Dodgy Sky boxes

watty

You do know there isn't any such feature as a "really anonymous" poll?

Also IMO it's a form of advertising.

mikeym

tallaghtmick wrote: »

I would like to see a anonymous poll on here to show who uses or has used "dodgy boxes", anyone else agree?

Whats the point?

Dont ye realise Sky are big into stamping out these dodgy boxes and the more publicity it gets the better chance of the people selling them get prosecuted.

I pay for Sky and I know its expensive but saying you have a dodgy box is like saying you robbed an Xbox from Smyths.

icdg

I'm not sure what the Polish rugby posts are about, but this thread is sailing close to the wind now. If we don't stay on the topic of what Sky can do and away from the hows I'm going to have to close it..

vibe666

JustAddWater wrote: »

Do you have a source for this? I'm with sky SD subscription and never heard of free HD upgrade. I called and they insisted on €15 per month

the last time I threatened to leave sky, I got a new 1tb HD box for 49, a 25% discount for 12 months, an upgrade to entertainment plus ( from standard) for a fiver and a HD sub for another fiver.

you just have to be willing to pull the trigger and cancel if they don't give you what you want and call their bluff. I just use the recession and lack of funds as an excuse as to why I can't afford to stay with them and just lay it on really thick.

Bubonic

Forgive me if I am being naive but surely all Sky have to do here is take of these suppliers to court, seize all their records, server etc
and they would have payment details and ip addresses of all the customers of the sharing server.

So why would you take the chance? Especially as most people will probably want the premiership anyway and you can get that with a cheap
polish card? Which is legal as I understand it.

excollier

But it has to be in English too. Polish or Bulgarian commentary is no good for some Premiership fans.
I see it like this, if they were actually at a game, there would be no running commentary. That's the way to look at football from foreign providers. Plus the cost is lower than a legit foreign card. And btw, some are sharing those too.
It will get stamped down on eventually.

tallaghtmick

Bubonic wrote: »

Forgive me if I am being naive but surely all Sky have to do here is take of these suppliers to court, seize all their records, server etc
and they would have payment details and ip addresses of all the customers of the sharing server.

So why would you take the chance? Especially as most people will probably want the premiership anyway and you can get that with a cheap
polish card? Which is legal as I understand it.

All the guys advertising on <DELETED>l etc do cash to hand so that might be a bit hard to catch.

Bubonic

tallaghtmick wrote: »

All the guys advertising on <DELETED> deal etc do cash to hand so that might be a bit hard to catch.

That part maybe but somewhere there is still probably a log of your IP.

tallaghtmick

Bubonic wrote: »

That part maybe but somewhere there is still probably a log of your IP.

Good point, something tells me these servers would be based in eastern Europe could be hard for Sky to find.

icdg

This is the final warning, next time someone mentions anything that could be construed as telling someone how to get access to this and the thread will be closed and we will be back to no discussion whatsoever

tallaghtmick

icdg wrote: »

This is the final warning, next time someone mentions anything that could be construed as telling someone how to get access to this and the thread will be closed and we will be back to no discussion whatsoever

Cough page 2 cough

Trick of the Tail

I had occasion to see one of these boxes the other day - this one had been bought by a friend of mine from someone who wasn't charging a subscription.

It worked OK, and I mean only OK. The EPG was unfriendly, sometimes a channel would decode, sometimes not. The picture was nice quality, but the box itself and the remote was very cheap and plasticky.

I was left with the impression that a non-technical person would get extremely frustrated by it - to the extent that it was actually difficult to use.

I can't see hordes of people settling for these things. Even if they, do, they've gonna be mighty annoyed when they stop working, and the sellers are going to get a lot of grief.

STB

Trick of the Tail wrote: »

I can't see hordes of people settling for these things. Even if they, do, they've gonna be mighty annoyed when they stop working, and the sellers are going to get a lot of grief.

