Hard drive upgrades

Forums › Sky, Neon, Lightbox › Hard drive upgrades

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5288 posts

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#662670 26-Jul-2012 22:23

JimmyH: It's like modifying a car.

If I rent you a car, then I would be pretty angry (and justifiably so) if it was returned with a new paint scheme, a wide exhaust, and a souped up engine with nitrous fitted. I would come after you legally.

Saying that you were just making it better, or that it was justifed because the rental cost I charged for a more powerful car was outrageous, wouldn't help you in court.

You need to either:
(i) put up with it.
(ii) cancel your subscription and walk away
(iii) try find a way of doing what you want without damaging someone else's property

Your analogy is not relevant several ways.

There is no cost to sky when the mysky box is returned as it is in original condition but in your analogy there is a cost to restore the car to original condition (incidentally, I'd agree the renter must restore the car or whatever to original condition).

A better analogy would be that someone puts snow tyres on the car as it is snowing. Then, they refit the original tyres before returning the car. You are not out of pocket, the car is exactly the same as you rented it out.

ie, you take the sky box, insert a larger hdd, then, refit the original hdd when returning. There is no cost to sky (other than the $600 they may have charged for an upgrade, but, they would never receive this anyway as people simply wouldn't pay that much to upgrade).

Kyanar

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#662682 26-Jul-2012 22:58

surfisup1000:
Your analogy is not relevant several ways.

There is no cost to sky when the mysky box is returned as it is in original condition but in your analogy there is a cost to restore the car to original condition (incidentally, I'd agree the renter must restore the car or whatever to original condition).

A better analogy would be that someone puts snow tyres on the car as it is snowing. Then, they refit the original tyres before returning the car. You are not out of pocket, the car is exactly the same as you rented it out.

ie, you take the sky box, insert a larger hdd, then, refit the original hdd when returning. There is no cost to sky (other than the $600 they may have charged for an upgrade, but, they would never receive this anyway as people simply wouldn't pay that much to upgrade).

No, you would actually irrevocably damage their property by opening it. Why? Because you just voided their warranty. Because Sky is a business, buying these boxes for commercial use, their warranty goes exactly as far as their supplier agrees it does. And one clause you can guarantee you will see in a B2B sale agreement is that if you modify the equipment in any way, the warranty is void.

Also, your analogy is not relevant. Fitting snow tyres to a car does not require disassembling the vehicle and then putting it back together, and is something that must be done in order to use the vehicle when it is snowing. You don't need a larger hard drive in order to use a MySky.

A better analogy would be if you rented a car and then gave it a new paint scheme, fitted a wide bore exhaust, and a souped up engine with nitrous. Oh wait.

And for what it's worth, even if you restored it to the original condition, any company that you rent a car from would come down on you like a ton of bricks if you did that.

surfisup1000

5288 posts

Uber Geek

#662700 26-Jul-2012 23:36

Kyanar:
surfisup1000:
Your analogy is not relevant several ways.

There is no cost to sky when the mysky box is returned as it is in original condition but in your analogy there is a cost to restore the car to original condition (incidentally, I'd agree the renter must restore the car or whatever to original condition).

A better analogy would be that someone puts snow tyres on the car as it is snowing. Then, they refit the original tyres before returning the car. You are not out of pocket, the car is exactly the same as you rented it out.

ie, you take the sky box, insert a larger hdd, then, refit the original hdd when returning. There is no cost to sky (other than the $600 they may have charged for an upgrade, but, they would never receive this anyway as people simply wouldn't pay that much to upgrade).

No, you would actually irrevocably damage their property by opening it. Why? Because you just voided their warranty. Because Sky is a business, buying these boxes for commercial use, their warranty goes exactly as far as their supplier agrees it does. And one clause you can guarantee you will see in a B2B sale agreement is that if you modify the equipment in any way, the warranty is void.

Also, your analogy is not relevant. Fitting snow tyres to a car does not require disassembling the vehicle and then putting it back together, and is something that must be done in order to use the vehicle when it is snowing. You don't need a larger hard drive in order to use a MySky.

A better analogy would be if you rented a car and then gave it a new paint scheme, fitted a wide bore exhaust, and a souped up engine with nitrous. Oh wait.

And for what it's worth, even if you restored it to the original condition, any company that you rent a car from would come down on you like a ton of bricks if you did that.

