Sky TV and Smart Home

Deanicus

Hi

We are moving into a house shortly that has smart home technology in it. Basically each room has a TV and network port in it so you don't have to run wires everywhere.

Question is though, does anybody know if Sky digital can be hooked up into this? We plan to get multi room but the rooms are fairly far apart and I don't want wires going everywhere if we can avoid it.

I believe it is prewired for UPC broadband and TV. We plan to get UPC broadband but will this interfere with the above? i.e. can only UPC be transmitted through the system?

Doesn anybody have any experience with these setups? The house is in Adamstown in Dublin

Thanks

Dean

zg3409

While I do not have personal experience with such a system, I can try help.

For Sky+HD normally you need two coax type cables between the box and the dish. You need to determine where the coax goes and where it reaches outside. The Sky dish needs to go on the South East side of the house where it has a clear view of the Sky.

If you only have one coax cable running, there is five options

1) Use a global stacker destacker. These cost around 100 euro (per room), and may or may not work depending on the quality of the preinstalled cable, the length of the cable, and any kinks or twists in it. You could buy one on eBay then re-sell it if it did not work.
http://www.globalinvacom.com/products/sds.php

2) Sky have a one cable system (only on newer Sky boxes). You mount a box like this:
http://www.globalinvacom.com/products/scr.php and then run one cable from this to the Sky box. This should work. It is less dependant on the cable quality. They are much more expensive. A special hidden menu option needs to be selected to change LNB type. You would need one for every two rooms.

3) Just use a single cable, so you can only record one channel instead of two. You must watch the channel you are recording. There is an option in the Sky box to tell it you only have one cable and not to look for the 2nd signal.

4) Run an extra cable to the box

5) Mount the box hidden away and connect using RF2. You will lose high definition on every channel but no need to purchase anything. Just run two cables from the dish to the box which is hidden in the attic etc. All you need is a Sky eye, (about 15 euro per TV)

Regarding the phone line for the Sky box, normally you can use the network cable as a phone line instead of a computer cable, ussuming you can connect the phone line in the other end.

The main issue you will have is Sky's free "standard installation". Generally they charge extra for any un-usual setups. Also the guy who arrives may never have used any of the above products (besides the Sky eye) and may not understand how to set them up. Ideally you would get an experienced professional installer who has done these sort of installations to check the wiring, test the quality of the cables, and install the best system for you.

I suspect you may end up paying more then "free installation" but try to get the dual recording on the main box as it is a handy feature and one of the reasons for picking Sky's system of other options.

Please ask questions if you do not understand and try to find where all the cables meet and take a few photos if possible.

evilivor

Deanicus wrote: »

Hi

We are moving into a house shortly that has smart home technology in it. Basically each room has a TV and network port in it so you don't have to run wires everywhere.

Question is though, does anybody know if Sky digital can be hooked up into this? We plan to get multi room but the rooms are fairly far apart and I don't want wires going everywhere if we can avoid it.

I believe it is prewired for UPC broadband and TV. We plan to get UPC broadband but will this interfere with the above? i.e. can only UPC be transmitted through the system?

Doesn anybody have any experience with these setups? The house is in Adamstown in Dublin

Thanks

Dean

Sometimes housing complexes that come with pre-wired tv systems like UPC have a prohibition on external satellite dishes - you should check with your agent.

Deanicus

@zg3409
Thanks very much for your reply. I am not familiar with any of these systems so I'll take a little time to research them. The hope would be to have HD and Sky+ in both rooms but I may to have to settle. I'll take a look and get back to you if I have any questions. Thanks again

@evilivor
I thankfully checked this out and they are permitted once the satellite is on the back of the house which luckily can get Sky satellite signals as evidenced by neighbour's houses having dishes.

Thanks again guys. It might not be too bad having cabling running over the top of the house and neatly down the front and into the other room, just thought I would try to use the "smart home" tech.

Emmerly

We have house with smart homes and when were getting sky in a couple of years back i asked the installer when he rang to make the arrangement for date to install I asked him about it and he said it should be no problem. I told him I didn't want extra cabling run along skirtings as it was already in the walls.

It was a different guy that turned up and he range his boss who explained how to do it. They just open up the metal box (ours happens to be in our sitting room), unplug the UPC connections and plug in the sky ones.
I asked him to leave the UPC ones in for the rooms I wasn't getting on multiview so that the freeview still worked.

not sure if its' the same now, but at the the time they insisted that you had a landline connected. Ours is UPC not actual eircom landline. The guy agreed to leave us a phone cable long enough to reach upstairs so that we could connect the phone in the event of any faults etc. He said to run a call-back with the phoneline connected a few times over the weeks afterwards so that they think the phone line is connected, otherwise they'll initiate a call back on their end.


That was it!




HTH

Deanicus

Hi Emmerly,

Thanks for your reply. Good to know they can do it at least.

Can I ask if the other room had Sky+ and or HD?

Cheers

Dean

Emmerly

Deanicus wrote: »

Hi Emmerly,

Thanks for your reply. Good to know they can do it at least.

Can I ask if the other room had Sky+ and or HD?

Cheers

Dean

No but im not sure it matters....
He brought 3 cables in from dish over roof and then drilled a hole through to sitting room where box was. Once its connected to box the internal wiring did the job.