Your friends experience was that of a cheap plasticy box. The quality of the box is irrelevant as it would be if was used for its legitimate use, but is an example of chancers maximising their profits with cheap boxes.

Practically all boxes currently on the market support the modules used. Not all boxes have the same functionality or feel regadless of their use.
Not bad enough that it was being sold door to door by chancers, it then crossed into the commercial subscriptions territory.

Example. Some pubs down my way were using Technomate Boxes. This was evident when the channel was changed. One owner thought it was a legitimate alternative service. Why ? Because some "supplier" was using the Murphy case to confuse the issue and sell this as legitimate alternative (which obviously its not). This is an example of how out of control cardsharing has become when it is being sold commercially to businesses, businesses that had been paying large commercial fees to Sky even during the downturn.

Up until the issue was tackled head on with countermeasures, Sky and its solicitors might possibly have been reliant on issuing cease and desist letters to those they physically caught sharing as otherwise they would have had a lot of people to prosecute across Ireland and the UK.

The whole thing had to come to an end and that's where we are now.

When the measures are fully implemented, Sky will need to reposition itself. They can no longer behave like the only show in town. They are losing lots of household customers due to the large numbers who can no longer afford their services, hence the countless offers being made to retain them at all costs.

smee again

Trick of the Tail wrote: »

I had occasion to see one of these boxes the other day - this one had been bought by a friend of mine from someone who wasn't charging a subscription.

It worked OK, and I mean only OK. The EPG was unfriendly, sometimes a channel would decode, sometimes not. The picture was nice quality, but the box itself and the remote was very cheap and plasticky.

I was left with the impression that a non-technical person would get extremely frustrated by it - to the extent that it was actually difficult to use.

I can't see hordes of people settling for these things. Even if they, do, they've gonna be mighty annoyed when they stop working, and the sellers are going to get a lot of grief.

It completely depends on the box in question and the Enigma image used on it (Enigma is the open source software and community like android available for satellite boxes). You saw a cheap box, the more pricey boxes (if configured right) put Sky + to shame with having extra terrestrial tuner, being able to rearrange the channels, streaming features and extras like the RTE, TV3 and BBC and Ice player plugins etc.

excollier

smee again wrote: »

It completely depends on the box in question and the Enigma image used on it (Enigma is the open source software and community like android available for satellite boxes). You saw a cheap box, the more pricey boxes (if configured right) put Sky + to shame with having extra terrestrial tuner, being able to rearrange the channels, streaming features and extras like the RTE, TV3 and BBC and Ice player plugins etc.

Made by space aliens?
Seriously though, a Sky box is only intended for Sky use, so it is very limited in function by design. They are very irritating to use when you have used more generic receivers. A Humax Foxsat HDR is way more useful if you aren't looking for Sky sub channels, and the Technomate 7102 is pretty good too, if a little pricey.

smee again

excollier wrote: »

Made by space aliens?

That should read added terrestrial tuner, must remind myself to proof read in future.

Agreed that a Sky box is limited and clunky, the channels are in a ridiculous order.

tallaghtmick

Sky need to sort the issue where you can only record 2 things at the same time you cant even watch something if its on dual record, Do the UPC boxes do that?

hufpc8w3adnk65

tallaghtmick wrote: »

Sky need to sort the issue where you can only record 2 things at the same time you cant even watch something if its on dual record, Do the UPC boxes do that?

Ya I agree with this!

Fresh Pots

tallaghtmick wrote: »

Sky need to sort the issue where you can only record 2 things at the same time you cant even watch something if its on dual record, Do the UPC boxes do that?

Yeah upc are the same, the box needs to be put in standby if your recording two things at the same time which is a pain.

zg3409

tallaghtmick wrote: »

Sky need to sort the issue where you can only record 2 things at the same time you cant even watch something if its on dual record, Do the UPC boxes do that?

A bit off topic. There are non-Sky boxes with 3 tuners, and UPC azre trialling their Horizon box that has 4 if not more tuners.

