Sky Digital vs My Sky

[Donor]

We currently have Sky Digital.

We're thinking about getting My Sky.

Without beating round the bush - which is better, and for the curiosity of the wife, why?

...and screw Freeview, I'd rather be ripped by a commercial venture than help the government make themselves feel warm and fuzzy about their uber digital service...

[Mully]

I want my Sky.

The ability to record multiple programs. Series link, etc.

[Kendog]

High Definition, can't go wrong.

[Kiwi Graham]

You can get Hi Definition My Sky now............best of all worlds :love:

[Toaster]

We bought a hard drive instead and run sky digital anyway. It really depends on what sort of flexibilty you need and just how much couch potato time you wish to do!

Flag it and spend the money on bikes!

[Qkchk]

My Sky.

Means Qkkid has no excuse to come on the ATNR and he doesnt miss out his fav program lineup of Shortland Street and Coro.

Seriously, bloody handy machines.

Pros - Just look up whats happening on the guide and push the big R to record. Set and forget. Handy little series link feature so if you set it for this week you will continue to record every upcoming show without having to set it each time. If you like to watch LIVE sport, you can pause it during the game to get up for a whizz and then resume it as you feel....

Cons - Once you have had your machine for nearly a year, the hard drives do play up and you may lose stored programs. Tends to happen if your running at >30% free space, so keeping up with the housework and completing a cleanout of your programs every know and then can work wonders. We are now onto Drive #3. (Got My Sky when it was first launched)

We are looking at MY Sky HDi but will wait until there are more shows available in HD to make it worthwhile.

[Hitcher]

TelstraClear have a swish new cable decoder set-top box coming before Christmas. If the hype is to be believed it's better kit than My Sky. That cable also does the best Internet connection around too.

[Kendog]

TelstraClear have a swish new cable decoder set-top box coming before Christmas. If the hype is to be believed it's better kit than My Sky. That cable also does the best Internet connection around too.

Really, is there any info online about that?
I love my cable internet :2thumbsup

[Hitcher]

Really, is there any info online about that?

Have a rat around on TelstraClear's web site and see what you can find.

[Kendog]

Have a rat around on TelstraClear's web site and see what you can find.

Just done that, here (http://www.telstraclear.co.nz/residential/inhome/digital-tv/high-definition-and-personal-video-recorder.cfm)is the info.

Can't wait.

[jrandom]

Waking up in the morning on a work day and absorbing the gist of a 6-hour Tour de France stage which transpired while one was asleep in 30 minutes over breakfast?

Priceless.

DVRs FTW.

[Hoon]

We've had MySkyHD for a month now. The HD is great if you got an HDTV, mostly just sport, movies and tv3. We also got FreeviewHD as well but haven't used it since the Olympics.

The PVR/DVR functions of the MySkyHD decoder (i.e hard drive video recorder) are great. Had a tivo for the last few years but this has been replaced by MySky now.

[pzkpfw]

We used to have a Digital Sky and a MySky. They had a cheap offer to upgrade the Digital Sky to a new HD MySky, so we went for it.

Only issue has been that MySky boxes seem a bit more sensitive than the ordinary Digital Sky, and we are having issues getting good "reception" where the old MySky replaced the old Digital Sky.

I REALLY REALLY don't want to have to pull the cables.

The HD MySky also seems to get very hot. We had the DVD player sitting on it, and the picture all went to snow after a couple hours. Has happened again (with nothing on top) after a days use by the family.

MySky (HD or not) is great. Haven't watched an ad break in ages.

I can record stuff the wife hates, and watch later.
She can record "ethnic" stuff that is shown at 2 a.m.

(I think the HD MySky has an extra tuner, so you can record two channels and watch a third (live); on the older MySky you can record two and watch one already recorded program.)

[We are also on our 3rd MySky... kaboom...]

[Forest]

I guess I'm the only one that can't stand Sky.

More ads than free to air, and I get to pay to watch them. No thanks.

[Hoon]

(I think the HD MySky has an extra tuner, so you can record two channels and watch a third (live); on the older MySky you can record two and watch one already recorded program.)

