New to SkyHD, lots of questions

ParmMann

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Hi all,

Recently had SkyHD installed, and I've a few questions regarding setup and use.

1) I live in an apartment with a communal dish of some sort. SkyHD has a very strong signal, and the box works well. However, I'm trying to set it up so I get Sky in other rooms.

I have the two Sky leads plugged into dish input 1 and dish input 2. Then, I have a cable going from RF-out 2 to the TV in the bedroom. I can now get Sky on that TV using a red-eye thing (on a manually-tuned analogue channel), but I get no signal for digital freeview. Where am I going wrong? Should I have a TV aerial plugged into the Sky's "aerial in" port? I'd like to be able to get all the freeview channels, and Sky on an analogue channel.

I've been into the hidden menu and RF-out power is enabled.

2) I have the SkyHD box connected to a Pioneer PDP-LX5090 plasma. The picture is ok, but when I watch 4:3 programmes, they are automatically stretched to full screen. Is there a way to change this behaviour? It doesn't happen on Freeview and I have the Plasma set to auto.

3) The subtitles service on my Sky box appears to be really, really bad. I've recorded a few movies and if they've got subtitles - which itself is a rareity - they're usually drastically out of sync. Or, there will be no subtitles for a minute or two, and then they'll race across the screen catching up.

I'm just used to watching films with subtitles on, and find it strange that Sky's subtitle service seems to be so bad. Is it just my box, or are subtitles usually hit or miss?

4) I recently got the new EPG (I'm on an Amstrad box), and the interface now feels really sluggish. Is there anyway to speed it up?

5) I've disabled Anytime, but a lot of hard drive space remains reserved for Sky - is there anyway to free some of this up?

6) If the answer to 5) is no, do you recommend upgrading the hard drive? I have a spare 1TB Samsung drive that I could use. Is this likely to be compatible with the Amstrad box?

That's it for now. I'll add more questions if I think of some, but it's really #1 I'm looking for help on.

Thanks in advance!
 
Yes you need to plug the aerial into your sky box.
 
What Freeview channels do you want that you can't get on Sky?
Subtitles are variable by channle and programme, and mostly mediocre.
There are no settings for the EPG.
Only half of the hard drive is ever available for you to record. The 1tB drive should be OK as a replacement. Details of how to fix it are all over the forum.
 
1. As mentioned already - you need a TV aerial for Freeview. Connect the TV aerial to RF in on Sky box, then cables running from RF out on Sky box to television(s) will carry terrestrial as well as satellite signal.
2. Set HDMI output to Auto rather than 1080i. Your Pioneer may interpret SD output from Sky box as not being high definition, and therefore not automatically stretch to a 16:9 picture. It may not.
3. That's subtitles for you.
4. No.
5. No.
6. Don't know - sorry.
 
6. i reckon 160gb u have with hd should be enough for most ppl, after viewing either delete or save to dvd via scart to dvd recorder,

the more space you have the more rubbish you collect!!!

adding an "extra" hard drive is asking for trouble i.m.o :thumbsup:
 
Disabling Anytime only results in less hard drive use; you can't recover the half that's assigned to it.

It's best to look upon the hard drive as a temporary storage area only.

Anything you want to keep should be transferred to DVD, then 160Gb will be plenty.
 
Fitting a 1TB drive should be fine, but bear in mind you do need to do the firmware trick that's documented in other threads for any drive over 750GB I think.

It's always 140GB that's reserved for Anytime so you get a big payback with a larger drive. I installed a 500GB so my usable space went from 160 to 360, about 125% increase, even though the disk is only 40% bigger. I am wondering if the WD drive I fitted has some compatiblity issues though as I get freezes every so often when playing back recordings. Others have seen similar and say Samsung F2s and F3s have been fine (although I think they may need to be forced into 1.5Gb mode while attached to the PC. Maybe that's the prob with my WD too but haven't seen an official utility or anything for doing it... to the googlemobile...)
 
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6. i reckon 160gb u have with hd should be enough for most ppl, after viewing either delete or save to dvd via scart to dvd recorder,

the more space you have the more rubbish you collect!!!

adding an "extra" hard drive is asking for trouble i.m.o :thumbsup:

That may be your opinion, the fact that so many people have changed to a bigger drive indicates it is not enough space for many. For instance if I am away for the weekend, I would not be able to record all of the football/rugby matches I wanted to even from that weekend - imho it is woefully inadequate.:thumbsdow

Don't be put off - upgrading the HDD is easy to do even if you use a disc above 500gb (which is the limit for not using copy+):smashin:

Finally - no one was suggesting adding 'an extra hard drive' just replacing the existing one with a larger one - this can often use less power than the original and thus have less strain on the psu.
 

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