Sky HD - High Definition. Self installation
Sky HD
Posted on 2nd Nov 2007
Sky HD was introduced in 2006 and at the time I wasn't interested in it, surely it's not that good?
Recently at a family members house I spotted their Sky HD receiver and asked for a demo, needless to say I was 
.
A couple of days later I had forgotten about the super-clear football and wildlife programmes I'd seen and all was well until our local Waitrose/John Lewis had a Sky HD demo and then we were both hooked!
I rang Sky thinking I could get HD for £169 plus subscription, but for this you need Mulitroom and Broadband and Talk, normal price is £299, I whinged a bit (well a lot) so they said they could do it for ?249 if I took out Talk. I didn't want Talk so said I would leave it in the hope of them offering a reduction - which they didn't
I came up with the grand plan of buying a box from eBay for around £180 and installing it myself, seems easy, swap the boxes over and ring Sky to pair the viewing card.
Great plan until Sky put the price the ASAs buy the HD receiver for up by £50, suddenly all the buy-it-now bargains disappeared from the auction site.
Fortunately, through a contact at Digital Spy forums I found that SatBuyer were doing the boxes at £209 + delivery for a limited period, they would then be £269. So I ordered one.
The box is a Thomson DSI8215 Sky HD receiver.
Delivery
Posted on 6th Nov 2007
Box has arrived :-)
Installation
Posted on 13th Nov 2007
I installed the box tonight, no problems as it was a straight swap for my Sky+ box, although it was slightly irritating to find that Sky have swapped the LNB inputs and the power cable to the opposite sides. The problem came when I called to get the viewing card paired to the new box. Whatever myself and CSR tried the box would not recognise the card and kept asking for it to be inserted. They sent the "pairing signal" anyway.
Pairing
Posted on 14th Nov 2007
Still not paired, spoke to technical in Scotland and still no luck, they are sending a new viewing card.
HD picture looks OK though, I now have the HD feed going through my (1080p upscaling) amp, which has improved the SD pictures.
TV link still works OK, I just needed to switch on the power for RF2 (under Services, 4-0-1 select).
N.B
- If you are using optical out, then you will need to change the setting on the Sky box to use Dolby D rather than Stereo, you will not get 5.1 sound from your HD receiver unless you use the Optical out.
- Looks like 1080 is only available as "i", but lower resolutions are "p"
