Sky+ box

[Chasbo]

I am having a Sky+ box installed at home on Friday. When I have recorded some programmes on it at home will I be able to take the box to the boat and watch the recorded programmes there? Or does that part of it need the phone line. (You can probably tell that I have not had a satellite TV before, so I hope it is not too stupid a question.)

Thanks,

CB

[curzons246]

I am having a Sky+ box installed at home on Friday. When I have recorded some programmes on it at home will I be able to take the box to the boat and watch the recorded programmes there? Or does that part of it need the phone line. (You can probably tell that I have not had a satellite TV before, so I hope it is not too stupid a question.)

Thanks,

CB

chasbo - if yours is a new installation sky get very uperty if the box is not attached to the phone line during the term of your contract you could try talking to them about your plans

Cheers Bill nb Indulgence

[twocvbloke]

As mentioned, sky are a pain when you unplug your box from the phoneline during contract periods, but if you have had the box for over 12 months, you should be ok, however, you do need to have a dish set up cos the sky+ box tends to get ar53y if it's not got a satellite signal, you can get minidishes cheap enough off ebay and a 2 inch pole is pennies (visit your local scaffolders and ask if you can have a short length), then all you need is a mount attached to the boat and some cable (WF100, again plenty on eBay, don't go for RG59 though as that's rubbish) and 4 screw-on F connectors...

 

After that, you need to align the dish, but look a little down the Equipment section for a link to a satellite alignment tool which will help, then you can enjoy your recordings aswell as continue with your subscription...

 

If sky ask questions, say your line was damaged by a fallen tree or something (like they're going to know!!!)...

[Biggles]

I took my multi-room box to the NB this w/e and all was fine on the Lidl £30 dish kit.

 

My multi-room box HAS been unplugged from the phone for over a year, and I have just put the new card in and it didn't baulk about that either without the phone line.

 

Not that this answers your question but its a link in the chain.

 

Biggles

[CampinGazz]

you can pay sky a small fee and not be tied to the phone line thing, it was 20 quid when i got sky for my self the other year, and i did that as it was less hassle than running a phone extension around the room to where the box lived.

 

but i'd recomend not telling sky anything about you owning a boat, you may get away with it for a boat, but i have a motorhome, and if sky found out they'd cancel my card, the reason is it's illegal to recieve the bbc chanels via sky abroad, dont matter if you dont have a passport, never intend to go abroad or owt, the fact you 'could' is enough for them,

 

i've not tried taking my sky plus box with me in the van tho... i have one of those pace javelin 12 volt recievers and a freesat card,

but i do know that you deffo need the viewing card in the sky plus box to watch the recorded proggies, as it records them in unencrypted format, so you need a valid card to watch them, people have found that out when they had free trials of movie chanels, recorded loads of them to watch after the free trial ended, and found they couldent, you need a current subscription to the chanel youve recorded when you watch it.

 

there is a way to transfer the sky plus recordings to another HD based PVR, then you can take that with you, as it transfers them de-encrypted,

 

i've also heard about something called a dreambox, which is a sat box that can be made to do all the sky de-encryption, and apparantly it dosent tie the box to the card like the sky boxes can, someone i have spoken to but not met in person yet has a dreambox in his american RV, and a normal sky box at home, when he goes away he just pulls the card out the sky bix, puts it in the dream box, and can recieve all the chanels he's subscribed to whilst away, without having to re-marry the card to the box, which is the way to do it with sky boxes.

[blueprince]

You can link your pc to your sky box and play all channels, however, most of the sites for doing this on non expert basis contain fairly malicious ware, it would be possible to filter this out, but it depends on what you want. Sky do offer a mobile package, for caravans, yachts, etc, if you talk to them, and get a reasonable person, they give it you for free. Otherwise you can pirate their signal fairly easily, you simply have to download the stream before you go to you boat.

[cotswoldsman]

Surley there is no need for a dish!!! The question was could he watch programmes recorded on Sky + if he just took the box onto the boat.

[WotEver]

Surley there is no need for a dish!!! The question was could he watch programmes recorded on Sky + if he just took the box onto the boat.

 

Dunno for sure (we have Virgin at home) but 2CV said in post #3 that the box got 'uppity' if it wasn't connected to a dish.

 

I guess the simple answer is take it on the boat and see.

 

Oh, and stop calling me Shirley.

