Buying a Sky+ digibox in Ireland

JDxtra

I'd like to buy a Sky+ digibox from the UK, but have a few questions (I am aware I will not be able to subscribe to the Sky+ service in Ireland).

If anybody here has the answers to my questions, that'd be great!

• Does it come with a quad LNB in the box, or would you have to purchase one seperatly.

• Will Sky kick up a fuss if you try to tranfer an Irish sub to the Sky+ box?

• Is it true that a Sky+ remote operates on a different frequency than a regular Sky remote? So am I correct in saying there would be no problem with having a Sky+ digibox and a regular digibox in the same room?

• Where is the best place to get one? Looking around on the net they appear to be selling for around STG£300.

Thanks a mil, Jonathan.

DMC

Cue ShaneOC!

Tony

Just came fron a sky seminar and Ed Sawday is saying end of April should see launch of Sky+ in ROI

Tony

ShaneOC

Originally posted by DMC
Cue ShaneOC!

Thank you...

Originally posted by jdempsey
I'd like to buy a Sky+ digibox from the UK, but have a few questions (I am aware I will not be able to subscribe to the Sky+ service in Ireland).

If anybody here has the answers to my questions, that'd be great!

• Does it come with a quad LNB in the box, or would you have to purchase one seperatly.

• Will Sky kick up a fuss if you try to tranfer an Irish sub to the Sky+ box?

• Is it true that a Sky+ remote operates on a different frequency than a regular Sky remote? So am I correct in saying there would be no problem with having a Sky+ digibox and a regular digibox in the same room?

• Where is the best place to get one? Looking around on the net they appear to be selling for around STG£300.

Thanks a mil, Jonathan.

The quad LNB does come in the box.

There is no problem transferring the sub from a regular box to a Sky + box.

Yes it is true about the remote frequencies.

Sky are selling them for £250 at the moment. I paid £300 for mine in Dixons, Preston.

I have also heard that Sky+ will be available here from 28th April

Mountjoy Mugger

Originally posted by Tony
Just came fron a sky seminar and Ed Sawday is saying end of April should see launch of Sky+ in ROI

Tony

Cheers for that news, Tony. Did you get any indication of a subscriptoin price? I wonder will it be worth it just to get Dolby Digital, which is all I'm interested in.

It'll probably speed up my moving back to Sky and away from NTL.

JDxtra

Thanks very much for the info ShaneOC & Tony!

JDxtra

I'm not really intersted in paying the euro equivalent of STG£10 a month just for the privilege of recording onto your own digibox!

Hopefully Sky will see sense and scrap, or reduce, that charge (unlikely though!).

I am more intersted in the dolby digital, S-VHS output, the remote working on a different freuency & the included quad LNB (those things seem to be around €100 to buy seperatly).

It'll be perfect for using two digiboxes (one with a UK FTV card, one with Irish sub).

timpat

Tony
Did Mr. Sawday have any news whatever on UTV/C4(sorry I know this is a seperate thread!)? Was there any discussion about channels generally at the Seminar?

Tony

Sorry guys I have no other info other than what was posted earlier.

Mossy Monk

end of april for Sky+, early May for my birthday. i think i will be splashing out for myself but i would prefer the mirror subscription

Genghis

Shane,

Do you know if the Sky+ box can facilitate independent viewing on another TV. I know you can record one Sky Channel and view a different one, but when you are not recording is it possible to output a different channel.

Thanks,

Genghis

JDxtra

I don't think that's possible Genghis.

Dixons and Currys now sell Sky+ boxes for STG£249 but will not deliver outside of the UK - the cheapest I have found online so far is STG£299.

Does anybody know any cheaper (not eBay)?

I could just wait 2 months for Sky+ in Ireland, but I'm assuming that the box would not be subsidised and I'd have to pay the euro equivalent of STG£249 for it anyways.

ShaneOC

Originally posted by Genghis
Shane,

Do you know if the Sky+ box can facilitate independent viewing on another TV. I know you can record one Sky Channel and view a different one, but when you are not recording is it possible to output a different channel.

Thanks,

Genghis

No it can't. The Sky+ box has two tuners which is how it can record one channel while watching another, however it still only has one decoder so only one channel/recording can be watched at a time.

jasgrif11

Are all 4 outputs of the Quad used with Sky + or is there still room to attach an extra Digi Box?.

