Sky+ or Vanilla Sky/Chorus + DVD-RAM

Brando_ie

Title says it all really.

I'm dubious about sky+ as the 40GB box seems too low a capacity for my liking and the 160GB box is just a (costly) buggy landmark by most estimations. That got me thinking about vanilla Sky / Chorus and getting a DVD writer (with HDD pref - value dependant) to do the job of the Sky+ and more (considering you can take the recordings elsewhere including a PC editing suite). Has anyone tried this as an option and if so do you have advice / pitfalls / recomendations in getting it to work. I would prefer a straight DVD-RAM as they aren't much more expensive than a VCR right now but will that lead to buffer problems when recording?. I'd like to keep any solution as cheap as possible but dont want to adobt a solution that leads to poor / failed recordings and just getting a VCR seems a bit old school at this stage of the game.

Advice is welcome. thx

ffocused

You could get a sky+ and put a larger capacity HD in it yourself

John R

The upside to sky+ is that it allows you to watch one channel while recording another, also the recordings are a direct copy of the encoded MPEG so the playback quality is equal to that of live TV.

If you want to record to DVD to keep then a DVD recorder with a HDD is probably better as you can record to the disk, edit out unwanted bits at your leisure and burn to DVD.

A standalone HDD recorder or HDD/DVD recorder is likely to be much more stable than sky+, I have read enough horror stories about disappearing recordings and updates wiping the entire disk that I doubt I would trust a sky+ box.

watty

Another option is a PC with a Satellite card, and optionally a DV bridge to firewire or Analog TV capture card.

Recording the FTA channels is fine and I use a Dual LNB to feed Digibox and PC.

I use the free PVAStrumento to scan the mpg files created for errors before replay or transfer to DVD-R, DVD+R or DVDRW.

My Sat card has Digital Audio out and TV out, The 70 Euro ones don't you need then a PC with Video out or else make a DVD.

In another thread apparently a couple of CAMs will now take a legitimate Sky card, opening possibility of direct recording of most Sky channels on PC or on non-Sky HD Disk recorder with built inb sat card.


Analog recording of Digibox or Chorus or NTL box TV out to HD/DVD RAM PVRs is much lower quality.

For handy PC program guide I use Gypsy Media's Digiguide about 1/12th the annual cost of Sky's EPG rental charge (Unless you on a premium pack the Sky+ is an extra 15 per mount even if you are ONLY using FTA channels).

eirman

I have been using a sky+ box which I upgraded to 160gig for the last 8 months without a single problem.

Brando_ie

eirman wrote:

I have been using a sky+ box which I upgraded to 160gig for the last 8 months without a single problem.

I wonder if upgrading the box with the voided warranty (and potential to muck it up) would prove to be more expensive (regular sky+ at €150 plus €150ish for extra drive) than a entry level DVD recorder (>€200) considering that I would also have the disks to view anywhere rather than via the box?. A lot of folks seem to be looking for a solution to taking shows off the sky+ box (via PC's mostly) and burning to a DVD anyway?. I dont have the space or proximity to the Sky box for a PC / capture card. Somebody mentioned that quality from analogue to DVD recorder is not great but I would be using either the chorus or regular sky's digital service, would that help. Frankly if the no HDD DVD player could do the same job as a VCR connected then I would be happy. If I needed to edit I could do so on PC and burn some 'compillation' DVD's with ad's removed on my PC's DVD writer?