 

Tony

[Bobbybass]

I am having a Sky+ box installed at home on Friday. When I have recorded some programmes on it at home will I be able to take the box to the boat and watch the recorded programmes there? Or does that part of it need the phone line. (You can probably tell that I have not had a satellite TV before, so I hope it is not too stupid a question.)

Thanks,

CB

The reason that Sky want you to have the box plugged into the phone line, is because thats how they get paid !

Have you ever wondered how all those channels are on there vying for viewers ?

When you change channels and watch something, the Sky box stores that and uses your phone line to pass that info to Sky.

Thus..if you have no phone line that all goes wrong...so in the cases where they can't do that...they charge you a 'blanket fee' (activation fee ?)which is apportioned to all the channels wether watched or not.

Are argued this and said I would put this into the public domain (maybe data issues that they know exactly what/when you watch) and they didn't charge me !

 

 

I am having a Sky+ box installed at home on Friday. When I have recorded some programmes on it at home will I be able to take the box to the boat and watch the recorded programmes there? Or does that part of it need the phone line. (You can probably tell that I have not had a satellite TV before, so I hope it is not too stupid a question.)

Thanks,

CB

I forgot to say..thre is another issue here as well. When you activate your Sky card on a phone line...it activates it for one particular Sky box...so you cannot take it to the pub and put it into their Sky box. When you activate without the phone line...they cannot do this...the card number protection has to be switched off.. and your card can then be used in any Sky box without authoristaion.

[gaggle]

Just got rid of sky because each time the box fails and they replace the box "free" all the stuff that was recorded is lost , it can happen when you are on the phone to them and they are instructing you how to reset the box .

my lad who is football mad lost all top games he recorded and he was not happy.

[twocvbloke]

The reason that Sky want you to have the box plugged into the phone line, is because thats how they get paid !

Have you ever wondered how all those channels are on there vying for viewers ?

When you change channels and watch something, the Sky box stores that and uses your phone line to pass that info to Sky.

Thus..if you have no phone line that all goes wrong...so in the cases where they can't do that...they charge you a 'blanket fee' (activation fee ?)which is apportioned to all the channels wether watched or not.

Are argued this and said I would put this into the public domain (maybe data issues that they know exactly what/when you watch) and they didn't charge me !

 

I forgot to say..thre is another issue here as well. When you activate your Sky card on a phone line...it activates it for one particular Sky box...so you cannot take it to the pub and put it into their Sky box. When you activate without the phone line...they cannot do this...the card number protection has to be switched off.. and your card can then be used in any Sky box without authoristaion.

 

Actually, that's not right, sky wants the box connected to the phoneline for the use of them interactive services (Movies on demand, games, ordering a Dominos Pizza etc.) which require the box to connect, and this is why the boxes are subsidised and hence either free or cheap (not just the quality!!!), people paying silly money on their phone bill for the interactive stuff are what pay for the boxes...

 

As for the channels on the EPG, sky don't pay them to appear on there, the channel co's pay sky thousands of pounds to appear on there, and more to have a proper now & next setup, and of course, the subscribers pay to access the content, and often pay to have their setup fixed when if fails, so sky are making a lot of money for not doing that much!!! And speaking of the satellites, no channel pays sky to broadcast on them, you have to go to SES Astra for that, it's just if you want to appear on the sky EPG that you would have to go to sky for...

 

The activation thing is semi-correct though, yes the line is used to activate and pair the card to the box it's in, but, if you only have the non-premium channels (as in, no sky movies, sports, etc), then you CAN swap boxes without having to call sky or re-pair the card (which you can do by going into the engineering menu, Services-4-0-1-Select, perfectly ok for you to do that), as it's only the premium channels that require to be paired...

 

But who pays sky to watch sports when you can find free feeds online?

[Chasbo]

Thanks everyone for your contributions. I think what I do is what I intended to do in the first place, and that is just to use the sky+ box to record programmes at home so that I can watch them when I return from the boat.

CB

[Mark W]

Hello

You will not be able to watch any recorded programs unless your sky box has a signal. I know I've tried it on my Sky+HD box. Just disconnect the signal/aerial at home to see....

 

When I do have a signal I get all the channels I have subscribed to including HD, all the ones I have recorded and the ones recorded by Anytime.

 

The only thing to be carefull about is the box draws a lot of power!!!

 

Mark.