Recording FTA channels on Sky+ with ex-Sky+ cards

Apogee

This was prompted by Dman001's current thread and his experience with an a recently deactivated Sky+ blue card which still appears to allow a Sky+ box to record FTA programmes - a poorman's Freesat+ box. A number of posters have reported this behaviour over a period of time, so it's not just a once-off.

Firstly reported AFAIK by Kotek Besar:

If a Sky+ account is cancelled, the most recent viewing card on that account has the Sky+ facility switched off - but previous cards on that account remain live for Sky+.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055591589


IrishHomer:

I bought an old english FTV card last year on ebay for 20quid.

I have an Irish Sky+ box.

With the card despite i pay Sky no subscription i can record all the FTA channels.

I also receive Sky 3 and the variations of Channel 5 but they wont record only the FTA channels.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=61015317#post61015317


Finne1993/steveon

Or if u have an FTV card that was once paired with a sky plus box..then its likely the sky plus features may be still active. You could then record the ftv channels and play them back..


However the sky plus box will usually not boot up unless the hard-drive is dected in a certain time period I think its about 10seconds so its likely there ok if booting up but not always the case.

Many thanks for that info Steveon, would never have bothered trying out the FTV cards, thought as soon as a sub was cancelled the Sky+ features would be cancelled along with it. After a quick search in the mess of a van I have I found 19 FTV cards, the first 17 were a big no no and i'll be honest I was losing faith in you by that stage!! low and behold the last 2 worked, a great job, I was delighted to be able to test out the boxes, all are working fine so I'll have a couple of happy customers with very cheap Sky+ now!! Thanks again.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=62249081


Dman001

I have a Sky HD box in my room, with no Sub so I'm just getting the FTA channels. But I put my old Sky Blue card into the box and I am able to record, pause and rewind TV. I can only do it with the FTA channels (But for some reason I cant do it with C4, E4 or More 4). Is this normal, is anyone else able to do it? Is there any way I can get the C4 channes to work?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055713294


There is a post by a guy on satellites.co.uk who claims to be using an ex-sub card like this for 2 years!

There are three things that spring to mind.

1. Obviously, an ex-UK Sky+ card would be considerably more useful than the Irish equivalent.

2. Will all Blue cards which are currently used like this eventually be killed off completely?

3. Would a UK ex-Sky HD card behave as above and allow you to record BBCHD (probably) or C4HD (unlikely) - on a SkyHD box?

kindalen

must try my old blue sky cards..this would be great,am looking at getting rid of sky too. only thing i will miss is the footy...

Apogee

I'm just going to bump this thread. For those users above, does your blue card still work or not since the changeover to the white cards?

Kristopherus

I thought all those blue Sky cards were automatically cancelled. When the latest white ones came from Sky, I held off inserting it for a couple of months. Eventually I started getting screen messages that my card was about to expire and to insert the new card. That was last Sept iirc. Still have the old blue one. I am due to lose Sky this week. I'll try the blue card then & report what happens.

watty

UK Blue card doesn't work for FTV anymore. But still switches to UK EPG. Irish Blue Card doesn't work for any channels not FTA on Irish EPG, but switches box to Irish EPG.

i.e. Neither decrypt. But Favorites, PIN protection and EPG still work.

Apogee

Kristopherus wrote: »

I thought all those blue Sky cards were automatically cancelled. When the latest white ones came from Sky, I held off inserting it for a couple of months. Eventually I started getting screen messages that my card was about to expire and to insert the new card. That was last Sept iirc. Still have the old blue one. I am due to lose Sky this week. I'll try the blue card then & report what happens.

Definitely no Fiver, Five US, C4HD etc on blue cards.

But I'd be interested to know if the Sky+ features that the users above had were also killed off or can they still record FTA channels?

icdg

Okay guys, you know the deal about discussing trying to circumvent the Sky T&Cs.

Other non-Sky-branded DVB-S PVRs are available which are free to use. But Sky+ is, for better or worse, a subscription service.

Thread closed.