# For those of you with TiVo and Sky+HD working together.



## Glen (May 9, 2004)

How do you find it? Does the box interrupt each other when they're trying to record?? tell me all lol


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## pauljs (Feb 11, 2001)

Glen said:


> How do you find it? Does the box interrupt each other when they're trying to record?? tell me all lol


No problem with the Sky HD trying to record one program, if it records two then you get a banner telling you to cancel one recording.

Tivo then won't record the right channel

Playback of Sky + hd is more of an issue, as TiVo will interrupt it and change channels

You can't interrupt a Sky HD recording with TiVo.

It's not a match made in heaven, I would prefer to have a seperate Digibox for my TiVo but I am not paying Sky £10 for multiroom for that.

However Sky + HD would not satisfy my recording demands on it's own, it can't record every series and if it could it would rapidly run out of space

I like Sky HD for the quality, but I have nearly thrown the remote out of the window for the incredible lack of user friendliness compared to TiVo and MCE. If someone has told Sky about these issues before they certainly haven't listened.

I'll hopefully like it better when the new EPG is finally launched


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## Milhouse (Sep 15, 2001)

The biggest issue (and it's not really that big) has been the problem of watching a recording on SkyHD and having the TiVo start a recording of something else - the SkyHD box will then exit from the recording (you can resume it later) and start showing whatever the TiVo is now recording. You have the option of allowing the TiVo to continue it's recording (you might choose to watch another recording you have on the TiVo) or resume playback of your SkyHD recording with the knowledge that whatever you are watching will be recorded by the TiVo and need to be deleted...

I've never to my knowledge had a problem where the SkyHD box is asked to record more concurrent programmes than it has tuners, mainly because the vast majority of recording that my SkyHD box performs is at the behest of the TiVo - only occasionally have I scheduled one-off recordings on the SkyHD box where I know I have a conflict in TiVo.

TiVo and Sky+HD is not a perfect combination, but it is very workable (particularly with the IRBlaster hack) and it performs without fail almost all of the time which is enough for me to continue with it until a better TiVo replacement arrives on the market.  The only problems I have had regarding failed recordings has been when the Sky+HD box has crashed - they truly are buggy pieces of [email protected]


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## Glen (May 9, 2004)

lol ok. How would you connect them together tho? not too sure how that would work without loosing the HD?


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## Milhouse (Sep 15, 2001)

Glen said:


> lol ok. How would you connect them together tho? not too sure how that would work without loosing the HD?


RGB SCART from the SkyHD to TiVo and SCART from the TiVo to TV - this will give you SD quality video even when the programme is broadcast by Sky in HD (the HD output from the Sky+HD is sent over HDMI to the TV).

You use the TiVo to schedule programmes as you would with a normal set top box, recording SD programmes on the TiVo.

If you install the IRBlaster hack on the TiVo, you can have the TiVo instruct the Sky+HD box to also record those programme that are broadcast in HD - the TiVo will still record these programmes in SD quality (think of it as a sort of insurance policy for when the Sky+HD box records a one hour programme for 15+ hours because it hasn't received the "stop recording" signal from the broadcaster, overwriting all your other programmes in the process! This happened to me once, I lost everything on the Sky+HD disk! )

For the occasional clashes which can't be resolved on the TiVo I manually schedule a recording on the Sky+HD box.

On the whole it works very well and I much prefer watching recordings on the TiVo, if only because the UI on the Sky+HD box is so horrible.


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## steford (Oct 9, 2002)

Milhouse said:


> RGB SCART from the SkyHD to TiVo and SCART from the TiVo to TV - this will give you SD quality video even when the programme is broadcast by Sky in HD (the HD output from the Sky+HD is sent over HDMI to the TV).
> 
> You use the TiVo to schedule programmes as you would with a normal set top box, recording SD programmes on the TiVo.
> 
> ...


But it means though that if you want to watch something live or recorded in HD (the whole point of the SkyHD box surely?) then you can't have Tivo recording something else. This for me makes the setup unworkable - I like my Tivo to just do its own thing. It's such a shame. Will hang on for the new EPG and see if that makes the SkyHD box an option as a Tivo replacement - I doubt it :-(


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## Milhouse (Sep 15, 2001)

steford said:


> But it means though that if you want to watch something live or recorded in HD (the whole point of the SkyHD box surely?) then you can't have Tivo recording something else.


Yes, as I said in an earlier post it's an issue but not a big issue - my TiVo isn't recording constantly but if it wants to record something while I'm playing back a SkyHD recording (or watching Live) it will interrupt playback/liveTV on the Sky+HD box so there's no risk of the TiVo recording what you are watching by mistake.

When this does happen you're faced with a couple of options: 1) Cancel the recording on TiVo and return to your SkyHD viewing (optionally having the SkyHD box record whatever TiVo was about to record) or 2) Leave the TiVo to record whatever it wants to record and watch something else on TiVo.

It really depends how you use your TiVo - if you had suggestions enabled this would be more of a problem than if you had them disabled (I have suggestions disabled). I also don't record a vast amount of HD material, and even when I do have HD versions on the SkyHD disk I still find myself watching the SD version from TiVo more often than not simply because I prefer the TiVo UI. Fast forwarding through adverts on Sky+HD is like wading through molasses, and then there's no 8-second jump back which makes FFW all the more tedious!