The MySkyHDi decoders actually have 4 tuners built in but these are not all running yet. The 3rd tuner was activated a couple weeks ago (by firmware upgrade) so thats why you can watch/record 3 channels at once now. Once they sort out the bugs and technical issues we might see the 4th tuner come online sometime soon.


I guess I'm the only one that can't stand Sky.

More ads than free to air, and I get to pay to watch them. No thanks.

Thats why MySky is getting popular as people can record all their programs and sit down and watch what THEY want to watch, not what's on TV at the time. Watching prerecorded programs means you can skip through the ads. I often find myself pausing live TV and going away to do something else for a while so when I come back I can just fast fwd through any ads (until I eventually catch up with the broadcast).

[captain_andrey]

Why wait for a NZ broadcast when all the shows are broadcast in US months in advance. You can also get most of them in HD. Dump sky all together and get a better internet connection.

[Hitcher]

Why wait for a NZ broadcast when all the shows are broadcast in US months in advance. You can also get most of them in HD. Dump sky all together and get a better internet connection.

That's the space TelstraClear is moving into with it's new digital set-top offering.

[captain_andrey]

That's the space TelstraClear is moving into with it's new digital set-top offering.

You will still only get programs that some guy in a suit decided is ok for NZ to see and only months later when the rest of the world has finished watching.
On top of that, the HD quality over in US is way, way better then the pixilated crap we get here on Sky HD.

[Hoon]

Yep I'm actually in the middle of upgrading my home entertainment to HDTV/Dolby 7.1.
I basically want access to as much HD content as possible i.e.


HD Sky
FreeviewHD
Downloaded/Streamed internet HD content
BlueRay


Also some form of PVR.

My plan is to build a Media Portal PC, fit it with Quad tuners. I then want to attach a smart card reader (for the Sky card) so then my PC will be able to decode and record Sky Digital Satellite. Blueray will probably be via PS3.
All this going HDMI to Sony Bravia LCD and audio via optical to hometheatre receiver. Once done hopefully I can ditch the mySkyHD decoder (for the standard one) but keep the HD enabled subscription and smart card.

[captain_andrey]

Last time I looked, we use NDS encryption there was no smartcard (CAM) reader for NDS.
It would also be against Sky T&C for you to use non approved hardware to decrypt the signal.

[Hoon]

Haha tell it to these guys (http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?ForumId=84&TopicId=21389).

UPDATE: Link updated

Basically you can buy a Smartcard reader from jaycar for $60, hook it up to your PC with a DVB-S2 Tuner card, slot in the smart card from your decoder and with the right software you are away laughing.

MySky is great but the biggest limitation as a PVR is that it only records Sky (and you can't export the recordings). I don't want to have another PVR just for recording FTA/Freeview programs as well so ideally I want one PVR which can record any input i.e. a Media PC

[pzkpfw]

The MySkyHDi decoders actually have 4 tuners built in but these are not all running yet. The 3rd tuner was activated a couple weeks ago (by firmware upgrade) so thats why you can watch/record 3 channels at once now. Once they sort out the bugs and technical issues we might see the 4th tuner come online sometime soon.

I had read that the fourth was dedicated to the channel listings (which is why I didn't mention it). Is that not right?

Another note: on my old MySky I can get Teletext off channel 1.

On my new HD MySky I can't; so have to flick the T.V. onto free-to-air TV mode so I can read Teletext.

[Grub]

More ads than free to air, and I get to pay to watch them. No thanks.

I know it doesn't make it any easier to stomach them but there's a reason for it that you can never get around. All 1 hour programmes last just 45minutes. That's how they're made to allow for 14minutes of ads and 1 minute of station promo + programme in an hour. So Sky has to use fillers of promos and trailers. On UKTV they have those cool little animated fillers and on Discovery they now have "Amazing Moments". Hopefully there's more of them on the way, at least they're trying

So even with no ads, or in Sky's case, channel promos and programme trailers, you would still not get to see an hour long episode. Besides, when else do you get time to pee, make coffee and check "New Posts" on KB? I bet if there were no breaks, people would ask for them so that they didn't miss anything when nature calls.

