If I buy a Sky+ box off eBay and plug it in, will it work?

[Have No Fear]

(First post here, so sorry if it's a noob question )

I have a Sky Sports & Movies subscription and would like to know whether instead of pating £99 + £69 installation for Sky+, whether I could just plug in one that I buy off eBay.

Thank you in advance for any help.

[yodasarmpit]

Yes and No.

To get the recording facility you need to ask Sky to switch that on in your account.
Now as you already subscribe to a premium package this will incur no additional monthly fee.

If you only have a single feed coming from your LNB then you will only be able to record, pause, rewind the channel you are watching.
In order to get the full functionality from your Sky+ you will need a Twin, Quad or Octo LND and two separate feeds running into the Sky+ box

[Have No Fear]

First of all, thank you for your very fast response! Unfortunately, I'm not quite confident enough to change anything that involves a ladder (my sky dish is quite high up).

To clarify, would I still be able to use all of the features of the planner (e.g. have it automatically change to whatever channel at 1am and record the programme without anyone having to be awake to physically change it), as long as no two programmes clashed?

Similarly, would it enable me to start watching 24 at 9.15pm instead of 9pm and fast-forward through most of the ads?

(Sorry for becoming so transparent all of a sudden )

[reddwarfcrew]

So your user name is 'Have no fear', but you wont get up a set of ladders to swap the LNB LOL.....

I've bought 2 sky+ and quad lnb off ebay.... and also bottled it when it came to getting up the ladder.

speak to your local airial installer and I'm sure they'd do it for £20 cash in hand (I already laid the cable thru the loft and just needed some to pop up the ladder).

I'm pretty sure none of the sky+ features will work until the box os receiving 2 dish feeds.

[traineetech]

fisrt of answer to change channel to record won't work on a single dish input as sky+ does have the autoview function in the planner you only get series link or record providing you have 2 seperate feeds.

2nd don't know about watching at 9:15 unless u paused it the restarting playback at 9:15 if your on about getting the box to start recording 24 at 9 while u watcha nother channel or u asking for video on demand if it's vod then the answer is no it's not available yet

solution's available to you are get and local company to come install or call sky to find out about getting a some1 out to do the work am a ffraid i don't know whether they would or wouldn't or cost but may be worth a phone call to check.

[Have No Fear]

Thank you everyone for your responses. I'll see if my local installer can help (on the grounds that Sky will probably just have subcontracted them in the first place anyway).

[Rigsby]

After reading various posts on this forum and others I decided to take a chance.

I bid for and won a new Thomson PVR3 Sky+ box on ebay at a very reasonable £57 plus postage, then got a quad LNB also off ebay.

Ladders out changed LNB, ran another cable, connected it all up. Tweaked the dish to get better signal quality reading.

Rang Sky up, married my old card up with new box, activated Sky+ functions (I already had Film & Sports package so no extra subscription involved) took a couple of phone calls before I received all the functions.

Now I wonder how I got by without Sky+.

It really was as simple as that, plus by doing it myself I routed the new cable under the floor out of site, I dont think the engineers would have gone to the same trouble.

I suppose when you buy a box off ebay, you pays your money and takes a chance. So far so good with the Thomson, never missed a beat in the first 3 months. If I get 12 months out of it I cant grumble, by then the HD Sky+ boxes might have come down a bit.

[Gaztops]

You must have got a good Thomson box, I've never had one of those last more than 11 weeks.

Look after it.

[traineetech]

You must have got a good Thomson box, I've never had one of those last more than 11 weeks.

Look after it.

mines has lasted over a year and still going strong

[Gaztops]

Rub it in, why don't yer