sky cards

wil

Does anyone have the full lowdown on Irish Sky cards and FTV. I am not asking about official UK FTV cards so no need for chapter and verse about the reams of info in the FAQs on same. Same company but different country and T&Cs not necessarily the same.

Do Irish Sky cards become FTV cards when you cancel a sub.
In this case is it worth or advisable to cancel a sub, then later resubscribe in order to get a new card and keep the old one as FTV, or does this get cancelled as soon as you go this route.
Someone mentioned that a FTV card will become deactivated after being left out of the box for a while. What error code does it give when initially put in the box - is it same as a obsolete card.
Is the current Irish issue card physically exactly the same as the UK one?
(graphics etc)
If buying a FTV card any recommendations. How to recognise a genuine dud as opposed to one temporarily deactivated?
Are cards FTV in any way official as far as Sky is concerned?
I thought their T&Cs say card belongs to them not customer?
Does anyone have a full list of the Error codes / messages?
Do Sky+ cards differ to Sky cards.
Once Sky+ recording is activated on a Sky+ box will any FTV or Sky sub card allow recording on this same Sky+ box now the + sub fee is being removed, or is all the Sky+ recording facility maintained on the card alone.
Sorry for the raft of questions in one go, but better than me asking piecemeal.
Cheers

steveon

First of all there is no such thing as an Irish FTV card. To receive the Irish terrestrial channels you will need an active subscription to sky.

A sky box and dish without any card will give you all the BBC channels and ITV channels as well as approximately 50 other decent channels for free without any viewing card. You will require a UK FTV card if you wish to view Channel4 and Channel 5, SKY3 5life and five us however.

If you dont have a need for ch4 then I would suggest a freesat system available quite readily.

In answer to your other questions, there is only one type of card and sky simply add the sky+ functions to your sub if required. Without an active subscription you will not be able to use the sky+ features.

The EPG is the same on any sky box, however if its an old box that has been inactive for a while a software update will be required which is easily done.

Hope that clears things up for you

watty

You might get Sky3 on a cancelled irish Sky card.

BBC/ITV all other really free channels don't care if you have a card or not. C4 may be free next year.

wil

Thanks for that but unfortunately doesnt quite answer the questions I asked.
I am familiar with 1) Current Irish Sky Sub, 2) Active UK FTV card, 3) Cardless Digibox. In my family we have all 3.
I had already concluded there is no Irish equivalent of the UK FTV card. (There should be, how about a lobby for that too?)
I know the card effectively localises your system to the address the card was purchased for. After that however I am a bit more vague.

In several threads Irish people mentioned that their Irish Sky card once they cancelled their sub acted as a FTVish card.
This I am not familiar with as I have not cancelled my Sky sub so still have an active untested potential FTVish card in the making if this is true.
For the want of a better description I will have to stick with FTVish at the moment.
I recently got another Irish Digibox with a card in it which may be a cancelled sub or may just be an old obsolete card or possibly, I am not sure, all I know from the error msg, it is not active.
Some people advertise digiboxes with FTV cards but can you tell the difference between a UK FTV card and a cancelled Irish sub card which may or may not give access to some free but encrypted channels
So my specific questions are to try clarify my understanding and fill in the gaps and maybe clarify for others also.
If cancelled Irish sub cards do remain FTVish, what encrypted Free channels will be decrypted. Same as UK FTV? (C4,Sky3), include RTE? what?

(C4 is FTV for the UK but may or may not go unencrypted when their contract with Sky comes up for renegotiation soon.
With Skys new UK terrestial Freeview packages, I read that Sky3 could also become part of a sub package)

I am also unfamiliar with Sky+ and as this is due to go sub free is there (or going to be) any relevance of the card type to whether a Sky+ box will record. If I can get one secondhand but no extra sub is required, can I get it to record? (I realise the Sky+ questionx may not be answerable until info on the free sub is current (July?) If mods suggest I can put this in a separate thread.
Specific answers would be greatly appreciated Thanks

tapfit2004

one difference i have found between the graphics on an irish sub card and an english one is that the irish sub card has 0044 infront of the phone number that you call for help. irish no: 0044 8702 404040 english no: 08702 404040. i also found the number 0870 850 0033 on a ftv card that i got sent to an address in london so i assume that the other no's above are for sky and the 850 0033 no is for a proper ftv cards and not ex sub cards. the only thing i have managed to get my couple of ex irish sub cards to do is give me the irish epg on the box, which is good if you want to find out whats on rte next week but you'll get more channels without any card.

wil

thanks tapfit, thats exactly the kind of clarification I am looking for.
Can I infer from what you are saying, that a cancelled Irish sub card gives no extra channels than a cardless digibox and yes as I have seen simply localise your epg to Ireland.
Or are the cards you tried old cards which have been cancelled when a new upgrade card was received from Sky.
In which case we need to hear from somone who has cancelled their Irish sub and still has their card.

In fact a cardless digibox gives access to more FTV channels, all the BBCs etc that an inactive Irish card doesnt list on the epg, the inactive Irish card I have does bizarrely seem to list more adult channels on the epg than a cardless digibox - odd.

Regarding the different Sky contact numbers, I wonder is the issue and support handled by the same department.

tapfit2004

yes you will get more fta channels (bbc itv) on a cardless box than one with an ex-irish sub (this is because 101,102 is allocated to rte on the irish sub and bbc in england). i have two sky cards which were irish subs that i cancelled due to not wanting to pay them any more and were not new upgrade cards. with the phone numbers i think the 404040 number is sky as its on my ex irish sub card and is also on 2 cards that i bought off ebay (they were advertised as ftv cards, but i think they are cancelled english sub cards), and the other card that has the 850 0033 is for the company which handles the ftv service for ch4, ch5 etc. i know this card is not an ex sub as i rang them myself to get it. the porn channels as well as the full sky box office list of channels will be shown with any sky card in the box, but not on a box without a card.

wil

Brilliant, I had considered getting FTV cards for myself and friends off the internet and this gives me a better idea what to check when asking sellers details of said card. Sellers arent always sure what card they have but inevitably call it FTV whatever it is. UK FTV used to be quite expensive here but they are becoming of less use, their only significant use is for Sky3 and C4.
Do your cancelled Irish sub cards decrypt Sky3 (as Watty said) and/or C4?
The C4 FTV cards you got, do these still exist as I have not heard of them till now, or have they gone the way of the BBC issued FTV cards? (which were free to UK licence holders AFAIK)
<edit>
Just reread your post and think this card you referred to is probably the now defunct BBC FTV card. Does it still work?

watty

A cancelled Irish card hides Extra FTA channels compared with no card and will not do C4. It might still do Sky3.

A UK FTV card must be dark blue with yellow house like all new cards. The older light blue cards will not work.

A UK FTV card adds C4, Five, Five US, Five Live and Sky3.

Sky own the cards so they may not be legally bought & sold. There are legal ways of obtaining a Sky Card.

Pre "Freesat from Sky" cards work only if dark blue with yellow house.