Sky+ storage duration

Georgey Burgess

probably answered elsewhere but here goes anyway ....

I have a sky digital subscription 3 months old and want to upgrade to sky+. Everyone here seems to be upgrading their sky+ boxes by adding in a 250GB hard drive for an extra 200 odd quid.

am i correct in saying the basic sky+ box is 40GB? and how many hours of programmes does this actually store before you start deleting.

the sky+ 160GB is a total rip-off and deffo won't be getting it at 500/600 odd quid. is the standard box though really that useless that you need to upgrade?

Also can I just buy the sky+ box on its own from a shop and just swap it with my standard box without having to change viewing cards or deal with sky at all? If so where can I buy it and how much will it cost me? I don't particularly want multi room yet and definitely don't wan't to be dealing with that electroplus crowd again. They are the most useless shower of morons on the planet. It took them 4 visits and 3 months to eventually get all my channels working. (Rant Over)

Cheers
Georgey

Colm80

Yes the standard box is 40GB and that gives you about 20 hours or more viewing.

Yes you can buy a new Sky Plus box but you need to ring sky to get the card switched on and the record features switched on as well. Dont for get the record feature is 15 euro extra but that is waved if you take sky movies or sky sports.
Have a look here

www.satellite.ie

You get all the info you need there.

ElNino

Georgey Burgess wrote:

am i correct in saying the basic sky+ box is 40GB? and how many hours of programmes does this actually store before you start deleting.

Yes the basic box is 40GB. Asking how many hours it will hold is a bit like asking how long a piece of string is because different channels encode programmes at different bit rates.

RTE and BBC have the best quality encoding. For example I recorded US Marshals the other night on RTE and it is using 15% of my box for 152 minutes. Sky's own channels have average quality encoding and most of the other satellite channels have poor quality encoding. Some of the music channels are so badly encoded that the pictures on them look very pixelly.

As a rule of thumb you can expect only to get 20hrs on a 40GB box which is why I am upgrading mine to 250GB,

Colm80

How much is a 250GB, I'm going to upgrade after christmas and were is the best place in dublin to get the hard drive.

mirage

I just got mine from Dabs in the UK here are the details

Manufacturer : MAXTOR
Product : MaXLine II 250GB UDMA133
Quicklinx : 2LYNWS
Quantity : 1
Price exc VAT : £85.95
Price inc VAT : £103.99

Not the cheapest drive ever but I'm looking forward to the extra space.
It arrived within 3 days of completing the order.

mirage

Here is the link for an actual step by step guide http://www.hummer.co.uk/disc-change-v2.htm, now wheres my T10 Torx-Type Security Bit.....

Colm80

mirage thanks alot will order mine after the crimbo price sounds ok.

mirage

Just completed the install by following the instructions on Hummers site, all went well, its easy to follow. Only problem I now have is I don't seem to be able to do a Engineers Reset (mentioned as the last step Services,4,0,1,8 HouseKeeping) so I can't format the drive to allow me to use it Anybody know how I can sort this?

mirage

Colm80 I just found your answer in another thread so thanks system resetting as I type

Go in to services. Press 4,0,1, and select in that order. that will bring you in to the installer menu. Press 8 that then will open housekeeping. That will sort things out for you. 0 does not exsist in that menu but you still have to press it anyway on your remote control. Hope that helps you.

Nice one

Georgey Burgess

Thanks for the response guys. It sounds like the best way is to get the 40GB box and then upgrade to the 250GB when I get pi$$ed off with the lack of storage space.