Sky + advice plaese

Hi,

Old faithful, my very old Pace (one of the first) Sky Digital reciever is
packing up.

From what I understand my standard Sky card (basic mixes only 21 £ a month)
will from this summer be able to use with all functionality in a Sky + box,
right?

So if i get one of these and a Quad LNB instead of another old box, apart
from a slightly higher cost, I will get the functionality of the Sky + box.

Now, living in a a fringe area (Sweden...) I would appreciate a sensitive
tuner, any advice on what make to go for, a new Pace any good?

Next question would be, if anyone knows if my card would work in a HD
reciever (seeing that HD boxes are only 40-50 £ costlier on Ebay), it would
be interesting. I realize that I will not get any HD channels, but would i
get the basic mixes with my card? If so the difference would be worth it
just to see if the HD streams as such are good enough in my area, bofore
eventually considering upgrading the sub. Anf of copurse such closeness to
HD sources could trigger the wife to help me (ok, allow me) to fork out for
a nice HD TV.

Any thoughts appreciated...

Martin

"Anthony R. Gold" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 21:22:19 GMT, "Martin" wrote:

From what I understand my standard Sky card (basic mixes only 21 £ a
month)
will from this summer be able to use with all functionality in a Sky +
box,
right?

I only read that the upgrade would become free but not that it would be
done automatically. But if you are now using a standard box then you will
need to get your card paired to your new Sky+ box, so it would not require
an extra call anyway.


True and the first thing they will say now is "your box needs to be
connected to a (uk) phone line for a call-back".

"steeler" skrev i meddelandet
m...

"Anthony R. Gold" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 21:22:19 GMT, "Martin" wrote:

From what I understand my standard Sky card (basic mixes only 21 £ a
month)
will from this summer be able to use with all functionality in a Sky +
box,
right?

I only read that the upgrade would become free but not that it would be
done automatically. But if you are now using a standard box then you
will
need to get your card paired to your new Sky+ box, so it would not
require
an extra call anyway.


True and the first thing they will say now is "your box needs to be
connected to a (uk) phone line for a call-back".

OK, thank you both for your input, so I am to understand that, unlike
standard sky digiboxes with no premium channels, Sky+ boxes needs to be
paired to the card?
As for the phone line and pairing, I thought that was only required if it
was a "contract box". I was thinking that a purchased box or off contract
used box, could pe paired "over the air" referring to no available phone
line (like "I am using mobile phone only"), of course doing the actual call
from a UK based phone line.

In which case i will wait a while before buying to see how it will actually
turn out, hoping that the Sky+ boxes will not rise in demand when the public
realises that it will a fairly cheap upgrade route.

Martin

Anthony R. Gold wrote:

: OK, thank you both for your input, so I am to understand that, unlike
: standard sky digiboxes with no premium channels, Sky+ boxes needs to be
: paired to the card?

: That's a very good question and my answer is that I just don't know.

I can answer that one -- I did it last night as I had acquired a new Sky+ STB
off ebay and phoned Sky to get the "+" features enabled. Luckily I got a
Scottish CS person (and not Indian who get confused at times!). She said
after I explained what I wanted, "this STB is an unoffical upgrade" and seemed
quite relaxed about that. She then enabled Sky+ and moved staright on to
pairing the card.

: The feature of free Sky+ functionality to subscribers with no premium
: channels has not even started so I'm not sure how this will work.

The Sky+ features on my STB were activated at once and did NOT depend on
the card being paired. BUT, as it is a new STB, they will invariably move
to pairing without being asked! While she asked me to read out the numbers
from the "System Information" page she said that pairing could not be
completed until the system got a callback (which she again talked me
through).

It took a couple of hours for the pairing to change.

On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 22:44:39 GMT, "steeler" wrote:


"Anthony R. Gold" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 21:22:19 GMT, "Martin" wrote:

From what I understand my standard Sky card (basic mixes only 21 £ a
month)
will from this summer be able to use with all functionality in a Sky +
box,
right?

I only read that the upgrade would become free but not that it would be
done automatically. But if you are now using a standard box then you will
need to get your card paired to your new Sky+ box, so it would not require
an extra call anyway.


True and the first thing they will say now is "your box needs to be
connected to a (uk) phone line for a call-back".

Why would he? He's in Sweden, so clearly not going to be getting an
installer from sky over and subsidised box that would mean having to
have a phone connection. You wouldn't need it if it was a box obtained
without a sky subsidy.

"guv" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 22:44:39 GMT, "steeler" wrote:


"Anthony R. Gold" wrote in message
. ..
On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 21:22:19 GMT, "Martin"
wrote:

From what I understand my standard Sky card (basic mixes only 21 £ a
month)
will from this summer be able to use with all functionality in a Sky +
box,
right?

I only read that the upgrade would become free but not that it would be
done automatically. But if you are now using a standard box then you
will
need to get your card paired to your new Sky+ box, so it would not
require
an extra call anyway.


True and the first thing they will say now is "your box needs to be
connected to a (uk) phone line for a call-back".

Why would he? He's in Sweden, so clearly not going to be getting an
installer from sky over and subsidised box that would mean having to
have a phone connection. You wouldn't need it if it was a box obtained
without a sky subsidy.


This would have been correct 6 months ago. Policy has changed so that any
sky+ sub technically requires a permanent phone connection now. In practice
they don't even check your line (they only seem to care about multiroom) but
the knock-on effect is that if you activate sky+ features or pair a sky+
card then CS is supposed to insist on a phone connection and only pair it
via box call-back

On Fri, 08 Jun 2007 22:52:58 GMT, "steeler" wrote:


From what I understand my standard Sky card (basic mixes only 21 £ a
month)
will from this summer be able to use with all functionality in a Sky +
box,
right?

I only read that the upgrade would become free but not that it would be
done automatically. But if you are now using a standard box then you
will
need to get your card paired to your new Sky+ box, so it would not
require
an extra call anyway.


True and the first thing they will say now is "your box needs to be
connected to a (uk) phone line for a call-back".

Why would he? He's in Sweden, so clearly not going to be getting an
installer from sky over and subsidised box that would mean having to
have a phone connection. You wouldn't need it if it was a box obtained
without a sky subsidy.


This would have been correct 6 months ago. Policy has changed so that any
sky+ sub technically requires a permanent phone connection now. In practice
they don't even check your line (they only seem to care about multiroom) but
the knock-on effect is that if you activate sky+ features or pair a sky+
card then CS is supposed to insist on a phone connection and only pair it
via box call-back

Yeh, cheers for that. I had also just read that somewhere else. Hadn't
realised they had changed the rules!