DIY Sky Multiroom - Is this Possible?

[space--coyote]

I would love to be able to play Xbox 360 more, but at the moment the TV is in the living room and is therefore shared with the family.

I am looking at getting an LCD TV to go in an upstairs room so we can watch Sky and possibly DVDs when the main TV's in use.

Thing is, a video sender is out of the question because my broadband is provided wirelessly and I have been told categorically that a video sender WILL interfere with the broadband and both sides will suffer (degraded speed and degraded picture).

So that leaves me with a problem; I don't use an aerial leads in the setup, so I can't run the picture around the house with a Sky link or whatever they're called (or can I?), oh and freeview through the aerial doesn't cover my area.

I was thinking about Sky Multiroom, but I resent paying the additional £10 for the subscription.

The question is: is it possible for me to run a lead from the existing LNB to a second hand Sky box and get a freeview card?

That is assuming that the LNB has another output and it will work that way.

[salnajjar]

Okay, assuming I understand this correctly then what you want is quite simple and you have two options.

Option 1: The Sky Link solution works by being cabled into the second RF output port of your current Sky or Sky+ box and goes to where-ever the TV is that you want to use it on, it then you simply plug the included iR reciever into the end of the coax cable, and the other end of the lead into the RF socket of the TV. Downsides of this solution is that it requires the LCD screen or whatever you decide on to have an RF socket and for you to trail a long coaxial cable all the way from the Sky box to the second TV.

Option 2: Assuming you have Sky+ then your satellite dish will have a quad LNB on it, this allows for four seperate feeds to be used from the same dish, two of which would already be used by the Sky+ box, leaving two more to either feed a second Sky+ box or two seperate standard Sky boxes. This means that you could hook an extra cable up to a free LNB output on the dish and take it to wherever you were going to install a new Sky box. The downside is that every extra Sky box needs its own viewing card so you would need to pay the extra £10 a month multi-room price.

I'm sure there are other options, for a while I spliced the coax output from one of our Sky boxes into the RJ45 cable in my house to feed a TV upstairs. It wasn't ideal but it worked...

[space--coyote]

I like the idea about running another cable from the LNB to another Sky box, although I don't like the idea about paying anything more to Sky.

If I was happy with just the freeview channels, could I buy a freeview card and do it that way?

[salnajjar]

I can't see any reason why not, the important thing is to make sure that your LNB does have a spare feed (do you have Sky+?) and then to make sure you don't knock the damn dish when you're wiring it in.

I don't know whether Sky would still charge you a nominal ammount for the Viewing card, I do know that the majority of free to air channels via sky don't need a viewing card at all, but there are some that do.

You might be able to find more info here:
http://www.freesatfromsky.com/

Seri

[salnajjar]

I just found this:
I already have digital satellite equipment - what else do I need?

All you need to get access to the free channels available on the digital satellite platform is a freesat viewing card which costs just £20.

[Bambi]

Originally Posted by space--coyote

I would love to be able to play Xbox 360 more, but at the moment the TV is in the living room and is therefore shared with the family.

I am looking at getting an LCD TV to go in an upstairs room so we can watch Sky and possibly DVDs when the main TV's in use.

Thing is, a video sender is out of the question because my broadband is provided wirelessly and I have been told categorically that a video sender WILL interfere with the broadband and both sides will suffer (degraded speed and degraded picture).

So that leaves me with a problem; I don't use an aerial leads in the setup, so I can't run the picture around the house with a Sky link or whatever they're called (or can I?), oh and freeview through the aerial doesn't cover my area.

I was thinking about Sky Multiroom, but I resent paying the additional £10 for the subscription.

The question is: is it possible for me to run a lead from the existing LNB to a second hand Sky box and get a freeview card?

That is assuming that the LNB has another output and it will work that way.

My broadband is wireless and I also have a wireless video sender and they do not interfere with each other.

The only thing that stops the wireless sender from working is the microwave.

Speaking hypothetically:-
If your dog was to eat your viewing card, sky would have to send you a replacement and cancel the old card.
If the dog then regurgitated the old card and it was still in one piece, you could stick it in another box and it would behave like a freesat card.

Of course persuading your dog to eat the card and then promptly regurgitate it could be a problem.

[pointyone]

Originally Posted by Boy Lex

Speaking hypothetically:-
If your dog was to eat your viewing card, sky would have to send you a replacement and cancel the old card.
If the dog then regurgitated the old card and it was still in one piece, you could stick it in another box and it would behave like a freesat card.

Of course persuading your dog to eat the card and then promptly regurgitate it could be a problem.

pure class

[MeantToBeWorkin]

Originally Posted by Boy Lex

Speaking hypothetically:-
Of course persuading your dog to eat the card and then promptly regurgitate it could be a problem.

Especially if you don't have a dog...

[Baggy69]

Originally Posted by Bambi

My broadband is wireless and I also have a wireless video sender and they do not interfere with each other.

The only thing that stops the wireless sender from working is the microwave.

What video sender do you have Bambi ?