PVR advice - new to the country (and the forums!)

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Shteve0

18 posts

Geek

#113057 4-Jan-2013 07:22

Hi guys!

I've recently moved to the country and, not being particularly tech savvy, am hopeful I'll be able to pick up some advice on here with my PVR needs!

I live in a block of flats that has a shared sky connection. What this basically means is that my one coax picks up three lots of channels - digital tv (freeview), radio, and five 'analogue' sky channels that don't come up with a standard name format or epg (my LG tv has inbuilt freeview and doesn't recognise them).

My basic requirement at this stage is for a solution to record programmes, ideally from both DTV and TV channels, but with the TV channels (ie the analogue feed) the priority. My reason for this is that I'm a massive football fan and am frequently frustrated by sky sports scheduling only the very dullest matches for repeat at convenient times and everything else, including the end of round review, at either 2am or 2pm on a weekday!

If (and only if) I can satisfy that first level of requirement I'm looking to see if I can output to USB for portability; and to see if the solution is available from amazon.com (my sister bought me some US vouchers for christmas).

Thanks for help on this - very much appreciate any assistance! Please help me emerge from my scheduling misery :)

Cheers!

Steve

B1GGLZ

1961 posts

Uber Geek

#740016 4-Jan-2013 08:53

I'm somewhat confused'
You say you have a shared Sky connection with one co-ax so presumably you only have a Satellite Dish.
Sky signals are all digital and you shouldn't be able to receive any analogue TV off a Sky dish.
Analogue TV is due for switch off this year anyway. Analogue TV has never had an epg.
Need more info on what connections and setup you have and just what precisely you are receiving.
Freeview HD terrestrial needs a UHF antenna.

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Oblivian

6944 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#740019 4-Jan-2013 09:04

If sky is comming through on different channels it sounds to me there's a couple of decoders stashed away set to different channels muxing their UHF output back into the main feed. In much the same way hotels do.

trig42

5604 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#740032 4-Jan-2013 09:09

Do you know if you can get Sky yourself? MySky would be your best option. Other than that, to record the analogue Sky feed, you will need to find an old DVD/HDD Recorder that records the analogue feed.

Here is one on Trademe: http://www.trademe.co.nz/electronics-photography/dvd-players-vcrs/dvd-recorders/auction-547551381.htm
and another: http://www.trademe.co.nz/electronics-photography/dvd-players-vcrs/dvd-recorders/auction-548838180.htm

It won't do the digital, so you would need another PVR for that.

A HTPC will do what you want, but setup and configuration wont be as simple as plug and play.

Shteve0

18 posts

Geek

#740061 4-Jan-2013 09:39

Cheers guys, it's exactly like they have in hotels - the block I live in is shared flats and serviced apartments, in fact. I'm led to believe that there are decoders involved somewhere, but I have no idea on the technical ins and outs - the fact is that there are five sky channels and I receive them in my apartment through the coax as analogue channels.

I don't believe there is a way of getting my own connection and, to be honest, I suspect that would be a prohibitively expensive route (since I already get all the channels I want as a non-optional part of my rent). Thanks for the links to the trademe auctions, trig - how did you search for those? I'm stuck for how to identify what will or won't work, and ideally I'll be picking one of these up on amazon.com with a gift voucher I'm struggling to use. Are there any models that output to USB?

I'm certainly interested in the htpc option, but with that route my requirements complicate - I have a home server and assorted front end gadgets back home due for shipping later in the year, and I'd want to build any htpc to work with that setup. I might post in the htpc section later with that, but for now I'm keen to check out off-the-shelf options.

Cheers for the quick replies - unexpected, but very much appreciated!

Best

Steve

bfginger

1237 posts

Uber Geek

#740192 4-Jan-2013 16:23

The Amazon gift voucher won't help with buying electronics in New Zealand as they don't deliver much here other than books and DVDs.

To record Sky digitally you'd need a full Sky subscription and a MySkyHD PVR. That would cost you alot of money. Buying a PAL HDD recorder like linked to above would be alot cheaper.

A MyFreeview|HD UHF PVR would record the Freeview digital channels. MySkyHD also receives the main Freeview channels but a subscription is expensive.

Shteve0

18 posts

Geek

#740218 4-Jan-2013 18:06

Thanks BFG - to clarify, I don't need to record Sky digitally, I need to record the analogue signal of the channels (which happen to be sky as distinct from domestic). I'm also looking to record to USB (or external hdd). As you rightly point out though, sky's expensive, and I don't want to go down that route :)

Thanks for the heads up on Amazon, but all I can do is try, I guess - they don't accept returns of vouchers and I can't transfer it to a more usable country, so I've got a semi useless US$100 burning a bit of a hole at the moment. If I fail with this, I'll try it for some htpc components, and look to buy something on trademe, but I'd want to try to spend the credit I have first.

So, for complete clarity; what kind of pvr/tuner will record analogue signals? What kind of technology differentiates between pvrs that are capable of recording analogue signals and those that only (though more generally desirably) are capable of recording digital signals? And do I need to look for anything in particular to handle the NZ signals/voltage than I would for other nations?

Thanks so much!

Steve

B1GGLZ

1961 posts

Uber Geek

#740250 4-Jan-2013 19:01

trig42: Do you know if you can get Sky yourself? MySky would be your best option. Other than that, to record the analogue Sky feed, you will need to find an old DVD/HDD Recorder that records the analogue feed.

Here is one on Trademe: http://www.trademe.co.nz/electronics-photography/dvd-players-vcrs/dvd-recorders/auction-547551381.htm
and another: http://www.trademe.co.nz/electronics-photography/dvd-players-vcrs/dvd-recorders/auction-548838180.htm

It won't do the digital, so you would need another PVR for that.

A HTPC will do what you want, but setup and configuration wont be as simple as plug and play.

+1
Should be easy to pick up an old Analogue DVD Recorder on Trademe $100 - $150.
I recently sold one for around $140.
Won't record Freeview Digital (except via analogue out on a STB) or USB record but you can burn discs which will play on a PC or any other DVD/Blu Ray player.