Sky to expand Multiroom/Sky + options

PoolDude

Just spoke to Sky who told me they are aware that the Octo LNB is available and that there is a high customer interest in having additional multiroom or SKY + connections beyond the current limitations

They are currently working 'aggressively' to get a solution in place as they are anxious to get that business. However, the lady would not give a timeline for when it would be available.

PoolDude

Should have asked, does anyone else have more details or know anything about this?

Tony

PoolDude wrote:

Should have asked, does nayone else have more details or know anything about this?

might find out next week at the seminar

PoolDude

Great, keep us posted, this might be another option for the new house. thx.

PoolDude

Tony,

Did they mention this at the conference?

Tony

PoolDude wrote:

Tony,

Did they mention this at the conference?

Afraid not

watty

PoolDude wrote:

They are currently working 'aggressively' to get a solution in place as they are anxious to get that business. However, the lady would not give a timeline for when it would be available.

Huh?
You plug it in at end of Dish arm and can connect 8 cables instead of 4 on Quad or 1 on single.

Alows up to 4 x Sky+ boxes. The only "solution" needed is how much to charge.

Now the new single connection multi-box LNBs that allow the signal to be split, need a completely different tuner (with single connection in Dual tuner Sky+ or SkyHD) in EVERY connected Digibox. That requires training and new digiboxes etc.

PoolDude

You would imagine they could roll it out pretty quickly but they don't have either of these offerings yet. Let me know if you hear more.

PoolDude

watty wrote:

Now the new single connection multi-box LNBs that allow the signal to be split, need a completely different tuner (with single connection in Dual tuner Sky+ or SkyHD) in EVERY connected Digibox. That requires training and new digiboxes etc.

Watty,
Have you heard anything on when this will be available. Thx.

watty

No.

There is some suggestion that the SkyHD box will use this which would mean a new LNB and no multiroom on additional Sky+ or Skydigiboxs as an adaptor between an existing style LNB box input and the new system is not possible unless it had a serial port and the Digibox serial port selected channel.

Or if the new LNB had three ports, one in new system and two on old system for two digiboxes or one Sky+ box.

JohnC.

I thought they were talking about octo LNBs launching with the HD boxes?

Saruman

This whole multiroom thing is a scam... i mean my inlaws in the US have Digital TV, .. its cable but i do not think that matters as NTL have the same thing here... Anyway their box (which does not use a card) splts the signal so they can watch different channels on different TV's!! No extra charge for it!!

watty

That could be true too. But advantage of the new system is easy to have EIGHT receivers/PVRs each with Twin Tuners and ONLY ONE coax feed from LNB.

Instead of feeding 1/4 of ALL the channels on a coax (existing LNBs) the tuner signals to LNB which channel it needs. Each tuner (more than one per box on a single connector) is allocated a frequency by the LNB at power up. So if there are 2 PVRs and 1 ordinary reciever the coax has roughtly only 5 transponders fed on it.

watty

Saruman wrote:

This whole multiroom thing is a scam... i mean my inlaws in the US have Digital TV, .. its cable but i do not think that matters as NTL have the same thing here... Anyway their box (which does not use a card) splts the signal so they can watch different channels on different TV's!! No extra charge for it!!

1) That only works on Cable.
2) Only works on Digital Cable if the TV has a Digital Cable decoder built in. Unlikely.

With digital cable you can easily split the signal, but the cable company will charge for each decoder box.

Many digital cable systems carry analog too. This is very likely what feeds the other TVs.

They would really want to be charging a fiver or less for multi multi room and strictly enforce the phone connection.

eirebhoy

I have Sky Digital. How much extra would it cost to get Sky+ in another room?

bk

As an alternative (or in addition) to going Octo, Sky should build ethernet into their boxes, to allow you stream a recorded show from your Sky+ box to another standard Sky box.

You guys don't know how amazing it is to be able to watch shows recorded by my TiVo downstairs on my wireless Laptop in my bedroom

watty

The tivo does not use full DVD / DVB quality... Streaming most Satellite channels would be impossible on most wireless networks as bit rate needed is higher than sustained minimum. THe Sky+ records the bitrate as is.

For program rights reason Sky won't allow this. It they did it would be a DRM enabled stream needing a viewing card on the remote end

I've streamed from my Satellite receiving PC on my 100M LAN, it gives it a big hit. Using a Video sender is slightly better.

