Lowest cost TV for two rooms

[Wrongslot]

Hi, we start our Sky. O tract in a couple of days. Just wondering what would be the cheapest way to get TV into a second room without paying for a second Sky hub or monthly Whole Home contract? 

[Mister_Dalek]

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@Wrongslot wrote:

Hi, we start our Sky. O tract in a couple of days. Just wondering what would be the cheapest way to get TV into a second room without paying for a second Sky hub or monthly Whole Home contract? 

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The cheapest way would just be to physically move your single puck to the second room when you want to watch Sky in there. As long as it can receive a fast and stable broadband connection in that room then you just connect it to the second the TV via HDMI and use it as you would in the other room. 

Be aware that if you choose to do this then it would be adviseable to perhaps get some small HDMI extender cables for the puck and your TV's. This will avoid excessive wear and tear on the HDMI port on the puck and TVs. Repeated connection and disconnection of the HDMI cable can lead to issues. 

Another alternative would be to get some form of HDMI splitter device and a very long and quite expensive optical HDMI cable which could take the signal from the puck to your second room. This would allow the same content being viewed on the main TV to be viewed at the same time on the second TV... but would mean you had a very long cable snaking through your property. 

Depending on what you want to watch on the second TV, the other option is to get a separate NOW susbcription. If the TV is a smart TV and already has the NOW app installed you can get monthly subscriptions or cheaper 6 month subscriptions to Entertainment, Cinema and Sports. I pay £3.99pm for Entertainment via NOW on a 6 month contract, plus £2pm for Boost. This gives me all the Sky Entertainment stuff we want in HD with 5.1 audio, ad-free, and it can be streamed on 2 devices at once. 

[Wrongslot]

Sorry, I should have clarified that the second tv will be in the kitchen and is a small non-HD tv. I was thinking more of using the puck in the kitchen and maybe an old sky box in the sitting room since we still a satellite dish. Or is this just too old fashioned? 😀

[CoffeeDrinker · Accepted solution]

@Wrongslot  If you plan on going the HDMI splitter route, if your kitchen is a 'small non-HD TV', does it have a HDMI input? The Stream puck by itself only outputs picture & sound via HDMI, so wouldn't be usable directly with an older TV that only support co-axial Ariel or SCART inputs. Without some kind of conversion device, your kitchen TV would need to have a HDMI input at minimum.

The other issue is that if you have a Sky Stream puck then you'll also have a Sky streaming subscription. As Sky only allow one subscription at any given address, you won't be able to use an old Sky box with your satellite dish, whether that is Sky+, Sky+HD or Sky Q. 

How long have you had your Sky Stream setup?

[Wrongslot]

We are only starting our Sky contract this Wednesday, having switched from Virgin. Thanks for the info, that's very helpful. I'll have to check our smaller TV for HDMI. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@Wrongslot wrote:

maybe an old sky box in the sitting room since we still a satellite dish. Or is this just too old fashioned?

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No, but it could only be used as a free-to-air channel receiver, not for viewing any Sky subscription service.