Sky+ Box

[Ouya Mellsa]

I have Sky+ in room of the house and think it is great.

I have a DVD recorder & a normal Sky box in another room. However, the DVD recorder is terrible. I'm going to replace it, but a decent one costs over £100. So, I thought I would get a Sky+ box to save room as this does the same job (I have a tv with a DVD player in, too).

Can I buy a Sky+ box and connect it myself? I assume it would just be popping in the scart lead/phone line and tuning the baby in...? I do not want to pay extra subscription charges, though

If I can, where should I buy it from? Google shows me a fair few online shops which look a bit dodgy. I'd rather buy from Currys (etc) or even direct from Sky, if possible.

[Incy]

Why don't you talk to sky customer services and see what they have to offer.

[Ouya Mellsa]

I will do- I just wanted to check if it was possible (i.e. if any of you guys had done it) before I join the queue on the 0870 number.

[Florence Fennel]

I'd speak to Sky - they do some good deals. We have Sky+ in two rooms, HD on the big screen in the lounge, but we use "senders" to get Sky upstairs from the box in the dining room. I have a built in DVD in my telly and we have a separate DVD in the lounge. Hope you find a good deal.

[Glutton4...]

Having bought second-hand boxes when ours went wrong, we ended up going direct, paying the warranty and getting a new one. Sounds a bit daft, as the old one had already gone wrong, so we had to take out warranty on an already faulty box but it was the cheapest way, and their local engineer that they sent out (actually an independent, as they are all faaaaaaaar too busy ) was FAB!

Can you contact them via their website, or via the interactive service?

[Ouya Mellsa]

Yep, I'll see if emails are possible. If not, it will have to be the expensive phone number

[Florence Fennel]

Just google Sky.com OM, that's what I did.

[Chef_uk]

I do not want to pay extra subscription charges, though

Multiroom is £10pm even if you only have the basic stuff. What you need is the Magic Eye Less than a £4 from Amazon. Its basically a remote control extender that sits by your second tv and has two sockets on it, an IN and an OUT which you plug one end in to the second tv's aerial socket, and the other to some coaxial cable which connects to the digiboxes RF2 OUT Socket. A quick setting change in the digibox's hidden engineers menu and voila. One sky feed on two tv's with no extra subscription charge needed. Buy a second sky remote if you want one in each room.

Only downside is the same channel will be on both tv's, unfortunately, thats what you pay for with the £10pm multiroom subscription.

[Glutton4...]

Oh yeah - I forgot about the 'Magic Eye' thing. We have one on the little TV in the Kitchen, so my telly-addict Husband can watch it whilst he cooks. It's brill. Two remotes makes life easier too - less than a tenner on eB@y!

[Ouya Mellsa]

Hi people- good responses. Magic Eye looks great.

However, I didn't make myself clear

I already have Sky multiroom and pay the extra £10. I have Sky+ downstairs, but only have the standard Sky box in the other room. Apart from the cost of buying the box, would I need to pay any extra to my subscription if I replaced the standard box with a Sky+ box?

[Chef_uk]

nope. just a phonecall to sky after you've hooked it up to activate the card from the old box for the sky+ box.

[The Large One]

i had the standard sky box till recently i aquired a s/h box from a mate who went HD
you will have to call Sky to give them the serial number from the new box....you connect up the new box and access the onscreen help and get the serial number and call them, they will then add this box to your card.

[chris]

...or you could buy a free sat box (depending on your subscription) just to throw another suggestion in.

I cancelled our TV package with Sky as we just don't watch it enough to warrant the cost. I'm buying a foxsat hdr box to replace our sky+hd box in the living room so I can get the freesat channels as I am now but also record. The sky+hd box will then be going in the bedroom and i'll be running another cable from the dish so we can watch telly in bed (if ever). Infact, not sure why I'm doing that to be perfectly honest - just am?

*wanders off to get his head looked at*

[esrikandan]

One trick I have learned with Sky is to go to cancellations if you find the box has died outside warranty. My first box died after about 7 years and Sky told me I needed to get the extended warranty in order for them to replace itor pay £49 for a new box. After paying them between £20 and £30 a month I told them to bugger off and that I would cancel it. Oh no - don't do that they said - the girl in cancellations said the first line people aren't authorised to give "free" replacements - but she could.

2 days later engineer comes with new box, installs and pairs it with my card. Job done.

My advice is *never* to get their extended warranty. They make too much money from us to risk losing a customer over £50 for a new box (and the boxes are pretty much worthless anyway without a Sky subs as you'll lose the recording capability and some of the channels available via Freesat).

But back to original question - yes - you can replace the Sky box with a Sky+ box without paying any extra charges but you won't be able to take advantage of the dual tuner capabilities unless you have two feeds from your Satelite dish going into the box. I aquired a 2nd Sky+ box and just plumbed it in myself with the one cable, rang up Sky and they paired my card to the new box there and then.

[Glutton4...]

One small point, esrikandan, is that the boxes no longer only cost fifty quid!