sky box quire

jamesk014

Hey everyone, I have a question reguarding sky box's.

Ok so I have taught about upgrading the sky box we use. It's the old white square box we got it when we had the dish installed. Not by sky. So as it is now we have the dish and old box with a free view card for the English channels.
There is an issue though becouse I assume its not a hd box. It's connected to a hd tv which mean a good portion of each side of the picture gets cut off. This is why I'm thinking of getting a hd box or +hd box.

My question is would getting either of the hd box's solve this issue and be as simple as plug it in and put the card into the box and job done ?

Also I have seen some box's where the only way to access the channels is through the other channels list rather than on the guide. The box we have now doesn't have rte just the English channels and entering the channel guide brings up all the English channels. Would this be the same if I got one of the box's ?

I appoligise in advance if this is confusing or explained poorly but I'd rather see if anyone else can inform me better before I buy a new box.

Thanks you

swoofer

the answer is yes a sky hd box will work, get it on adverts ie, put in card and away you go but you will need a new lead called HDMI, I think it comes with the box.

jamesk014

perfect thanks very much for your help!

Oscarziggy

Have you tried in the sky box system settings altering the picture settings to 16:9 instead of 4:3 which it could possible be on?
Just a thought.
Regards

jamesk014

Oscarziggy wrote: »

Have you tried in the sky box system settings altering the picture settings to 16:9 instead of 4:3 which it could possible be on?
Just a thought.
Regards

You Sir just saved me money i wasn't aware those settings could be found on the box until i did a bit of digging around after your comment and found them!
And its exactly what i needed!

one last question would getting a HD box help the picture quality on the non HD channels?

swoofer

have you got the box set to RGB for picture??

jamesk014

swoofer wrote:

have you got the box set to RGB for picture??

yes why ?

swoofer

RGB gets you best picture, so if you get a HD box and use the scart the picture on the HD channels will be better than SD but if you connect an HDMI lead, and box is set to auto resolution the picture on HD CHANNELS will be HD and much better than SD but when you switch to an SD Channel there is a delay while TV adjusts resolution to 576i and.. you will notice a difference ie SD worse than HD. Then if you switch to scart on the SD channel it may look better!!

However it depends on size of screen and how far you are viewing from. And how screen is set up, ie the mode, standard, vivid, cinema, cool warm and so on.

Oscarziggy

jamesk014 wrote: »

You Sir just saved me money i wasn't aware those settings could be found on the box until i did a bit of digging around after your comment and found them!
And its exactly what i needed!

one last question would getting a HD box help the picture quality on the non HD channels?

You see there is a Santa Claus !! Glad I could help.
To be honest with you I don't watch anything in HD as my Sony TV gives a great SD picture --- although RTE1 HD does look pretty good !!

Regards

jamesk014

I have one last question, just about a sky plus hd box. is it possible to record and pause the free to view channels that i have on the old box? im not sure rewinding is possible but i just taught is ask. thanks again!

swoofer

you cant do anything with sky hd + box unless you have a valid sky subscription, except watch the channels.

Oscarziggy

If you have a change of heart and go for a Freesat PVR you will need 2 feeds from the LNB (the electronic bit on the dish).
This will mean a change of LNB and another cable run to your satellite receiver.
If you are just getting a Sky HD receiver --- not a Sky+ HD receiver then one cable will be ok.
Saying that, the Sky+HD receiver can be run in "one input only" mode via it's menu.

Regards