sky install

[tris-]

Having sky installed today. However the phone point is as far away as it could posssible be from where the box is going. Ive read here and there that some engineers dont give a shit and my mate ( who i bought it through) says he wont even care if there is a socket or not.


Anyone else been in the same situation? Him stapling a wire all the way around the house isnt going to happen.

 

[ford prefect]

Yeah, I was really busy the week we had sky installed here and didn't have time to put the phone extension in. Just told the guy I would do it in a few days, he didn't really seem to care, just pointed out that Box Office and the interactive crap wouldn't work without a line and left.

 

[tris-]

Did all your channels activate straight away? ive read it has to be conected to a phoneline so the box can phone sky and activate or some shit.

 

[ford prefect]

I think they came on within an hour or so, not sure. It is a while ago. I know we had the movie channels activate without a phone line on the box because I only got around to putting the phone extensions everywhere last summer.

I had HD installed about six months ago and that activated while the engineer was still here, and the engineer forgot to plug that into the extension now I think about it, because I had to sort it out a few days later.

 

[Lamp]

Being a Sky "engineer" sounds like a job a monkey could do. Better.

 

[tris-]

It is HD im getting. what do you mean by sort it out? did you have to phone them etc?

 

[Ch3tan]

tris you realise the "install" consists of them putting up a dish (the only bit that you couldn't do easily yourself), and then just plugging a box in? Getting HD makes no difference to this. Hope you refused to pay an install fee if they charged one.

 

[Wonk]

[Highlight] What is Tris![/Highlight]

 

[ford prefect]

Pretty sure everything is activated over the air. I think the sky engineer phones in and tells them the install is complete and gives them the card number, and through a miracle of techno-vodoo, signlas are bounced into space and back and your sky channels are activated.

I think when we got the movie upgrade Sky told me the process can take up to four hours, but it was about an hour I think.

 

[tris-]

tris you realise the "install" consists of them putting up a dish (the only bit that you couldn't do easily yourself), and then just plugging a box in? Getting HD makes no difference to this. Hope you refused to pay an install fee if they charged one.

I had to pay £30 for the box and the engineer to come out. As i bought it off my mate hes going to give me £25 so ill have paid a fiver in total by the end of it.

There is already a dish up there but im going to tell him to change it, cos its not mine and has been there since i moved in.

 

[ford prefect]

There is already a dish up there but im going to tell him to change it, cos its not mine and has been there since i moved in.

They generally just change the LNB rather than the dish, unless the dish is in particularly bad shape. HDn (like sky+) needs a Dual LNB, although they put in a Quad LNB.

 

[Ezteq]

lucky bastard lol i want sky! I want that thing where you can pause/rewind/record in advance stuff, that sounds like heaven!

 

[tris-]

We'll see about that when i strand the guy on the roof after taking his ladders.

 

[Ezteq]

careful dude, dont mess with the sky men... they might disable pron

 

[ford prefect]

The only thing that takes a while on sky HD is the anytime stuff, because it downloads over the air in real time, so it takes a few days before you have all the content you are meant to have after install.

 

[ford prefect]

I also recommend one of these:

Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 3.5" 1TB SATA Hard Disk Drive: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo

HD content takes up rather a lot of space, so I did the upgrade and that drive works very well. Your sky HD box can only take a 1TB HD with its current firmware, but a two hour HD movie takes up about 2% on a drive that size.

 

[tris-]

How easy is it to install, wont it fuck my warranty if i start ripping bits in and out?

 

[Lamp]

careful dude, dont mess with the sky men... they might disable pron

Or they might do that NTV Noel Edmunds thing where they can see you while you're watching TV. All they have to do is click their fingers, say "Go, Tris", and they can see right into your living room.

 

[ford prefect]

Unsure about the warranty to be honest. You plug both drives into your PC, run a freeware program called copy+ which copies the bits of sky code and content from your original drive andformats the 1tb drive properly, and then plug the new drive into the box. Takes less than an hour.

I found the new drive makes my pace box a bit more responsive when rewinding live TV too.

 

[old.Tohtori]

How easy is it to install, wont it fuck my warranty if i start ripping bits in and out?

Usually warranty gets nulled when you unscrew the first bit.

Some even have those weird thingies on top of screws to see if someone has been poking them.

 

[Lamp]

They can always tell.

 

[ford prefect]

Not the end of the world though, Sky HD boxes aren't that expensive to buy. Picked a spare up for the bedroom (now running freesat) for less than £140 at a local shop.

 

[tris-]

Expense is relevant, £140 is a fair smack of cash for me.

 

[ford prefect]

Fair enough. It may be possible that sky are planning on launching an external drive for sky hd. The box does have a sata port, USB port and ethernet port on the back of it, all of which are currently inactive.

The USB port had power (used to charge my mobile on it) before the new EPG was launched, but now it is dead.

 

[Aoami]

we've had the same sky boxes in our house for about 8 years, they seem to be fairly robust

 

[ford prefect]

I can see Tris' point, a HD box is has two tuners and a hard drive, so a lot more to go wrong really.

 

[tris-]

looks like a monsoon has hit, wonder if the bloke will still come.

 

[Zita]

looks like a monsoon has hit, wonder if the bloke will still come.

aye. shit weather. they will still come tho. sky+ ftw ;d

 

[tris-]

what a joke, had it installed for a whole hour before the remote completley packed up.
it no longer works at all, no red light, the batteries work. fucking dog shit.

 

[Moriath]

shoulda gone to virgin