It is possible for Sky to launch a box with more tuners.

mad turnip

zg3409 wrote: »

A bit off topic. There are non-Sky boxes with 3 tuners, and UPC azre trialling their Horizon box that has 4 if not more tuners.

It is possible for Sky to launch a box with more tuners.

You can record more than 1 channel per tuner if the channel is on the same transponder so this will apply to all the SD movie channels, Film4 and Film4+1 etc. They tend to be grouped together as all the sky sports are also on the same transponder aswell as the misc sports channels. You can lookup what channels are on what transponder on:

http://www.lyngsat.com/Eutelsat-28A-and-Astra-1N-2A-2F.html

If you need to record 4 different shows on 4 different transponders I'd say thats far above what the box can due to hard disk constraints most likely, so unless you plan on sticking an SSD in your sky box just be happy with the recording of 2 and watching one!

machiavellianme

tallaghtmick wrote: »

Sky need to sort the issue where you can only record 2 things at the same time you cant even watch something if its on dual record, Do the UPC boxes do that?

Huh? I can watch one of the 2 channels if I'm recording two at once. I don't follow what your saying? I can also watch anything I like in the planner if 2 programmes are being recorded.

tallaghtmick

machiavellianme wrote: »

Huh? I can watch one of the 2 channels if I'm recording two at once. I don't follow what your saying? I can also watch anything I like in the planner if 2 programmes are being recorded.

If you are recording 2 things at once you cant watch anything live, I dont watch something im recording for later ....

Tom Hanks

tallaghtmick wrote: »

If you are recording 2 things at once you cant watch anything live, I dont watch something im recording for later ....

3rd Tuner on a Sky Box would be a lovely addition.

smee again

Tom Hanks wrote: »

3rd Tuner on a Sky Box would be a lovely addition.

Can't see them doing this, looking forward the 3rd source should be from the net, ondemand movies and the likes. A year ago Sky's main competitor in IRL was UPC, now you have the likes of Netflix. I've a feeling stamping out cardsharing is moving down their list of priorities

GarIT

tallaghtmick wrote: »

Sky need to sort the issue where you can only record 2 things at the same time you cant even watch something if its on dual record, Do the UPC boxes do that?

Any box that works off a satellite can only view or record as many channels as there are input cables, sky plus has 2 cables from the dish, if you want to record two and watch a third you need 3 cables from the dish (sky boxes don't have space for three input cables).

You also have four problems here, A dish that can take more cables would be more expensive, you have the amount of cables getting ridiculous, a box capable of processing 3 or more channels at once would be more expensive and the programs are recorded to a hard drive but the hard drive cant save things that fast, so you would need to move to much more expensive solid state drives. It would get to the point where a sky setup would cost more than your computer.

Tom Hanks

smee again wrote: »

Can't see them doing this, looking forward the 3rd source should be from the net, ondemand movies and the likes. A year ago Sky's main competitor in IRL was UPC, now you have the likes of Netflix. I've a feeling stamping out cardsharing is moving down their list of priorities

Yes the future is via the Internet that's for sure, CS though is a serious issue for them now that will be tackled before the year's out.

Headshot

Sky bring the dodgy boxes on themselves, when you see 15 euro HD sub for nearly crap all channels where as sky italia has no HD sub. One of my best investments ever was getting a motorised dish, imagine watching free boxing on 19.2 where as sky have it on ppv, makes my blood boil.

Would pairing the cards to boxes work? I dont think it would tbh

Headshot

btw on page one there that must be the first time I hear a tv company going after the consumer, surely that is scare tactics

smee again

GarIT wrote: »

Any box that works off a satellite can only view or record as many channels as there are input cables, sky plus has 2 cables from the dish, if you want to record two and watch a third you need 3 cables from the dish (sky boxes don't have space for three input cables).

Not correct, you should be able to watch any channel on the same transponder. I have an Amiko Alien2 with 2x sat inputs, I can record 2x sources and watch a third on the same transponder as the other 2