Thinking back to the very beginning of Sky TV they didn't encrypt their channels so you didn't need to use a Sky box (I used a NEC rather than the Amstrad and Pace models they supplied), once they decided to encrypt you could get a standalone Videocrypt decoder from them that plugged in via the COM port and like Sky Q boxes you never owned it.

Edited by deleted (Thu 12-Sep-19 09:00:26)

Yep, they started to use Videocrypt when their new Movie Channel started.

Our first receiver was that Amstrad Fidelity 16 channel box that we won in a competition, arrived in the post and had to install the ugly white dish ourselves.

The decoder plugged into the high density 15 way d sub socket at the back and used the baseband signal, I still have the service manual for that decoder here some place.

Then Amstrad brought out a receiver with I think was it 32 or 64 channels (such a while back) with the decoder built in.

TBH I don't recall where we got our decoder from, might of been a shop or a friend, it was a bit banged up, but worked.

That brings back the days of the extra dish pointing at another satellite for a certain channel and using an old 486 PC with a RS232 TTL Converter and a modified phone card, ah those were the days LOL

One of my first companies I work for back then made Filmnet and RTL Decoders.

When they went digital we then moved over to a grey Sony Digibox, which were ok, they had some issues but overall they were ok.

And we used 4 of the Sony boxes until we got the HD Boxes.

Paul

As I wrote. The call out to fix any technical problem is currently £65. There is no requirement to extend your contract and the work will be warranted for 3 months.

What you may or think you may have experienced is another matter but the fact is if your box stops working for any reason you just call Sky and they'll fix it for free within the first 12 months (though you might end up with a refurbished box) or £65 after that.

It is a perfectly reasonable, in fact a very good deal.

Yes, they might try and encourage you to extend your contract. Doing so will likely save you money (at least by waiving the call out fee) and might get your service upgraded in a way that you want at a discount (ie; free Movies for a month).

Such offers are entirely optional and are perfectly reasonable. You just have to say 'No thanks, just send the engineer'. Even better if you get uppity about the price they reduce and even waive it anyway.

Don't take this the wrong way I am not trying to be rude or anything, BUT you can keep saying what should of happened, but sadly that wasn't the case for us that time.

The offers all fall down to the person that you speak to on the phone on the day, sadly it seems we was miss informed and was told we had to pay for a new box and to get a discount we had to resub, there was absolutely no mention of an engineer visit or else we would of taken it.

This only happened to us the once, ever since that issue I have repaired the boxes myself which are mostly due to bad caps in the PSU, or bad solder joints that were resolved after a course from my hot air gun

But its good to know NOW that they should offer a £65 callout fee for an engineer to come out to either fix or replace the box with either a new or working box.

Paul

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

Don't take this the wrong way I am not trying to be rude or anything, BUT you can keep saying what should of happened, but sadly that wasn't the case for us that time.

Then your experience was very unusual and not at all typical. You should have raised a complaint with Sky.

I don't have any particular love for Sky but my dealings with them have always fair and professional. I don't think it's right that other people might be dissuaded from signing up with them on the basis of what I'm pretty sure was a very rare situation. I'm pretty sure that if you'd complained to Sky at the time they would have been very apologetic and probably given you six months free subscription or a box upgrade.

Mind you I do think their handling of static IP address is/was stupid. If they just said 'sorry, we don't do it' it'd be one thing. But the two times I enquired they told me it might be possible but they wouldn't know until the service went live. That's a pretty asinine thing to say. It makes little to no technical sense and who is going to sign up with an ISP in the hope that they will get a static IP address that they need?

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Then your experience was very unusual and not at all typical. You should have raised a complaint with Sky.

I don't have any particular love for Sky but my dealings with them have always fair and professional. I don't think it's right that other people might be dissuaded from signing up with them on the basis of what I'm pretty sure was a very rare situation. I'm pretty sure that if you'd complained to Sky at the time they would have been very apologetic and probably given you six months free subscription or a box upgrade.

Oh I totally agree, there has been times when we had a nice person on the phone, like when my Sky card died, it was a very old card that had loads of scorch marks on it with some deformed plastic which was used on one of the boxes that the PSU died on it.
Any how they were very apologetic on the phone and asked for the viewing card number and the box it was for, so that it will already be paired up.

The card came put the card in seemed to work fine on Sky's entertainment channels, but failed to work on the movie and sports packages.
It said something about a technical issue and to phone sky, so I did.

It turns out according to the person that I spoke to 2 days later that all our cards were in the wrong boxes, yet they all was working fine and they were already paired up, so I had to write down all the serial numbers for the cards and boxes where between us went through correctly pairing up the cards (once again) and then everything was working.

But all through the conversation they were polite, not like that time we had that box issue.

So yeah its probably an isolated issue that happened.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Mind you I do think their handling of static IP address is/was stupid. If they just said 'sorry, we don't do it' it'd be one thing. But the two times I enquired they told me it might be possible but they wouldn't know until the service went live. That's a pretty asinine thing to say. It makes little to no technical sense and who is going to sign up with an ISP in the hope that they will get a static IP address that they need?

Yeah, I think we had a Static IP on our BE -> Sky connection at the time it was a requirement for some reason my brother might of needed for doing work at home, I cannot remember.

The amount of times I have asked BT for a static IP due to I have been unlucky several times connected to a remote server when BT decided of renewing the routers IP, and I lost a 3 to 5 hours of programming due to the filing being locked and forcing a closure resulted in an empty file.

So I am like open file edit it, save it and close it LOL
I have started to do all of it now locally on another VM Box and when all the cone is complete and stable enough for public use I then take the servers down an upload the code, then restart the servers and let it do its update and then enable it for the public.

But I have noticed that the dynamic renewal seems to happen a lot less now that I am using a 3rd party router, not a fan of the Smart Hub.
So not sure if BT have extended our lease time or the router stays up longer than BT's Hubs.

I have also recently noticed that BT's Business packages now include the Ultrafast 2 speeds, before you had to go for either a slower package or go for the leased line for huge price.
Sure the new packages costs a lot more so I assume there is more that you get that you don't on the home version, like the 1 free Static IP, but I don't think that price for me just to get a Static IP is worth it, but that's just me.

All in all, most home users won't need a Static IP or a block of them, I know I don't need one, but it would help when doing remote programming at strange hours LOL

Paul

A static IPv4 address is a one-off cost of £5 with Plusnet.

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

All in all, most home users won't need a Static IP or a block of them

I'd agree with that, especially as every ISP router I've had supports dynamic DNS providers.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

A static IPv4 address is a one-off cost of £5 with Plusnet.

but the downside is ZERO support for IPv6.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

All in all, most home users won't need a Static IP or a block of them

I'd agree with that, especially as every ISP router I've had supports dynamic DNS providers.

DDNS works great for incoming, but not so good for connecting outbound.