Sky digiboxes

[Bannon]

Not sure how this is going to affect things but the news is that as well as Pace and Thomson ceasing production of them, Sky are no longer going to allow the direct sale of digiboxes. You will now only be able to get them direct from ASA's (Authorised Sky Agents) which effectively means you will now need to subscribe to Sky in order to get one. Unless anybody knows different.

The better news is the we should see Channels Four and Five going out unecrypted in a few months thus removing the need to have a Sky box and a viewing card to get them.

Cheers guys.

[Rayring]

I don't think we need to worry, dozens available every day on e-bay.

[Ron Avery]

With the amount of ex SKY digi boxes on eBay at an all time high as people in the UK upgrade to HD, I suspect that there will be a good supply of old boxes  for a few years yet.    You can also get most of the decent FTA channels on a French box, except of course notably Chs 4, 5 , 5-US, FIVER and SKY 3.   If 4 and 5 go FTA there won't be much worth watching that a French digi box will not get, failing that there is always French TV[:)]

[Bannon]

..... not everybody wants a second hand digibox though, but as you say - there are decent French boxes around cheaper that the non-subsidised ones although the instructions can have your scratching your head. There does seem to be a reluctance to have instructions in English on lots of items over here and no, I'm not complaining :-)

[Ron Avery]

There does seem to be a reluctance to have instructions in English on lots of items over here 

............  might be something to do with the fact that the plugs are completely different, so the models for the UK market have different plugs and instruction leaflets, to those sold in mainland Europe.

[Martin963]

Ch 4 is of course already free to air.   I posted this fact three weeks ago.    If you have a Sky box but no card then you need to add it to "other channels" as the 104 position is still the encrypted version..   If you have a non sky box you would also need to add it.

With the arrival of Freesat one would hope that a Sky box would only be of any use IF one wanted to subscribe to a Sky paying package.   As the boxes are deliberately crippled by Murdoch they are a bad buy now that there is a better alternative for free to air stuff,  ie a proper Freesat box with it's own full non-Sky EPG.

[Martin963]

Actually I see that the audio has been muted on the ch 4 FTA feed on 10729 MHz.  (I'm not a daily watcher of ch 4)

I suppose one can still enjoy the racing.    And one assumes they will turn the sound back on in time for the Freesat launch.

I've seen a few odd methods to discourage people from watching test transmissions in the past but putting up the full service for two weeks and then removing the sound seems one of the dafter ideas....

Incidentally,  I wonder if the sub titles are functioning....?

[Martin963]

Ch 4 have now re-instated their audio in time for the launch of Freesat this lunchtime

One would indeed think so.

[Gyn_Paul]

Martin - am I right in assuming that the EPG for Freesat will only work with the approved boxes? Or is it a stand-alone transponder (probably a bit unfair to ask this at 10h00!) ?

paul

[Martin963]

I believe that boxes - other than Sky or the new Freesat ones - will only show now and next informaition as at present.

The organisers of Freesat have paid a lot to get a competing EPG up and running and will I assume want it only to work on selected boxes.   The new EPG *is* on a separate transponder to the Sky EPG,  it's uplinked by Arquiva onto Eurobird.   I'm sure with the right software one could get at the info.

Sorry - only just saw your post!