Hauppague HRV 4000 & Sky

[AlBoyo]

This may seem like a real stupid question and I appologise if that is the case. I've got Freeview terrestrial working well in NZ but I also have a Sky dish that I was wondering if I could use.

Can I assume that without a Sky decoder box, I wont be able to get any channels off this dish? Or are there freeview ones available by just plugging the dish directly into my HRV 4000?

How about if I opened an account with cky to get other channels, would I still need the sky decoder or would the 4000 do that for me?

Again, sorryf or the newbieness of the question, still trying to get my head around the whole setup!

Thanks

[sub]

You can use a sky dish with your HVR-4000 to get the DVB-S freeview channels.

It wont get you the sky channels though, even if you had an account with sky. The sky channels are encrypted.

[AlBoyo]

Thought as much, could have sworn I'd heard somewhere that the freeview channels were only available if you had an account with them... But that was from Sky themselves so there's probably a good reson for that!

Thanks Sub

Can you get pci sky decoders? It seems a shame to make a HTPC to get ridd of all the boxes then have to have a sky decoder!

Cheers

[frankmcg]

The freeview channels are split into 2 categories on Sky, free to air and free to view. Can't remember which way round it is but one of the categories requires you to have a satellite card (even if it's not a subscription one, you can buy one for £20 one-off payment). Some of the channels available on freeview terrestrial can't be picked up without this card - Channel 4/5 I think for example. If you google free to air (FTA) or free to view (FTV) you should get more details.

[sub]

AlBoyo is in New Zealand. Our system is different to the UK. Freeview is available via DVB-S (MPEG2) or DVB-T (MPEG4). Sky is only available as a separate DVB-S system.