Best answer to this ?

ANGLICANPAT

My disabled 95yrs+ mum (in her own house) has a Sky box package with a non HD Sony tv in one room and more recently, a Sky+ HD package with an HD1080 Sony in her bedroom , using multiroom. The differences in appearance regarding the TV guide ,changing pages, and setting something to come on automatically, are similar enough for her to just about cope. which is why we went ahead and got Sky+HD (It was a free box provided by Sky)

Today, I see that Sky has completely altered the format of Sky+ planner. Its horrible !! Messy, too much info on one page , only shows 5 stations at a time instead of a pagefull -- but worst of all, it looks totally different, and the buttons you press for basic funtions such as changing the page have changed.

There isnt a cat in hells chance my mum will cope with swopping between two systems . Shes only had the Sky+HD box for 3mths, and its on a yr contract. Question is -- is there any way I could take our ordinary Sky box down to her house and bring her Sky+HD box back here.( Our Tv is only HD ready- but we're not bothered about getting HD) What alterations would it entail? Sky would still be getting paid for a Sky+HD package, it would just be in a different house.

Im not technically minded, so Id be grateful for any ideas/suggestions please in really really simple terms. Thanks

bubblegun

ANGLICANPAT wrote: »

My disabled 95yrs+ mum (in her own house) has a Sky box package with a non HD Sony tv in one room and more recently, a Sky+ HD package with an HD1080 Sony in her bedroom , using multiroom. The differences in appearance regarding the TV guide ,changing pages, and setting something to come on automatically, are similar enough for her to just about cope. which is why we went ahead and got Sky+HD (It was a free box provided by Sky)

Today, I see that Sky has completely altered the format of Sky+ planner. Its horrible !! Messy, too much info on one page , only shows 5 stations at a time instead of a pagefull -- but worst of all, it looks totally different, and the buttons you press for basic funtions such as changing the page have changed.

There isnt a cat in hells chance my mum will cope with swopping between two systems . Shes only had the Sky+HD box for 3mths, and its on a yr contract. Question is -- is there any way I could take our ordinary Sky box down to her house and bring her Sky+HD box back here.( Our Tv is only HD ready- but we're not bothered about getting HD) What alterations would it entail? Sky would still be getting paid for a Sky+HD package, it would just be in a different house.

Im not technically minded, so Id be grateful for any ideas/suggestions please in really really simple terms. Thanks

You could do it but your mothers bill would double. She currently should be getting the second room for only £10/month due to both boxes being connected to the same phone line. If one box stops reporting the phone number or reports a different phone number then she will be charged full price for both.

The planners were changed about a year ago so this isn't a recent change, btw.

ceefor_2

There is a setting on the hd box to remove the small tv screen from the menu's and so give you a full page of tv channel listings.

ka7e

The "busy" page with the mini TV in the corner is the default setting for the listings page. To change it to the page with just programmes on.....

Press SERVICES on Sky remote.

Press down, then select CUSTOMISE.

Press down to MINI TV, press left or right to switch it OFF.

Press green button to SAVE SETTINGS.

To get programme info in this mode, highlight your chosen programme and press i.

ANGLICANPAT

Thanks to you all for your replies.
quote bubblegun "The planners were changed about a year ago so this isn't a recent change, btw. " -- I didnt know that.
--- Since we got it a few months ago, the new TV with Sky+HD, has most definitely been showing nothing but the same format as regular Sky (with a few extras like record etc) . Maybe the engineer who installed fixed it that way as we explained to him we chose Sky over Freesat for the second tele so mum would only have the one system to deal with . I guess mum must have fiddled a couple of days ago,and inadvertently done the opposite of what Ka7e is suggesting. Thanks ka7e, Ill give that a go tomorrow and see if we can get back to the classic.

brewerdave

Or.... there has been an upgrade of the s/ware and its changed the EPG back to its "default" busy appearance.If that is the case, you may have to adjust the EPG every few weeks!!!

jem16

ANGLICANPAT wrote: »

Thanks ka7e, Ill give that a go tomorrow and see if we can get back to the classic.

You won't get back to what you are calling the "classic" view, you will only be able to turn off the mini TV which does give more listings on the one page.

Sky HD has had the new EPG for around a year as has already been said. Non HD boxes have the older EPG with no plans to change.

Sounds like the engineer didn't do a software update when he installed the box - he should have done though. Now the box has finally picked up the new EPG and there is no way of changing back.

ANGLICANPAT

Quote "Sounds like the engineer didn't do a software update when he installed the box - he should have done though. Now the box has finally picked up the new EPG and there is no way of changing back."

Ive managed to get rid of the small tv picture in the corner, but alas, its true, I cant get back the 'classic'
Given the suggestion in the quote above (which 'fits' and sounds very plausible) -- who thinks I have a case to go back to Sky and say ' Look, I purchased this sky+HD package , and we had 30dys to make sure we wanted it. If during that time we judged that the 'classic' layout we were viewing was suitable for my mum because it was the same format as her existing original Sky set --and then after our 30 day option had ended, you changed it to something unsuitable, so please can we terminate the sky+contract and will you take it away and supply a plain skybox instead'

jem16

ANGLICANPAT wrote: »

so please can we terminate the sky+contract and will you take it away and supply a plain skybox instead'

The only boxes Sky supply now are Sky HD boxes - that is their standard box now.

If your mum really can't get used to the different EPG then swapping out your box with hers seems to be the best solution. However you will need to do it properly at both ends.

Basically swap over the boxes. You need to keep your own cards and then phone Sky to pair each card with the different box. Sky may very well think you are mad to be swapping an HD box for a simple Sky box but never mind.

If you get this far, you will then need to set up the HD box to accept a single feed input as it normally looks for 2 feeds from the dish. I'm assuming you don't have this as you say you have an ordinary Sky box.

ANGLICANPAT

Thanks jem - Im going to work with mum some more to see if she can get her head round swapping between the two systems . If not , I think we will be looking at swapping boxes over. many thanks everyone.