sky plus
 

hi, i am in uk at the mo. can anybody tell me if i can buy a sky plus unit in uk and use it in spain. I only have a free view card.
thanks, pat

Re: sky plus
 

Our SKY + box from the UK works here fine, although the sat man who re fitted it here said that he has a lot of the boxes fail over here, but I think thats just inherent in the standard SKY box that SKY supply.

Re: sky plus
 

Yes ours works just fine. The main problems with them I believe is the power surges but there isn't much we can do about them!

Re: sky plus
 

Except buy a power surge protector ;)

Re: sky plus
 

Valid point but some of them still melt (great power in the south lol)

Re: sky plus
 

The quality of SKY + boxes has had quite a lot of coverage on the BBC programme Watchdog, seems some people have had up to 5 fail and have to be replaced, if you've got one that works, keep it.

Re: sky plus
 

thanks for your replies BUT..I have a sky freeview card...... now... can I still buy a sky plus box here in UK and take it out to spain and use it with the free view card, I dont want to buy one if its no good with this card.I dont have a subscription with sky.
thanks, pat

Re: sky plus
 

Don't know to much about this, we have pink and blue jobs in our house and this is a blue job. We brought our sky box with us (no subscription with sky) we had a small dish on the roof left by the previous owners and we picked up very limited English speaking channels, (not the main ones) lots of Germany and some Spanish as we were not living here full time that suited us fine.

Once we moved here we invested in the biggest satellite dish you could imagine and bought the basic sky card from the man who fitted up the dish
(90 euros for the card). We receive enough channels to keep us happy as we are not great TV watchers. I do not think your free to view card will work here certainly not without a dish. If I am wrong I am sure some one will correct me.:p

Re: sky plus
 

I was under the impression that a Sky + box will not work as a recorder unless you either pay Sky £10/mth or have a premium subscription.

Without it, it behaves just like an ordinary Digibox.

Can someone confirm that?

Re: sky plus
 

Buy a DVD recorder, cheap as chips now.

Re: sky plus
 

The sky+ box uses a hard drive to record; and the workings of it are all just electronics. It works because the double LNB brings in two separate signals, so you can either stop/start the action or watch one program while you record another.

The subscriptions are just for the two lots of signal you are using - the card says what programs you can watch.

Re: sky plus
 

I may be missing something, but why on earth would you want Sky here ????????

Re: sky plus
 

Ooo!!!!. Now you've done it :rofl::rofl: Get yer tin hat on :D

Re: sky plus
 

They've just dropped the £10 subscription for non-premium subscribers. The box has full functionality now for all subscribers (min £15/month package).

It won't have Sky+ fuctionality with a Freesat card.

I've got an original 2001 Sky+ box, still going strong, although I did put an 80gb hard drive in last year when the original 40gb one went kaput!!

Re: sky plus
 

1. To watch golf. Spanish golf coverage is woeful. A couple of weeks ago Teledeportes (a Spanish freeview channel) covered the Spanish Ladies Open from Castellón.

Tee shot, quick ad break, ball landing!!

Long put, quick ad break, ball in hole!!


2. Too many more reasons to mention...

Re: sky plus
 

Must be ex Sky staff in control room. ;-)

Re: sky plus
 

You must explain this to me when I see you next

Re: sky plus
 

Totally agree with you. Do not need Sky, do not need English progs.

Rosemary

Re: sky plus
 

Sorry Rosemary ... cant do without my footie and wimbledon, Nip Tuck & Deadwood

Re: sky plus
 

The trouble with Spanish TV is they show stuff like Nip/Tuck, Lost and Desperate Housewives, but they ruin them with dubbing.

Why can't they subtitle them like the Brits and US do with foreign language films/programmes?

Re: sky plus
 

You can change the language on Desperate Housewives - not sure about anything else-

Rosemary

Re: sky plus
 

Unfortunately I can't get a DTT signal where I live and apart from Canal Nou and Punt 2 non of the channels broadcast in Nicam stereo (needed for dual soundtracks).

Don't they show Desperate Housewives a strange way here? First they show an episode from the current third season and without an ad break or credits they then show an old episode from season two!!

Re: sky plus
 

I can confirm that the SKY+ box will only work if you have a SKY contract package , it used to only activate if on Premium channels (SKy Movies or Sky Sports), but the offering changed from Sky I think last month, So it wont allow access to the record and premium functions, The FTV card should if you have the right size dish, dependent on where your give you the normal FTV channels which require the FTV card , IE CH4/5 Sky 3 etc.

On the subject of surge protectors, dont waste your money on these as in Spain the surges are really wild swings, and outside the capability of most units,
There is a very good UPS unit sold by Media Mart, made by MGE, primarily designed for Computer protection, but the 750VA model for about 165€ will give a good level of protection, and more importantly stop the little blips in supply cutting out your systems, With the 800VA you should be able to run your Sky Box, TV and Video/DVD for about 30mins in a power cut. and never see the little blips atall,,, also saves on having to reset your SKy box on occasion.

Re: sky plus
 

Ah well, the three surge protectors I bought are useless then!!! In Dabs they are selling Belkin Battery backups (800VA) for £38.99 + VAT. But I have to wait till I'm in the UK as don't think they deliver to Spain :(

Re: sky plus
 

S**t,. that is a really good price, have you got a URL to order online, or you can bring me back a few!!, and to top it all Belkin have a good name for quality!!

Re: sky plus
 

This is the link for the 800

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...&cl=4294963687

And this is the link for the 600

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...1032&InMerch=1

It says they only ship to UK addresses though.

Re: sky plus
 

Hi Iam an installert in Spain almost all sky plus boxes work in southern Spain.
However unless you have at least the family pack of mixes you cannot use the record and pause facility,unless you pay mr Murdoch £10 a month just to record.

Re: sky plus
 

Yes, I use one and it's really scary when all the lights go out and the TV still works!

Re: sky plus
 

Hi

I followed the DAB links and it says that both the Belkin 800VA and 600VA supply 12 volts to the connected equipment.

How does this help mains operated equipment suvh as TV Sky Box etc??

Jim

Re: sky plus
 

I think you have misunderstood the situation. They use a battery which supplies 12v to the inverter which provides 230v to the attached equiopment.

Re: sky plus
 

Hi Fred

Thanks for that you are quite right.

Would heve been helpful if they had used words like inverter somewhere in the description, rather than "power device" which is as about as ambiguous as you can get.

My New Years resolution must be " Be less sceptical of the claims made for cheap equipment".

I knew that I shouldn't have spent those years as an ITSEC certifier it's completely warped my judgement and faith in my fellow man.

Jim

Re: sky plus
 

Hi Solarwhizz

Before you part with your hard earned money checkout the customer review on the 800VA model, if he's right think of the fun you'll have with your customers. Belkin US rate 800VA as being a capacity of just over 400 watts.

Can't be sure but this looks like a superceded model as the latest ones all seem to refer to AVR and Dabs doesn't appear to be listed as main dealer.

Jim