# How does Sky MultiRoom Work??



## Cainam (May 25, 2004)

Before Christmas I installed a Tivo at my sister's house. She lives 150 miles away so I do not go down there that often, but will be there this weekend. She has just told me that they have had to disconnect Tivo, as it made their Sky stop working...

The layout they have is this. Downstairs is s Sky+ box, connected to the phone line. Upstairs is a normal Sky box, also connected to the phone line, with a Sky multiroom subscription. Tivo was connected to this upstairs box. If I remember correctly there was a 2way phone socket adapter, with the Sky and Tivo both plugged in.

The symptoms were that the little one would go downstairs in the morning and start watching Disney on Sky+. After a period of time it would stop working, and would only give them access to the "free" Sky channels such as BBC, and not the paid for ones like Disney.

At first they thought the sky+ box or card was faulty, but then they worked out that it seemed to be when the older child turned on the Tivo/Sky box upstairs, this it what cause the downstairs one to fail. So they disconnected Tivo - and now everything is working fine again.

I need to phone them again to get more information, but my only thought is that the only way the 2 sky boxes know they are in the same house is through the phone line, so if somehow Tivo was hogging the phone, or intercepting any calls made from Sky HQ to the Sky boxes (no idea if this happens or not!) then maybe this would explain the problem. i.e. if the Sky+ box cannot contact the Sky box because Tivo is hogging the line, then it reverts to a basic sky card.

Does this sould plausible? Any known issues using Tivo with a phone line and a multiroom subsciption? Any other questions I should ask when I phone tonight?

Any advice gratefully received!

Cainam


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## Maclynn (Oct 6, 2000)

I have Sky HD and Sky+ and three TiVos all connected to the phone line without any problems.
If any box tries to make a call and another is using the line they will just try again later.


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## OzSat (Feb 15, 2001)

I have 2xTiVo and 3xSky boxes (multiroom) - plus some phones connected to one line and never has problems.


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## Cainam (May 25, 2004)

Thanks for this. So now I know it can work I will have to dig around this weekend to see what is going on!


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## Richard42 (Dec 27, 2000)

Hi Cainam,
I have exactly the set-up you describe and it works a treat for me ( and has for the past 2 years )


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