SKY+ to HDD, then HDD to PC then PC to DVD, - WHY?

Some forums are writing and giving advice in converting SKY+ to DVD. Why would anyone want to convert a couple of things and end up spending valualbe time on 4 separate processes where a vast amount of time would have to be spent in front of a computer screen, removing the adverts. Surely it would be easier and far less time/energy to just hook up a DVD recorder, (not a pc DVDrw) to the SKY+ box. Press play on the SKY+ and then record on the DVD recorder. After pressing record on the DVD, pause and then FFW to the start of the item to be recorded. One way to reduce adverts is to set the DVD recorder to put chapter marks every 5 minutes, then all you need is to press the next chapter button and 9 times out of 10 the adverts will be skipped rather than spending time editing. If time isn't a problem then record directly to the DVD recorder hooked up to the SKY+ box. I record at SLP (6hrs) on my Philips 3380, and I am in the process of changing to EP (4hrs), but to be honest the quality is good at both settings. Whichever process one chooses, there will be pro's and con's. GOOD LUCK TO ALL IN SKY+ to DVD.

If anyone wishes to go the long way round in recording, re-recording and the burning to disc, one product which I can recommend for performance and quality is OJOsoft Total Video Converter, from http://www.ojosoft.com/purchase/buy-total-video-converter.html. This is truly the best in video conversion, with a fantastic range of formats to convert to.

SKY+ TO DVD PROBLEMS

I am at a loss as to why people are posting time and time again about problems being encountered in transferring programmes from Sky+ to a dvd, Why? Even as I am typing I am transferring programmes from Sky+ to DVD, and still no problems. I wonder if some readers could reply to me to explain in more detail about what types of shows are causing problems. As I have now transferred in excess of 100 hours of documentaries and programmes including a few films off ITV2 and movies4men. All the recordings I have made have been successful and I am wondering if I am in the minority of Sky+ to DVD recordings that are successful, I feel a bit left out in not having any problems. Some forums are shunning Philips DVD recorders saying that they are not that good in recording and won't allow you to record at a slightly lesser quality. Now I'm no Philips representative but I can honestly say, that out of the 6 DVD recorders I had demonstrated to me 3 years ago, the PHILIPS 3380 was by far the best quality recording and the most in-sync audio. The others I tried were, SANYO, GOODMANS, LG, PANASONIC and LITEON. The next best was Liteon, however this was somewhat troublesome in accepting or reading a particular blank DVD. By the way, the best blank DVD's which I encountered are Verbatim, TDK and Ridata. There seem to be a limited life with DVD rw's and I personally only use -R's, even though they are not capable of re-recording, but at £0.20 a disc, what does it matter? You may say that it is a waste to use -R's but I guarantee that RW's are very unreliable especially when you want them to play on another DVD player. So I leave this blog now to have some tea and wait for someone, hopefully to reply to my questions. Maybe???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

SKY+ TO DVD - PROBLEMS - COPY PROTECTION

I have been reading up on some forums about copy protection problems in transferring programmes to DVD from SKY+. Some people question whether Sky+ programmes, one wishes to record to DVD are not able to be copied and has copying rules changed.









Well, I have sort of being investigating this theory and the first thing that I came across was the fact that SKY+ actually approve the transferring of material from SKY+ to DVD or VHS. So, why can some people be in a position where the copying fails, with a message saying that the item is copy protected? I cannot really shed light on this as every item that I have recorded on my PHILIPS 3380, the process has completed every time without any snags what-so-ever.

I have been playing some of the programmes which I previously transferred to DVD just to be sure that they play ok. In the post prior to this one, I wrote stating that recording to DVD on my Philips 3380 from Sky+ at the SLP setting (6hr), was good quality. The end result is good quality and compares favourable to the terrestrial reception that we currently receive (we don't get digital until the end of this year, 2009). There is slight pixellation and I am going to follow my own advice and record in LP (4hr) in my next recording to compare both for quality. So, to summarise, I haven't had any problems so far and I have recorded 17 dvd's each with 6 hours on.

