My Options - Sky & Sky Conway

zefer

Hi all

Hopefully this is in the right section and you will be able to help.

I live in an apartment and currently have the following setup:

I pay a company called Sky Conway €15 p/m for providing 18 channels (Basic Analogue channels, RTE 1, RTE 2 etc) I can view this in any room.
To get any digital channels, I pay Sky for their entertainment package and have a basic sky box. (I have to have Sky Conway to get normal sky :rolleyes:)

I dont have Sky + but would love to be able to record.
I received a letter in the door from Sky Conway saying they can provide a HD Recordable box for €17.99 p/m. I rang up and asked for a list of channels available and was sent it by email. It looks like its all the FTA channels that they have listed.
Obviously, I dont want to pay them for this privilage if they are FTA anyway but would love to be able to have the ability to record.
Can anyone advise me of options available to me?

Thanks

tomslick

Before I can advise I need to know a few things. Is your digital and analogue signals coming in on the one cable? Do you pay €15 to CONway plus €20 to sky and they want you to pay €18 to CONway to record the anologue only not your sky sub? Is your sky box a regular sky satellite one?

Thanks.

zefer

tomslick wrote: »

Before I can advise I need to know a few things. Is your digital and analogue signals coming in on the one cable? Do you pay €15 to CONway plus €20 to sky and they want you to pay €18 to CONway to record the anologue only not your sky sub? Is your sky box a regular sky satellite one?

Thanks.

Hi tom

Yep, both come into apartment on 1 cable and then split at the wall.
And yep, pay both companies seperately and I assume it would only record the fta channels and not the digital sky channels.
Yes, I have just a regular sky satellite box

Thanks

tomslick

You have a few different options of course varying in price. You could buy a HDD/dvd recorder like the ones lidl had and use this to record different channels on the analogue setup with timeshift (live pause) possible. Cost around €100 and would have same result as CONways offering. The next one is to upgrade to sky+HD for just the Sky+ part and this has an option in the installers menu to run on one feed only. This isn't great because you can only use one transponder(bank of channels) at a time. Eg record one and watch another from the same transponder usually 4 to 5 channels. Not great option. You could ask your CONguys to allow you fit a "STACKER" in their feed room to allow you to send a second feed down the one cable, it stacks one feed over another. You would then install a DE-stacker on you apartment to give you two feeds. Use this in conjunction with the sky+ upgrade for great results. Price for stacker/destacker is around €150 where you can get them. The chances of conway allowing this for free is very very slim.

I would go for the HDD recorder for ease but what do I know?
Let me know what you think.

zefer

Cheers for reply. Not great options are they!?!

So I called Sky to see what cost if would be to upgrade to Sky +HD and they told me that if I wanted to go down that route that I would have to go through sky con way to get it...


What you think of this box?

http://www.saortv.com/shop/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=68

Would I be able to pause/rewind etc all channels using it with my setup? Or would it just be the FTA channels?

Thanks

tomslick

Unfortunately this box won't read your sky card. You'd need a NDScam for this and I don't even know if they exsist. Something in a dreambox 600 /800 for HD or technomate 9100 would allow you to read your card amonst other things. These are LINUX type boxes and are not plug and play. The prices are about £150 for SD and £300 for HD but you are still stuck with recording what your watching.
You must becareful if your looking at PVR with Sat boxes. The TM9100 claims it can do timeshift but it can't. I have a DM800HD and it can but it cost about £250 (clone).
When/if you decide to buy a box for sat remember

1. Just because it has a card reader doesn't mean it will read your card (without cccam/gbox/newcs it won't)
2. Just because it says PVR doesn't mean it has Timeshift (pause)

And at the end of all that, You'll only be able to record what your watching on sky as you only have one feed.

Confused yet?

zefer

Totally depressed now more like!!

Think my only other option is to move and unfortunately dont think thats a possiblity for a while! (c'mon big lotto win!....)

The above box would record the FTA stuff though wouldnt it?

tomslick

It should but I'm not going to stand over it. For that type of money get a TM9100 and you can record sky channels too with a subscription. No timeshift but you can Upload movies/shows from a computer and watch them as if you recorded them. I do it with Dr. House from america. Not a simple box to get going but Super box when your familiar with it.