Newb to Skybox

[murkr]

Hi All

I am wondering if you could help me, I currently have sky which I will be cancelling next month. I am wondering if an expert could help me with a few questions I had before I make my purchase.

First of all should I buy a skybox f3 or f5? Also if I was to pay for a cline what would the average cost be for most/all channels? And what channels apart from the freeview ones would this give me access to?

Would the premium servers on here work for me? As I am in the UK and the price is in dollars so not sure if they will only work in the US?

Any help is appreciated!

[ProgSkEEtO]

Re: Newb to Skybox

Hey Murkr, well i personally have a DM800HDse, but my friend does have a Skybox F3 and for CCcam usage it's pretty good for that price so if you won't spent money for maybe a better box you can go with it. Well if you buy premium here you pay 12€ per month, if you purchase month per month, you have packages too, but i think first you should try a month and then decide if you want to spend that money. Normally as it was told to me Satlover's clines support most of sattelite in europe and pay-tv channels aswell, like Sky and so on. What you can see depends on how your dish is positioned. Yes they will work, because you get the keys for them from the web via the cline you get from Satlover. But i have to say, that i use them now for a few months and i am not that satisfied you know, it's quite laggy and even heavy freezes while there are games like Champions League or other matches like the FA cup and so on. But for that price you really get very much and i don't think there is somewhere another service which provide better service for the same price, so as already said try one month and see yourself, then decide what you wanna do.

Good Luck!

[ljuben]

Re: Newb to Skybox

Hi. First, I found it difficult to understand your English,(or my english is not good) and what you're asking exactly. from what I understand, more or less, the answers are these. For the box I can not answer because I do not have skybox, I have dreambox. for other questions: there are many that offer cline from 5 € to 25 € per month, but, if you take 3,6,12 months there are also discounts (all are good-depends on your budget) and all give you all packages, all channels from all satelits that you receive in your area .. So, repeat all channels. Has nothing to do if you pay in euros or dollars, they work well in all countries. So that' s the answers - If I understand correctly what you are interested.

[scooterman]

Re: Newb to Skybox

Check which channel lists are available for skyf3 box,i havent seen any multi sat lists for it,did see one for 30W ,which leads me to believe the box is really only supported for 28E.
If you want it only for sky then yes its a good box for that and you can get them with wifi dongle.
My friend has one and its very stable with Nline in it,perhaps the F3 can be used for multu sat but find it strange there is lack of support in that respect.
If it was me i would spend a little more on a middle of the road receiver especially if you want to use it on other sats.

[lotuselite]

Re: Newb to Skybox

Yes the lines from here would work fine whether you pay in dollars or euros or pounds.

Why have you decided to buy either a skybox f3 or f5? If they are the only ones you have heard of you should research other boxes available on this site. You should pay attention to recording facilities and multi-satellite capabilities of various boxes as you could regret it later if you don't have them. The skyboxes can only record from the same transformer as the channel you are watching.

[murkr]

Re: Newb to Skybox

Thank you for your replies. That has answered my questions. Well I was initially looking at a dreambox. I'm happy to spend a bit of money but although I'm not a novice with computers it seems that setting a dreambox up is somewhat time consuming and not so straight forward, where as the skybox it's as it's pretty much plug and play in the sense that you plug a USB in with firmware etc and you click on a couple of buttons. And as I have a sky dish and connections i thought it would work beat. Maybe you can advise another?

[ProgSkEEtO]

Re: Newb to Skybox

If you can spend the money, then get a Dreambox they are really worth it, but look for the HD ones. If you wanna get one just for viewing get a DM500HD or if you want one that is a bit better in performance as able to, be a server aswell if you maybe wanna go into this after a time, then get the DM800HDse. That's my opinion. Well there are many other cool boxes too, like VU+ or maybe Gigablue, but at the time i was buying i was thinking about either a VU+ or a DM. It depends on what you are looking for and what you think you will need it for. Before i forget that about the setting up, you know it isn't that kinda hard, i think if you maybe look for a tutorial on this site, you do it easily. Most what you do is installing newEnigma2 or Gemini or maybe something else if you want another firmware, then installing the CCcam plugin and upload the configured cccam.cfg and and .prio files to your dm via ftp. Not that hard at all, if you get stuck just pm me, i will help u.

Good Luck!

[murkr]

Re: Newb to Skybox

Thanks! Ok so if I go for the 500, will this work fine with my current sky dish setup? I'm guessing it doesn't matter if you have an active sky subscription? (Read somewhere you need a subscription, but can't see how this will matter). Also how often would I need to update the firmware once I've set it all up?

By the way, as it will be used for viewing only (recording would be good) can anyone explain why the skyboxes are no good? Apart from things like EPG?

[bokkie]

Re: Newb to Skybox

Difference is that skybox is a closed source receiver. Whereas dm, vu+, gigablue, etc are open source.
Basically means you get a better choice with images, plugins, etc.
Plugins such as bbc Iplayer, 4 od, itv player, etc. Also great video on demand plugins and loads more.
I have vu+ solo2 which also features transcoding, gigabit ethernet, 1300 mhz processor............

[murkr]

Re: Newb to Skybox

I'm mainly only after the sky channels really. Recording would be good and if possible being able to pause live tv (rewind even) but this may only be doable on the expensive boxes. Does anyone know if the 7day EPG on the skybox F5 works?

Looking to spend maybe £80 max, but at the same time don't want something that will stop working in a few months.

Also can someone please confirm if I need an active sky subscription with the DB or skybox?

[lotuselite]

Re: Newb to Skybox

No you don't need an active sky subscription, you just get a premium server subscription from this site to open up sky channels.

You can live pause or record onto a usb pendrive with f3 or f5 but they have only one tuner you which means can only record the channel you are tuned to.

With a twin tuner you can record a different channel from the one you are viewing.

[murkr]

Re: Newb to Skybox

Thanks! That's very helpful. 1 last question, will you need the internet to watch tv with the skybox? As someone without internet at home wants one (I could set it up for them)

[bokkie]

Re: Newb to Skybox

Yes mate, need an internet connection to open channels.

[ProgSkEEtO]

Re: Newb to Skybox

Yes, for using this service, you need an active internet connection to the reciever for getting the keys, needed to decode the channels encoding so you can view them. So yes, without a connection this subscription is useless. Your dish setup doesn't matter, if it works now it will work with an other reciever too. For the recording it's as lotuselite said, you can record, but if you don't have another tuner in your reciever, you can record just the channel you are currently viewing on this tuner. But not to forget you will have to buy a hdd, for this which you can either install into the box itself or connect it via USB and that enables timeshift(rewind,etc.) too i think.

[lotuselite]

Re: Newb to Skybox

You can use a usb pendrive for recording or pausing as a cheaper solution rather than a hdd but you are limited to how much you can record by the memory capacity.