Why do people buy 2nd hand Sky boxes?

On Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 at 01:30:43h +0100, Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:

Odd studio lighting in their newsroom - makes everyone look like manic
mannikins.

I could be imagining it, but is not that style of lighting
standard for Francophone stations?

On 23/08/2010 19:55, critcher wrote:
wrote in message
...
On Sun, 22 Aug 2010 19:08:56 +0100,
wrote:

I've had a Sky+ HD box passed on to me and I was wondering why people
buy them on eBay?

critcher said ...............................
for the hard drive, ide will be extinct before long and the drives are good
value if you can get a 160 or 250 gig sky+ for a few pounds. ide will be in
demand for a while.



I bought an almost new Sky+ box off a boot sale for £10. I found that
the picture quality and signal seem better than my older Pace receiver,
which frequently dropped out (I have a very old LNB that was giving a
lower than normal signal quality reading, on the Sky+ this has improved)

Disappointed that I can't use the plus features without paying Sky (I
already have a Virgin Media subscription)

A week later I saw a stall on a boot sale trying to sell Plus boxes for
£25 each, I told him he was a rip off!

"Clyde" wrote in message
news:[email protected]

A week later I saw a stall on a boot sale trying to sell Plus boxes for
£25 each, I told him he was a rip off!

I just think you got an exceptionally good deal, £ 25 for a Sky + box is not
that bad IMO (certainly to someone that needs one). I have just bought a 2nd
hand Sky + HD box off of eBay for £ 64, its a Samsung Sky + HD 250gb model.
If I wanted one from Sky for free I would have to take out a 12 month
subscription to the HD starter pack or get a "free" box and pay £ 30 for
installation on a 12 month contract.

you can use the internal hard drives inside of them for a computer

wrote in message
...
you can use the internal hard drives inside of them for a computer

Slow access times - but good enough for archiving stuff.

wrote in message
...
you can use the internal hard drives inside of them for a computer


....provided you get a big one (500Gb) instead of the standard 80Gb. VM
Tivo boxes have 500Gb or 1Tb drives.

People also get them - especially the smaller multi-room box - to use
when holidaying in caravans or motorhomes. They may not be Sky
customers but they are very effective as Freesat-from-Sky receivers.
If obtained from a nearby Cash Converters shop you will often get an
expired viewing card in it which will be correct for your region. For
less than £20 with cables, remote, and a warranty they are
significantly cheaper than Freesat boxes by the likes of Humax.



--
Woody

harrogate3 at ntlworld dot com

On 02/01/2018 19:23, Woody wrote:
wrote in message
...
you can use the internal hard drives inside of them for a computer


...provided you get a big one (500Gb) instead of the standard 80Gb. VM
Tivo boxes have 500Gb or 1Tb drives.

People also get them - especially the smaller multi-room box - to use
when holidaying in caravans or motorhomes. They may not be Sky
customers but they are very effective as Freesat-from-Sky receivers.
If obtained from a nearby Cash Converters shop you will often get an
expired viewing card in it which will be correct for your region. For
less than £20 with cables, remote, and a warranty they are
significantly cheaper than Freesat boxes by the likes of Humax.

In addition (and AIUI), Sky are phasing out their Sky+ and Sky+HD
equipment and from a date in the relatively near future, will supply
only the Sky Q system. Sky Q has certain other difficulties for some of us.

On 03/01/2018 11:28, Bob Latham wrote:
In article ,
JNugent wrote:

In addition (and AIUI), Sky are phasing out their Sky+ and Sky+HD
equipment and from a date in the relatively near future, will supply
only the Sky Q system. Sky Q has certain other difficulties for some of
us.

I wonder if your difficulties are similar to mine?

I've been looking at SkyQ and I have a lot of unanswered questions. Sky's
website appears to obfuscate the facts somewhat and I can't get to the
bottom of things.

At first, Sky Q was quoted as being £12.50 per month even more money. As
the buggers charge £10 for HD I thought they could go stuff, I wasn't
going to pay it. Then a sky rep stopped me in a shopping mal and explained
I could pay £200 and no monthly increase, more attractive to me but still
not sure which model that refers to as there are two.

Then there is the thorny subject of remote control and distribution. Sky Q
has no modulator which is no great loss, the existing ones are crap
anyway. More importantly there is no method of receiving remote control
signals from a distant magic eye as there is with RF2 on older boxes and
of course no power for the magic eye. You can I'm told, use optical
repeaters to get a distant magic eye signal into a Sky Q box.

If that were not enough, I'm told Sky have deliberately switched off
support for existing HD remote controls within Sky Q. What a nasty thing
to do. I don't understand the differences in the two Sky Q remotes and
what the short comings are of the optical one. Can you buy these?

Distribution isn't a problem for me as I can distribute HDMI 1080i via a
digital modulator now installed.

If someone has got a grasp of the costs of the two Sky Q boxes and their
relative merits I would be very interested. Facts on the remote controls
likewise.

Can't understand why these facts are not easily found on Sky's website.


Cheers,

Bob.

After reading this I can now understand why Disney are interested...

--
David Kennedy

http://www.anindianinexile.com

Sky Q was quoted as being £12.50 per month

Effectively this is the second satellite box price and/or the old HD price. If
you are paying both, Sky Q is actually cheaper.

Then there is the thorny subject of remote control and
distribution. Sky Q has no modulator which is no great loss

You simply buy one or two Sky Q Mini wifi boxes for £50 (special offer price)
and get full Sky functionality using wifi for a second TV. And/or watch Sky Q
on a tablet or phone.

So no cables, no remote control issues, watch up to four separate programmes at
once.

The Sky Q Mini box actually has a mini jack with video/audio outputs which can
be used for a modulator, but SD only.

Angus

On 03/01/2018 13:13, Bob Latham wrote:
In article ,
David Kennedy wrote:

After reading this I can now understand why Disney are interested...

Would you care to explain that comment?

Bob.

Disney = Mickey Mouse ?

--
David Kennedy

http://www.anindianinexile.com