SKY TV In More Than One Room?

[Invisibabe]

Hi guys,

In short, I want to have SKY in more than one room.

The full story is longer, but I'll keep it to the facts so that it doesn't get too complicated!

Some years ago, at a previous address, I had bog-standard SKY in my living room (downstairs) and then I upgraded to SKY+.

When I updgraded, rather than just swapping the old box out for the new one and leaving it at that, I had the engineer (who was very very helpful!) work a bit harder for me.

Firstly, I said that I wanted to be able to use the old box (the bog-standard SKY one) on a TV I had upstairs, so that I could go up there to watch something else when my then-gf was watching X Factor (or whatever nonsense she was into).

To facilitate this, he connected a further cable up to the satellite dish for me. This meant that I now had two different cables coming from the one dish - one going downstairs to the SKY+ box and one going upstairs to the old box.

I told the engineer that in addition to what he'd just hooked up for me, I'd also like to be able to watch the SKY+ signal on the TV upstairs as well (so that I could see things I'd recorded, rather than just the 'live' broadcast)

To facilitate this, he ran an additional cable from the back of the SKY+ box. The first one was obviously already going from the SKY+ box to the downstairs TV, and now there was a second one, which went from the box to the upstairs TV.

I owned both boxes, and as far as I recall, having two boxes connected to one dish didn't cost more than having just one box connected to the dish, and this worked really really well.

Fast forward a number of years and I'm with a different girl and have just moved into her place.

She has SKY Q downstairs, and I was thinking it'd be good to have something upstairs too, like what I had in the 'olden days' (if possible) using the SKY+ box (which I brought from my last place) as the second/upstairs box.

This isn't proving to be straight-forward!

The first thing I did was disconnect her SKY Q box from the dish, and connect my SKY+ box instead. All I got was a message on the TV screen telling me that there was no signal.

So, I called SKY, got connected to an 'overseas' call centre, and asked what the story was.

I was told that the cable from the dish to the house is only for SKY Q, no other SKY box will work on it.

I was told that if I want SKY upstairs I have to get some 'SKY Q Mini Box' for upstairs, which would be wireless and feed off the main box downstairs. It would also cost an extra £12 p/m for the privilege!

When I asked if I could run a second cable from the dish (which would go to my SKY+ box upstairs) I was told that it was not possible to have a second cable running from the dish.

When I asked if it would at least be possible to have an additional cable connected to the SKY Q box and run it to the TV upstairs I was told that it's not possible to have more than one TV connected to the box.

So, either SKY is now using technology which is far less friendly to customers (but far more friendly to generating even more income for SKY)

or

The dude I spoke with was giving me, either purposefully or through incompetence, some duff advice.

Are any of you guys clued up on this stuff enough to tell me what the deal really is? I would be very very grateful

 

[turanafon]

The Sky Q uses a different LNB on the dish, that is why the old sky boxes are no longer compatible.
So is a mini sky Q wireless box worth £££ a month to you is the question.?

Or just get an aerial and have Freeview upstairs ?

 

[Lucid]

Sky Q is a very different system to the Sky Digital you've been used to; so you weren't getting duff advice, it's just that trying to explain the technicalities in a phone call to someone who really just wants to hear "Sure, yes you can do that " is a bit of a fools errand.

With Sky Digital, each box is an island. They work independently of each other. The cables might go to a single dish, but the lump on the end of the arm (the LNB) is the equivalent of having four satellite dishes. Each cable goes to a separate LNB module that is independently controlled from its three neighbours in a Quad LNB configuration. This is the first point of difference with Sky Q.

Thinking now about the Sky Digital recorder boxes, there are two signal inputs, or two tuners if you will. This allows one live channel and one recording of a live channel simultaneously. A Q 'Silver' box has 12 tuners. Yet it only has two LNB feeds going to it. That's not possible with a Sky Digital LNB or recorder, yet the Q system achieves it. This is because the way the systems work is very difference, and it's why you were told that the Q LNB won't work with a standard Sky Digital box.

I mentioned that the Sky Digital boxes are like islands. Q boxes aren't. The main recorder is a hub device thanks to its 12 tuners. The Q mini boxes are dumb terminals. They have no tuner and no recording facility. They rely instead on accessing content from the main Q box.

The Q system can support up to four minis, but only two of them live at any one time. The Q box also supports two independent feeds for tablets/smart phones and will record up to 6 channels at the same time. All of this from two feeds from the special LNB.

You said that you had a Sky Digital box upstairs, and also a link from the lounge +box to the upstairs TV too, and that having the seconcd box upstairs didn't cost you any extra. Well, if you were watching Sky's version of Freeview upstairs - a basic channel package that didn't include anything requiring a subscription - then that would explain no costs for box 2.

The RF2 Out cable link to the +box allowed you to watch it live or play back any recordings. Again, no cost for that except the initial hardware and cabling; it was a feature of the older boxes.

Okay. That summarises where you were. Now here's where you are...

The Q box has no RF2 Out at all. End of story. The standard Q LNB doesn't support legacy Sky Digital boxes. There is a hybrid LNB, but AFAIK it has to be specified at the time of installation if you want it as a no cost option from Sky; and you have to make the case that this is required to support a a feature that you had with Sky Digital that Sky Q cannot replicate. An example would be the feeds to Freesat TVs or Freesat recorders.

What Sky won't do is accept a request to add a Sky Digital subscription (required to support the recording features on a +box) in to a home that already has Sky Q fitted. Likewise, if you want to retro fit a hybrid LNB then I think your best route would be a local Aerial & Satellite installer. Sky will do this, but it's a costed option and not a free service.

It is possible to take the HDMI feed from a Q recorder box and convert the signal so it will travel over coax. However, the hardware to do it is £150 and there are a few catches too.

The first is that the additional TVs have to have a Freeview HD tuner. If they don't, then they won't be able to tune in to the signal. The second catch is that this does not work for any 4K UHD content played from the box. On a positive note, the signal quality via this new way of connecting is at 1080i HD, so it knocks spots off what you were used to with RF2 Out. The second thing is that the system will pass through IR Eye control signals.

If this and any other posts helped you, then pay the authors the compliment of hitting the thanks button. It shows your appreciation and marks the reply for those looking for answers in the future.

 

[Invisibabe]

Lucid, thank you so much for such a detailed response, that is very much appreciated!