Sky Pin

[doc]

This evening I tried to change channels on sage (connected to a normal sky box) and put on a movie channel. It changed channels like it should, but Sky then asked for a pin. I know they implemented something before on Sky+ where to watch something out of its recorded time slot you had to enter a pin, but this is a right PITA

Does anyone know if there's a way round this?

[jetsetjulez]

Exactly the same problem here doc.

Was trying to record a 15 rated film during the day and up pops the pin number request. I assume if I wasn't here then by time I returned and Sage had tried to change channel a few more times it would have caused a pin lockup.

I spoke to the wonderfully unhelpful SKY. Due to government legislation our Sky boxes HAVE to ask us for pin numbers before the watershed when showing us a none PG film.

This is not controllable - even with child film protection disabled on the menu it still asks for the safety of my none existant child.

I asked to escalate this - they told me basically ' tough luck its the law'. I am surprised therefore my DVD player doesnt PIN me if I try to watch a R film before 8pm at night.

GRRRRRR. There isn't even a sneaky way around this - we cant just pop the pin on the end of every channel change as it'd change channel again if there was no pin request. I SUPPOSE you could write some code into sage that says if its before the watershed ends and the film is above PG then add a 4 digit code to the channel change.... but friendly as the guys are at SageHQ I can't see it being a priority.

[doc]

It makes you wonder doesn't it, you'd think there'd be a setting on the sky box itself to turn the feature on and off....

I wonder if NTL have implemented such a scheme. If its government legislation then surely they must do too, not that it helps if they haven't, I can't get cable.

Sky are implementing new features aren't they, like setting your recording schedule on your sky plus box via the web, or via text from your mobile, and these features may work well together, but not when you use 3rd party software.

It looks to me like they're trying to restrict competition, shall we call them microsky!

[Mark SS]

Only way around this I can see would be to switch to using a DVB-S card once the support is built into Sage. Better picture quality as a bonus as well

[doc]

It looks like I've got some reading up to do then. I've just had a quick look at a forum and its all the decryption stuff thats above my head at the moment, but hopefully someone will have explained it nice and clearly somewhere.

I'll have to put this off until I get back off my holiday. Off to NZ and Oz in 3 days

[Mark SS]

Hopefully it will be working fully by then

You'll need a DVB-S card, Common Interface (CI) add-on for the card and a Conditional Access Module (CAM). To future proof I'd suggest:

Technotrend S2-3200 DVB-S/S2: ~£80
CI add-on: ~£15
T.Rex CAM: ~£80

We're hoping that some new software for the Diablo CAM will make it a better buy but its not definite yet. Diablo is a touch cheaper at around £60.

[silkshadow]

It looks like I've got some reading up to do then. I've just had a quick look at a forum and its all the decryption stuff thats above my head at the moment, but hopefully someone will have explained it nice and clearly somewhere.

I'm, obviously not in the UK, but I just started looking into this and found this article which helped me get started: http://www.compulink.co.uk/~drakesvision/digi5.htm and I'm not a serious tech guy.

My condolences on the PIN .