HTPC and Sky

Loke

Loke

Loke

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Joined
28 Apr 2010
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178
What equipment would I need to watch my own sky subscription via a HTPC?

The equipment I currently own is a PC with a GTX570 graphics card and a Hazro 27 inch monitor which has DVI-in only.

I have a dish and a sky+ box and a sky subscription.

Would I be able to hook the sky box to a TV card like a BlackGold and watch it?

Can I watch and record different channels in any way?

-Loke
 
Ive been using a slingbox to watch sky on a PC, works very well
although u have to watch the same channel as the tv.

also SKY does its own sky go for watching on pcs.
(though ive never used that)
 
Sky Go is great for on-the-move watching but no good for an HTPC. It has a few major issues:

- Limited number of channels
- 25p instead of 50i, so bad temporal resolution (which is important for sports especially)
- Awful software for video (Silverlight), meaning that even with the fastest PC in the world, you'll never get smooth playback.
- No way to stay logged in once the browser is closed.

As for using Sky in an HTPC, good luck finding out how to do it. I've read loads about it, looking for what equipment I need, where I can get it, and how to put it all together. However, I'm still not entirely sure how to do it. There are some older threads on various forums but their methods aren't relevant any more since Sky changed their encryption cards.

Also, I think you'll need a DVB-S2 card with a CI slot, which rules out all of the BlackGold models. In addition to that, I *think* you need a CAM and a CAM programmer, plus you need to move your Sky decryption card back into the Sky+ HD box it came from every few weeks to stop it deactivating. It'll cost you a couple of hundred quid in total even if you already have an HTPC.
 
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I'm doing this at the moment, but the best advice is to get over to AVForums there's a massive thread in there, just read it all and then ask any questions if you're stuck.

Here's how mine works, please note I do have a full Sky Subscription with multiroom, so this solution isn't circumventing the Sky subscription as it requires a valid card to work.

HTPC with dual DVB-S2 tuners, 4 feeds
DVBLink Software
ACAMD plugin for DVBLink

Network and satellite attached Dreambox DM500 clone running NewCS and CCCam (need to move to OSCAM so that card entitlements will update without putting the card back in the Sky Box - at the moment it's about once a month-6weeks).

Basically the DM500 handles the card decryption and passes this back to DVBLink on the HTPC when a channel is requested. There's other options to handle this such as USB card readers, but from reading up, while it is a slicker solution the software doesn't seem to be as reliable on Windows 7, so I've stuck with the Dreambox as it just works.

It'll cost about £100 for a DM500 and software for HTPC, plus your DVB-S2 tuners, so it's quite expensive. Then with all the config files etc to set it up give yourself half a day, and then maybe another half a day for setting up the guide how you want it.

Unlike Sky any transponder changes won't be automatic, so give yourself 1-2hrs per month (usually less) to update channels etc.
 
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Robbie G said:
It all seems a mighty faff when you could just buy a pvr box.
Click to expand...

As it's Sky you will probably already have the box anyway - so if it's too much work no need to buy anything.

It comes down to the individual to understand what the advantages/disadvantages and weighing it up for themselves. But it certainly is possible :)
 
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