Sky+ and Media Center

June 8, 2006 by Oliver
Filed under: Computers, Entertainment, Technology, Windows 

Sky+ and Multiroom were installed this morning and everything works great :)

First I have to say the actual installation was done well and the engineer guy wasn’t even phased by the idea of connecting up to a computer instead of a TV. He did point out that they don’t supply an S-Video cable (which came with the TV card).

Anyway MCE is talking to my Sky box fine. The only niggle is that the IR transmitter is a little in the way (it’s picky about placement – get it wrong and it doesn’t always change channel). There may be a solution though. You can buy a cable that connects from the IR unit (the box that contains the IR receiver and that the IR blaster is connected to) directly to the Sky box. This works in exactly the same way as Sky’s own remote IR receiver. The device was actually originally created to allow TiVo boxes to control Sky boxes.

PACELink – rf2Link

PVR, DVR, Windows, Media Center]]>

Tags:

Comments

8 Comments on Sky+ and Media Center

  1. ECW One Night Stand - Oliver Brown on Tue, 13th Jun 2006 9:37 am

    2. < ![CDATA[[...]

    ECW One Night Stand
    June 13th, 2006 by Oliver

    Since I got MCE working I&#8217;ve been watching TV on a one day delay - that way I don&#8217;t [...] ]]>

  2. Leon on Sun, 3rd Sep 2006 2:19 pm

    3. < ![CDATA[Hi, i was trying to connect my Sky+ box to my Media Center PC, and can't find the IR sensor on the front of the set-top box, found this site which is the only mention of the problem i could find, (thank you!) but is there any chance you could explain to me where the sensor is please?
    I just ordered the rf2Link thing you reccommended, but am the impatient type!
    thanks for any help.

    Leon (London)]]>

  3. Oliver on Mon, 4th Sep 2006 10:31 am

    4. Firstly, the rf2Link works really well. So if you’re just using the real IR reciever temporarily then if you just point the IR blaster at the front of the Sky box from about a foot away it should work fine. It just has reliability issues and is prone to being knocked out of the way.

  4. Paul Rutledge on Sun, 4th Mar 2007 1:32 pm

    5. < ![CDATA[Hi
    I'm interested in the info on how to connect SKY to Window Media Centre and connecting the IR sensor to the front of the SKY set-top box..
    I've got 1 question. If the IR is connected to the SKY set-top box. How do you use the reomte to then control the rest of the option on the Media Centre. Would the IR sensor not be then disconnected to the device??]]>

  5. Oliver on Mon, 5th Mar 2007 12:08 am

    6. The Media Centre kit (which you either buy on it’s own or t comes with the media centre version of certain Hauppauge TV cards) works as an IR receiver and a transmitter at the same time. Basically it’s a box with a receiver on the front and then a wire coming out of it with a transmitter on the end.

  6. AleCS on Wed, 25th Apr 2007 3:34 pm

    7. < ![CDATA[I have a Media Center Vista Ultimate. I tried to connect my SKY box to my PC but I can't find my region (Mexico) by chance do you know what can I do in this situation? I heard once that there are some pathces (for XP) but no one can realy confirmed this info for Vista. I also have the problem of the remote control which is not recognized by the box. Regards from Mexico City!

    AleCS]]>

  7. Chet on Mon, 1st Oct 2007 5:38 pm

    8. < ![CDATA[Hi,

    i had sky installed a few weeks ago and tried to connect my media center laptop to it and it failed. I gave up.

    I want to make sure that I can make it work before I buyy by LCD and if it does work then i wanto setup a PC that will connect to the TV at all times.

    Can yo u help?]]>

  8. Grant Luffman on Mon, 17th Mar 2008 8:14 pm

    9. < ![CDATA[Hi, i am trying to connect a slingbox pro to my sky+ box, and need to locate the infra red sensor on the front of the box. can you help me locate the actual sensor on the front of the box

    Thanks for any help

    Grant]]>