I bought a slingbox a couple of years ago and rigged it up to our Sky system in the UK. It was blurry and kept buffering. I think that you have to have a reasonable connection both at that end and at this end. In the end I got rid of it. I think the secret is that you have to pay for a decent VPN - the free ones re-route the signal all over the show and it slows everything down. I watch BBC channels and ITV live on the internet (via the laptop and then plug it into the tv with a vga cable). Now I can watch Sky too. As I said earlier, you should be able to view content on a reasonably low end connection speed. Mine is 1Mb and works fine. If it's running slowly then I change the video quality from high to medium and it fixes the problem. Place your wireless router right next to the laptop or run it off a cable. That's will improve it as well...
Canal+ is broadcast with a wider footprint than the BSkyB channels, in part because there's demand for it in the French-speaking areas of North Africa, so it's possible to pick up here. It's actually a condition of Sky's contracts with the various movie and TV studios that they keep the footprint for their UK channels as small as is technically possible in order to prevent or minimise viewing outside the UK.
The Sky channels you're picking up through Hotbird are Sky Italia ones. Sky UK doesn't use Hotbird because its footprint is much too wide.
edited by edna.welthorpe on 19/08/2011
Wow you are a techie!!! I don't know the ins and outs, but what you say makes complete sense.
Canal+ is broadcast with a wider footprint than the BSkyB channels, in part because there's demand for it in the French-speaking areas of North Africa, so it's possible to pick up here. It's actually a condition of Sky's contracts with the various movie and TV studios that they keep the footprint for their UK channels as small as is technically possible in order to prevent or minimise viewing outside the UK.
The Sky channels you're picking up through Hotbird are Sky Italia ones. Sky UK doesn't use Hotbird because its footprint is much too wide.
<em>edited by edna.welthorpe on 19/08/2011</em>
Yes, just to reiterate what simpleasabc said, it's impossible to pick up the Astra satellite signal here. We're much too far south. If you have a huge dish (about 2 metres across) you can just about pick up Sky as far south as Turkey, but you can't get all the channels and it's not completely reliable.
Something that causes a bit of confusion is that you sometimes hear people saying that they "get Sky" through their satellite dish here, but they're referring to Sky Italia. It's owned by News Corp so it's part of the BSkyB "family", and it's actually pretty much like the UK version of Sky, but of course with an Italian bias.
Correct, however, we have an Astra 1m dish which captures our French Canal + channels (so further north than Turkey). We also capture some Sky channels as I originally posted. I haven't studied them all yet, but if there are movies where the original language is in English, then you can have it in English. I know I have picked up some German ones too. So as Edna said, you can get Sky, but with the local variations of the countries where you can pick them up from. Our Astra dish captures quite a few channels, but not all that we are supposed to have on our Canal Plus package, but we also get extra that we account for HBO, Fox....
Yes, just to reiterate what simpleasabc said, it's impossible to pick up the Astra satellite signal here. We're much too far south. If you have a huge dish (about 2 metres across) you can just about pick up Sky as far south as Turkey, but you can't get all the channels and it's not completely reliable.
Something that causes a bit of confusion is that you sometimes hear people saying that they "get Sky" through their satellite dish here, but they're referring to Sky Italia. It's owned by News Corp so it's part of the BSkyB "family", and it's actually pretty much like the UK version of Sky, but of course with an Italian bias.
LOL LOL
oh my! are you serious? hehhhehhe. Got excited for nothing, shoot. Its back to good old slingbox is it? oh dear, thats what i wanted to avoid.
Yes, please do let us know, i hope its something great and wonderful and not through slingbox (although that is great and wonderful, just not on my internet speed, even though I can't get a faster one).
I thought that Mike guy organized a slingbox system, rather than a satellite dish? Please let us know, we can't sort out watching via the net, our broadband is just too poor..
Well I found the original post by nadadanada in the End, blokes name was Mike, so I created another thread to see if I can get the info.
But, thank you for your post, very helpful and I will look into it. I just didn't want to have rely on the internet speed here that all. May be worth me upgrading my TV for an internet ready one too :s
thanks again
Mike Gambol 00447976614244 :)
Well I found the original post by nadadanada in the End, blokes name was Mike, so I created another thread to see if I can get the info.
But, thank you for your post, very helpful and I will look into it. I just didn't want to have rely on the internet speed here that all. May be worth me upgrading my TV for an internet ready one too :s
thanks again
shocks, with etisalat, will change in my new place though as its soooooo slow and thats with the highest speed available. Hearing good things about DU.
Well I found the original post by nadadanada in the End, blokes name was Mike, so I created another thread to see if I can get the info.
But, thank you for your post, very helpful and I will look into it. I just didn't want to have rely on the internet speed here that all. May be worth me upgrading my TV for an internet ready one too :s
thanks again
I would be amazed if you could run it legally. However, I use a VPN and run it across the internet really well. Sky now have something called a "monthly ticket" which allows you to pay for sky packages for uses with mobile devices (laptops, ipads, iphones, etc.). A few programmes are not viewable because of licensing restrictions but we can watch a lot of Sky tv. They have the usual packages. It only started this month so I've bought the basic package at £15 to trial it. If it's still ok at the end of the month we're going to upgrade to the Sports package so he can watch the football. The good thing is that it's portable.
No I SWEAR a few months ago someone posted they have sky+ legally by a bloke called either mathew, Marcus, mark, Michael - pinching myself for not writing it down.
Darn it.
I'm not sure you can get Sky plus here in Dubai. I believe it is available on the Astra 2D satellite, whose "footprint" doesn't reach this far. I would love to be told I was wrong, but I think you would need a satellite dish as big as a house to receive it :)
Lovely thanks for your help. I will contact mr Alam if i can't get info on the dude that does sky+
Thanks again
<em>edited by N.Kaye on 18/08/2011</em>
HI there, we just had a guy install some satellite dishes etc. He was recommended to us. I am not sure if he does Sky +, but he got us our French channels, and seems to be able to do just about anything. We actually do have a some Sky channels as well that we have picked up from Hot Bird. I sometimes have a problem understanding him, but he got the job done! We have Hotbird, Nilesat and Astra satellite. The guy's name is Alam, 055-1770806 . Email: [email protected]. Don't expect any receipts and you need to pay cash!
Search comes up as zero but I know I read someone post the information a while ago.
Does anybody know/have the name and contact number for the bloke that installs sky+
Please
And thanks