Sky Digital & MCE

karltimber

HI folks,

just got my Sammy R-37" (2 scart/hdmi/vga/s-vid/comp) & my MS MCE machine setup over christmas and am a little disppointed with analogue cable picture.
I wasn't expecting miracles either so not too-bad overall.

So,
May go and get Sky digital for the 21 odd euro a month (not sky+ )
Not much these days anyhow !!
Output from my mce is thru vga to lcd at the moment.

questions is -- how will I put the signal from my new sky box to both the TV (scart ??) and to the Hauppauge pvr150 card in my MCE machine (scart to composite or scart to s-video ?).

Q2 - will I be able to watch a diff channel to what the mce is recording ?

I may have answered my own question but want to check before signing a contract - is the digital record quality good on mce ??
Have read this post - but wanted to ask just in case the sky box' has chnaged.

New to the digital thingy.

Thx
K

8T8

At the moment the only way of getting Sky into MCE is through a scart to composite/s-video converter.

If you want the best picture quality you can get from it then you will need to acquire a scart RGB to s-video convertor.
Maplins
JS Tech (according to some UK AV forums the better of the two)

For composite one of those small little scart adapters will do.

There is one more method but it is somewhat unofficial but it would give you a pure digital signal straight into MCE.

Finally no you can't change channels while recording the output from the set top box (unless you want to lose what you were recording), but you can watch prior recordings, videos etc at the same time.

SouperComputer

karltimber wrote:

HI folks,
How will I put the signal from my new sky box to both the TV (scart ??) and to the Hauppauge pvr150 card in my MCE machine (scart to composite or scart to s-video ?).

To be honest, you should only put it through the HTPC and view it from there. You can take either the composite signal or convert the RGB to Svideo. Both of these are outputted through the SCART plug. IIRC there is no SVideo on the SCART plug of the sky box, so you need a converter (Not an adaptor, but an electronic device) to convert the signal to SVideo.

Q2 - will I be able to watch a diff channel to what the mce is recording ?

No becuase it is taking the signal from the sky box. You need two boxes and two tuners to be able to do this.

I may have answered my own question but want to check before signing a contract - is the digital record quality good on mce ??
Have read this post - but wanted to ask just in case the sky box' has chnaged.

The quality is no worse than the box going into your TV. In fact it may be better as MCE seems to be quite good at upping the res of video without adding too much distortion or artifacts, so it may actually look better than hooking it up directly to your TV.

karltimber

what I may do for the next few weeks at least is

get sky and put it straight in to the TV --scart to LCD.

and use the old analogue signal thru the MCE to record the odd show.

quality will be poorer of course - as least while I investigate the above ideas.

thx

lads

SouperComputer

what analog signal are you referring to?

karltimber

SouperComputer wrote:

what analog signal are you referring to?

the standard cable i am using for tv at the moment.
It's not a great signal at all. Not one I want to use full time anyhow.

I will get a separate Sky installed dish for the digital tv.

:rolleyes: I canceled my analog tv contract with chorus 3 years ago and they still haven't come out to disconnect me !!! ssshhhh.

So thought I could use the analog signal for the mce -for the moment at least.
and the sky digital for the Tv - direct from the sky box

that sound ok ??

SouperComputer

Ah, now I get ya!

Should be fine, be sure yoiu have rollup2 installed so you will have an EPG.

karltimber

SouperComputer wrote:

Ah, now I get ya!

Should be fine, be sure yoiu have rollup2 installed so you will have an EPG.

yes - have that done alright.

thx lads

appreciate it.