On release of the new sky viewing cards, is this the end for Sky/MCE integration?

I love my HTPC, but am thinking about getting sky and would really like to watch sky channels through Vista.

However, I understand that solutions which previously worked ok with the old cards will now not work with the new ones.

I can see where sky is coming from - undoubtedly they have taken great pains to ensure that the new cards do not and will not work with media centre. I think they missed a trick though - i can see there being a substantial market of people who already have HTPCs who would like to use sky on their existing equipment. I for one will not be getting sky if I cannot get it to work with Vista.

Anyway, does anyone know of any success with the new cards (or not!).

Hi Chris,

I think this depends on how you get your Sky signal into media center - if you use your STB and an analog capture card, you should be fine.  If like me, you use a non-sky tuner card, with CAM, then until someone comes up with some way of getting this to work with either new hardware/software/firmware, then yep, you're more than likely screwed from what I was reading on the net.

I've still got an old STB, so I'm interested in how the new card works with this - fortunately it hasn't arrived yet, and if I have to upgrade my STB, Sky can flippin' pay for it!

Tony

right on brother, fight the power!

http://news.google.co.uk/news/more?um=1&ned=uk&cf=all&ncl=dE3-bxJtoNHcnJMUT3T0GtTuItRtM

I wonder if this brings anything to MCE too?

Doesn't look particularly promising to me - this looks like streaming content via the web, with all the associated limitations.

Interesting.

I was also considered signing up to Sky to get the HD box, and using it to record programs, then transferring to my library on the HTPC.

However, it seems that Sky do not like you doing this either, as the USB and ethernet connections on the sky boxes are not enabled. The only way to do it is apparently to remove the hard drive from the sky box and you also need to decrypt the content.

BBC iplayer is a bit like this also - you can watch, but you can't keep!

I guess if they could stop us recording from live tv they would do that as well.

I suppose its a way to keep satellite subscriptions / dvd sales going. In fairness, they have every right to do this, perhaps sky could work with MS to figure out a way to prevent recording of encrypted channels on an HTPC? If this deal on Xbox pans out, maybe things will develop in this direction, but I won't hold my breath.

(The link that @desperado posted refers to a deal between Sky & Microsoft to show Sky content on the Xbox)

I suspect this is only going to go to the Xbox, in much the same way that until recently Netflix was only available on the Xbox in the US, and that Zune content is only headed towards the Xbox.

There are two things, however, which make me think there is a slight chance of this content coming to Media Centre at some point. First that Netflix has just arrived on Media Centre in the US. Second that Sky did create a Sky Player plugin back in the MCE2005 days that you could use to stream their premium sport and film content. Does this still exist/work? You had to be a Sky subscriber so I could never use it.

 

A turn up for the books- alerted by the Digital Lifestyle I see that Sky Player has popped up on MCE here in the UK- or at least an under construction site icon. So the XBox is not having it all its own way. But if you watch the adverts for Windows 7 it is always MCE that the tv camera zooms in on- especially as it is the most useable programme for touch.

On another note I see that Internet TV Beta 2 has disappered and not come back in any other form- anyone know why?

Obviously the new Sky player coming to the XBOX 360 dashboard and the new Sky Player add-in for 7MC are good signs! For Internet TV that is and Microsoft and Sky working together. This is most welcomed. I never knew there was a Sky add-in for MCE 2005 that was a bit before my time with Media Center.

But still if I was back in the UK now I would only want to pay for Sky Satellite TV if I could use a Digital Everywhere card and a CAM no STB. But Sky don't want you to be able to do this, as they have no control over multi room as you can use your extenders for live TV etc. I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons as well.

It might happen officially but by the time it does it might all be online anyways. I think long term traditional TV broadcasting like satellite, cable and OTA will die out and when we all have super fast 100MB pipes in our homes all TV content live and on-demand will be via IP in some form or another I just hope MS and Media Center are at the top of the pile ! But some how I doubt it not in it's current form.

 

 

cjmccarthy72

On another note I see that Internet TV Beta 2 has disappered and not come back in any other form- anyone know why?

 Don't think anyone knows, can't understand why they have the new Sky Player for MC but the Internet TV has gone, what about all that new MSN video content for the UK? Or is that content availble in the Sky Player ?

 Can anyone at Microsoft clear this up ?

 Cheers.