Sky in another room without paying for multiroom?

Draeger

Draeger

Draeger

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Joined
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Hi,

I've just bough a new smart TV, an LG 42 575. Should arrive at some point next week. When it does I'd like to move my old 32" Hitachi LCD into the bedroom and wall mount it. The missus has expressed a wish to be able to watch Sky in there but I don't want to pay for multiroom. All I'd like to do is have the basic facility to view Sky in the bedroom via our Sky+ HD box downstairs in the living room. I don't care if it's the case that the Sky+ box downstairs needs to be on and whatever is on downstairs is what ends up getting watched upstairs. There's no need for me to be able to watch two different channels at once. Just basic Sky piped to the bedroom is all I need.

How best to achieve this? Only provisos are that I don't want to get involved in cutting holes and running cables and I'd like to be able to at least control what is being watched in the bedroom with the Sky remote (magic eye thingy required?). We have one of those Sky Anytime on demand wireless box things downstairs attached to the TV but I think that just streams on demand stuff rather than gives you access to normal viewing channels?

I realise this question has probably been asked previously but I did do a search for 'Sky in another room' and it came up with nothing conclusive. Any advice greatly appreciated. :)
 
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You could try an HDMI video sender, but my experience of them isn't good. Alternatively you could use a Slingbox setup if you have network access in the bedroom.
 
No network access in the bedroom, O2 wirelessbox router is downstairs. I was hoping for something 'plug and play' which hooked up direct to the TV and received a wireless signal from something downstairs to transmit the Sky feed rather than have anything like a laptop or games console in between the setup. Does anything like that exist? We also looked at the NowTV boxes but as far as I can tell those don't allow you to watch the 'normal' free channels on Sky (BBC, ITV, C4 and 5 plus all the kids stuff like Nick Jr, Tinypop etc)?
 
Draeger said:
Only provisos are that I don't want to get involved in cutting holes and running cables and I'd like to be able to at least control what is being watched in the bedroom with the Sky remote (magic eye thingy required?).
Click to expand...

Sky Magic Eyes only work when there's a direct cable connection from the bedroom back to the lounge box. If there are no aerial wires in the bedroom at all then this is not an option.
 
lucid said:
Sky Magic Eyes only work when there's a direct cable connection from the bedroom back to the lounge box. If there are no aerial wires in the bedroom at all then this is not an option.
Click to expand...

I see, didn't realise that. Are there alternatives? As in a wireless/cableless alternative way of controlling the channels upstairs?
 
Draeger said:
I see, didn't realise that. Are there alternatives? As in a wireless/cableless alternative way of controlling the channels upstairs?
Click to expand...
Yes. There are wireless video senders with IR control back to the box. The cheaper ones use a basic video signal from SCART or the composite video + audio connections (yellow, red, white). The picture quality can be a bit worse than an aerial feed down to ruddy awful. HDMI video senders offer potentially better picture quality but they're trying to send a hell of a lot more data over the link. Results can be very hit and miss. They're also far more expensive.

All wireless solutions share the same channel bands as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cordless phones, wireless video cams etc etc. The results and reliability you'll get depend entirely on the quality and stability of the wireless network in your house. Remember too, there's no facility to buffer with these devices. So if the signal drops or is intermittent then you lose your picture very quickly. Running cable is a PITA and sometimes not possible at all if you are renting. But once installed it is a rock solid connection.
 
We were in this position a while back and we rang up Sky and asked them for their very best deal which was £3 if we took out movies for 6months or something which is something we already intended to do.
 
lucid said:
Yes. There are wireless video senders with IR control back to the box. The cheaper ones use a basic video signal from SCART or the composite video + audio connections (yellow, red, white). The picture quality can be a bit worse than an aerial feed down to ruddy awful. HDMI video senders offer potentially better picture quality but they're trying to send a hell of a lot more data over the link. Results can be very hit and miss. They're also far more expensive.

All wireless solutions share the same channel bands as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cordless phones, wireless video cams etc etc. The results and reliability you'll get depend entirely on the quality and stability of the wireless network in your house. Remember too, there's no facility to buffer with these devices. So if the signal drops or is intermittent then you lose your picture very quickly. Running cable is a PITA and sometimes not possible at all if you are renting. But once installed it is a rock solid connection.
Click to expand...

Cool, thanks for that. The TV in the bedroom will only get limited use for when the missus wants to watch it in the evening and occasionally when our 3 year old want's it on if he is playing upstairs. So overall picture quality only needs to be 'good', I'm not really looking for crystal clear perfection.

So let me get this right - I could use a wireless video sender which will allow picture and sound to be displayed upstairs but the 'magic eye' thing is a no-go as it needs to be cabled to the Sky+ box downstairs? Is there any way to get the Sky remote working so channels can be changed etc upstairs without the need for cabling to be involved?
 
Yeah, it's like I wrote before.
lucid said:
Yes. There are wireless video senders with IR control back to the box.
Click to expand...
These senders don't use the Sky Eye system but they do have their own solution.

As long as you're not buying the cheapest of the cheap, then what you should get is a bedroom box with an infra red receiver. This picks up the signals from a Sky remote. The box in the living room has an infra red emitter. If you check the specs you'll find a box where the emitter is on the end of a wire rather than built in to a window in the front of the transmitter. The cable is better. This means the emitter can be placed in front of the Sky box while the rest of the wireless link lives more out of sight. The emitter sends out the signals picked up from the bedroom box. This is how you do all the Sky box features and functions exactly the same as if sitting in front of the box in the living room. There might be a second or so delay while the infra red is sent downstairs, but it will work so long as there's a wireless connection.
 
You can get wireless video senders that use different frequency ranges to help minimise interference in busy wifi areas. My Mum uses one of them and it works ok. It looks alright on her portable TV but would think it would look not so good on a 32" TV.

I just ran a hdmi cable and used a wireless remote sender to get hd in another room and then also ran it upstairs so had 3 TVs I could watch it on.
 
Tbh an extra £3 per week is nothing tbh to have sky in another room so long as it's just 1 room your after.

If you really grudge paying it then laptop with hdmi out or hook up a pc to the TV and use sky go. Or just go free view or freesat.

Depends on your own situation what is best for you. If you have a small house then running hdmi is no issue in a large house it obviously will be, etc.

How much do these wireless systems cost and how good the quality is also impacts whether or not they may be worth considering.

You could also use a local network card sharing server setup.
 
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