Do I lose my Sky+ Box and all recordings after after Q upgrade?

[DEVJEETSSB]

yes but could I use the sky-q viewing card in the sky plus box (i.e. pair the box to the card) to be able to view the old recordings and then take the q viewing card out and re-pair this in the q-box?

Also it is possible to take recoridngs off the q box onto dvd recorder (as I am able to do with sky plus box)? 

[Mark39]

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@DEVJEETSSB wrote:

yes but could I use the sky-q viewing card in the sky plus box (i.e. pair the box to the card) to be able to view the old recordings and then take the q viewing card out and re-pair this in the q-box?

Also it is possible to take recoridngs off the q box onto dvd recorder (as I am able to do with sky plus box)? 

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There's no access to recordings on a Sky+ box without a Sky+ subscription, so swapping Viewing Cards from box to box doesn't come into it.

Sky Q boxes only have an HDMI output which is protected as standard by HDCP (copy protection) so I doubt copying to a DVD recorder would be possible (in fact I'm not sure DVD recorders with an HDMI input are even available).

Bottom line really, is that the only way to keep access to recordings you've made on Sky+ is to copy them to DVDR before you upgrade. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@Mark39 wrote:

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in fact I'm not sure DVD recorders with an HDMI input are even available

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DVDRs with HDMI-in were never manufactured because HDMI Licensing LLC and Digital Content Protection LLC would not have granted permission for their intellectual property and technical standards to be utilised in such a product, and without that it's essentially impossible to retail hardware in any regulated market (and make money on it).

[GD1]

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@DEVJEETSSB wrote:

yes but could I use the sky-q viewing card in the sky plus box (i.e. pair the box to the card) to be able to view the old recordings and then take the q viewing card out and re-pair this in the q-box?

Also it is possible to take recoridngs off the q box onto dvd recorder (as I am able to do with sky plus box)? 

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as per @Mark39 also without a satellite signal your + box may not even initialise as it need a satellite signal, you can plug it in tho the dish once you have q either as q uses a different type of LNB.

[DEVJEETSSB]

Many thanks for taking the time and toruble for your kind replies.  Really daunted at the prospect of trying to record nearly 2TB worth of recordings onto DVD. They are mostly obscure documentaries and very old films recorded over the years which will never get DVD releases of their own.  It also lok as if if I take the Sky Q I wont be able to do do even this unless the Sky Q mini's analogue outputs allow this?

[Mark39]

@DEVJEETSSB Sky Q main boxes have no analogue output. Only the multiscreen Minis have a composite video and stereo output.

[oj01]

@DEVJEETSSB Just curious, but given this issue with not wanting to lose your recordings, why are you (considering) switching to Sky Q? 

[DEVJEETSSB]

It was down to them giving me an offer I couldn't refuse on the face of it. At the moment I am paying £20 for fibre broadband (Vodpahone) and £31 for Sky TV, HD, Sky Cinema, Sky Kids and my Sky contract ends on 28th Nov so this will rise.

Sky offered me for £50 (18 month contract) Sky TV, UHD/HD pack, Sky Kids, Netflix Premium (with no admin fees, no installation costs), a 2TB Sky Q Box and minibox (so £9 for multiscreen) plus a £28 tesco voucher and fibre broadband (£18 compared to the £20 I am paying for Vodaphone) with free phone calls.

I have a 2TB Sky+ HD box with loads of material recorded on it (documentaries that I refer to in my work when I need to as well as odd offbeat recording snippets of news stories etc) that will never be available comercially for sale but of interest to me. Transferring all of that to DVDR could take weeks if my Panasonic EX85 can handle burning so many DVDs in quick succession. I'd just like to keep all that material (and offload at my leisure) and still be able to record new material which i could later archive off the Sky box. That was why i was wondering if I could similarly offload from the sky 1 minibox (rather than the main box which only has a HDMI output rather than scart or analogue RCA outputs) if I made recordings on the sky q.

I am in two minds now of switching as I have been told sky q is not that great and I cant switch back to Sky+HD if I dont like it (even though I will be making sure they leave the old dish alone and just mount a new one alongside it specifically for the sky q). I was told sky has in some instances allowed a multiscreen to be the Sky+ box instead of the q mini (although i would be paying for the mini even if it is not used) alonside the sky q box but this is in rare instances where it is a large house and beyond the use of 3 mini boxes and at sky's discretion? Not sure if this is right?

[Mark39]

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@DEVJEETSSB wrote:

. I was told sky has in some instances allowed a multiscreen to be the Sky+ box instead of the q mini (although i would be paying for the mini even if it is not used) alonside the sky q box but this is in rare instances where it is a large house and beyond the use of 3 mini boxes and at sky's discretion? Not sure if this is right?

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You can use a Sky+ box alongside Sky Q as a non-recording Freesat receiver but as mentioned before you can't have both a Sky + and a Sky Q subscription.

