topic Re: Need to book a sky in Sky+

Need to book a sky

bcjnpatel — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 12:19:56 GMT

I need to book a sky engineer

Re: Need to book a sky

Mark39 — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 12:20:53 GMT

You're unlikely to be able to book an engineer with Sky for Sky+. What problem are you having?

Re: Need to book a sky

bcjnpatel — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 12:21:39 GMT

My sky lead is broken

Re: Need to book a sky

Mark39 — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 12:23:19 GMT

There are at least 4. Which one? Where is it broken?

Re: Need to book a sky

Jon5 — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 08:28:57 GMT

I need to book a Sky engineer too. I have a Sky HD+ box. It has worked fine for many years. Over the last year, input 2 signal has intermittently failed, ruining my recordings. I have assumed that it was a dish or LNB problem so I have paid an aerial/satellite company to fit a brand new dish and brand new LNB. Signal strength is now close to maximum when I go to Settings, Signal. But the problem persists. I have disconnected and reconnected the cables. No improvement. Random recordings failing because of "no signal". I tried ringing Sky to book an engineer. I think you can guess how that went. After being asked how my day was going and other similar small talk, I was told that all the engineers are busy, none are available, why am I not upgrading to Sky Q? I explained that I would then lose all my existing recordings on the Sky HD box. I was told that's true, but we no longer make the Sky HD box so I should upgrade to Sky Q. So my question is, assuming that Sky are unwilling to repair HD boxes even if you pay them lots of money, can anyone recommend an independent Sky box repairer in the North West London area?

Re: Need to book a sky

Mark39 — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 08:41:38 GMT

@Jon5 Sky have never repaired Sky+ boxes. If a hardware fault develops, they have simply replaced it, but that's no longer possible. Did the installer check both cablies from the dish? That's the more likely remaining cause of the problem.

Re: Need to book a sky

Jon5 — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 09:36:19 GMT

I have replaced both cables with new cables I've bought from Amazon. The general advice that I've seen is the vague advice that if dish/LNB/cabling doesn't solve the problem "there may be a problem with the box". Does anyone know whether this type of fault indicates a need to replace something specific within the HD box?

Obviously I'm disappointed that when phoning Sky they spent all their time trying to persuade me to upgrade to Sky Q. I'm sure my problem of having too many valued recordings on my Sky Box is my 'fault' but many other people are probably in a similar position and if Sky wanted to solve it they could make it possible for people to access their Sky HD recordings after upgrading to Sky Q.

Re: Need to book a sky

Mark39 — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 10:10:15 GMT

Presumably the fault,is somewhere within the tuning circuitry. You could try swapping the cables over at the box end. If the fault remains on the same dish input it would suggest the fault is indeed with the box.

Recordings were only ever intended to be for time shifting purposes rather than an archive, which I imagine is one reason why Sky haven't developed the means to make them available after upgrading etc.

Bear in mind that when the hard disk fails, as it eventually will, you'll lose your recordings anyway. Even the most recent Sky+ boxes are at least 8 years old, so the disk is likely to be approaching end of life.

Re: Need to book a sky

Jon5 — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 10:16:26 GMT

Thanks.

When my Sky HD Plus box fails, I will try to find an independent satellite TV retailer who can repair the box or sell me a replacement one. I don't have any need for Sky Q. I am much more likely to subscribe to Virgin or some other provider, than to upgrade to Sky Q and put up with Sky's unsatisfactory service and continual price hikes.

Re: Need to book a sky

TimmyBGood — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 12:12:35 GMT

@Jon5 wrote:

I'm sure my problem of having too many valued recordings on my Sky Box is my 'fault' but many other people are probably in a similar position and if Sky wanted to solve it they could make it possible for people to access their Sky HD recordings after upgrading to Sky Q.

No, because the hard drive is there to permit time-shifted viewing as a limited exception to copyright law: it's never been intended or even permitted as a media archive (despite all of us using it that way ; )

Re: Need to book a sky

TimmyBGood — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 10:30:19 GMT

@Jon5 wrote:

I am much more likely to subscribe to Virgin or some other provider, than to upgrade to Sky Q and put up with Sky's unsatisfactory service and continual price hikes.

Remember that without an active Sky subscription on a Sky+ box the hard drive content on that box becomes unreachable anyway: it cannot be used for playback once the subscription covering the hardware ceases.

Re: Need to book a sky

Jon5 — Mon, 02 Oct 2023 13:49:26 GMT

Of course. But the scenario is when, in future, my Sky HD+ box fails and the recordings cannot be watched anyway, and it is deemed to be non-repairable even by a third party engineer. In that scenario why would I upgrade to Sky Q rather than a rival satellite TV service?

Re: Need to book a sky

GD1 — Mon, 02 Oct 2023 13:53:26 GMT

@Jon5 wrote:

Of course. But the scenario is when, in future, my Sky HD+ box fails and the recordings cannot be watched anyway, and it is deemed to be non-repairable even by a third party engineer. In that scenario why would I upgrade to Sky Q rather than a rival satellite TV service?

Your options would be Sky for Pay TV or Freesat (Only Free to Air channels) there isnt another Pay TV Satellite operator in the UK

Re: Need to book a sky

TimmyBGood — Mon, 02 Oct 2023 14:53:53 GMT

@GD1 wrote:

@Jon5 wrote:

In that scenario why would I upgrade to Sky Q rather than a rival satellite TV service?

Your options would be Sky for Pay TV or Freesat (Only Free to Air channels) there isnt another Pay TV Satellite operator in the UK

Not since November 1990 when Sky ate them ; )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Satellite_Broadcasting

Re: Need to book a sky

TimmyBGood — Mon, 02 Oct 2023 15:10:44 GMT

@Jon5 wrote:

In that scenario why would I upgrade to Sky Q rather than a rival satellite TV service?

Subscription ('premium') satellite television is typically monopolistic in any given region because it's incredibly expensive to provision a rival service: for one thing a different orbital platform is typically required, which necessitates additional dishes pointing in another direction to those of the established provider. Some countries have more than one premium satellite solution but that needs a much bigger population of potential subscribers to sustain them than the UK can offer.

Freesat broadcasts from the Astra 28.2E cluster which also carries Sky channels.

Re: Need to book a sky

Jon5 — Sat, 09 Dec 2023 21:37:54 GMT

Having bought a brand new Sky HD Plus box from an Ebay retailer and found the problem still persisted, I eventually located the remedy - the cable from the Sky dish which fed through the wall via a junction box to the Sky box had an intermittent fault which probably meant that rainwater was getting in and causing the cable to short-circuit. So I paid an aerial installation company to give me new cables, a new hole in the wall and a connection to the Sky box without any intermediate junction box. Perfect now. I still can't see why I would benefit from Sky Q.

You say recordings were only ever intended for time-shifting. Yet there are detailed instructions for how to archive your Sky HD recordings via a Scart lead, if you still have one, to a recording device with a Scart connection, if you have one. I don't care that the quality of the recording is not razor-sharp.

Re: Need to book a sky

Annie+UK — Sat, 09 Dec 2023 21:42:01 GMT

Offloading recordings to VHS/DVD is not intended for archiving, this was compatibility with older Sky boxes without Harddisks, you're still only supposed to use DVDs/VHSs for timeshifting and NOT archiving