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## tonywalk (Sep 10, 2002)

I've got one of my Tivos controlling a Sky HD box and work it pretty much like Milhouse. My Tivo does the bulk of the recording with clashes (that I can't record on either Tivo) being set on the HD box together with programmes that I want to watch in HD.

Can I point out for clarity that you can indeed watch HD stuff from the Sky box when you have a Tivo. That's why it has an HDMI port. That carries the HD signal whilst the SCART carries the same video downsampled to standard def. Just change channel on your TV.

I will agree that Tivo recording stuff whilst you are trying to watch something back can be irksome but you then remember its Tivo and you smile and let it get about doing its (rather brilliant) thing, and resume watching later.

A handy tip to break Tivo out of recording a suggestion when you want to interrupt the recording to carry on watching something off the HD box, is to just hit the "channel up" or "channel down" buttons. This changes channel immediately and stops the suggestion recording without need for further button pressing.


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## jonphil (Aug 7, 2002)

Hmmm... having read comments about recordings interupting HD playback / viewing I'm really wondering if I should cancel my HD order ???


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## Milhouse (Sep 15, 2001)

jonphil said:


> Hmmm... having read comments about recordings interupting HD playback / viewing I'm really wondering if I should cancel my HD order ???


TiVo has always interrupted regular Digibox viewing, the only additional issue is that it now also interrupts Sky+ (SD or HD) playback as well and it's really not that bad, assuming you only record a minority of programmes on the Sky+HD box and the majority on the TiVo (I have about 10% of my recorded material on Sky+HD, most of which are films, and the rest on TiVo)

If you give up your HD sub won't you be left with just an HD digibox as you will have lost the benefit of the recording functions (and dual tuners)? I can see your point, but the dual tuners do come in handy, and being able to record HD material is still nice to have (sport and films) even if I do watch most series in SD (upscaled to 1080p) as I can't be bothered to access the Sky+ guide (I have a clean out perhaps once every two - three weeks of the guide, deleting stuff I eventually watched on the TiVo!)


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## steford (Oct 9, 2002)

Milhouse said:


> TiVo has always interrupted regular Digibox viewing


Only if you watch something live - which I don't. With the added Sky+ functionality and HD even if I only watched recorded HD content it would still upset Tivo or at least not let it do its thing. It's such a shame the scart on an HD box can't be driven independently. For me the annoying thing would be that the bulk of my viewing would be at peak hours when also the bulk of recording would be happening on both the HD box and on Tivo leading to all sorts of view/record/tivo/Sky clashes I fear.


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## Milhouse (Sep 15, 2001)

steford said:


> Only if you watch something live - which I don't.


Not just live - you simply weren't aware that your TiVo continued to interrupt and command your digibox while you watched a recording on TiVo. The intervention of TiVo only becomes apparent when you are watching live.



steford said:


> With the added Sky+ functionality and HD even if I only watched recorded HD content it would still upset Tivo or at least not let it do its thing.


You don't stop TiVo from doing it's thing at all - the TiVo stops *you* from watching recorded HD material because the TiVo causes the SkyHD box to revert to Live TV mode from playback mode as a result of the channel change. You then have the choice to let TiVo continue it's recording of live TV, or you can manually stop the TiVo from recording and resume playback of your SkyHD recording.

Whatever choice you make it's your decision, not TiVos. If you resume playback of your HD material without stopping the scheduled TiVo recording then you will have a recording of whatever you are playing back on the SkyHD box, but that again is your decision and clearly whatever the TiVo was about to record couldn't have been worth keeping. A third option is to schedule the recording that TiVo was about make on your SkyHD box (just press Record on the Sky+ remote, you'll already be on the correct channel), cancel the recording on TiVo (or leave the TiVo to record rubbish, thus limiting the number of further channel changes) and then resume playback of your HD material - everybody is happy (as long as you can remember where your recordings are stored!)



steford said:


> It's such a shame the scart on an HD box can't be driven independently.


Independent SCART output would require an additional decoder, significant additional hardware and software cost (plus increased UI complexity) with little if any return for Sky. In fact Sky would probably see it as a potential loss for their business as it could negate the need for Sky Multiroom in some situations.



steford said:


> For me the annoying thing would be that the bulk of my viewing would be at peak hours when also the bulk of recording would be happening on both the HD box and on Tivo leading to all sorts of view/record/tivo/Sky clashes I fear.


TiVo controlling a SkyHD (or even Sky+) box is not a perfect combination by any stretch of the imagination, but in the right circumstances it can work very well. Unfortunately it sounds like your circumstances might not be suitable, in which case stick with just TiVo or switch entirely to Sky+/Sky+HD.


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## cyril (Sep 5, 2001)

Milhouse said:


> TiVo controlling a SkyHD (or even Sky+) box is not a perfect combination by any stretch of the imagination, but in the right circumstances it can work very well. Unfortunately it sounds like your circumstances might not be suitable, in which case stick with just TiVo or switch entirely to Sky+/Sky+HD.


Agreed.
If you find yourself with spare cash, go for multiroom and use one SkyHD box for recording HD and a seperate SkyHD or Sky box for TiVo's exclusive use.
This way you don't get into tricky conflicts.
This is what I do.


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