XP MCE and Sky Other Channels

leahcim

Hi,

I am thinking about setting up a XP MCE system for our family tv.

I understand there are two ways to get sky to work with MCE.

1. Plug your sky box into your PC and let the PC control the sky box via a IR Blaster type interface.

2. Use a DVB-S card and connect the satelite cable directly into the PC.
(see http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=319927 on how to do this)

The advantage of 2 is that you get better picture quality and you can get all channels (sky epg and the the ones you set up under other channels on the sky box : bbc3, bbc4 etc).

The disadvantage of 2 is that they have a problem getting this solution to work with scheduled recordings. Which in my opinion is a big feature of a system like XP MCE)

I am probably going to go with option 1. Because it will allow me to have scheduled recordings.

My question is will I be able to view and record channels set up under other channels on the sky box using option 1.

thanks.

pH

Option 2 (A DVB-S card) is viable for the FTA channels (BBC/ITV + A lot of shopping), but going the whole hog with a CAM and Sky decryption is probably risky except as a hobby option (ie the fun is in doing it rather than the end result).

gerberg

Can i ask any of the techies, with the changes in Sky program this week, the old channel one that used have star trek on it is disappeared, can this be added to other channels or is it gone