hi i currently have normal sky in salou spain - however the box is on its way out and want to replace it but need sky+ ideally - any ideas on the best boxes to use

my subscription is in the uk and i have no issues getting a box from there

any advice would be appreciated

thanks

I have a sky+ box which I brought from UK and it works fine. I am told the tuners are better than those in standard boxes. No doubt our resident Sky expert will give you a heads up.

I have found that the best Sky+ boxes for my area are the Pace 3100 and the slightly newer 470NB - with tuners the same (just) as the Pace 2600 (was and still be best standard sky box!) but these are no longer produced.
These Pace Sky+ boxes handle some of the weaker signals better than the Amstrads and Thomsons that are currently available, as the latter two have slightly worse perfoming tuners inside.

I would assume that most boxes should be OK in your area - Salou - where the signals are stronger and available on smaller dishes than us further down the coast!

You will have to get your card paired to the Sky box for the recording and HDD functions to work - and they require two cables from the LNB to the receiver - to allow for the "watch one channels whilst recording another". Sky+ HHD features are incorportated into your subscription.

HD boxes - the Samsung HD box performs even better than the legendary Pace 2600 - but dont go for an Amstrad HD box - unless you have a good "returns" point...lots of peeople have had many problems with them. BBC HD and ITV HD are available for free, even without a Sky card. C4HD and Five HD require a Sky card. All other HD channel need the Sky HD upgrade - an extra £10 per month (although all sorts rumours about this over the next few months)


Suppost this is a good time to mention that as part of its price review, Sky Sports channels will be increasuing in price - for SS1 and SS2 (SS3 and SS$ are bonus channels) yuor subs will be increasing by £3 per month - SKy say this is due to the increased amount of live sports they are carrying and that you are getting a further 15plus Premier League games for the next 3 seasons.


Hope this helps

What are these rumours about HD subscription? Cannot believe they are increasing the price of the sports channels. Will have to relook at our subscription.

There are rumours that how the extra £10 HD charge is applied will be changed.

One rumour (unconfirmed rumour but most likely!) is that is you sub to the Sky Sports channels then you get HD SPorts as part of that sub - without having to pay the extra £10 HD sub - and the £3 increase is the cost to cover dropping this HD charge. It also look, (again unconfirmed) that from October, if you join HD then you will only get the HD channels for the mixes you are on, and not the HD channel of the mixes you are not on (so you will only get MTV HD if you sub to the music mix). Again, all unconfirmed and rumours, but announcement expected towards September.

I am already stocking up on HD boxes - the new 500g ones that are 3d compatiable!

So if you subscribed to the full package in HD, if the rumours are correct, you wouldn´t pay the 10 GBP sub but would pay 3GBP for the sports?

No, if one of the rumours is correct then:

If you subscribed to the full package (6 mixes and Movies and Sports) then they are suggesting that you wouldn´t pay the 10 GBP HD sub.

Sky Sports subscription is being inncrease by £3 anyway, no matter if you take HD or not.

I am picking up my new sky plus box in a couple of weeks.

So we would save 7 GBP.

If that is what happens.
But nothing yet from Sky about it being true or not....so its just rumouring ATM

Although in this months SKy mag there is a bit on their restructure of the HD channels and your packs

The article in the latest Sky Mag states:

The final paragraph seems to contradict para 2 (unless they mean, your ok until October)?

All Sky HD boxes are 3d compatible.