Taking existing Sky HD multiroom box to a new property

Associate
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24 Jan 2014
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Hi guys,

I'm looking to move to a new house with my fiancée, and was thinking of taking our existing Sky HD multiroom box from my parents' house and plugging it in at our new property.

I've been told there are the required two feeds at the property, which are seemingly still in working order, and was wondering if anyone knew what would happen if I hooked my existing box up.

Anyone know what my options would be?

Cheers
 
Caporegime
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You would be in breach of the multiroom terms and conditions. Those require the boxes to be used in the same house and to be connected to the same telephone line.

The box itself will be fine, the signal is the same.
 
Associate
OP
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Thanks for the replies guys. I'm not necessarily suggesting I try and hoodwink the box into thinking it's still in the same house. I just mean I'll be taking the box that is currently our second box.

If I hook it up will I be able to receive free to air satellite channels and use the recording/rewind facilities?
 
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Soldato
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You can use the boxes without the phone line in. I had my phone line in once when the installer set it all up, and then he told me to unplug it as I don't really need to have it in.

I ran my box that way for a year or 2 until I realised that it's a waste of monies.
 
Caporegime
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Thanks for the replies guys. I'm not necessarily suggesting I try and hoodwink the box into thinking it's still in the same house. I just mean I'll be taking the box that is currently our second box.

If I hook it up will I be able to receive free to air satellite channels and use the recording/rewind facilities?

No recording functions without either £10 a month to Sky or an active subscription.

You could subscribe yourself at half price for a year by sending me a trust message? :)
 
Caporegime
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I work for Sky and have a current friends and family new customer offer available. You need to activate your trust by clicking the 'trust' icon on one of your posts then do the same on one of my posts to to send me a message.
 
Associate
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I work for Sky and have a current friends and family new customer offer available. You need to activate your trust by clicking the 'trust' icon on one of your posts then do the same on one of my posts to to send me a message.

So what is the purpose of the trust messaging and what do you stand to gain from the arrangement? Clearly you're not going to give out an offer for nothing - which is fine - so I'd like to know how the system works, so to speak :)
 
Associate
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So what is the purpose of the trust messaging and what do you stand to gain from the arrangement? Clearly you're not going to give out an offer for nothing - which is fine - so I'd like to know how the system works, so to speak :)

Trust messaging is this forums way of doing private messages.
 
Soldato
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Since the change to "Multiscreen" you don't need to have 2 HD or plus subscriptions any more - so long as you have 2 Plus/HD boxes and 1 sub you're fine.

Also you don't have to have them connected to a phone line, so long as they are connected to the same Internet connection. If not they will eventually find out and bill you. You can get round this by using a VPN of course... Or by taking the risk as some people have gone years and been ok, others get done in the first month!

Or just get your own sub, your box will work fine but you get a free one with a new sub anyway so...
 
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Associate
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Thanks MissChief :)

I work for Sky and have a current friends and family new customer offer available. You need to activate your trust by clicking the 'trust' icon on one of your posts then do the same on one of my posts to to send me a message.

Just wanted to say a massive thanks to MissChief for the IAF code. We're now set up with TV, broadband and calls. Installation is on Monday :)

Just wondering if there's anything I can do with my existing HD box? Whether we could set it up upstairs at the new property to just receive the free to air channels and sky+ functionality, or whether it'd just be better to have a system link so we can continue watching TV when we go to bed.

If there was a way we could do both that'd be perfect, as we've got 90 odd % full of programmes on the existing box.

Any ideas guys?

Edit: P.S. I know we'd need the engineer to wire upstairs up ;)
 
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Caporegime
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Just wanted to say a massive thanks to MissChief for the IAF code. We're now set up with TV, broadband and calls. Installation is on Monday :)

Just wondering if there's anything I can do with my existing HD box? Whether we could set it up upstairs at the new property to just receive the free to air channels and sky+ functionality, or whether it'd just be better to have a system link so we can continue watching TV when we go to bed.

If there was a way we could do both that'd be perfect, as we've got 90 odd % full of programmes on the existing box.

Any ideas guys?

