Thiniknf of joing SKY...but confused

higster

Hi,

thinking of joing Sky with "4 mix entertainment" channels (26euro) and sky+ box. My questions are:
1. Am i better off paying 15euro/month sub for sky+ vs getting a preium pack (looks like I need to get either all sky sports or movies to have the sky+ sub dropped). Not a massive soccer fan, like to see films in cinema or dvd (i.e. before sky brings them out)...
2. Is it possible to switch on sky sports for a month or two if there is something specific I want to watch
3. What does standard installation mean? I'm getting quotes from guys and they are adding on 50-100 euro for "items not included under standard installation...
4. Use sky or a local installer?
5. Can I watch sky+ (incluing recordings) on another tv without getting multiroom (both tvs never on at same time =>not want multi room).

Thanks.

Tony

This was my definition when we did Sky in Ireland but it may vary depending on the retailer

"What is meant by standard installation?

The standard installation which is available with the purchase of sky digital subscriptions, allows for most installations carried out by us. However, should additional bracketry, cabling (over 15m) , telephone connection or labour for example be required, this may incur an additional fee which will be discussed with you before work commences."
http://www.satellite.ie/acatalog/Frequently_Asked_Questions.html

higster wrote:

Hi,

thinking of joing Sky with "4 mix entertainment" channels (26euro) and sky+ box. My questions are:
1. Am i better off paying 15euro/month sub for sky+ vs getting a preium pack (looks like I need to get either all sky sports or movies to have the sky+ sub dropped). Not a massive soccer fan, like to see films in cinema or dvd (i.e. before sky brings them out)...
2. Is it possible to switch on sky sports for a month or two if there is something specific I want to watch
3. What does standard installation mean? I'm getting quotes from guys and they are adding on 50-100 euro for "items not included under standard installation...
4. Use sky or a local installer?
5. Can I watch sky+ (incluing recordings) on another tv without getting multiroom (both tvs never on at same time =>not want multi room).

Thanks.

watty

"Multiroom" in Sky Marketing sense is separate Digiboxes. You can of course feed any numbers of rooms with one Digibox. All TVs have same picture. An extra 5th channel.

If you arn't into expensive sport viewing then 2 mix pack at 21 Euro is best value.

Sky+ is really only worth while if you need a LOT of time shifted recordings. Even then I object on priciple to paying rental to record.

A non-Sky PVR is better but can only do FTA channels, All the BBC and ALL ITV plus maybe another 20 decent channels. The same dish as the Sky Digibx can be used.

A PC with 80 Euro card can also connect direct Quad LNB on Sky dish, but as a PVR solution awkward though works well. I have 200G disk for Satellite recording direct to disk.

higster

"A PC with 80 Euro card can also connect direct Quad LNB on Sky dish, but as a PVR solution awkward though works well. I have 200G disk for Satellite recording direct to disk."

Now you have me intersted. I've 2 * 250G harddrives PC sitting in the room...do I need a digital tuner (stupid question) and what is quad lnb? What software do you use and can you set up recording automatically (or do you need to set up each recording manually)?

watty

Yes you need a Digital Satellite PCI card as "tuner". There are two main kinds:

1) Hauppage Nexus-s / Skystar1
Has real TV out connector, Digital Audio out(for surround), HiFi Analog Stereo out, IR remote in.
Does not use the CPU for MPEG decoding, will work even on a P90
Really an entire Satellite system on a card for about €270!

2) Hauppauge NOVa-s / Skystar2 and similar.
Only a Tuner. The PC does all the hard work of MPEG2 decoding. Minimum 450MHz, but a 2GHz will do HDTV with this card. No other features.

Under €90 some times as little as €65 plus postage.

You can use a TV out on the PC graphics card for the TV or encode a DVD.

It will only receive the Free TV (200, but only 20 decent ones) and Free Radio (about 70) from Sky.

If it is the ONLY digital reciever the dish only needs a normal LNB on the arm. If you get a Sky Digibox for Pay TV (or for a UK FTV card only to UK address, but works here), then you need a separate connection for each tuner. The signal can't be split. I won't bore you with why. A Quad LNB can drive four receivers or Two receivers and one Dual Tuner PVR such as a Sky+ box.

The PC can also be persuaded to use multiple tuner cards.

