Sky converting SD channels to DVB-S2 - will no longer be viewable on certain older receivers

EdmondShiels3

Sky customer with SD box will loose access to Sky cinema sd channels in May and in August will loose access to all of sky channels.

cena

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058343266/sky-closing-sky-sd-channels

Are people going to get HD for free?

lertsnim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933936#Comment_121933936

Will there will still be SD channels? Is it just a case of SD channels not available on non HD channels as they're moving to DVD-S2 so will not work on old non HD boxes?

icdg

Announced back in November:

https://www.sky.com/help/articles/sky-channel-upgrade-roi#:~:text=We're%20changing%20how%20we,to%20continue%20watching%20Sky%20channels.

Less about killing off SD, more about killing off any older non-HD Sky boxes that are still out there in the wild (and are probably very long in the tooth at this stage).

Only affects Sky’s own channels.

Incidentally the most likely place you’re likely to see an old Sky box these days is a pub. It’s rarely Sky Q even now.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121942265#Comment_121942265

Not too long since I saw a pub still using a Grundig SD box

decor58

Sad that some people are trying to sell sd boxes on online sites, one has 3 sd boxes for 100e, buyer beware.

webpal

I’m gutted, I can watch and use remote in different rooms with my sd box. I have a hd box that they sent me years ago so will have to use that. Can’t change channels with magic eye though unfortunately

swoofer

Look around for a sky hd box with rf out and bingo uou can still use magic eye and better still you will beam hd versions round the house, better quality. here's what i mean from adverts ie, or look in recyling centres.

https://www.adverts.ie/tv/sky-hd-box-used-500gb-pvr5-rf-remote-control/20991093

webpal

I’ve actually got a brand new one of these from sky that I never used. I couldn’t get the magic eye to work, I must try it again

swoofer

has it got the 2 rf out and you have to turn on the power, need access to secret menu or hidden menu, its something like 001 and you must use RF1 output. All from memory.

decor58

Sky have altered the functionality on older HD boxes over the last while, others may be able to comment on that, are there HD boxes that should be avoided. Also, for free to air users swapping an sd box with a HD box may throw up some issues, the HD box without a subscription, fta, does not default to the the same channel line up, so an ex UK sub card may be needed or the channels will be in a different order, though it is possible to put them in a favourites list. Would the likes of ITV or C5 be available on an Irish box without a sub card.

RockOrBog

I heard sky are killing off some of the Sky + HD boxes as well, some of the subscription channels don't seem to be working on them now??

swoofer

That is the most idiotic post I have had the misfortune to read and why you posted it defeats me entirely. You probably don't even have sky so just creating mischief.

If you want to post then stick to the facts if you know the subscription channel that is not working then say so. Don't just use a bland throwaway line.

I have a PACE SKY HD box that works perfectly and has not had a software update since 2017. Its about 20 years old.

So either edit your post or delete it.

And just to be clear the Phrase " I heard ,,, is usually followed by a load of baloney, and you are perpetuating that .

Sky have not altered the functionality of older SKY HD boxes.

icdg

While I don’t endorse backseat moderation in any way, we had a similar thread in the middle of last year and there is no evidence behind any such assertion. Nor would I like this thread (which is about a change Sky are genuinely making which will have the effect of rendering obsolete, at least for Sky channels some very old Sky equipment) derailed by discussion of this.

This change affects original generation Sky Digiboxes and the first Sky+ boxes. It doesn’t affect Sky+HD one bit. These boxes were “current” between 1998 and 2007 and well done to anyone still running a 25 year old piece of consumer electronics in this day and age, but it’s time to upgrade.

CalamariFritti

So does that mean they'll convert their free sat channels to HD? Should do right? Like Sky 1, Sky Arts, Sky Sports Mix etc. AFAIK they're only on SD on freesat.

Also wonder about how they gonna package this in for their subscribers? Currently they're still charging extra for HD. They bundle it with 'box sets' so it doesnt seem so ridiculous. When HD will be out of the picture as an extra charge they'll need to repackage their video-on-demand offer. Probably an overall price rise with VOD as an extra for an overall price rise, rise.

swoofer

Sorry I lost my cool😂 You can delete if you wish and yes 20 years and still perfect with 2 RF out and scart and beamed all round the house. With SKY Q if you cancel you have nothing!! And if it aint broke etc

webpal

So I finally caved. Was offered sky q and Ultimate which includes Netflix and discovery plus and an extra multi room box all for 32 for 12 months. My Indian Netflix was gone so it kind of suited. Does anyone know if I can request the engineer to put in a hybrid lnb so I can still use the old box for fta? Is there a cost involved?

CalamariFritti

Thats a good deal. I'm getting less than that from them and I pay more. I haven't threatened to leave in a while.

