Rant about flippin sky

[doc]

I'm peeved off........

Sky have been rolling out the auto-standby feature on their sky+ boxes.
This is great I guess (if you live in Birmingham!), but it turns my sky+ box off, which is the only sky box I have with a subscription that sage records. My old sky digibox is on freeview.

I rang sky and because my sky+ box is old, it is set to auto-standby and it cant be disabled. This makes it useless for me as i'm away all week and it will turn itself off, then sage will record a weeks worth of nothing.

I've just got sky to change my boxes over, so the old digibox (which doesn't go to standby) now has my sky subscription card in it, and the Sky+ box has a freeview card (that still goes into standby each day).

I've effectively now lost a recording source. The only way round this is to buy a new sky box. I can't get another dvb-s card as they wont receive channels 4/5 etc.

Looks like I'll have to do a Rod Hull impression now and climb onto the old slate roof and put a new freeview aerial up.

end of rant now, glad to get that off me chest

[pschweig]

You could use the native dvb-s in sage with a CAM and CI. Then it doesn't matter what Sky tell your Sky+ box to do - the card isn't even in it.

[Mark SS]

Wasn't there something in the Beta release notes about now being able to add a prefix command to channel changes? You could add the power on command.

[doc]

Yes you're right, but it doesn't like learning the blue button.

When you program a normal button (0-9) the usbuirt flashes constantly while its receiving the codes, but the blue button only sends a small amount of data and then stops. Even repeat pressing doesn't help, and it then displays there was an error learning the code.

Any suggestions? (without spending any more money that is)

[rickgillyon]

Originally Posted by Mark SS

Wasn't there something in the Beta release notes about now being able to add a prefix command to channel changes? You could add the power on command.

So long as it's not also the power off command...

ISTR there being some Remote helper packages out there, which will show you what commands are being sent to the USB-UIRT - can't remember the name of them. If you can work out what's being sent and not learned, you could always ask the USB-UIRT guys about it.

[doc]

As I'm a lazy so and so I'm going to see if a friend has an old sky digibox I can borrow for a bit. I played with hip and girder yesterday but couldn't get it to learn the blue sky button properly, more than likely because I didn't know what I was doing.

I dont want to go the dvb-s and cam route yet as the pc's already full with other tuner cards.

I think the time's come to get the aerial sorted so that I use the nova-t-500 rather than keeping it in the test pc.

I have a sneaky feeling that sky will eventually update the box software to allow you to turn off the auto-standby, but I won't hold my breath.

[DRAK]

Hi doc,

Heres an ir file with all the sky codes. i also attached the ir helper if some dont work with your box.

make sure you install the latest beta for the sending of the sky button before each channel change.

Hope this helps.

[doc]

thanks for that. I'll have a play when the hangovers gone

[doc]

Originally Posted by DRAK

Hi doc,

Heres an ir file with all the sky codes. i also attached the ir helper if some dont work with your box.

make sure you install the latest beta for the sending of the sky button before each channel change.

Hope this helps.

all sorted now

The .ir file you posted is the same as the sky box I have that works, so I've added the Sky button entry from that to my ir file incase it powers itself off for some reason, and used the lrnhelper.exe to record the sky blue button on the sky+ box.

Thanks for all your help.

[DRAK]

Glad I could help.