Sky Just checking

[ChrisHill]

Hi,
Ive just bought sky with a basic package. No HD. Though it comes with Sky+ (I got it free). Though even sky+ is nothing compared with sage hehe.

I've been reading though a lot about it on these forums but just wanted to check with people running it that Im doing the right thing, its a fair bit of money to set it up.

Im going to buy:
http://www.pulsat.com/satellite/site...product_id=277
Oasis 2 CAM

http://www.dvbshop.net/product_info....aTV-32-64.html

Technotrend S2 3200.

I know the card is HD, thats just furture proof for me. It includes the CI.

Questions:
1)Is this everything I will need (Hardware or software)?
2)Will it pick up the sky epg like sage does for my dvb-t card? Or do I need to run an xml grabber for it?
3).Is there any programming required to get it running?
4). Is DVBViewer needed/useful?

I think a few people around might have this setup, has it proved ok?


Thanks, I just want to get things right.

[stux]

Hi Chris
I personally went down the FireDTV route and I have no experience of the technotrend products but I can still provide some answers for your questions.

1. Yes, it looks complete but seeing as you mention sky+ it is worth commenting that you will not be able to record one channel and watch another as you only have a single decoder, unlike sky+.

2. No, you need to do some work to get epg info. The best route I have found is by using digiguide, madaxeman's digiguide to xmltv convert tool and then Stephane's xmltv import tool. There is a post in this UK section which has some screenshots of how to get this up and running.

3. No programming.

4. DVBViewer is useful. What I have found is that Sage has a bit of trouble tuning directly to certain channels. Sky Sports 1 for example quite often tuned into a sky bet sub channel, some other channels wouldn't tune at all. The way I cured this was using Stephane's DVBViewer network encoder. Now all works reliably.

So all in all, by using the tools developed by Madaxeman and Stephane (see http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29627 and http://www.lmgestion.net) you can get a really nice sky media centre up and running.

[ChrisHill]

Thanks for the reply.

I have used xmltv before the over the air epg came out for sage. So thats fine.

Does FireDTV just connect by firewire?

Do you still need a cam for it?

Any suggestionsons good places to buy it?

I assume you can change channels through sage and FireDTV? ie. when viewing over mvps.

I like that Sky+ give you two tunners but sadly it doesnt give you the ncie functions that sage does, like multi room through mvps. Im not to bothered as I got sky+ free as part of invite a friend .

[stux]

No problem.

There are two versions of the fire product, the floppydtv is internal and firedtv is external. Both connect via firewire. They come with a CI slot but you do need a cam, I went for a Dragon CAM with Predator firmware.

I bought the lot from http://www.digital-everywhere.com but now they list a UK based reseller http://www.kustompcs.co.uk as the place to buy from - they list stock available too.

You can certainly change channels when viewing over an mvp, it operates just like the client software itself although my mvp is a bit unstable. I also have a HD100 extender which is brilliant - certainly the way to go in my opinion.

[ChrisHill]

Great thanks again for the advice. I have a cynergy duel tunner stuck in there already for freeview so I wont use sky a massive amount (it will probably sit on sky one forever). Great stuff to know though. Thanks.