[rscott]

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@DEVJEETSSB wrote:

It was down to them giving me an offer I couldn't refuse on the face of it. At the moment I am paying £20 for fibre broadband (Vodpahone) and £31 for Sky TV, HD, Sky Cinema, Sky Kids and my Sky contract ends on 28th Nov so this will rise.

Sky offered me for £50 (18 month contract) Sky TV, UHD/HD pack, Sky Kids, Netflix Premium (with no admin fees, no installation costs), a 2TB Sky Q Box and minibox (so £9 for multiscreen) plus a £28 tesco voucher and fibre broadband (£18 compared to the £20 I am paying for Vodaphone) with free phone calls.

I have a 2TB Sky+ HD box with loads of material recorded on it (documentaries that I refer to in my work when I need to as well as odd offbeat recording snippets of news stories etc) that will never be available comercially for sale but of interest to me. Transferring all of that to DVDR could take weeks if my Panasonic EX85 can handle burning so many DVDs in quick succession. I'd just like to keep all that material (and offload at my leisure) and still be able to record new material which i could later archive off the Sky box. That was why i was wondering if I could similarly offload from the sky 1 minibox (rather than the main box which only has a HDMI output rather than scart or analogue RCA outputs) if I made recordings on the sky q.

I am in two minds now of switching as I have been told sky q is not that great and I cant switch back to Sky+HD if I dont like it (even though I will be making sure they leave the old dish alone and just mount a new one alongside it specifically for the sky q). I was told sky has in some instances allowed a multiscreen to be the Sky+ box instead of the q mini (although i would be paying for the mini even if it is not used) alonside the sky q box but this is in rare instances where it is a large house and beyond the use of 3 mini boxes and at sky's discretion? Not sure if this is right?

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What is your backup plan for when the hard drive fails in your Sky+HD box? They only have a finite life and yours is already 5 years old, at least.

[DEVJEETSSB]

That is a good point which makes it clear that i will have to back up onto DVDr in case of hard drive failure on the sky+ box. Just seems a pity to waste a 2TB machine which is in perfect working order at present. And there is still the question of whether I could continue to offload Q-Box recordings using the analogue outputs of the Q-minibox in the same manner. Does anyone know if this is possible?

Also I am currently using a Panasonic EX85 (250GB) to offload material and then record from its hard drive onto DVDr. Does anyone know of a DVD recorder with a hard drive capaicty approaching the 2 TB of the Sky+ Box. That would make automated transfer off the Sky+ a lot easier. 

[Mark39]

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@DEVJEETSSB wrote:  And there is still the question of whether I could continue to offload Q-Box recordings using the analogue outputs of the Q-minibox in the same manner. Does anyone know if this is possible?

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Yes, I've copied from Mini to DVDR in the past.

[TimmyBGood]

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@Mark39 wrote:

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@DEVJEETSSB wrote:  And there is still the question of whether I could continue to offload Q-Box recordings using the analogue outputs of the Q-minibox in the same manner. Does anyone know if this is possible?

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Yes, I've copied from Mini to DVDR in the past.

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You need a particular adapter that Sky don't stock any more (it used to be sold for NowTV) to fit the  Q Mini mini-jack socket and output to composite video with stereo audio.  The Nokia CA-75U is reported to work and is widely available on eBay for a few pounds.

[DEVJEETSSB]

Many thanks to you Mark39 and TimmyBGood for your advice that i could still record onto DVDR using the sky-1 minibox as I think otherwise that would have been the dealbreaker for me moving to sky q although I am still being told sky q is not great and I should stick with Sky+HD. 

So now the issue is of moving stuff off the Sky+HD box onto DVDRs. I was hoping perhaps to use the SD card feature on the Panasonic EX85 to record the material onto a large SD card rather than lower capacity DVDRs as an old Avforums review suggests recordings can be made onto SD card but didnt go into specifics. The panasonic also records onto DVD-RAM but I am not sure what the benefit is of that over the much cheaper DVDR disks.

Pity there is not a 2TB hard drive DVD Recorder out there with a good old fashioned scart in socket.

[TimmyBGood]

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@DEVJEETSSB wrote:

The panasonic also records onto DVD-RAM but I am not sure what the benefit is of that over the much cheaper DVDR disks.

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I dread to think how long any DVD-RAM media you might locate these days may have been sitting on a shelf somewhere: the last manufacturer (Panasonic) ceased production in May 2019 and it wasn't exactly in high demand for years before that.

Regarding SD use, the TR review of that player (2008) says:

Like all of Panny's current range, the EX85 allows you to play content stored on an SD card, MMC (Multi Media Card) or mini SD (through an optional adaptor). Admittedly, this is mainly for JPEG viewing, which isn't exactly exclusive to Panasonic. However, in this instance you can also record video footage to the card. Video stored on the card does need to be transferred to the hard drive (or DVD-RAM) before it can be played