would like sky+, can I use my sky sub and my FTV card in it?

garryks

Hi

I've had a look throught FAQs and other threads but can't see any info on my questions below.

I've a sky sub card and a FTV card (tks to this forum) on my current digi box. I swap them as needed and all has worked well.
I'd like to get sky+.
Would my FTV card work in the new sky+ box?
If yes, Would I be able to use the sky+ features on the ITV, ch4, ch5 channels i.e. record, pause etc?

If not, then sounds like what I would end up doing would be to use the sky+ box with my sky sub card and have the old digi box use the FTV card.

Are there any other better ways of doing this to get the advantages of sky+ and keep access to the FTV channels?

thanks for any advice.

Michael Collins

Would my FTV card work in the new sky+ box?

Yes! Exactly like it did in the old box.

Would I be able to use the sky+ features on the ITV, ch4, ch5 channels i.e. record, pause etc?

Nope, afraid not. You have to use a sky sub card for that and pay them €10 per month (or be subscribed to the top Sky package whereby it's included in the overall price)

If not, then sounds like what I would end up doing would be to use the sky+ box with my sky sub card and have the old digi box use the FTV card.

That's your best option alright.

Are there any other better ways of doing this to get the advantages of sky+ and keep access to the FTV channels?

Not really. If you're good with computers you could buy a video capture card and emulate your own kind of Sky plus system by connecting your box with the FTA card in it up to your PC (using the video capture card) & record to your HD in excellent quality. I use this and it works pretty well. With DigiGuide you can automate the recording process similarly to Sky+ but it's nowhere near as foolproof & just isn't as nice. Still a good option though. **

** Note this takes quite a bit of effort!!

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Michael Collins

I have the Hauppauge PVR 350 card which, with the addition of a free plug-in for Digiguide, allows me to record by right-clicking on any program in Digiguide. I just select "Record using PVR" from the drop-down menu in Digiguide and that's it! It lets me down a few times because - well the computer not being on obviously stops it from working, but so does it not being logged in. But if you're creating a Media PC that won't matter.

Also the free plug-in is actually quite good, you can tweak lots of settings (such as file names same as TV program names, with or without date etc) and it's just a pretty good quality plug-in in general, unlike most similar style free programs i've tried.

Do you have Digiguide dave? If you've ever used the webserver feature for accessing the TV schedules from a remote computer, well with this you can also using the webserver to remotely set recordings - this has been a lifesaver!!

Anything else you want to know about it?

bk

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Well the easiest setup would probably be to buy Windows Media Centre. I'm not sure if they have an Irish EPG yet, however I do know that there is a hack to get an Irish EPG working with it anyway.

If your even more technical then you could go with MythTV on a Linux box, my house mate has MythTV with a WinTV PVR-500 a dual turner card that works great.

Finally I've got a Tivo from the US that I've hacked to work with NTL that works great, but setting it up certainly isn't for the faint hearted.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

watty

For FTA (not FTV) an actual Satellite card works best, A Skystar1/Highend /Nexus works with P90!, A 600MHz min for Skystar2/Basic/nova, 1.8GHz P4 recommended.

Recording is then "as is" and NO rdegradation on playback. Integration with Digiguide is possible.

MythTV and Linux is NOT for beginners at all..

MS Media Centre is I think a dead duck.

I use a 200 G disk and Hauppauge PCI DVBs card (like early Skystar1) separate from the 20G disk that has all of Windows XP on it. The card has real TV out, audio out, digital audio out and IR remote in all built in and also its own HW MPEG2 decoder for viewing/playback (hence 0% CPU load on a my PIII 933MHz system).

daveirl

This post has been deleted.