Why?
Though a video sender is only composite rather than RGB it connects to an interlaced 25Hz/50Hz display. Streaming to a laptop or PC the display is progressive and 60Hz. This causes a lot of temporal artifacts on anything moving quickly and also the de-interlacing to progressive either gives jagged edges on moving captions or else blurs movement depending on algorithm.

On balance the composite video sender images on a regular TV are regarded by all viewers here as higher quality.

I can feed the DVD player, FTA satellite, Sky digibox or the PC Satellite TV out via video sender and remote control the PC/DVD/Sky box etc back.

If I had 30M+ upload Broadband here and 30M+ download Broadband some other location then streaming via IP would be interesting

bk

watty wrote:

The tivo does not use full DVD / DVB quality... Streaming most Satellite channels would be impossible on most wireless networks as bit rate needed is higher than sustained minimum. THe Sky+ records the bitrate as is.

"Best Quality" is about 4Mbit/s NTSC quality. I stream from the TV at about 1.7Mbit/s (the limits of what the CPU can do) over Ethernet and it looks great. I realise it probably wouldn't look great on a big screen TV, but on a laptop or 20" widescreen PC monitor it looks great.

No problems using 802.11g wireless either.

watty wrote:

For program rights reason Sky won't allow this. It they did it would be a DRM enabled stream needing a viewing card on the remote end

Yes, but they could do it at that, even official series 2 Tivo's in the US do it and there not even DRM encumbered (you can burn the shows to DVD).

watty wrote:

I've streamed from my Satellite receiving PC on my 100M LAN, it gives it a big hit. Using a Video sender is slightly better.

I tried a video sender, but it had horrible RF breakup problems, I guess with a cordless phone and WiFi network I've got too much noise on 2.4Ghz.

Also it wouldn't work with my laptop as no video in. Streaming the TiVo works very nicely.

watty wrote:

If I had 30M+ upload Broadband here and 30M+ download Broadband some other location then streaming via IP would be interesting

Yes, it would be very "interesting".

watty

Even if the laptop did have video in, it is fixed 60Hz progressive so 25Hz Interlaced or even 50Hz progressive is rotten on it.

I found that my PC at 1600x 1200 @75 Hz is an improvement over 60Hz or 85Hz.

100Hz is perfect but can only do 800x 600 at that, which is fine for 1:1 pixel video only display.

Laptop refresh / LCD panel refresh rates can't be changed they are one setting internally for PC monitors and often for HDTV/SDTV screens too. If you lucky an LCD TV does 50Hz or 60Hz progressive and 30fps / 25fps interlace, but most look poorer than CRT because infact EVERYTHING is resampled to an internal 60Hz progressive refresh.

bk

Watty, you are completely right about everything you said above, but sometimes convenience just out weights quality concerns.

Why else would MP3 be so successful while DVD-Audio/SCD are a failure?

I do enjoy watching good movies and 24 on a nice big screen TV setup, but for everything else I don't care and convenience is more important.

watty

Most stuff anything bigger than 32" WS is irritating, I too only really like very big screen for "Features".

Sometimes I watch the RTE 9pm news on tiny WEB screen

I encode my MP3 at 256k and use SP not LP for my EVIL Sony Net MD player


Only 16" deep isn't bad convenience for a 32" WS CRT TV. See the Samsung TV.


http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/03/13/samsung_hd_ready_crt_tv/

You'd need a lot of BW to steam HDTV over your LAN

bk

watty wrote:

Most stuff anything bigger than 32" WS is irritating, I too only really like very big screen for "Features".

Same here, I laugh when I go to friends houses with big screen TV's and the PQ looks far worse then my old 32" ws and they have spent €€€€.

watty wrote:

I encode my MP3 at 256k and use SP not LP for my EVIL Sony Net MD player

Lame VBR using the alt-standard setting, averages about 192kb/s. Proven to be transparent by people with ears and equipment far better then me

Gave up on MD a few years ago, had a lovely Aiwa player before moving to a 20GB iRiver H120 MP3 player/recorder.

watty wrote:

Only 16" deep isn't bad convenience for a 32" WS CRT TV. See the Samsung TV.