Removing bolts and tyres from a car is disassembling in my opinion.You are making wild guesses regarding the warranty - and if the box did fail due to you replacing the HDD then sky can make you pay repairs.

Your analogy is still wrong. You don't seem to recognise that sky receive the box back in exactly the same condition . In your analogy, the car is returned in a completely altered state. If the car were restored to exactly the same state the car company wouldn't know or care. But, the modifications in your analogy are so extreme it is impossible to restore to original state.

I can see we'll never agree so no point continuing the debate.

Niel

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#662718 27-Jul-2012 06:14

Tyres are service parts and you even get given a spare for replacement if necessary. You are authorised to do that. You are not authorised to e.g. open the engine and poke around inside, then close it up exactly as it was because it will not be exactly as it was and when things go wrong a year later then there is uncertainty as to if it was a manufacturer fault or a user fault.

The cost of the equipment is insignificant compared to labour cost, but if something goes wrong then Sky has to pay for the labour of sorting it out.

Some connectors are rated for as little as 10 insertions and you do not know which ones so you can cause a connector to become intermittent.

Some connectors are supposed to be replaced after each disconnection (low cost QC tabs). Personally I just bend then closed again, but they should be cut off and a new one crimped on.

You might not know the product electrical safety requirements and remove a cable tie to gain access to wires but actually that cable tie serves a purpose in that if the solder of the mains wire comes loose then the cable tie prevents the mains from touching any low voltage circuit. I've just fixed an overhead projector where a person with a good intention had fixed it many years ago and removed the excessive cable ties, now the earth wire was broken and it would have taken only 1 wire to come loose and put mains on the metal chassis without tripping the RCD. This projector is used in a public place.

The bottom line is, you are not allowed to open it as you are not the one with the liability. It is in your contract.

You can never have enough Volvos!

gareth41

742 posts

Ultimate Geek

#662878 27-Jul-2012 11:58

Why even bother with the mysky unit, sky have got too much control over them, waste of time in my opinion. If you want to record from sky and keep the recordings, transfer them to dvd, record to external hdd etc... then just buy something like a dreambox or vu+duo. vu+ even have a new receiver out with 1.2ghz processor and about 3 tuners? i think, havent seen them for sale in nz yet but they on some uk satellite websites. plenty of plugins in the internet for these boxes which enable them to read a mysky smartcard. and you can also access them over the network either through ftp or windows file sharing. recordings are unencrypted .TS files which play in vlc player.

numberonekiwi

144 posts

Master Geek

#662917 27-Jul-2012 13:06

There seem to be issues in either direction about opening modifying sky boxes.

My intention is to be using the eSATA port and swapping the 2 sata connectors internally as well as leaving the 320 GB hardrive in the unit.

What this achieves is if the sky box is powered on without a drive connected to the sata1 port it defaults and uses sata2 if there is a drive connected which there will be as it will be the original sky drive.

So by having an external drive connected to sata1 ( no external ) I can use any size drive I wish however if the unit ever needs to be returned to sky the the original drive would work as the external drive is disconnected.

Kyanar

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#663010 27-Jul-2012 16:19

numberonekiwi: There seem to be issues in either direction about opening modifying sky boxes.

My intention is to be using the eSATA port and swapping the 2 sata connectors internally as well as leaving the 320 GB hardrive in the unit.

What this achieves is if the sky box is powered on without a drive connected to the sata1 port it defaults and uses sata2 if there is a drive connected which there will be as it will be the original sky drive.

So by having an external drive connected to sata1 ( no external ) I can use any size drive I wish however if the unit ever needs to be returned to sky the the original drive would work as the external drive is disconnected.

So it sounds like you actually plan to modify the box. Hence the point stands - it's not your box, so that is illegal, not just a violation of the terms.

You do realise that people from Sky actually read these forums right?

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mattwnz

20163 posts

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#663013 27-Jul-2012 16:23

Kyanar:
numberonekiwi: There seem to be issues in either direction about opening modifying sky boxes.

My intention is to be using the eSATA port and swapping the 2 sata connectors internally as well as leaving the 320 GB hardrive in the unit.

What this achieves is if the sky box is powered on without a drive connected to the sata1 port it defaults and uses sata2 if there is a drive connected which there will be as it will be the original sky drive.