[Grub]

Another note: on my old MySky I can get Teletext off channel 1.

OMG but Teletext is soooo last century

[Quasievil]

Whats mysky cost ?

[captain_andrey]

Haha tell it to these guys (http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?ForumId=84&TopicId=21389).

UPDATE: Link updated

Basically you can buy a Smartcard reader from jaycar for $60, hook it up to your PC with a DVB-S2 Tuner card, slot in the smart card from your decoder and with the right software you are away laughing.

MySky is great but the biggest limitation as a PVR is that it only records Sky (and you can't export the recordings). I don't want to have another PVR just for recording FTA/Freeview programs as well so ideally I want one PVR which can record any input i.e. a Media PC


Ahh nice. I was out of the loop on these things for a while now. Seems you are right if you are lucky enough and get the new 'blue' card. Most people still have the old gold ones that dont work afaik.

You will still be breaking T&C.

[diddie17]

How many cables (cores) do you have to run from the dish to the MySky HDI box. I was considering it but I haven't been able to get a good answer as to whether you have to run more cables for the multiple tuners.

The cabling in the house is buried in the walls and without re-decorating there is no way I could run another coax cable to the sky box. :confused:

[iangee]

I wanted MYSKY, wifey wasn't bothered, but try and get the remote off her now!!!!!! its really cool and so much easier than dvd/vcr etc. set and forget, and skip the ads!

[Quasievil]

How much ??!@(^*&%$()&!!!!!

[Dave Lobster]

Yep I'm actually in the middle of upgrading my home entertainment to HDTV/Dolby 7.1.
I basically want access to as much HD content as possible i.e.


HD Sky
FreeviewHD
Downloaded/Streamed internet HD content
BlueRay


Also some form of PVR.

My plan is to build a Media Portal PC, fit it with Quad tuners. I then want to attach a smart card reader (for the Sky card) so then my PC will be able to decode and record Sky Digital Satellite. Blueray will probably be via PS3.
All this going HDMI to Sony Bravia LCD and audio via optical to hometheatre receiver. Once done hopefully I can ditch the mySkyHD decoder (for the standard one) but keep the HD enabled subscription and smart card.
Can I play my old 78s on any of that?

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[Da Bird]

How much ??!@(^*&%$()&!!!!!

MySky HDi is either $599.00 one off "joining fee" (you still don't own the decoder) or $15.00 per month.

The HD access is another $10.00 a month on top (plus your normal costs for your particular Sky package). Not much point getting HD if you don't have at least Movies or Sport (or both) as that is where most of the HD stuff is (at the moment anyway).

There was a promotion going on at several shops such as Harvery Norman etc where if you buy a new HD TV, you got a voucher for 12 months free MySky HDi and HD access (value $300.00 but only for existing Sky subscribers). Not sure if the promo is still running but probably quite good if you are in the market for a new TV. I presume you could go back to the normal Sky digital after 12 months if you didn't want to keep the My Sky.

[pzkpfw]

How many cables (cores) do you have to run from the dish to the MySky HDI box. I was considering it but I haven't been able to get a good answer as to whether you have to run more cables for the multiple tuners.

The cabling in the house is buried in the walls and without re-decorating there is no way I could run another coax cable to the sky box. :confused:

Just one, then there's a splitter at the end that plugs it into two sockets on the decoder.

Having said that, MySky does seem more sensitive to quality of cable, and if you have splitters taking the cables to multiple rooms you may have issues.

(I am, and the Sky guy - and his boss - have been more than once to my house, and even disconnected the "extra" rooms.)

[Hoon]

There was a promotion going on at several shops such as Harvery Norman etc where if you buy a new HD TV, you got a voucher for 12 months free MySky HDi and HD access (value $300.00 but only for existing Sky subscribers).

Yep this is what I got when we bought our new Bravia LCD from Bond and Bond. The voucher is only for 6 months free.

[Da Bird]

Yep this is what I got when we bought our new Bravia LCD from Bond and Bond. The voucher is only for 6 months free.

You got ripped mate... I got one for 12 months (although haven't used it yet).