The only thing that I can think of which could constitute a breach of copyright is possibly new premieres of films, which are bought via the telephone line although I haven't used this service as I am quite happy with the release on DVD time span. When you look back a decade or so, it was what seemed to be a lifetime before the release onto DVD or more commonly at the time VHS. A lot of movies nowadays are released within about 6 months or even less if it wasn't a blockbuster. A very successful recent movie is Slumdog Millionaire and I was very surprised to find it for sale in the shops not long after I was able to see it for myself.



I would recommend that anyone struggling to transfer a given programme to DVD, to make contact via email or the web help with SKY directly, as they promote the transfer of items on SKY+ to another medium with the copy function built in to SKY+. I have used the web chat facility and could quite happily recommend this form of contact as being exemplary. Even email contact was very quick and my problems were rectified very quickly indeed.

Use http://www.sky.com/portal/site/skycom/skyhelpcentre/skyonline for Sky chat or self-help or email contact. I hope this information in the blog is helpful to some and good luck with SKY.

SKY+ to DVD or VHS

Well, where do I start?



Although I am relatively new to SKY and the SKY+, I have actually discovered how easy it is to transfer media from SKY+ to another device, whether it be to a VHS tape, or a DVD-R, DVD-RW or DVD+R, DVD+RW. The finished result is very good quality indeed. Only a few weeks ago, I was introduced to Sky at my best friends house and was so impressed with the variety of channels to suit anyones taste and the quality of the output to the tv I decided to go for sky+ direct from the web. The process was very easy indeed with a real person from Sky at the other end chatting to me by text and the whole process took less than 20 minutes and was installed in less than a week. I found the initial few days confusing and I was possibly a little premature with deleting items from the SKY+ box. In the following paragraphs I hope to convey tips and tricks I experienced in the way to transfer items to another medium, VHS or DVD particularly.

I have only had Sky+ for a few weeks now and during that time I have recorded plenty of items, with a view to keep for future viewing and during that period I have also recorded a few items with the serial link. It is surprising just how quickly the built in hard drive fills up from the personal recordings which are made through SKY+ planner. There is also a feature within Sky+ which has, over a period of time auto-recorded to the hard drive and is called ANYTIME TV. Yes, this is a free service from Sky and doesn't fill your hard drive up as it is stored on the other partition of the HDD in the SKY+ box.

When SKY+ comes, to be installed in the house it is noticable that the box says that the system is 80 Gigabytes in size and this in its self is correct, to a point. If you can see the HDD through the vents in the overhead view, the label says that it is 160 GB. The HDD is in 2 partitions and over the coming weeks and months certain shows are added to the Anytime tv listing and if you like any of the programmes on offer, then you can either watch them there and then, or press the record button and the programme will be placed on the Planner list. Please note that although it is a free service, the Anytime tv is only available if the given channel is either free or you are subscribed to that given channel, ie Sky movies. If not then you will not be able to view that item unless you specifically subscribe or buy the programme or movie, - a phone number will appear for you to contact them to arrange the viewing or purchasing. When Sky is installed for the first time, the Anytime tv will not have anything for viewing and this will take a few days for any programmes to appear there and more as the weeks go by. As you will find out everything in the sky anytime tv is date restricted and if the date passes then that particular link will also go and not be available to view.

I have read on a few forums regarding the transfer of a programme to VHS or DVD, and some opinions differ so much and recommend buying leads and devices and pc capture cards. This sort of spurred me on to write this blog, without the need to buy over-priced devices from places such as P C World, Currys or Comet. Any DVD recorder from any of the major supermarkets will do the job and many are very cheap compared to the prices of 2 or 3 years ago. A regular VHS recorder will also quite happily do the job. I bought a Funai DVD-R/RW for £49.00 2 years ago and is capable of recording through the scart linked to the Sky+ box.



I actually use a Philips 3380 DVD recorder currently £69.99, from http://www.inest.co.uk at the moment, which does actually give a superb picture even when recorded at the 6 hour recording mode (SLP - super long play) but trial settings at differnt recording qualities would be advisable as the price of a DVD, when bought in a spindle of 25, works out at between 16 and 30 pence, I personally use TDK which work out at 20p per disc which is £5.00 for 25. The Philips is also divx compatible, many websites sell movies in divx format and the quality is very good, compared to a standard dvd video, with a total size of 700mb approximately per film and could get up to 6 movies on 1 DVD.