Yes, I saw that TV, looks like a fabulous stop gap to watch SD content on and play xbox 360 HD on, until HD content becomes widely (and affordably) available (at least 1, if not 2 years) and SED launches (hopefully finally bettering CRT for PQ).

Tell me Watty, how will HD content look on this TV compared to a SD 32" WS CRT, would you notice much difference?

How about upscaled SD content?

watty wrote:

You'd need a lot of BW to steam HDTV over your LAN

Cat5e at the moment, but 100M adapters and switches. Plan on moving to Gigabit ethernet adaptors and switch once there are actually any HDTV content worth streaming. Will probably need to move to a media server (MythTV or MS WMC) once HD hits, as the Tivo is only SD.

byte

Wow, Samsung have upgraded their SlimFit TV! The predecessor of that TV [32z308], which looks identical, was "HD Compatible" ie, no HDMI. I notice that one does have a HDMI port.

Unfortunately, there is no mention of that particular TV on Samsung's own website.

JohnC.

watty wrote:

Most stuff anything bigger than 32" WS is irritating, I too only
Only 16" deep isn't bad convenience for a 32" WS CRT TV. See the Samsung TV.


http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/03/13/samsung_hd_ready_crt_tv/

Coincidently, that very TV came up in another forum today. Apparently the geometry isn't so good. There are better HD CRTs out there, although they are only beginning to come to UK/Irish market now despite being available overseas for ages.

bk

Kahless wrote:

Coincidently, that very TV came up in another forum today. Apparently the geometry isn't so good. There are better HD CRTs out there, although they are only beginning to come to UK/Irish market now despite being available overseas for ages.

Can you point me to this thread, I'm very interested in a HD CRT.

eirebhoy

eirebhoy wrote:

I have Sky Digital. How much extra would it cost to get Sky+ in another room?

Anybody?

watty

eirebhoy wrote:

Anybody?

Depends on your package. Between 15 Euro or 30 Euro per month extra

JohnC.

bk wrote:

Can you point me to this thread, I'm very interested in a HD CRT.

http://www.rllmukforum.com/index.php?showtopic=120695
Some care about the geometry and some think the advantages outweigh the geometry problem.

watty

How can folks tell about the geometry with out putting a grid on it? I thought these were not out yet? Or is there an inherent problem with the low profile CRT?

A lot of people with LCD/Plasma/CRT wide screen make the picture "fill the screen" no matter what. Or "fill the screen" with widescreen on a 4:3 set. Either way "Fool Screen" users.


Reading the thread folks are just assuming the geometry will be bad. It may or may not.

Also Plasma can actually use similar power to a CRT. LCD is less, but depends on Backlight consumption, about 3/4 of which is wasted due to stripe filters to make the colour.

I got 3 second hand DELL 20" CRT computer monitors this week, about 4 to 5 years old. At 1920 x 1440 they can show WS 16:9 HD 1080p with NO LOSS of resolution in a letterbox. Even at this age the quality (sharpness, response time, grey scale, colour rendition) is awesome on satellite. If you sit 3 ft away, this is equivelent to watching a 48" WS TV about 8ft away. (They don't work very well at 2048 x 1536 though). Unfortunately in common to even many HDTV LCD/PLASMA and almost all Computer monitors they only can do refresh suitable for US progressive at higher resolution. At approx SD resolution (SVGA 800 x600) 100Hz progressive is possible and at 1600 x 1200 75Hz progressive (Which at least will display 720p 50Hz better than a 60Hz refresh will).

A lot of Plasma / LCD screens are unfortunately natively based on USA 60Hz or PC monitor designs and do all the European SD and HD modes by resampling, hence often poor pictures on even SD LCD TVs.

Not family viewing size

Re the Samsung
http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=353557&page=2&pp=25

http://www.aixess.de/cebit2006/samsung/09.jpg

JohnC.

watty wrote:

How can folks tell about the geometry with out putting a grid on it? I thought these were not out yet? Or is there an inherent problem with the low profile CRT?

It seems pretty much an inherent problem with slim CRTs. Maybe it can be got around, but they don't seem to be doing it yet. And they say that Samsung are the worst for this problem. But hey, maybe Samsung will surprise everyone when this particular one comes out

watty

Well in theory with more advanced CPU and mathematics the geometery can be dynamically corrected. It will be interesting to see. Unfortunately the CeBit picture gallery didn't have a "boring" test card.