Sky integration...

[lemming]

Hi All

Have ended up with Sky TV (New Zealand) after a deal was offered that was too good to turn down... Currently have decoder connected via S-Vid to Npvr. Looking into integrating using card reader etc, and have found a bit of info both here and over on geekzone which looks like it all should work OK. Have a HVR4000 card (once I retrieve it from my Dad's at least...), and wondered how the mux thing worked on satellite feed?? How many physical tuners are required to pick up all the sky channels using multi-record?? I am assuming this query doesn't wander over to the dark side as I am paying for the Sky subscription...

Cheers Chris

[sub]

I dont use Sky myself, so I'm not the best person to advise on setting it. I do know that there are two types of smartcard supplied by Sky though, and only one of them works with card readers and softcams. From memory it's a blue card, that comes with MySky, and some of the silver pace decoders. I think all the others come with a gold card, and these are not usable by card readers and softcams.

[lemming]

Bugger, have the gold one.... Thanks for the info Sub

[psycik]

There's a number of people on geekzone.co.nz that have sky working direct, either with gbpvr or media portal.

[reven]

i have it working well.

you do need the blue card, not the gold card.

pretty easy to setup on NPVR side of things, oscam can be a little difficult at first.

[lemming]

Hi Reven

Actually read through your " how to" which seemed like it all should pan out... Rang the Sky installer tonight to find out about the cards, and he seemed to think the "blue" cards are tied to the Mysky decoder?? can you confirm that or is there another type?? Is there a good reason to request a blue card that the Sky guys will accept?? (other than I want to throw your decoder away...). Never did find out how many tuners are required to cover all channels ??

Doing Sky on the cheap $46 deal ( I didn't really want it at all ...), so don't want to have to upgrade. Flip side is that it sux having hung off as Svid into NPvr...

Cheers Chris

[sub]

Hi Reven

Actually read through your " how to" which seemed like it all should pan out... Rang the Sky installer tonight to find out about the cards, and he seemed to think the "blue" cards are tied to the Mysky decoder?? can you confirm that or is there another type??

The same blue smartcard has come with some of the silver pace decoders as well. Unfortunately the blue cards are not common. They old gold card is much more prevalent.

Is there a good reason to request a blue card that the Sky guys will accept?? (other than I want to throw your decoder away...).

Really there isn't any legit reason you can use to request it from Sky. They know that occassionally people are specifically requesting the blue smartcard because they want to use their smartcard in non-sanctioned hardware, like PCs or non-standard set top boxes. They're obviously not going to honor a request for a specific type of smartcard. They're just going to give you whatever smartcard is required for your sky box. Probably the best you can hope for is a friendly sky installer that'll do it.

[lemming]

Actually had a " friendly sky installer" (turned out to be an old family friend.....), and had the choice of decoders out of a cardboard box. Opportunity lost....

Thanks for the replies guys

[reven]

yeah i believe you need the mysky decoder. i asked the installer for the blue card, he thought it was odd, but gave me one.