SKY DIGITAL TO HD ?

[simonpolly]

I have a sky digtal box and dish complete with the cable which i do not use.i've been looking on screwfix and labgear do a hd kit,can i use the cable that is allready linking the sky dish to the digtal box for hd sat ?

 

[streetlighter]

If the Sky minidish LNB and cable are still in good working order then yes its simply a matter of plugging in the lead from the dish to the HD box from the kit and doing a channel scan.
If the dish hasnt been used for a while it may need realignment or posably a replacment LNB ( thing on the end cable goes into ) and recabling.
An old Sky minidish is better quality than the cheap nasty dish they put in these free satellite kits.

 

[plugwash]

Freesat and sky use the same system so no problems there.

Be aware though that multi-tuner boxes need a seperate feed for each tuner so if you want to use a twin tuner box (most recorder boxes are twin tuner) to it's full potential you will need a LNB with at least two outputs (may as well get at least a quad for expansion to more rooms later) and two runs of sat grade coax to the box.

 

[ericmark]

HD boxes normally need twin feed to work HD bit. So likely you will need to run second cable to LNB.
I note Aldi are doing kit for £59.99 not sure on quality. I have noted in past that many free-to-air boxes don't have full program guide but do allow you to scan for just free channels and you can delete all the rubbish and reorder the way they are displayed.
The more expensive boxes have a full 7 day guide.
However it is near impossible to find out what the boxes do when bought from screwfix or aldi
If it says "Freesat" then I think this means 7 day EPG but if just called "Free to Air" often only now and next. Sometimes you can get more one which we got from Turkey did do full 24 hours but not like sky where you can view 10 programs at a time you could only view listing of program you were turned into. All the programs work it is only the program guide which is different.

 

[simonpolly]

Cheers for taking the time to answer,so is it just a case of connecting a hd box to the old cable and as long as the dish and lnb are still ok it will work,or do i need to re cable it ?,i only intend on using it in one room where the cable from the sky mini dish enters the house.

 

[Monkeh]

Unless the cable has been damaged or has decayed, why would you need to change it?

 

[simonpolly]

Unless the cable has been damaged or has decayed, why would you need to change it?

I did not know if HD SAT used the same cable as SKY DIGITAL or even if hd needed more than one copper path ?E.G one for the picture and one for the sound.

 

[Monkeh]

Unless the cable has been damaged or has decayed, why would you need to change it?

I did not know if HD SAT used the same cable as SKY DIGITAL

75Ω coax is 75Ω coax, assuming the shielding is sufficient. I doubt yours will be lacking if it's a Sky install, just rotting..

or even if hd needed more than one copper path ?E.G one for the picture and one for the sound.

No.

 

[ChrisFrost]

HD boxes normally need twin feed to work HD bit. So likely you will need to run second cable to LNB.

That's not actually correct. The reason for the second cable is to support dual tuners. It's got nothing to do with HD.

It would be perfectly possible to have a Sky HD box connected with a single LNB cable. It would work and receive HD channels - You just wouldn't be able to record one channel whilst watching another.

A single LNB cable in to a Freesat HD TV works just the same way. HD via a single cable. No second cable required. In fact, the Panasonic TV's I have installed which have Freesat HD built in only have a single satellite cable connection - so it is impossible to connect two LNB feeds. QED - HD via a single cable

 

[plugwash]

Heck SKY+ HD boxes even have an option in the installer menu to tell them they only have a single LNB feed.