Sky+ Discussion

[Maclynn]

Let's hope TiVoMad buys a Sky+. Then all our problems will be solved.
Mike.

[Maclynn]

I was bored this morning so I tried a little experiment. I had an old Quantum Fireball 6 gig disc, complete with Win 98 and a load of old files lying about. I put this in as a replacement for the Sky+ drive.
After waiting for ages for the Sky box to format it I was finally able to get it out of standby.
All appeared well apart from there being no plus functions.
I did a reset through the menu which put it back into standby. Switched on again and all was well.
I filled the disc with recordings (only about 3+ hours because it is a small drive), and tried all the replay functions out. It seemed to behave perfectly.
Now I have to save the pennies to try a larger drive out.
The other thing I wanted to try was to see if the software supported slave drives, doubtful but worth a try, but I don't have the correct power cable yet.
I hope this encourages other people to experiment.
Mike.

[Automan]

Mike,
I may try changing the disk in my unit for a 20Gig I have.

Does the percent indicator system to seem to adjust correctly for the different capacity hard disk?

e.g. with the 6gig disc does it say a movie will take 60% or so of the space?

I have noted the examples in the Pace manual indicate recordings using much more space (or the prototype machines had a smaller disc).

If it does get the math correct I may order one of these 80gig Maxstor drives from Simply and try - if it does not work maybe I can put it in TiVo instead...

P.S. Have you tried copying the files from your 6gig test disc back onto your pc's normal format disc... Do the files copy without error? e.g. general disc failure reading drive x ?


Automan.

[Maclynn]

Automan,the percentage gauge seemed to be fairly accurate for the size of the disc but I believe people have had poor results with larger discs.
I did try to copy the files to my computer but it would not let me, I can't remember the message I got.
You can open them from the Sky+ drive but they are of a type I don't recognize.
I suggest you only try a larger drive if you can make use of it in TiVo or your P.C. if it wont work in the Sky box.
You were right about my S video lead. I re-soldered it and it is fine, thanks.
Mike.

[Automan]

Mike,
I could not get my 20G drive to play with - gone missing

Thus I've ordered a DiamondMax 540X 60GB IDE 3.5HH 2MB 5400RPM 9.6MS U100 NS (4K060H3) from http://www.buy.com for £103.48 delivered (next day).

Thus I'm expecting 50% more recording space

If it does not work in Sky+ I will maybe try in my PC or TiVo.

Automan.

[Maclynn]

Good luck with your drive swap Automan. Let us know how you get on.
One other topic I have thought about is the series link problem.
As a work around couldn't Sky simply enable it for everything. That way we could use it for all series and if used by mistake on a single show it wouldn't matter anyway as there would be nothing to record.
Mike.

Thanks for all the info guys. I will now not be getting Sky Plus. It sounds like Tivos evil twin.

I'll be sticking with trusty Tivo. Unless it goes bust, that is.

------------------
Just go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.

[TivoUK]

I have been away on holiday for 3 weeks and the Sky + appears to have owrked fine while I was away.

My nephew called round and added shows that I wanted recorded each week that did not have a series link.

Now, to check the Tivo...

[Automan]

VCR style timer will soon be added to Sky+ for items with no series links (sounds a bit like TiVo's manual record option)!

It's now been two weeks since my TiVo's been out of standby - I know it still okay as sometimes the led's light up and my "Caller Display 1500" says "Phone In Use" - Some gadgets know when the phone line is in use

I suspect TiVo may be to clever for the mass uk market?

Automan.

[pauljs]

Short review in The Sunday Times

Sky+ seems like a marriage made in heaven, offering the chance to receive digital broadcasts and record them straight to hard disk. The box is simple to use, all the controls being screen led. Live television can be paused, recordings can be programmed seven days in advance, and the planner will record all shows in a series automatically, cleverly differentiating between new episodes and repeats. Recorded programmes have the same picture quality as live viewing, but you may decide that £300 and £10 per month is too much for a glorified video recorder

What hope is there for these people still stuck on VHS

[Automan]

VHS - What's that

Sky seem to be making real progress with their Series Links with no hickups for quite a while.

My Box now Series links that work for the following...
All of which have been automatically inserted.



