Sky + box

[Théière]

A sky + with 80gb hard drive, will that storage work with a standard non + freesat setup?

[Quillan]

With no card all you can do is record the channel you're watching, record a channel and watch another or record two channels. What won't work is recording using EPG. The same if you have an FTA card but with most of the important channels already FTA people don't bother getting one*. Seeing as you can't say record for 1 hour and turn off because it uses the EPG its a bit naff (there is no facility to set a start and stop recording time via a clock). I believe if you tell it to record a program when you are actually watching it then it will stop at the end. I was asking a friend about this a couple of weeks back as he used to have one. Basically without a Sky subscription most, nearly all, the functions don't work.

*There used to be some channels that were still encoded although free to view, Channel 4 and possibly a couple from the Channel 5 stable so whilst you didn't have to pay to watch them you needed to buy a card from Sky for £30 to decode them. All the 'prime' FTA channels are now broadcasted without encryption so Sky boxes of any flavour will pick these channels up without a card inserted. With a Freesat Sky Card other than the 'normal' TV (and Radio) you get an extra 100 channels but they are mainly shopping channels etc and an extra 50 radio channels none of which you will miss I can assure you. The price of the card seems to have shot up by the way to £175. I rather think that Sky are forced to offer them but don't really want to get involved especially as they state on their website you can buy a FreeSat box from Curries for £89.

Edit - Corrected a couple of typos

[BJSLIV]

The £175 includes card, box and installation. If you already have the equipment the card is available for £25. It's hidden in the FAQ's

If already have equipment.......?

http://www.sky.com/shop/freesat/home/faq/#3

[Quillan]

The other issue I have come across with Sky+ boxes that are broken is how to get the data off the HDD as it is not as simple as it seems. Sky uses an encoding system when it saves the files. You can remove the HDD, put it in a caddy and use a free program called Copy+ on a PC (there is no Apple version of the software) which will allow you to copy the files off to your PC then copy them back to another Sky+ HDD. What it won't do is decode them. For that you need another pice of software. Unfortunatly this piece works in real time i.e. it plays the video and converts it as it goes into either a DVD format, MP4 or Matroska file. As I said it can be done if you have films or programs on the Sky+ HDD that you want to save. 

[Théière]

Thanks all, helpful to know, have to see what works later.

BJSLIV, must have been some storms (lightning) over the last 3 weeks? unplugging the mains hasn't helped so must have been a surge down the aerial/dish