Guest david lloyd Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 Hi everyone In advance of the shut down of analogue TV our next motorhome will have a fixed satellite dish and no other terrestrial TV aerial but I have just been informed that you cannot record Sky TV (even the free to view or free to air channels) because they are encrypted. Is this correct? We were thinking of having a 12v VCR fitted such as the Roadstar so that we had the option of taking pre-recorded video away with us but does this mean that we could only use it for that purpose - i.e. as a video player and not as a recorder? Regards, david Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Alan Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 Never had any problems with recording the normal channels at home. I believe only the premium movie channels have a form of copy protection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest peteC Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 We record both Analogue & Digital signals on our VHS recorder We dont PAY for any TV channel other than the BBC License so cannot receive premium movie channels & cannot coment on them We do make recordings of channel 148 travel channel some good programs there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gillian Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 Isn't it the case that all the pay channels are encrypted by Sky and the box de-encrypts (can you say that 8-))the particular channels you've paid for on the way to the tv. You can therefore record the channels which the tv can show apart from some premium channel films which are specially encrypted by the film distributers to prevent copying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Neal Posted January 26, 2006 Share Posted January 26, 2006 David and others I have a fixed dish on my house and another, thro-the-roof dish, on my motorhome. I use the same Sky digibox at home and in the motorhome when we go away. And yes, I can record anologue and/or digital signals whether at home or using the seperate equipment in the RV. There is a lot of mis-information out there about satellite and freeview and that is because a lot people don't actually know (but pretend they do!). The sound advice is from those who "do" it and therefore know it. Regards Neal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gillian Posted January 26, 2006 Share Posted January 26, 2006 [quote]The sound advice is from those who "do" it and therefore know it.[/quote] That's all very well but how do you differentiate between those who "do" it and know it and those who "do" it and don't know it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ian Posted January 26, 2006 Share Posted January 26, 2006 2nd subscription. You can subscribe to sky for a second subscription ( exactly the same package as your main subscription ) for only £10.00 per month. You will need another sky box ( ebay is cheap) this enables you to leave one box at home if you go away and take the other with you ( useful if there are people left at home when you go away ). NOTE:- you ARE supposed to have both boxes connected to the same telephone line ( when you subscribe for the 2nd subscription your 12 month contract restarts with sky ). Great cheap way of not having to keep pulling the cables out of the telly at home. If you want to keep a telephone line installed in the 2nd box at home simply put a double adaptor on the telephone line and leave the box behind the telly until you need it. Satellite is the way forward for all motorhomes, now channel 1,2,3,4 & 5 are on you get perfect picture all the time every time, wether at home or abroad. I've never understood the people who buy televisions because they are able to pick up French, Spanish, Portugese television etc, WHAT FOR... i cant understand the language!!. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bb Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 You could consider going for a DVD player for the van. VHS is now becoming obsolete, and I believe it is becoming hard to buy new tapes for recording on. Can you believe we have lived through the birth and death of a whole technology!! DVD discs are the same size as CDs, so you can take loads of films in a CD wallet, with a considerable saving in space and weight. New players/recorders now on the market enable you to record your own films from the TV, including regular, non pay per view Sky channels. They are getting cheaper and cheaper, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest david Lloyd Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 Hi bb Yes you are right about the technology marching on. The new vehicle (a Knaus Sun Ti with the media pack) will also have a DVD but we have no way of recording at home on this format. I have been looking at the DVD recorders but, because we have a good deal of stuff on VHS (family footage etc) I would have gone for a combi DVD/VHS recorder - eeeh now your'e talking big money! Typicle of this world we live in too is the fact that there are a variety of different recording formats to DVD - especially if you want a re-recordable format. Only the top of the range, all singing all dancing DVD/VHS recorders give you all the formats and they are around £600 at the moment. So, for the time being, I came back to a simple solution of a 12v VCR - £49.99 from Roadpro. Perhaps I should wait just a little longer......? david Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bb Posted January 30, 2006 Share Posted January 30, 2006 I have just been treated to a Panasonic DVD recorder with hard drive for "my" birthday present!! It cost about £280 from John Lewis, but you can buy for £220 online. We can link the DVD recorder and existing VHS together using a scart lead, and copy our VHS tapes to DVD. It would not copy a Disney film, but I believe they are always encripted and write protected, but tried other pre-recorded tapes and they copied OK, though we haven't done a whole film, just linked them up to see if it would copy to the hard drive, and it did. The DVD recorder also accepts an SD card so we could also store photos from our digital camera. For the van, you could go for a cheap portable DVD player, if you record your own discs of films or tv programs at home. Techie son recommends DVD-R format as superior to DVD+R Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest David Lloyd Posted January 31, 2006 Share Posted January 31, 2006 Hi bb Thanks for that info - hadn't thought of using the existing VCR to copy to a HDD but I was also thinking of only having the one machine under the TV (to make room for cable box - it's never ending isn't it?) The new van has a DVD player built in so I think I wil definitely go down the route of a DVD recorder at home and take away pre-recorded DVD's. The one I referred to above was the Panasonic EH80V with DVD?VCR, 200gb HDD and a card slot but it is veeeeery expensive. I have also seen a Pioneer DVD?VCR recorder with 80gb HDD for around £293 so thought this was good value too. Whilst searching I read some articles on the issue of which format to go for. The articles referred back to the days of the 'new' video recorders on VHS and Beta and which one would eventually succeed in the market place - we all know who won that battle. It seems that the same will happen over DVD recording formats and the articles I read seemed to say that DVD+R/+RW will eventually come out the winner - something to do with the biggest companies in the game putting themselves behind this format - what does your son think? and will it make that much difference if the machine I buy can play any of the formats? regards, david Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bb Posted February 2, 2006 Share Posted February 2, 2006 Yes, son said it was the old VHS/beta debate again, only this time there is DVD+/-R and DVD-rom discs too. Only time will tell if one wins out I guess. We have a small portable DVD for the van, and phoned the manufacturer to ask advice on which format to record on to play on their player. The advice we got, from a really nice and helpful chap was that its trial and error! It can depend on the discs used for recording Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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