Of course Sky+ 'Series Links' know the difference between 1st runs & reruns.
Thus I have two 'Series Links' for Stargate and The Simpsons.

Automan.

[TivoUK]

Good news on the extra series links, first time I have seen any non-Sky 1 ones listed. Will have a look at my shows when I get home Friday night. Pity it was not added before I went on holiday, had to have my nephew call in each week I was away to add shows to be recorded.

We appear to have similar tastes in TV shows also

Can I brag I was the first episode of ENTERPRISE while in Maui a few weeks ago??

Sorry, could not resist

[This message has been edited by TivoUK (edited 10-16-2001).]

[Automan]

TiVoUK
Was "Enterprise" in widescreen?
Granda Plus also have "Series Links"

Anyway, my 60Gb drive has now arrived...
Comparing its spec with the original it's pretty close.

Old drive
4500rpm
Power on to drive ready ~8secs
Power peak <8.5w
Access time average 12ms
Full stroke 24ms

New drive
5400rpm
Power on to drive ready 7.5secs
Power peak 5.2w
Access time average 12ms
Full stroke 24ms

Thus tonight I shall give it a try (time permitting)
I would assume the only grey area is the actual disc format?

Automan.

[TivoUK]

Yes, ENTERPRISE was in w/s but UPN show it in letterbox.
As there is little chance of Sky showing it w/s lets hope the BBC get hold of the series soon.

[Automan]

Yes, I've done it...
My box now is operating on a 60Gb drive...
The box issued no warnings or other errors on start-up.
This was a virgin new drive straight out of the sealed bag into Sky+

I did run the housekeeping option to be on the safe side.
At that point it restarted - bad news you think?
No, NEW SOFTWARE
Now Model 5.6.3
Sky+ 1.21.A

Before swapping the disc I made note of the space estimated for two recordings

1. Alien Nation 7% before 5% after upgrade
2. Very Bad Things 11% before 8% after upgrade

At the moment it's recording and playing back the live buffer and all seems okay - then to box it up and put all my 'series links' back.

Automan.

[Automan]

Doh!
I should have read Paul's page on his test more carefully...

I did not note the free space indicator....
With an empty disc it says 25% free space

I shall try and fill the thing up and see what it does.

Automan.

[Automan]

Again as Paul noted the bar graph of free space / space used by a recording seems correct - it's just the numeric display of free space that’s wrong - it was down to 8% when I left for work and it was recording all night and is set to record things all day.

The question is will it start deleting stuff when the numeric value approaches 0% or will it accurately know how much space remains - I should know tonight!

Automan.

[Osy]

I noticed the software update this morning. We now get 'DELETING' message when you delete a recorded program. So I guess they are working their way through that list. It seems that Sky will give us more incremental improvements, rather than Tivo's rare major revisions.

------------------
Paul Osborn
Inside SkyPlus: http://www.uk.research.att.com/~pao

[Automan]

I've just tried looking at the original disc with a Windows 95 dos disc.

It shows space but no files
Tried with Ghost 6.5 and it reports file size errors.

Ghost would let me do a total disc image but it would need 38gigs of free space

Thus I think the disc format is like fat32 but not quite.

Automan.

[Osy]

I was able to read the disc easily under Win2k. From reading around it seems likely that it uses Fat32X, an extension to Fat32 with improved supoport for large drives. I suspect that Win95 is a bit too old.
If you can't read them yourself, but want to take a look at the smaller system files on the disc, let me know and I'll send you them. I can't of course send any copyright material, as Win2k claims those files are unreadable.

------------------
Paul Osborn
Inside SkyPlus: http://www.uk.research.att.com/~pao

[paulpenny]

Sorry to move away from the technical discussions.

I had the "happy" experience of my Sky+ box turning up for installation and then seeing it disappear again because the Sky installer couldn't/wouldn't touch the dish which is on my chimney. Of course, telling them this in advance, to try and avoid the problem didn't make any difference!

First date for an install by their specialist team was November (I think this year).

My usual satellite installers cannot still get hold of the Sky+ boxes. Nor can any other installers at the moment.

I have, therefore, decided to "create my own" by installing a second Sky box for dedicated recording from my Tivo. (I know it is not the same, but I like the Tivo and so I would be happy.)

