Over the Xmas break discovered that my mother in law is paying $15 a month to rent a MySky box. Is there something you can buy outright that does the same thing? Must be able to record easily from the EPG, and be able to record while watching something else.
I don't think anything will be able to do it for sky.
If she ditches sky and goes to freeview (satellite or terrestrial) there a multitude of options. ....and she'll save much more than $15 per month!
HTPC: Antec NSK2480B case, AMD A4-5300 CPU, Asus F2A85-M LE mobo, WD Caviar Green 64Mb 2TB HDD, HD Homerun, Win7 Home Premium, RAM 1600Mhz 4Gb. iPad air 2
Keeping the MySky doesn't sound like a bad option if she likes the machine and is used to it.
Other satellite PVRs will take quite a while to pay off at $15/month. (and some of them have reliability issues if you look elsewhere on GZ!)
At least if the MySky box craps out it's not her problem.
HTPC: Antec NSK2480B case, AMD A4-5300 CPU, Asus F2A85-M LE mobo, WD Caviar Green 64Mb 2TB HDD, HD Homerun, Win7 Home Premium, RAM 1600Mhz 4Gb. iPad air 2
If she's in a UHF area then get a UHF STB or PVR and UHF antenna. That way she can watch in HD if her TV is capable. If not in UHF coverage then get a satellite PVR but only SD available.
Monza: Oops forget to mention she has long since ditched the sky subscription, just likes the MySky for watching and recording the basic channels....
Might pay to check again what she actually pays. I thought Sky charged about $20/mth for the basic FTA channels (no Sky channels) with a basic decoder and there'd be another $15/mth for the MySky decoder.
Starting price at present is $300 so minimum payback period is 20 months
My experience is usability varies wildly (one Panasonic was so slow at switching channels you could make a cuppa between changes) so read the reviews and try them out first if you get the opportunity
Try to buy a cheap TiVo. But if she is only paying $15 per month for a musky, that isn't too bad really, but I think you need a sky subscription to have musky. I know they were giving free old mysky boxes to normal sky subscribers a few years ago, so perhaps they are just paying the basic sky price.
$18.70 for FTA channels plus two free ones (varies each month). $15/month extra for MySky on top, unless (like me) you'd paid $600 up-front. Still a good deal for reasons outlined above - reliable PVR, no hassles if it craps out.
While you may be able to save some money, $18 the MySky isn't necessarily a terrible deal. In your payback calculations you need to factor in that Sky will maintain the box and the dish etc, and a phonecall will get a technician if anything fails (as they invariably do at some point).
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