So by having an external drive connected to sata1 ( no external ) I can use any size drive I wish however if the unit ever needs to be returned to sky the the original drive would work as the external drive is disconnected.

So it sounds like you actually plan to modify the box.? Hence the point stands - it's not your box, so that is illegal, not just a violation of the terms.

You do realise that people from Sky actually read these forums right?

I think many people possibily think they do own it after paying $600 odd for it, which is more than a normal PVR costs. Tivos were around half that, albit a run out price.

blair003

557 posts

Ultimate Geek

#663022 27-Jul-2012 16:57

mattwnz: I think many people possibily think they do own it after paying $600 odd for it, which is more than a normal PVR costs. Tivos were around half that, albit a run out price.

Yeah, they probably probably also think that (me at least) because sky don't say you don't own it. So given the options presented to you of

(a) paying a monthly fee indefinitely or;
(b) paying a one off charge but no monthly fee

I think that any reasonable person is going to assume that option a means you are renting it and option b means you are buying it.

I assume if you do elect option (b) they do actually tell you you don't own it, or perhaps its just in the fine print.

My experience is based on a few years ago when it came out. At the time I did the calculation and stupidly elected to rent thinking that there would be an upgrade in a few years so I wouldn't want to own old hardware when I could get the upgraded hardware.

Of course the upgraded hardware is 50% more expensive and the old hardware has not decreased in price, so the jokes on me..

stuzzo

534 posts

Ultimate Geek

#663048 27-Jul-2012 18:10

I think from memory that, when the original MySky came out, the only option was to buy/loan it.

dickytim

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#663055 27-Jul-2012 18:43

I too assumed that once you paid your $600 you owned it, i'm glad i never went thru with it!

Kyanar

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#663063 27-Jul-2012 18:59

blair003: Yeah, they probably probably also think that (me at least) because sky don't say you don't own it. So given the options presented to you of

(a) paying a monthly fee indefinitely or;
(b) paying a one off charge but no monthly fee

Actually, the agreement that your service comes with makes it quite clear that Sky owns the hardware and that you may not tamper with it. I sure hope you read that agreement before blindly signing it! (Especially since you gave Sky permission to walk into your house at any time to grab it).

blair003

557 posts

Ultimate Geek

#663226 28-Jul-2012 11:39

Golly gosh! You mean the agreement I signed ~12 years ago when there was no option to pay a lump sum for the decoder so it was clear you did not own it?!

My point stands - given the options presented it is a natural assumption that one model is rental and the other model is ownership. They don't make it clear that you don't own the box in their marketing, and given you are paying a large amount that likely exceeds what they buy the boxes for, the assumption that you do own it is a fair one.

The fact that the assumption is incorrect and the fineprint might make it clear that you don't own the box is a separate issue. Kinda reminds me of:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/south-park-parodies-itunes-terms-and-conditions/10043

numberonekiwi

144 posts

Master Geek

#663263 28-Jul-2012 13:03

Doing some ebay searches I have discovered that you can buy a similar sky box from the UK. However I am not sure about how to load NZ firmware onto it They also have only 2 tuners so would reduce some features which the NZ model has.
So surely if the UK units can be brought some where NZ units must surely be obtainable from somewhere.

I have thought about the dreambox option but I use series link on channels as I work during the evening and like to come home and press planner and watch programs recorded earlier that evening with out this feature I would need to manually set recordings each day / week which would be a real PITA. Not to mention the channel numbers being all over the place.

Kyanar

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#663621 29-Jul-2012 15:02

blair003: Golly gosh! You mean the agreement I signed ~12 years ago when there was no option to pay a lump sum for the decoder so it was clear you did not own it?!

My point stands - given the options presented it is a natural assumption that one model is rental and the other model is ownership. They don't make it clear that you don't own the box in their marketing, and given you are paying a large amount that likely exceeds what they buy the boxes for, the assumption that you do own it is a fair one.

The fact that the assumption is incorrect and the fineprint might make it clear that you don't own the box is a separate issue. Kinda reminds me of:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/south-park-parodies-itunes-terms-and-conditions/10043

So what you're saying is that you didn't read the Terms and Conditions? You would have been given a new copy when the installer came around to give you the MySky decoder (check the back of the service order) so you can't blame signing it 12 years ago because they rub your nose in the terms and conditions every time they come to see you.

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