My problem is that the Sky dish requires an adaptor which allows it to hold the quad lnb. Does anyone have any idea where I might get one of these? I already have two sky dishes - one for the main room and one feeding the family room - so another is not really possible.

Anyone with some ideas?

Thanks

------------------
Paul

[Maclynn]

Paul, why not go into Currys or Comet and pick up a Sky+ box. They come complete with the Quad LNB and dish adaptors.
You can fit it yourself and save £50.00 or get an independant to do it.
The stores around here have plenty of stock.
Mike.

[jont]

Paul

Can you not pick up a Sky+ box at your local Dixons/Currys and tell them that you have a non-standard installation so you don't need them to book it with Sky ... pay your money, wlak out and then give to your local friendly installer who will put it up for 'whatever' ... ???

That's what I did and was fine...

rgds

J

ps - if you can get the quad lnb that's in the box it comes with a bracket.

[dsloper]

Hi, May i ask a few questions about installing SKY+ yourself.

1. Can you use the standard coax cable as you can for normal sky, or do you need special cable.

2. How do you activiate sky+ subs if you install it yourself?

MTIA

Darren

[paulpenny]

Originally posted by Maclynn:
Paul, why not go into Currys or Comet and pick up a Sky+ box. They come complete with the Quad LNB and dish adaptors.
You can fit it yourself and save £50.00 or get an independant to do it.
The stores around here have plenty of stock.
Mike.

Aaagh! I know this is going to sound very thick, but I didn't know that you could do that. I thought that they just dealt with the sale and then the Sky installer brought the box with them when they came to install.

On the bright side, if I had known that I would not have bought a Tivo, so some good has come of it!

The question now is do I still buy Sky+ or carry on with my dual Sky receiver/Tivo setup.

Cost wise I would think it is OK.

Tivo £249, Sky receiver £89 (on Yahoo Auctions),secondary Sky sub £12 pm, Tivo subscription £10 per month, cost of quad lnb install etc.

Sky+ £299, subscription £10 pm, cost of installation etc

OK, Sky+ is a bit cheaper, but then it doesn't have quite the same functionality as the Tivo.

Now where can I get that quad lnb........?



------------------
Paul

[jont]

Darren

Yes co-ax is the same - there is a special twin-core that some installers use for a new install, but mine just slung a new single run to the lounge for the twin feeds to sky+, I then got another two single runs to the bedrooms whilst he was there ...

I then rang Sky CS and got my sky+ subs added to my direct debit - took about 5 mins....

[Automan]

CT100 single sat cable or CT63 twin co-ax cable

The CT63 has a maximum run of 30 metres CT100, 100 metres

If your existing install was done by a proper engineer it should have be done in CT100 some 'cowboys' have be known to use ordinary TV UHF co-ax which is not really suitable.

Automan.

[This message has been edited by Automan (edited 10-17-2001).]

[dsloper]

Thanks for your quick responses. I take it the sky+ will accept my card, or do I need the sky+ equivalent of the new install menu on sky. I'll try and clarify that statement : Do I need to marry the card to the box, or do I just plug my card in and go.

Again, MTIA

Darren

[Osy]

I had an independant fit my Sky+ upgrade, but handled registration myself. I phoned the number on the Sky+ box, and selected the 'active my Sky+ subscription' option at the menu. Spoke to a nice lady who pointed out that because they have not recieved a call from my box, they could not activate it. So had to hang up, perform New Installation option in hidden menu to cause box to phone Sky, then phone Sky myself to activate.
Actually had to call back an hour later as Sky+ features had not activated and I was impatient. They resent the signal and it worked straight away.


------------------
Paul Osborn
Inside SkyPlus: http://www.uk.research.att.com/~pao

[Automan]

My 60Gb Sky+ box has survived its first day and seems to have recorded everything asked (non-stop almost for the last 20 hrs at broadcast quality)

The free disc space indicator that said 8% at this morning now reports 47%

All the recordings report using less percentage so I assume most of Sky+ code knows about different disc sizes with a 28 min rec registering as 1% of capacity.

It also looks like the software upgrade has fixed the copy to tape option as all items now indicate this okay.

See http://www.hummer.co.uk/disc-change.htm for a brief install guide

Who wants to try a 80Gb drive?

Automan.

[This message has been edited by Automan (edited 10-17-2001).]