Sky TV - in two rooms (not multiroom) need help.

scottishminnie

Hoping someone can help me here.

We have sky - receiver in one room and around 10 years ago we purchased (from sky) a little thing which plugged from the aerial socket into the portable in the bedroom which allowed us to watch sky there (it's not multiroom as you have to be atching the same sky channel as the main box and it doesn't cost anything extra each month)

We finally got round to buying a nice LCD tv for the bedroom and tried to install it tonight with no success - we can't work out how to find the sky channels and can only see the built in freeview ones. I'm beginning to think the cable to the little sky thing could be the issue as the wires at the plug thingy end look a little frayed and the picture distorts on the screen (on the odd occasion it finds anything). Can anyone tell me what this cable is called and how I get a new one - I think it goes right to the satellite dish? The last thing I want to do is phone sky as I'm certain they will just tell me it's obsolete or that I need an engineer. Strangly it still works ok on the old portable -it's beginning to look like we may now have a flash 32 inch LCD tv gathering dust while the old trusty 14 inch gets returned to the bedroom!

Any help much appreciated.

dieselglider

That'll be a 'magic eye'. If you do an ebay search, you can get one for a few quid.

However, I think your problem may be that the LCD doesn't have an analogue tuner. The instructions will say whether it is digital(freeview) only, or also can tune into analogue terrestial(aerial) channels too. The sky box transmits via analogue signal to the aerial socket on the secondary tv.

scottishminnie

Thanks for that. I'm guessing you are probably right about the tuner bit- the manual doesn't say - there is a CD rom but I haven't had time to look at it yet. That being the case (and since I'm not going anywhere near sky at the moment) if I were to use it in the room where the sky box (an old one 1992ish) is should it work ok as that would be the primary TV or have I bought something that's simply not compatible with my antiquated sky system?

dieselglider

Yes, that would be fine. Just use a scart cable to connect the Sky Digibox to the TV, then just select an AV input to watch Sky, if it doesn't switch over automatically.

scottishminnie

cheers - that may be the best solution. I can always buy another tv for the bedroom once I have the sky system replaced at some stage.

The_Grocer

With the Sky box connected direct to the dish, use one scart to the main TV. Use the RF OUT from the Sky box to the ariel wall socket. Provided any wall sockets use have installed all join (probably in your loft), then the SKY programme will be transmitted to all sockets (TV'S). Just tune the correct channel.

If the signal is weak (it will probably be OK for 2 TV's), then use a booster in the loft.

For even better control, connect a remote transmitter in the second room etc. and have full control over your "downstairs" system when lying in bed.

Terrestial TV (and digital) coming through the sockets will not be effected and you can wtach different programmes if you wish, as long as one is on digital / terrestial.

DAS_TV

If you get something like a Digidom, you can watch the Sky box on your posh tele, even tho they are not connected. It sends an infra-red signal from the source to the TV, and a decent one should see no deterioration in the signal. You would still need the magic eye, or something similar, to control the box, but that has to be preferable to having a lovely new dust collector!

bladeguard

Alternaltively Sky has Sky Live. It only has a few chanels at moment and is accessable by a PC if you can connect it to your TV or screen The Magic eye needs an RF conection from the sky box

M4RKM

oh my... is anyone actually listening to what the OP has asked? (apart from dieselglider)

from my point of view, this is what is happening..

1 - OP has already had the RF2 out working fine, and maybe doesn't have or need a magic eye, just wants to watch the sky box on the new LCD with freeview built in.

2 - the OP does NOT need to spend money on anything at all. as this has been working before, and is REALLY simple to sort out

3 - let us know the model number of the tv.. I'm not really aware of any tv's that come with a digital only tuner, so there must be a way, of changing it from Digital TV (aka freeview) onto analogue tv, and then tuning that in for the sky signal (which is what dieselglider has said!)



just my thoughts...

scottishminnie

markymoo wrote: »

oh my... is anyone actually listening to what the OP has asked? (apart from dieselglider)

from my point of view, this is what is happening..

1 - OP has already had the RF2 out working fine, and maybe doesn't have or need a magic eye, just wants to watch the sky box on the new LCD with freeview built in.

2 - the OP does NOT need to spend money on anything at all. as this has been working before, and is REALLY simple to sort out

3 - let us know the model number of the tv.. I'm not really aware of any tv's that come with a digital only tuner, so there must be a way, of changing it from Digital TV (aka freeview) onto analogue tv, and then tuning that in for the sky signal (which is what dieselglider has said!)



just my thoughts...

thanks guys - I'm technically clueless so appreciate the help and my OH is now irate since he yhinks I've bought a useless piece of kit when we had a perfectly good, if small, portable tv before.

We previously had a sky magic eye in the bedroom and an old portable tv - worked perfectly.

I then bought an LG 32inch LG3000.

Disconnected the old tv-installed the new one-plugging in the magic eye cable to the rear and we can only access the normal and freeview channels - no sign of sky channels whatsoever.

The sky box (in the den) is fine, working perfectly and if I unplug the new tv and plug the old one into the magic eye its all ok again so I'm probably missing something really basic.

trcooke

Sounds like you need to tune one of your analogue channels on your new TV to pick up the Sky feed. I did this myself last week and I think it transmits on Channel 62, 63 or somewhere close to it.

Have a look on your Sky Interactive help, there's a guide on there for setting up your 'magic eye'. I know you will have already got this set up from before but on the same setting screen on your Sky box that allows you to enable the RF2 output it tells you what channel it's on.