Sky+ HD Box No Longer Supported What To Do

I used to go camping all over the country to watch the British Superbike races over a weekend. I had an electric hook up for the tent and i took a sky dish on a tripod, portable tv and my sky box. One day it was raining so much rather than go to the circuit and get soaked i stayed in the tent and watched the racing on Eurosport. VERY SAD.

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Do you by any chance live in the vicinity of Flimwell? I see you use the Cellarhead logo…

I have Sky HD boxes and provided neither fails, I don’t see an issue with a lack of support. Only if Sky at some point cancel the viewing cards for these boxes will there be an issue. Few points worth considering.

  • When a Sky HD box of any version, has failed in the past, there has been no official way to transfer any recordings. A dead box has meant loosing these, unless any of the workarounds described in posts above, can be utilised.
  • While the box isn’t broken, it doesn’t need fixing, Sky simply want everyone to go with Sky Q.
  • Switching from Sky HD to Sky Q may require a change of LNB on the dish, which I don’t imagine, Sky pay for the required change.
  • Some have Sky Q without any issues, but there have been in the past certainly, all sorts of issues reported on Sky forum, not least because a standard instal required wifi. It can be ethernet wired, but the change of settings requires some insight. A couple of friends have each experienced issues getting Sky Q up and running.
  • Sky Q will be around for a while, but internet streaming will be the future, albeit this doesn’t allow local recording. Sky stream is a more limited service, but already exists. Similarly Apple tv box has available a Sky app, which allows viewing of Sky (after login), although I don’t find that Apple tv box provides more than stereo for Sky viewing, whilst Sky HD does provide Dolby Digital. Sky Q goes one further with Dolby Atmos.

While your Sky HD box isn’t broken, be cautious with it, like unplugging when thunder is forecast, otherwise enjoy and view as much as you can, of the recordings you have made, if these are important.

When we had Sky Q for the first time about 3 years ago they changed our dish LNB at no extra charge.

Most Friday evenings you’ll find me in the Cellar Head taproom

You can buy a new Sky HD+ box with a big hard disc for little money on eBay. Sky doesn’t get involved.

Also as I reported above, you can use a Sky HD+ box with a Sky Q card, so Sky won’t be disabling HD+ boxes.

I was there last Saturday, great place!

Did you notice that the house next door is for sale. Come on!

I suppose the question is, what will be the consequences of not getting software updates.

As long as the programme schedule is updated, the box may work perfectly.
With gradual loss of functions over time.

That’s what happened with my 12 year old Sony TV, apps gradually disappeared, BBC Iplayer stopped working years ago.

It’s not even been connected to the internet for a couple of years. The Roku dongle I now use has turned it into something far smarter than it ever was. :blush:

Indeed Sky Q uses a dual LNB on the dish with two coax feeds.

Had major issues with Sky Q when it was first installed, particularly the multiroom boxes not being recognised by the main box.
After having all the boxes replaced twice and multiple hour long “chats” with technical advisors I lost patience and told Sky to come and take the boxes out and cancel my subscription. At this point they sent an engineer who hard wired the boxes to the router and all the problems vanished.
I do find Sky Q more temperamental than Sky+. I find myself having to reboot the boxes at least once a week because the TV Guide fails to load the content.

i like watching the F1 races live on the sky F1 channel. When i am out and about camping somewhere i just use the sky go app on my ipad which allows you to stream live over the internet direct to the ipad (my ipad has a 4G/5G esim in it tied to my phone mobile account). Works very well, i have watched races live on campsites in France and Spain in the past as well as in the UK. I am not always happy with the amount Sky now charges for its services, but things like the Sky Go app help to compensate!

Last summer in France I found that we couldn’t watch the F1 using the Sky app because of licensing restrictions. So I subscribed to a free trial of a VPN, positioned us as being in UK, we watched the race and then I cancelled the trial. I felt slightly guilty but there we are….

Last summer in France I found that we couldn’t watch the F1 using the Sky app because of licensing restrictions.

maybe its changed since the EU roaming things changed as it was a few years ago that it worked for me in both France and Spain without problems.

As soon as the UK was out if the EU Sky Go stopped working outside of the UK without a VPN. No idea why though as Sky UK is probably one of the most expensive subscriptions anywhere in Europe so I can’t see people in other European countries wanting to subscribe to Sky UK. Taking the F1 as an example, in Belgium they can get a F1 TV Pro subscription for €75 a year showing the whole weekend sessions and the race live as well as lots of other content. Compare that with what it costs in the UK to watch F1…

So my sky+hd still works but the sky q intro is 240p so upgrade to sky q or sky glass or etc.
And i am in Europe somewhere in wales in the UK.
i have a LG smart tv anyway from 2019 so when it breaks down i got my daddy’s fire stick aswell :smile:.

Sky have just said they will delete all sky channels from box in August. Forcing most to change.

If you look on the Sky forum, you will see that isn’t quite right. Apparently Sky have said they will delete all the Sky SD channels from August, so if your box is only SD, you will lose their channels, but if it’s an HD box then you won’t be affected.

You can easily buy an HD box on eBay.

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Apart from losing historic programs moving from HD to Q seems obvious.

The integration of the apps makes it very convenient. Ie IPlayer, Prime, Netflix, Disney +, and the search function searches all the apps as well. Much easier that scrolling endlessly through Netflix.

It does occasionally lose the WiFi signal which is annoying. I’ve hardwired mine into the router.

The Roku Express 4K does all that for a one off cost of £40. (Although I’ve never used it for Netflix).
Amazing how such a powerful device comes in such a small package.

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@Dave Have you seen the awful news today? Cellar Head has gone in to administration and the tap room is closed with immediate effect.