# Best way to link Tivo and SkyHD



## Tony Hoyle (Apr 1, 2002)

Sky+ has finally become enough of a pain that I'm just not prepared to put up with it any more (due to the christmas week and the way Sky only has a 7 day EPG it looks like It's going to lose nearly all of my series links).

The obvious answer now is to put the trusty Tivo back in the loop... the problem I never solved is how to do that! 

When SkyHD first came out there was some talk of getting tivo to automatically start the Sky+ recorder so you could record HD, but they didn't get anywhere at the time (IIRC it was just sending the record button via irblast automatically.. sounds simple enough). Did anyone write something to do that?

I also want to avoid having to switch sources between HDMI and SCART all the time.

What have others done with this?

I'm not *completely* against ditching the HD to be honest. Unfortunately I'm on a 12 month contract for that so it's kinda pointless.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Tony Hoyle said:


> Sky+ has finally become enough of a pain that I'm just not prepared to put up with it any more.
> 
> The obvious answer now is to put the trusty Tivo back in the loop... the problem I never solved is how to do that!.


As the old biblical saying has it "there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance" 

Other people have reported ways to record from a Sky HD box on to a Tivo and that this Scart output from the Sky HD box is apparently superior to that recorded on a Tivo from a normal Sky Digibox. I haven't heard of anyone using a Tivo as a superior and more reliable timing device to record stuff on the Sky HD box itself though.

I know there was something called a Phantom PVR available for my Netgem IPlayer to get it to control recordings on a Scart linked VCR. Its really something like that you want to control a Sky HD box. All that is needed as you say is to send the Record Start and Record Stop button at the beginning and end of a recording as well as the Sky channel number.

I'm sure the SkyEye chap is the fellow to possibly develop such a device.

See www.skyeye.force9.co.uk/skyeye.htm


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## Tony Hoyle (Apr 1, 2002)

Originally I planned to just modify endpad or one of the send-backup scripts to do it (probably a mixture of both), but never got around to it (the main difficulty being working out the ir code for the record button). I suspect you don't even need to stop the recording, since the Sky+ device seems to treat each programme separately (you can't rewind past the start of a live programme for example).

Just ordered a cachecard (my old 10mbps tivonet adapter is showing its age) and I'm sure I've got a decent drive to put in so if that arrives anytime soon I can spruce up the Tivo and have a look at that script again...

My thoughts, while I'm thinking about it again (things I can test over christmas):

1. On Sky+, What happens if you hit record (say) 5 minutes into a programme - does it keep the recording from the start or just that point? (if the former, then timing isn't so critical). 
2. Also, what happens if you change channel - does recording continue on the second tuner? 
3. If 2. is true, you could tell Tivo to stop recording and just leave the HD recording on the Sky+ box, leaving Tivo free to record any SD programme on at the same time.

Edit: answers..

1. From the start (I think.. didn't do an exhaustive test)
2. Yes (was unable to trip it up even changing channels immediately)


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## Gaspode (Jan 25, 2002)

i just try to leave the sky box on on one channel - as long as no two hd programs over lap that you want to record this seems to work fine ... (also asuming you dont want to watch live tv on another channel of course) ....


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## Tony Hoyle (Apr 1, 2002)

The problem is this relies on Sky+ to time the recording.. and that's the weak link. Tivo is *far* more reliable for that (in all the time I used Tivo it never lost a season pass. SkyHD deletes them randomly, sometimes decides they're all due to fail due to a predicted 'power failure', etc. I've had enough of coping with that rubbish (Sky+ has deleted most of my series links this week as a christmas present, and I can't reinstate them for a week due to the limit of the 7 day EPG).


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Tony Hoyle said:


> The problem is this relies on Sky+ to time the recording.. and that's the weak link. Tivo is *far* more reliable for that (in all the time I used Tivo it never lost a season pass. SkyHD deletes them randomly, sometimes decides they're all due to fail due to a predicted 'power failure', etc. I've had enough of coping with that rubbish (Sky+ has deleted most of my series links this week as a christmas present, and I can't reinstate them for a week due to the limit of the 7 day EPG).


Its hard to believe that its really as rubbish as this.

Surely it would be easier for them just to give up and go back on their knees to Tivo before they have too many Sky+ boxes to replace with Tivo S3 boxes.


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## bradleyem (May 23, 2002)

Having recently been given £500 of vouchers from work I'm going to get a Hi Def TV in the new year, but I am worried about the loss of TiVo or the loss of quality... Using TiVo to control SkyHD would be wonderful... I don't think I could manage without TiVo any more.

As an aisde I'm also currently in the US, and I'm looking at the 1080i screens, and the TiVo series 2's they're giving away, not to mention the series 3's that seem to be everywhere... 

:down:


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## Automan (Oct 29, 2000)

Sky Series links now work with a gap of more than seven days before the next episode - sometimes 

I can't remeber the maximum period but the series link markers remain on the hard drive (if you don't do a planner rebuild) and if a matching program appears in the epg stream it gets added to the planner.

Automan.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Automan said:


> I can't remeber the maximum period but the series link markers remain on the hard drive (if you don't do a planner rebuild) and if a matching program appears in the epg stream it gets added to the planner.


i.e. its still rubbish but just less rubbishy than before.

Just how difficult can it be for Sky to poach a couple of ex Tivo developers and then turn this into a reasonable system (without of course infringeing any Tivo patents). Surely for £37 per month the very least you could expect is that the product actually works properly!


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## sanderton (Jan 4, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> i.e. its still rubbish but just less rubbishy than before.
> 
> Just how difficult can it be for Sky to poach a couple of ex Tivo developers and then turn this into a reasonable system (without of course infringeing any Tivo patents). Surely for £37 per month the very least you could expect is that the product actually works properly!


It's a fundamental design issue. Tivo holds a complete EPG database locally complete with metadata and does all the SP processing in your living room. Sky+ hold virtually no EPG information (what it does hold is in RAM not on the disk) and does all the series link processing remotely at each individual broadcaster; each series linkable show programme info holds the hard-coded link to the next one in the series.

Not an easy gap to bridge without starting again.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

sanderton said:


> Not an easy gap to bridge without starting again.


Or without Sky buying out Tivo


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## Tony Hoyle (Apr 1, 2002)

bradleyem said:


> Having recently been given £500 of vouchers from work I'm going to get a Hi Def TV in the new year, but I am worried about the loss of TiVo or the loss of quality... Using TiVo to control SkyHD would be wonderful... I don't think I could manage without TiVo any more.


I wrote the script (well, modified irblast.. my tcl knowledge isn't good enough to write that from scratch)... seems to work OK - when a programme comes on an HD channel it sets Sky+ recording.

TBH though I haven't actually bothered watching the HD versions - Tivo resampling a good HD transfer in mode 0 (720x576 ~9mbps) is pretty damned good.. like a very good DVD transfer.

eg. I watched Torchwood this afternoon. Perfect picture... obviously lower resolution but no artefacting etc. and really not worth the time to get the higher resolution direct from Sky+... which is hassle (check items to record to see if there's a clear hour to watch it in, switch the TV, amp, etc.).

Obviously in the ideal world we'd be able to get an HD Tivo (or HD MCE, or pretty much anything), but that's not going to happen while Sky have the monopoly on HD in this country.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Tony Hoyle said:


> Obviously in the ideal world we'd be able to get an HD Tivo (or HD MCE, or pretty much anything), but that's not going to happen while Sky have the monopoly on HD in this country.


Or unless enough people make a complaint about this sorry state of affairs to www.ofcom.org.uk and to their MP and Euro MP via www.writetothem.com


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