Re: Sky digiboxes

French Satellite TV, French Internet and Telephone

Sky digiboxes

Bannon 02/05/2008, 6:49

Not sure how this is going to affect things but the news is that as well as Pace and Thomson ceasing production of them, Sky are no longer going to allow the direct sale of digiboxes. You will now only be able to get them direct from ASA's (Authorised Sky Agents) which effectively means you will now need to subscribe to Sky in order to get one. Unless anybody knows different.

The better news is the we should see Channels Four and Five going out unecrypted in a few months thus removing the need to have a Sky box and a viewing card to get them.

Cheers guys.

Re: Sky digiboxes

Rayring 02/05/2008, 7:15
I don't think we need to worry, dozens available every day on e-bay.

Re: Sky digiboxes

Ron Avery 02/05/2008, 7:20
With the amount of ex SKY digi boxes on eBay at an all time high as people in the UK upgrade to HD, I suspect that there will be a good supply of old boxes for a few years yet. You can also get most of the decent FTA channels on a French box, except of course notably Chs 4, 5 , 5-US, FIVER and SKY 3. If 4 and 5 go FTA there won't be much worth watching that a French digi box will not get, failing that there is always French TV Smile [:)]

Why not post a sensible answer, people will appreciate it more

Re: Sky digiboxes

Bannon 02/05/2008, 8:01
..... not everybody wants a second hand digibox though, but as you say - there are decent French boxes around cheaper that the non-subsidised ones although the instructions can have your scratching your head. There does seem to be a reluctance to have instructions in English on lots of items over here and no, I'm not complaining :-)

Re: Sky digiboxes

Ron Avery 02/05/2008, 8:10

There does seem to be a reluctance to have instructions in English on lots of items over here

............ might be something to do with the fact that the plugs are completely different, so the models for the UK market have different plugs and instruction leaflets, to those sold in mainland Europe.

Why not post a sensible answer, people will appreciate it more

Re: Sky digiboxes

Martinwatkins 02/05/2008, 8:14
Ch 4 is of course already free to air. I posted this fact three weeks ago. If you have a Sky box but no card then you need to add it to "other channels" as the 104 position is still the encrypted version.. If you have a non sky box you would also need to add it.

With the arrival of Freesat one would hope that a Sky box would only be of any use IF one wanted to subscribe to a Sky paying package. As the boxes are deliberately crippled by Murdoch they are a bad buy now that there is a better alternative for free to air stuff, ie a proper Freesat box with it's own full non-Sky EPG.

Re: Sky digiboxes

Martinwatkins 03/05/2008, 8:37
Actually I see that the audio has been muted on the ch 4 FTA feed on 10729 MHz. (I'm not a daily watcher of ch 4)

I suppose one can still enjoy the racing. And one assumes they will turn the sound back on in time for the Freesat launch.

I've seen a few odd methods to discourage people from watching test transmissions in the past but putting up the full service for two weeks and then removing the sound seems one of the dafter ideas....

Incidentally, I wonder if the sub titles are functioning....?

Re: Sky digiboxes

Martinwatkins 06/05/2008, 7:45
Ch 4 have now re-instated their audio in time for the launch of Freesat this lunchtime

One would indeed think so.

Re: Sky digiboxes

Gyn_Paul 06/05/2008, 8:57
Martin - am I right in assuming that the EPG for Freesat will only work with the approved boxes? Or is it a stand-alone transponder (probably a bit unfair to ask this at 10h00!) ?

paul

"Don't think of them as problems, think of them as opportunities."
"OK, I think I've hit an insurmountable opportunity!"

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