A cool My Sky feature
As many will know I am a devoted fan of My Sky. For a one off costs it transforms how you use and watch TV. The series link feature, plus the ability to fast forwards ad in eight seconds are great.
Most of what I want to record (finding time to watch it is another issue) is on a series link. So I get both TV One and TV3 news each night etc. But around twice a week I scan the seven main channels, the movie channels and the History channel for interesting programmes that I want to record.
Now yesterday I noticed for the first time that at the very bottom of the screen of the channel guide page is an option for search programmes. And under that you have an option of seeing in alphabetical order all programmes for the upcoming week. You can filter it by type of channel and also by type of programme.
So I’ve used that for the first time and found some programmes I didn’t even know were on. I didn’t even know there was a MTV entertainment channel.
Now all we need is a text searchable feature, and it will be perfect!
January 8th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Now there was a vigorous discussion on the previous thread about whether the Electoral Commission would take any action against the website. Roger Gnome especially insisted there was no chance at all.
I have a little ‘Rule of Thumb’ I like to use when the egermoron ever posts anything which he claims is a fact. I go and check it. Often he is half-right. Otherwise, if it is an opinion, often delivered with a ‘Cullen-esque’ air of the slightly patronising, I usually go for the opposite view, because usually he is wrong.
I have found these rules of thumb to be invaluable.
January 8th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
But that was the wrong thread. So Now I have unfortunately made myself look a pillock. Ah well. I stand by the rule of thumb thing, though.
January 8th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
You could of course make the step to a HTPC, and do things properly
I’m running mythtv over linux – fully open source. With this I can:
1. Record series as you describe above, and also see upcoming shows by guide (the usual grid with channels down the left, times across the top, programmes in the middle), title, and genre.
2. Create complex recording rules – for example record anything that has “tennis” anywhere in the title or description (my partner being a tennis freak)
3. Watch anything from my library of recorded stuff, including automatic commercial detection and skipping (no 8 second jump button for me…) And I get most of it in HD (well, it comes digital off FTA, sometimes it is HD, sometimes the station is just upscaling the same old content)
4. See my entire MP3 library, and play that back. Create playlists, play albums, shuffle in various ways etc
5. Play downloaded media – TV shows from BitTorrent, music videos, whatever
6. Do a bunch of other random things that I don’t do much but could – play DVDs through it, rip those DVDs to my server for later playback, archive shows that I have recorded to DVD, transcode to other formats, play MAME games, listen to/watch streaming media etc.
Windows MCE has similar capabilities – in some ways more limited, but in many ways easier to install and use. I personally like open source, but if you didn’t have that hangup then MCE would do the job for you.
January 8th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
<p>Crap, triple post. My firewall claimed to have blocked it, but it appears that it actually didn’t. If anyone is so inclined deleting the spare two would be nice.</p>
[Richard (moderator): I deleted the other two for you - I normally wouldn't bother, but since the post was a reasonably long one it makes things a tad tidier. I once accidentally posted the same comment 11 times (bad connection), so have seen worse
]
January 8th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Call yourself techno savvy?!
January 8th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Still, made me feel better about the erroneous post about egermoron though :0)
January 8th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
yea media centres are where its at.
its a shame sky didnt drop the price of mysky like they did in aussie. im pretty sure foxtel dropped it to $100..
the fact that ya dont own the box puts me off..
January 8th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Have been holding off, as Sky will be bringing out HD My Sky later in the year. The current My Sky decoders are incompatabile to show HD so hopefully sky won’t screw there current customers and charge an arm and a leg to upgrade, considering they have already paid $599…
January 8th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I thought it was mildly interesting that the recorded TV saved on the MySky drive is still encrypted. The decryption only occurs during playback… so make sure your account is up to date, even with a HDD full of recorded TV you still need to pay the bill!
b.t.w. I second the HTPC recommendation, but only if your reasonably computer savvy. MySky is still the best option for the technically “challenged”
January 8th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
So, is there any way to connect some sort of external drive to the MySky box to copy stuff off it?
January 8th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Brian, Unfortunately no. The only way to ‘archive off’ recordings made on a MySky box is to play the recordings out, and use a DVD Recorder (or TV Capture Card) to record the playback.
January 8th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
David, I have always thought of you as an erudite and intelligent man… but I am nonplussed by the idea that any intelligent man would consider ‘getting TV1 and TV3 news each night’.
What would either of these dreary celebthority-packed (thanks Poneke) pieces of bland trivia add to your knowlege about anything? Why would you bother?
January 8th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
David, I understand this is the same technology as used in Australia’s Foxtel. Over here, there is a further method you can use to program your favourite shows. You can use the online electronic program guide to search for programs and then send them through to your individual box. Here is the website that’s used:
https://www.foxtel.com.au/EPG/EPG.aspx#
Notice in the top right-hand corner that you can log into the website. Once you do that, you can select programs and then send them through. If you have more than two boxes in your house (under that account), you can toggle between each of them when you send through your programs. The electronic program guide is word searchable up to seven days in advance.
Maybe coming to NZ sometime soon.
January 8th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Sorry, I meant to say if you have more than one box you can toggle between them. (My house has two).
January 8th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
So how long before contextual advertising such as AdSense appears on the channel guide?
January 8th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Your MySky, and I’ll raise you a Multimedia PC.
Yeah, multimedia PCs really are the best – they take the “mySky” experience and add a bunch of extra dimensions to it.
After trying almost every option I settled on MCE (Windows Media Centre Edition) and have since upgraded to Vista Home Premium (that has an updated version of MCE built in) and it is truly amazing.
A bit of a dog to set up (especially the Guide in NZ) but once going, it is truly incredible.
January 9th, 2008 at 6:58 am
Big deal. We’ve had that feature for years in the UK.