Hard disk/DVD recorder with Sky+

april_fool

I currently have a Sky+ box and am considering buying a hard disk/DVD recorder. This is because the Sky box gets full sometimes, and I would also like to be able to record stuff onto DVDs for taking with us when we go away.

My first question is whether the recording will work directly from the Sky box or whether it has to go via the telly. The problem with recording from the tv being that, if I want to record from a satellite channel, the Sky box has to be tuned into that channel. This makes it too complicated, eg if you want to record a couple of programs on different satellite channels.

My second question is whether I can either copy or convert recordings made on the hard disk or dvd onto a pc to watch on the move (without taking dvds along). It isn't possible to do this with recordings on the Sky+ box.

Advice on this would be appreciated, also, if there is anything else (good or bad) that I need to bear in mind before buying one of these. Apologies if these have been answered before, but I haven't found them.

Antispam

NO pvr will record from a external source

The only way is to record onto a dvd recorder

You can export on some pvrs like Humax, Topfield (freesat or Freeview) to a pc or usb pen drive but I dont think any sky boxes can do this

Antispam

I think you can upgraded the sky hd though to give you more space.

http://www.xtendedplay.co.uk/sky-plus-skyhd-drive-upgrade-faq.html

How to upgrade your Sky+ Hard Disk Drive

The new Humax HDR freesat box is very easy to export films to usb but it isnt sky although it uses the same dish and satellite

Jaffa.

april_fool wrote: »

My first question is whether the recording will work directly from the Sky box or whether it has to go via the telly. The problem with recording from the tv being that, if I want to record from a satellite channel, the Sky box has to be tuned into that channel. This makes it too complicated, eg if you want to record a couple of programs on different satellite channels.

I should imagine the hard disk recorder would plug into the sky box and would record whatever comes up on the tv (so if you go to sky guide it would record you going onto the sky guide)

april_fool wrote: »

My second question is whether I can either copy or convert recordings made on the hard disk or dvd onto a pc to watch on the move (without taking dvds along). It isn't possible to do this with recordings on the Sky+ box.

You could add a hard drive to your computer (to record to) and maybe use an aerial lead to your computer through a TV tuner so you pick up the sky and then use software to record from the computer. If you can get hold of a hard disk recorder that allows you to remove the hard drive you could buy an external case for the hard drive (that plugs into your pc via usb or firewire) and watch the recordings from there, but that depends what file format their recorded in

sillygoose

The answer you seek is yes, a DVD Recorder can be connected to your Sky+/HD box, it has a second scart output known as the VCR output which you connect to the DVD Recorder Input.

Usually you can connect the DVD recorder 'out' Scart to your TV's 2nd scart input. When the DVD recorder is in standby you watch TV from the Sky box as normal. When the DVD recorder is turned on the TV will usually switch to it and you can either watch Sky through the recorder or if you play a DVD it shows that instead.

A DVD recorder on a reasonable EP (extended play) setting can record 240 minutes (4 hours) to a DVD-R (you can use reusable DVD-RW too but I find they don't last long). In the Sky listing of your recordings you can mark programs to 'copy' you select up to 4 hours of programs, set your DVD recorder to record and then start the playback on Sky. The Sky box will sequentially play all your selected programs. Unfortunately whilst the Sky box can still record things whilst doing this, you cannot watch anything else on Satellite - so this is best set when you go to bed! You can of course tune your TV to Free-view or normal TV and watch that. You end up with DVD's with 4 hour programs but DVD recorders usually put index marks every few minutes so its easy to find a program by skipping through chapters.

Its fairly easy to take the files off the DVD, they will basically just be 1gb mpeg2 files, you need to rename and join them to play on a PC - thats another topic!

I found the limitation of 4 hours annoying as it took me too long to clear the backlog so I got an AV Recording hard drive, similar setup but it records to a hard drive that can then be accessed by computer via a USB port. With decent size hard drive in it it can record for all night or all day when I am out Sky box doesn't mind outputting many hours continuously!

I have this one..
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=221173
plus a 160gb hard drive from computer store put in it.

Antispam

VLC player is good at playing DVD's as mentioned above and also for playing .TS (transport Streams) from pvr's that allow exporting of recordings

novicejay

Hi SillyGoose,

I liked your suggestion of the av media drive. So I went and brought a 1TB from Iomega (Screenplay HD)

Well I brought this I htought went home and connected it via the Sky+ scart and the hard drive scart and then did the usual copy on the sky+ box. Sky+ did recongise it and started copying it but on the hard drive nothing came up when I viewed it on the tv.
The hard drive is formatted to NTFS.

Please help me and tell me what I am doing wrong?

Thank you

savemoney

I dont think you can buy any HD as pvr hd have to record multiple streams and sometimes computer hd but not all can consume too much power and or may over heat. Also I believe although I could be wrong that HD has to be formatted differently the Humax freesat box format hd in liinux format for example, I dont think they use ntfs

Does this help

http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/sky/8370-upgrading-your-sky-hard-drive.html

sillygoose

OH DEAR!
I hope its not to late to send it back for refund???

You bought an AV drive that is only a PLAYER not one that is a PLAYER & RECORDER.

The one you got will be useless for copying SKY+ movies off as it just cannot record anything.

I suggest you get a refund if possible and try asking in a Maplin explaining you want an AV Recorder/Player and what you want it for. (something like this http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=224126)

novicejay

Hi Sillygoose

I will try and get a refund and see if I can get this from Maplin.

Thanks for the advice

deejayen

Re-Format your Drive to FAT32 and all should be well -- Also I use the TV O/P to my recorder [a bit of a pain I know] but sometiems Sky has problems with the aspect ratio using the VCR scart O/P -- Dave