TRANSFER TO DVD

There are a couple of ways in which to transfer items from the SKY+ HDD and both are good quality, one of which you may need to be present, while recording, as you record only one item at a time. By this I mean if you can set recording by OTR to the approximate length then you don't but if you can't then someone needs to stop the device from recording, manually. Make sure the DVD recorder or the VHS are connected with a scart cable to the SKY+ box, making sure that the correct scart socket is chosen. The easiest way is to switch both the Sky+ box and the VHS with a tape in or DVD with a disc in. Manually switch the tv to the desired av input, then cycle through the av options or the source button until the sky can be viewed on the VHS or DVD. I found that the easiest way was to select the tv guide button prior to cycling through the av or source options then you know for sure you are seeing what source you need to record from. If the source option doesn't appear then it probably will be that the scart has been plugged into the wrong scart socket. One socket is for direct linking to the TV and the other is for auxiliary equipment ie DVD or VHS. Once you are happy that the source and output are correct then you can get down to copying to the medium desired.

RECORDING TO DVD OR VHS FROM SKY COPY

When you record using this method the title and description will show which gives the viewer an idea of what the programme is about, including the length of it. The drawback with this way of copying is that the few minutes before and after the recorded programme are present and have to be FFW to get to the start, not really a problem at the end because you will stop it manually by the end, just as you did or do when hiring a movie. Once you press record on the VHS or the DVD and play on the SKY+ box, the transfer will begin, taking note that you cannot view anything else through the SKY box, however if you have freeview or terrestrial tv (we still get normal terrestrial tv at present)as well then you will be able to view items on that separately, as it runs through a different scart directly to the tv. Complications will only arise if you daisy chain the items via scart to scart to scart to scart, as such if scart connections are all used then a mltiple scart switching box may be required. I chose to daisy chain connect the DVD1 (Funai) to DVD2 (Philips) to TV in scart av2 and SKY to TV in scart av1. You can set the recording through any number of programmes as long as the total length doesn't exceed the free recording disc or VHS space. The drawback with this multiple recording, is that you will only have one title on the dvd being unable to separately split them unless you can do this on a pc, manually again. Another way is to remove all chapter marks on the dvd, then FFW to the next prog, place chapter at start of programme 2 and so on. If you decide to record on a DVD RW then titles can, at least they can on the Philips 3380, other makes may also support title splitting. Refer to manufacturers guide or instruction book.

There is a third way, or sort of to get your programme onto DVD via the SKY+ box. As before, switch the SKY+ and the DVD recorder on and switch your tv to the correct av for the DVD recorder, then cycle through the av's or channel to get the sky showing through the DVD and now you are set to record direct from the sky input signal, (the channel you wish to record.) This can be rather handy if you are watching a programme which you wish to save for someone else to view or to save for future viewing, but you want to view it as it is going onto dvd then this is a handy way so that you don't need to record onto SKY+ and then also to DVD.

PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT THE DVD IS FINALISED PRIOR TO DELETING FROM THE SKY+ BOX AND PLAYABLE.

I MADE THE MISTAKE OF DELETING ALMOST 5 HOURS OF VIEWING FROM THE SKY+ BOX BEFORE FINALISING THE DISC, TO THEN ENCOUNTER A POWER CUT WHICH RENDERED MY DVD USELESS. I NOW FINALISE AND PLAY PARTLY TO MAKE SURE IT IS OK PRIOR TO DELETING ITEMS FROM SKY+.

RECORDING TO DVD OR VHS FROM SKY MANUALLY

When using this method, I found out that this way was for me, better as you can manually pause recording and also fast forward through adverts as in copy mode if you press any button on the sky remote then it will switch the playing off automatically and you will either get the item currently on sky or just a blank multicoloured screen. I was unfortunate in premature deletion off the SKY+ box to ruin a DVD totally due to a loss in electricity.