JDxtra

It uses 2 outputs from the quad LNB - one for each tuner. However, if you want to use it as a regular Sky box (i.e. no recording) then I guess you only need to plug one of those in.

Here's a good pic of the rear of a Sky+ digibox...

http://www.satcomm20.co.uk/images/PaceSky+_rear.jpg

Tony

Originally posted by Mossy Monk
end of april for Sky+, early May for my birthday. i think i will be splashing out for myself but i would prefer the mirror subscription

Mirror sub will be launched around the same time

Tony

watty

Dobly Digital:
The 5.1 Digital does not use the regular Audio transmission channel. Almost no channels transmit it.

Non 5.1 Dolby systems
Any other kind of dolby stereo / surround simply uses the two stereo channels (Matrix coding) so a surround decoder plugged even into a regular Digibox L and R analog will work as well as the Digital Out on anything fancier.

The MPEG from satellite is recorded from tuner direct to disk, with possibly a simple extra level of encryption. There is no videoguard decryption till playback, so it is pointless to put the Hard Disk in a PC to make a DVD for instance, otherwise the hard disk recording is similar in concept to PC *SATELLITE* PCI cards that record "PVA" files.

There is only one Videoguard decoder feeding only one MPEG2 decoder feeding only one DAC (YUV digital to Analog video).

Only one or two Sky premium film channels (cheaper to buy a DVD video each month) ever have 5.1 at present. In any case generally only cinema originated material would be 5.1. With "made for TV" you lucky to get real stereo at all...

So really the only "Extra stuff" in a Sky + is the 2nd Tuner, a second Stream Demux (to extract the correct multicast IP streams from all the channels on the tuned in frequency) and a Hard Disk.

It is much simpler than Tivo or Analog Win TV on PC because the Stream Demux can essentially be recorded "as is" on Disk (What a PC card calls a PVA file).

I think the extra Tenner a month is a rip off. Gypsy Media Digiguide costs me about 8 Euro a year (It hooks up to my Win TV analog and my Satellite Cards in PC). Ordinary Digibox users get the Planner/EPG for free.

robert muldoon

Originally posted by Tony
Just came fron a sky seminar and Ed Sawday is saying end of April should see launch of Sky+ in ROI

Tony

If its comming at end of april, we should be seing some mention of it in next months Sky magazine??. By the way, excuse my ignorance but what position does this Ed Sawday hold in Sky?

Element 4

This may have being covered already , so sorry if it has, but what price should we expect for S€k + ???

E4

Tony

Originally posted by robert muldoon
If its comming at end of april, we should be seing some mention of it in next months Sky magazine??. By the way, excuse my ignorance but what position does this Ed Sawday hold in Sky?

He's the guy who looks after Irish retailer issues

I thought this might be the place, to announce, that I've just taken advantage of the great sterling rate and bought a sky plus box in london from Dixons.
I felt like a walking advertising hoarding as I carried the box with it's handle on the brown line down to paddington and on to Heathrow .
Card has been paired and all is well, with no recording of course.
BTW they don't include a quad lnb in the box anymore, this come when the Sky guy installs it according to the nice chap in dixons.
mm

JDxtra

I bought one online from the UK, it arrived the other day. It's a brand new unit, and it did come with a quad LNB inside the box. There was a sticker on the outside saying "quad lnb included".

Interestingly if you read the leafet inside, it also mentions an Irish number to call to activate your Sky+ subscription!

ShaneOC

Well tell us what is that number ?

JDxtra

I'm at work now - but will dig it out later and post it up tomorrow.

I just assumed it was a standard Sky customer services number to call from Ireland.

It was an 01 number along the lines of 01 - 45xx xxxx.

When I have a UK FTA card in the Sky+ box and try to record it mentions a UK number to call to upgrade. But when I have an Irish sub card in the box and try to record it says "Call (and a big space where the number is missing) to upgrade your subscription".

ShaneOC

Work - that's hardly a reason not to rush home and find out the information.

The standard Sky customer services number for Ireland is 1800 535767.

The reason you get the big space when you try and record/pause/rewind is that on the Irish card there is no Sky+ number. You can check this under Services-Phone Numbers, whereas there is on the FTV.

