP setting.
I have only 2 issues with it:
1. The HDD is only 40GBytes and it is filling-up as I don't have time to put everthing onto DVD. I have not looked for a HDD upgrade yet but I have not seen anyone offering it.
2. TV programs and DVDs encoded with Macrovision copy-protection, like a lot of Sky movies, can only be recorded onto the HDD or DVD-Ram. It does not record these onto DVD-R. To get around this I was able to get modification (scart input) done to the system for stg£25 which also added multi-region. ( I should have asked for a HDD upgrade at the same time.) Check-out
http://www.techtronics.com/uk/shop/512-dvd-player-upgrade-service-ireland.html
and
http://www.techtronics.com/uk/shop/510-vcr-mode-and-macrovision.html
for more information.


On the price issue - there is a Pace Twin Hard Disk Drive (HDD) Recorder available in UK for £175 since november. Unfortunately this only records Digital Terestrial Transmissions (DTT) - not analogue, like we have here, or external inputs via scart or av leads. But this gives a good indication of the real cost of producing this type of machine. A DVD-R drive should only add < £80 pounds to this. (See Plextor PX-504A DVD+RW Burner for £80 now.) Once some more manufacturers have entered this segment, and a bit of competition arises, we could expect prices to drop below £250 per unit. Unfortunately most are slow coming on-board and those that are in recognise that they can fleece the early-adoptors for now. So I would not expect prices to drop below £400 for the next 12 months or below £300 for the next 24 months.

watty

Ever heard of "Product Placement?"

Tivo and Apple PAY to get featured all the time on US TV and Films. Compare the 5% of real world USA user base of Macs compared with near 100% on US TV/Film.

Any obvious repetive product mention or view of logo etc is paid for. It's called Advertising.

You'll notice hardly any such product mentions or prominent branding on UK produced programs.

Do "Blue Peter" still black out brand names?


On DVD front, expect DVD recorders to get REALLY cheap as everyone tries to get rid of stock. The first dual layer DVD Recordable is out from Panasonic. As a sop to Hollywood et al it "only" records 8.4G Byte, rather than the possible 9.4GByte!

The disks are alleged to play back in home players.

I knew I rushed out too quick and bought my Iomega Quad format DVD writer, esp since a week later they had a model that did all those DVD and DVD RAM too.

doh.ie

>> Ever heard of "Product Placement?"

I did. But Tivo and Apple are NOT always paying. If a company does pay, it is required that "Promotional considered provided by..." or "Thanks to" must be added to the end credits. This is the case for most movies, but it isn't happening for most TV shows. Nokia and Coke have a hand in American Idol, Nokia previously were featured heavily in 24 and now Ford are. These are credited (i.e. paid for), but Tivo's mention on The OC is not. I don't recall it being credited on Sex & The City either.

If a Mac appears it's often a writer or producer or set designer is a fan and
includes one on the set. The Mac 'look' often works better for filming. Same with Tivo, though it doesn't appear frequently, and is usually more often a passing comment "Did you Tivo Programme X?" than showing the machine. I doubt very much Tivo are paying for that; more likely the writer is a fan.

I'm not saying it's never paid for; in many instances, though, it is more likely to be a homage or a contra deal (free computers for the writing/production staff in return for one in a character's bedroom, for example.)

More on Apple's starring roles here:
http://www.marinij.com/Stories/0,1413,234~26641~1915665,00.html
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/features/starringapple.html

Synno

Hi,

Another alternative is to use a relatively modern PC with a TV-out graphics card and a large hard disk. You just transfer your sat. signal (either directly via the RF cable or S-VHS or, as I do, through a VCR using the composite audio/video connections) to your PC, record to hard disk and then reverse the procedure to watch directly from hard disk, or burn a VCD or DVD (if you have a DVD burner, which is pretty much standard these days). I actually use a radio transmission system for the air interface between the sat./VCR/TV setup and the PC 'cos I don't want to run 10 m of cables through the apartment.

And you have the flexibility a PC offers.

Just a thought.

dermiestv

Since it was mentioned, I’ve picked up on a few references to Tivo in American TV land. Jay Leno highlights show on Saturday had a sketch for a special edition Celebrity Trial Tivo (Michael Jackson, Martha Steward, Kobe Bryant trials etc)

Then Fox News “reported” that the Janet Jackson boob was the most Tivo-Replayed moment in US TV history.

I get the impression that Tivo is becoming part of Americana culture, they’re using the expression “to tivo” something, like they do with Xerox. Can't see the expression "sky plussed it" making it.

I read on another thread that “Friends” have a Tivo and it gets mentioned in a few episodes (e.g. series 8 episode 8). Other series including David Letterman, Buffy, Six Feet Under, Scrubs, The Simpsons, Futurama and Will & Grace have talked about Tivo. In Sex and the City, a Tivo replaced one character's boyfriend.

Its true that there is both direct and indirect product placement. The Boston Globe newspaper reported "TiVo handed out free boxes to influential celebrities such as Jay Leno, thinking that once they used them, they'd rave." The audience for a Oprah Winfrey show got a Gay Byrne-era Late Late Show surprise. She talked about TiVo and each member of the audience were given one.

But Tivo is also just slipping into everyday parlance.

There is a lot of discussion that Humax is actively considering launching a new Freeview-based Tivo in the U.K. If it does happen, it is still not much use to us in the digital TV deserts of the Republic.

Mossy Monk

does it really matter what records the tv tbh although i would love Sky+ to have some of the features that Tivo uses like recording shows of a similar vein etc. etc.

Phibsboro

as a further note to the entry mentioning using a PC/TV Card alternative, I have MythTV (www.mythtv.org) up and running at home. I have a shuttle sk41g computer with a Hauppauge PVR 350 hardware mpeg card. I have NTL analogue rather than Sky but Sky/NTL Digital would work with the addition of a do-da to allow the PC change channel on the STB (presumably TIVO has something similar to allow it to change channels?). The quality from the PVR-350 is amazing - basically indistinguisable from broadcast.

MythTV gives a full EPG for Ireland, allows various recording options (one off, whole season, this prog on any channel, keep rolling X episodes of prog etc) and resulting files can be burnt to dvd (haven't actually tried that yet tho!). Also, cos you spec the PC yourself you can bang in as much storage as you want (120gb on mine).

Two main issues with this alternative ...

1. Cost - I shudder to think how much I spent in total (went through a few permutations so some stuff wasn't used in the end).

2. Knowledge - The main reason I went this route was because I love tinkering. Myth uses linux and a passing knowledge of linux would be useful in getting the whole thing up and running. There is a CD distro (its a cut down version of linux with myth pre-loaded) available called KnoppMyth (http://mysettopbox.tv/) but I haven't tried that yet.

Colm