Sky card

[Dave Payne]

Does anyone use sky on the boat and at home, can you take your card out the box at home and simply pop it into the box on the boat and pick up all the channels you would at home?

Ignoring interactive functions as i am aware you need a telephone line or wireless internet connection for that part.

[Hudds Lad]

as far as i'm aware, the card is paired to the box, so at best you'd get the free to air sat channels.

taking the card AND box though should in theory work

[mross]

I don't know about Sky, but on the Virgin box it warns you not to take the card out often.

[john6767]

The Sky card is paired with the box, you can change the pairing online yourself, but I don't know if they restrict how often you can do that, I would suspect that they do.

You can of course use Sky Go on a computer/phone/tablet, it does not get all the channels, but for example it lets me get Sky Sports as they are part of our subscription at home.

[PaulG]

36 minutes ago, john6767 said:

The Sky card is paired with the box, you can change the pairing online yourself, but I don't know if they restrict how often you can do that, I would suspect that they do.

You can of course use Sky Go on a computer/phone/tablet, it does not get all the channels, but for example it lets me get Sky Sports as they are part of our subscription at home.

I use Sky Go an a tablet, mostly for sports.
It does give your 4G wifi allowance a bit of a battering (a Grand Prix is about 2 gigs worth).

[Hudds Lad]

32 minutes ago, PaulG said:

I use Sky Go an a tablet, mostly for sports.
It does give your 4G wifi allowance a bit of a battering (a Grand Prix is about 2 gigs worth).

As an aside, its also restricted to use within the UK as I discovered whilst trying to watch the Spanish Grand Prix whilst in Majorca a few years ago (ended up watching it on local TV, which had more advert breaks than even an American would be comfortable with), and they have removed the HDMI out capabilities of the app, which stops you connecting your iPad etc. to the TV to "watch it in big" as my daughter would say.

[john6767]

3 minutes ago, Hudds Lad said:

As an aside, its also restricted to use within the UK as I discovered whilst trying to watch the Spanish Grand Prix whilst in Majorca a few years ago (ended up watching it on local TV, which had more advert breaks than even an American would be comfortable with), and they have removed the HDMI out capabilities of the app, which stops you connecting your iPad etc. to the TV to "watch it in big" as my daughter would say.

Yes you are restricted to using Sky Go in the UK, but for the OP wanting to view Sky on the boat, it is probably not an issue  I was not aware that it ever worked with HDMI.

[WotEver]

2 hours ago, mross said:

I don't know about Sky, but on the Virgin box it warns you not to take the card out often.

With the TiVo Virgin boxes you can throw the card away - it's all done down the line now. 

[Jess--]

1 minute ago, WotEver said:

With the TiVo Virgin boxes you can throw the card away - it's all done down the line now. 

you'd need a hell of an extension cable to use it on a boat though

[WotEver]

22 minutes ago, Jess-- said:

you'd need a hell of an extension cable to use it on a boat though

Either that or some very clever VPN...

[Dave Payne]

1 minute ago, WotEver said:

Either that or some very clever VPN...

Not really, any VPN will suffice, you just need the hardware at the home end, a decent mobile signal and loads of data.

 

Slingbox is something that works well.

[WotEver]

Just now, Dave Payne said:

Not really, any VPN will suffice, you just need the hardware at the home end, a decent mobile signal and loads of data.

 

Slingbox is something that works well.

But it would have to be transparent to the server or Virgin would shut the box down. 

There's no need with Virgin anyway, because you can use Virgin Anywhere on tablet or phone and stream that to a TV if required. 

[Dave Payne]

1 minute ago, WotEver said:

But it would have to be transparent to the server or Virgin would shut the box down. 

What server, and why would they shut a box down?

[WotEver]

17 minutes ago, Dave Payne said:

What server, and why would they shut a box down?

The Virgin server. It's a cable box, not satellite. 

[Dave Payne]

3 minutes ago, WotEver said:

The Virgin server. It's a cable box, not satellite. 

ahh i see, i was on about the vpn part, a slingbox controls your media box at home from a browser on your mobile device..

 

Crossed wires and all that.

[MHS]

On 25/05/2017 at 12:40, Hudds Lad said:

as far as i'm aware, the card is paired to the box, so at best you'd get the free to air sat channels

taking the card AND box though should in theory work

Yes, if you take your Sky box from home (leave the card in) it works on a boat. I know this as we did it for 12 months. My nephew was amazed at having Sky sports on board  

Don't know if having multi room would make a difference, as you need a phone line attached. 

[john6767]

2 hours ago, MHS said:

Yes, if you take your Sky box from home (leave the card in) it works on a boat. I know this as we did it for 12 months. My nephew was amazed at having Sky sports on board  

Don't know if having multi room would make a difference, as you need a phone line attached. 

Any relatively current box does not even have a pone line connection, they connect to your wifi (for catch up and on demand stuff), so presumably they talk to Sky via that if they do actually need to at all.

[Dave Payne]

Yes, my gf has a 2nd box in the bedroom, no phone line but connected to wifi and everything works fine.

 

[MHS]

58 minutes ago, Dave Payne said:

Yes, my gf has a 2nd box in the bedroom, no phone line but connected to wifi and everything works fine.

 

Take it onboard and try it Dave.

The reason multiroom used to have a phone connection was to limit the extra box to your household. i.e. not give it to you mate down the road. Maybe the wifi connection works in a similar way using your i.p. address??

[Dave Payne]

She has her old box that they supplied as the multi room box, its a basic box that only plays tv, no recording or catch up which she doesnt use as she got a proper one off ebay, i was thinking of getting a boat/caravan dish and setting up the box, then when she stays on the boat she can bring the card.