Hooking a SKY box to a PC

Smiffy · Apr 22, 2009

Has anyone connected their SKY box to a PC?

In short I would like to connect my Sky decoder to my PC using one of these - Here

My questions are..

1. How easy is it to do and how?

2. Do you just use a standard coax cable from the RF output on the decoder, then plug into the tuner card on your PC?

3. If I was to buy a few tuner cards so I can watch and record various channels at the same time, canI just use a standard splitter (maybe a booster) and more coax cable from the splitter box to the tuner cards in the PC to enable this?

4. Am I correct in thinking you can only receive the "free to air" satellite channels when using a tuner card in your PC?

5. How much does the picture quality suffer in connecting your SKY box to a PC?

In summary - What I want to do is use my SKY box as the receiver, then send the signal to my PC. But I want to be able to watch/record as many channels as physically possible on my PC. I guess that is determined by how many PCI slots I have and how many tuner cards I can fit in? To my knowledge 1 tuner card = 1 viewable channel, or are there tuner cards out there, that enable you to view more than one channel at a time, using the same card?

Any help would be appreciated and rewarded with green...

Smiffy · Apr 22, 2009

Anyone savvy?!...

Vange Shrimper · Apr 22, 2009

Can I just make a lame comment that you probably already know about, but even if you still view the Sky box through the computer, you still have to pay for a TV license. :) :p

My mate at uni bought something similar to it, and it wasnt too bad. Picture quality was good, but not as good as a proper TV.

Sussex Shrimper · Apr 22, 2009

No idea about the Sky box side of it, but I can highly recommend TV cards made by Lifeview, a small company in Taiwan. The decoder they use on the cards is excellent compared to others I've owned (including Hauppage) and works well with DScaler, a quality free download for watching TV on a PC. Lifeview cards aren't that widely sold in this country but you can usually find new ones on eBay.