ShaneOC

Originally posted by Man
I thought this might be the place, to announce, that I've just taken advantage of the great sterling rate and bought a sky plus box in london from Dixons.
I felt like a walking advertising hoarding as I carried the box with it's handle on the brown line down to paddington and on to Heathrow .
Card has been paired and all is well, with no recording of course.
BTW they don't include a quad lnb in the box anymore, this come when the Sky guy installs it according to the nice chap in dixons.
mm

Congrats. Was it the £249 offer?

JDxtra

It's so tempting to run home and get that number for you - but I think I'll pass this time!

It defo was not the 1800 number. I did think it was unusual at the time to see a Dublin number on the leaflet, and it did specifically mention to call that number to activate a Sky+ subscription from the Republic of Ireland.

Maybe the first person in Ireland to call the number wins a special prize!

Could not get the box anywhere online for £249 - got it for £299 and £14 postage.

Reading the post above from "Man" maybe the Sky+ systems for £249 do not come with the quad LNB and that's how they are £50 cheaper.

ShaneOC

Man (that used to be mad ) did you get the same leaflet that jdempsey got?

JDxtra

Wasn't there another Irish customer services number for Sky (prior to the 1800 number) ?

Maybe that's all it was that was printed.

ShaneOC

It's been the 1800 number for as long as I can remember.

Also the documentation in the Sky+ box never mentioned an Irish number when I got Sky+.

JDxtra

Okay ShaneOC, the number is (01) 407 3444.

I just called the number and spoke to a very nice guy in Sky customer services. I did not give them any specific details, just made more of a general enquiry.

He knew straight away I was calling from Ireland, and I asked him if I could transfer my existing subscription to the new Sky+ box. He told me that this was not possible at the moment and he asked where I got the box as he knew they weren't available in Ireland.

He was also aware of the delay in making Sky+ available in Ireland but was still hopeful for it to be available by the Summer. I then asked him if I could transfer my Irish subscription to the new Sky+ box and he said yes - just phone the regular customer services number with your details (viewing card number, serial number etc) but don't tell them it's a Sky+ box!

ShaneOC

See - I knew you'd realise that there are more important things than work

Sky did not have any problem transferring my sub from my old box to the Sky+ box. It took a matter of seconds. I am still hoping that the recording will be available on the 28th of April as I was told by the Customer Care Escalation people.

Originally posted by ShaneOC
Congrats. Was it the £249 offer?

Yeap shane, it was the £249.50 offer and no quad lnb, but to answer the next question they told me, that the quad lnb should be provided free of charge when I get a sky installer to install the Sky plus box, whether this will apply in ROI when the service is activated here, I do not know.

Originally posted by jempsey:
He knew straight away I was calling from Ireland, and I asked him if I could transfer my existing subscription to the new Sky+ box. He told me that this was not possible at the moment and he asked where I got the box as he knew they weren't available in Ireland.
He was also aware of the delay in making Sky+ available in Ireland but was still hopeful for it to be available by the Summer. I then asked him if I could transfer my Irish subscription to the new Sky+ box and he said yes - just phone the regular customer services number with your details (viewing card number, serial number etc) but don't tell them it's a Sky+ box!

Well, the minute I got home here, I hooked the box up and rang 1800 number straight away, asked the lady to pair my card with the Sky plus box, had a chat while she was typing on her key board as to when the Sky plus features would be available, and she said she didn't know. The card was fully working in seconds.
so theres no problem with using a Sky plus box as a standard digibox in ROI

Man (that used to be mad ) did you get the same leaflet that jdempsey got?

No there was no leaflet, just the instruction manual, which I haven't even read yet as it will only sadden me to know what I can't do with this thing yet!!!
Although interestingly it gives a message to call sky to upgrade my subscription to sky plus if I press any of the plus feature buttons.
It's an amazing piece of kit, so I hope this time, what Shane has heard is right and roll on April 28th!

By the way, the £249.50 converts at todays rate of €1= 68p stg to roughly €330 for anyone passing through Newry or GB who wants to pick one up.
It's cheaper than a new non subsidy ordinary digibox here!!
mm

DMC

I was just going to say that, mm, its a cheap alternative if your own box goes. Good call!

Tony

Originally posted by DMC
I was just going to say that, mm, its a cheap alternative if your own box goes. Good call!

Dammit no more non sub sales:D

DMC

/Tony secretly starts stashing away Sky+ boxes from the North for bootleggin'

Tony

Originally posted by DMC
/Tony secretly starts stashing away Sky+ boxes from the North for bootleggin'

I wish ! I'd like one myself