Edit: P.S. I know we'd need the engineer to wire upstairs up ;)

you cannot use a second box without a second card that is a fact so you need another card for it to work and sky charge for those cards.

iirc if you just want freesat then it's a one off payment of £15 for a card.

if you want to be able to record freesat to it then it's £10 a month, but why would you do this when multiroom sub is £11.25 and then you get all the channels? you would have to be stupid to do that in this scenario.

if you want to watch stuff that's already been recorded to it then it needs an active card inside it which has those channels subscribed to, e.g. if you have recorded something off sky movies, you need a card inside it which has a subscription to sky movies.


in your situation this is what I would do:

tell the engineer you already have a box when he comes round and that you want him to pair the card to this box rather than the new one in his van. tell him to just stick the new one in his possession to the side and you will keep that as a spare.

he won't agree to sending another sat feed anywhere else tbh because you have only got 1 subscription and he is only being paid to do 1 feed, unless he is a decent guy of course or you bribe him or talk him into it.

now if you want a second feed paying £10 a month to use a sky box for freesat would be stupid, when you can just buy a freesat box outright for less than £200 with no monthly fee for the same thing, in fact if you don't want the ability to record freesat you should get one for less than £100 outright.

imo you would be better off just getting freeview upstairs as you can get youview boxes which can record for less than £100 on gumtree and ebay sometimes brand new.


so therefore imo it's best not to have 2 sky boxes setup in your case unless you want to pay £11.25 extra a month for a multi room setup. if you want to do that then it would be best to phone up sky now and inform them of this.

any other questions feel free to ask.
 
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Associate
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Thanks for the help :)

Do sky still do the TV link? If so would that be a suitable option? There's only the two of us and we're both into (mostly) the same programmes so multiroom isn't really necessary.

If so is there any way of getting HD picture on second TV (maybe using a very long HDMI cable?) ? It's by no means a deal breaker if we couldn't get HD on second screen, but if there was a way it'd be good.

Cheers

Will
 
Caporegime
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Posts
38,372
Thanks for the help :)

Do sky still do the TV link? If so would that be a suitable option? There's only the two of us and we're both into (mostly) the same programmes so multiroom isn't really necessary.

If so is there any way of getting HD picture on second TV (maybe using a very long HDMI cable?) ? It's by no means a deal breaker if we couldn't get HD on second screen, but if there was a way it'd be good.

Cheers

Will

you need one of the old boxes which is magic eye compatible.

imo it's not really worth looking into if you don't have one already that is compatible.

using a long HDMI cable or a wireless HDMI sender could also work but they are expensive. the cable could be a PITA to setup.

your better off just having sky in 1 room and then freesat (and a humax box) in another tbh or sky in 1 room and freeview in the other (as freeview boxes are usually cheaper).

if you don't want to record in the second room then paying £15 for freesat card from sky could be the cheapest way of doing it (no box costs).


paying £10 a month to use their box for freesat though so you can record is a waste so no recording if you want to use their box essentially.
 
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Jez

Jez

Caporegime
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Thanks for the help :)

Do sky still do the TV link? If so would that be a suitable option? There's only the two of us and we're both into (mostly) the same programmes so multiroom isn't really necessary.

If so is there any way of getting HD picture on second TV (maybe using a very long HDMI cable?) ? It's by no means a deal breaker if we couldn't get HD on second screen, but if there was a way it'd be good.

Cheers

Will

Dont bother with TV link, the recent boxes dont support it anyway do they?

Ive run structured HDMI into my house through a 4-way HDMI splitter, one run is 16M long so HDMI can clearly travel the distance just fine.

For control use an IR repeater system, i use a wireless 433mhz Powermid system, multiple nodes mesh seamlessly with it, so you can have multiple control points if you wish to link to more than one remote tv.


Personally i wouldnt consider multiscreen/multiroom until planner sharing happens, which may do at some point. Until then its useless as all of your recordings are only available in one room. How people put up with that i am not quite sure, but i am certainly not willing to.
 
Caporegime
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Dont bother with TV link, the recent boxes dont support it anyway do they?

Ive run structured HDMI into my house through a 4-way HDMI splitter, one run is 16M long so HDMI can clearly travel the distance just fine.

For control use an IR repeater system, i use a wireless 433mhz Powermid system, multiple nodes mesh seamlessly with it, so you can have multiple control points if you wish to link to more than one remote tv.


Personally i wouldnt consider multiscreen/multiroom until planner sharing happens, which may do at some point. Until then its useless as all of your recordings are only available in one room. How people put up with that i am not quite sure, but i am certainly not willing to.

you can easily move one box from one room to the other if it's such a big deal

personally i only record and watch on one box mainly anyway so i don't care, should i want to watch something on the other box then i would record it on that one or move boxes.

it's a simple 2 minute job, unplug leads from back of box, do the same to other box and switch them.
 
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