We are NOT talking DVB-t or DVB-c or Analog TV tuner. It must be a Satellite Tuner (DVB-s)

NTFS format on NT4, Win2000 or Windows XP recommended. but even so the software should be set to automatically split to 696 MByte files, which can be played back seemlessly from PC or DVD. PC palyback is same as Live viewing. BBC TV is often at DVD resolution so DVD is same as live. Some channels use non-DVD resolutions so a very slight loss in quality due to transcoding, but still MUCH better than analog connection from Sky Box to a standalone DVD or Hard Disk recorder.

IF you have a fast enough network in your house the Satellite TV card can "stream" at live quality than makes Broadband video look rubbish to another PC or Laptop. An 11M WiFi is too slow, except for radio. 100Mbps Ethernet (or 54 / 108 Mbit Wifi with only one client) recommended.

watty

An ITV film on ITV3 is about 2.5G, and a Film on BBC is 3G to 6G, though usually less than the 4.3 of single layer DVD.

I use PVAstrumeno (google) to clean the received stream recorded on disk and then I have better than live quality! (fixes lip sync drift).

Charlie

watty wrote:

IF you have a fast enough network in your house the Satellite TV card can "stream" at live quality than makes Broadband video look rubbish to another PC or Laptop. An 11M WiFi is too slow, except for radio. 100Mbps Ethernet (or 54 / 108 Mbit Wifi with only one client) recommended.

How would you set that up. I have a netopia wifi router at home that is 54mbps, and a centrino laptop. Is it possible for me to stream t.v to the laptop through the router? I might be way off the ball here so please forgive me if i'm asking a dumb question.

higster

watty wrote:

Yes you need a Digital Satellite PCI card as "tuner". There are two main kinds:

1) Hauppage Nexus-s / Skystar1
Has real TV out connector, Digital Audio out(for surround), HiFi Analog Stereo out, IR remote in.
Does not use the CPU for MPEG decoding, will work even on a P90
Really an entire Satellite system on a card for about €270!

2) Hauppauge NOVa-s / Skystar2 and similar.
Only a Tuner. The PC does all the hard work of MPEG2 decoding. Minimum 450MHz, but a 2GHz will do HDTV with this card. No other features.

Under €90 some times as little as €65 plus postage.

You can use a TV out on the PC graphics card for the TV or encode a DVD.

It will only receive the Free TV (200, but only 20 decent ones) and Free Radio (about 70) from Sky.

If it is the ONLY digital reciever the dish only needs a normal LNB on the arm. If you get a Sky Digibox for Pay TV (or for a UK FTV card only to UK address, but works here), then you need a separate connection for each tuner. The signal can't be split. I won't bore you with why. A Quad LNB can drive four receivers or Two receivers and one Dual Tuner PVR such as a Sky+ box.

The PC can also be persuaded to use multiple tuner cards.

We are NOT talking DVB-t or DVB-c or Analog TV tuner. It must be a Satellite Tuner (DVB-s)

NTFS format on NT4, Win2000 or Windows XP recommended. but even so the software should be set to automatically split to 696 MByte files, which can be played back seemlessly from PC or DVD. PC palyback is same as Live viewing. BBC TV is often at DVD resolution so DVD is same as live. Some channels use non-DVD resolutions so a very slight loss in quality due to transcoding, but still MUCH better than analog connection from Sky Box to a standalone DVD or Hard Disk recorder.

IF you have a fast enough network in your house the Satellite TV card can "stream" at live quality than makes Broadband video look rubbish to another PC or Laptop. An 11M WiFi is too slow, except for radio. 100Mbps Ethernet (or 54 / 108 Mbit Wifi with only one client) recommended.

Bloddy hell, you've lost me. Know of any company that will install without ripping me off?

Tony

higster wrote:

Bloddy hell, you've lost me. Know of any company that will install without ripping me off?

Install where????

RangeR

higster wrote:

Bloddy hell, you've lost me. Know of any company that will install without ripping me off?

Media Centric, but I think they are expensive.

watty

charlie mchugh wrote:

How would you set that up. I have a netopia wifi router at home that is 54mbps, and a centrino laptop. Is it possible for me to stream t.v to the laptop through the router? I might be way off the ball here so please forgive me if i'm asking a dumb question.

Using ProgDVB (free) on Xp works. It is not obvious how to set it up. But if you hava a ProgDVB compatible card on Win2000 / XP I can explain it.