Sky Digital vs My Sky

[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.

1. HD Sky
2. FreeviewHD
3. Downloaded/Streamed internet HD content
4. 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.

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.

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.

[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.

1. HD Sky
2. FreeviewHD
3. Downloaded/Streamed internet HD content
4. 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?