But this whole repeated dance of 'oh, I'm going to leave' → 'oh, are you? can we sway you with this deal?', I'm getting tired of it. Just offer me a decent tariff and stop bothering me. People might actually want to stay.

icdg

Just to be clear what is happening. The SD channels aren’t actually closing. They are being converted from DVB-S to DVB-S2. That will have the effect of rendering them unviewable on the first (Sky Digibox - the ones with no HDD) and second (Sky+) generation receivers.

Thats why this change doesn’t effect Sky HD, Sky+HD, or Sky Q one bit.

I’ve edited the thread title to clarify this.

irishgeo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121982713#Comment_121982713

If they are turning off SD channels, are they still charging a fee for HD?

icdg

They are not turning off SD channels, that is what I was trying to dispel.

They are only changing the method by which they are broadcast.

CalamariFritti

So no change in service or packages, just phasing out old boxes really.

galtee boy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121983282#Comment_121983282

Isn't TG4 SD being turned off on Monday ?

https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/What-s-On/Changes-to-the-Sky-TV-Guide-April-2024/td-p/4600061

icdg

That is TG4’s call, not Sky’s.

EdmondShiels3

Is TG4 in HD without the HD sub like rte? if so it will not make any difference.

loyatemu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121987300#Comment_121987300

yes, but it'll make a difference to anyone with a non-HD box.

galtee boy

I'm not so sure, I think Sky want to go fully HD and no SD channels at all, admittedly it will take a year or two, but they are heading that way, Sky Stream and Glass are already HD only I think. If 90% of subscribers or more have either Sky+HD or SkyQ, why waste money simulcasting SD as well and anyway why would anyone want to watch SD over HD ? When SD replaced analogue it was huge, but SD to HD is black & white to colour in my opinion. I will add that HD to 4K is nowhere near as big a jump, any 4K I've seen is not that much better than HD at 1080p.

CalamariFritti

It depends what size telly too. On a 40somethin inch theres hardly a difference between 1080 and 2160 visually. Different on a 60" or 70" I'd say.

techdiver

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121990057#Comment_121990057

I think "proper 4K" is significantly better than HD. The issue is compression used. Also a lot of the content sky show on 4K (especially sports apart from soccer, F1 and Cricket) is not actually 4K. It's upscaled HD. Once you go 65 inch or above 4K is very noticeable. I have a 77 OLED and even Sky HD looks crap on it. It is compressed so heavily I don't know how they have the cheek to call it HD.

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981230#Comment_121981230

Great deal. I pay more than that for less 😞.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981385#Comment_121981385

"Thats a good deal. I'm getting less than that from them and I pay more. I haven't threatened to leave in a while.:)"

The same here.

CalamariFritti

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121990160#Comment_121990160

There is compression but it's really the telly size. 1920x1080 isnt that much when your telly has 16x as many pixels.

When you get close enough even Scarlett Johansson looks like this

techdiver

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121990305#Comment_121990305

Poor Scarlet. 😂

At the same time 1080p bluray (even 1080p streaming) looks very good on my TV. Sky HD is pure garbage in comparison. The bitrate on their channels maxes out at 10mbps (often 6 or 7 average). For AVC that's crap. For certain sports like golf (us feed recompressed again) is often worse as the artifacting and noise is so high. That's not to mention that they still charge a premium for something (HD) that should be a bare minimum in 2024.

mackersdublin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121990057#Comment_121990057

Sky only in February launched a brand new channel, Sky Sports Tennis (and in SD & HD here in Ireland). A new shopping channel launched in SD only on 661 last week

They have never said SD channels are closing, as @icdg said, just SD boxes won't work. There will stil be an additional HD charge

What about all the +1 channels and the vast majority of the channels in the 700's. None of them are gonna launch in HD

Sky Stream have SD only channels too https://rxtvinfo.com/sky-stream-and-sky-glass-channel-list-republic-of-ireland-epg/

mackersdublin

Also, while other TPs will change from DVB-S to DVB-S2 in the coming months, two changed recently, making those SD channels not viewable on Sky SD boxes

TP 67 https://en.kingofsat.net/tp.php?tp=9589

TP 93 https://en.kingofsat.net/tp.php?tp=762

TAFKAlawhec

The main premise for Sky in moving SD services & converting transponders into broadcasting with DVB-S2 modulation instead of DVB-S is quite simply to allow Sky to squeeze more services into an available transponder and thus cut down on the transponder rental fees from SES. They've already done this for their German/Austrian operations.

As an example, a DVB-S transponder using QPSK modulation, a symbol rate of 22000 with an FEC of 5/6 gives a net bitrate of ~33.79 Mbit/s. A DVB-S2 transponder using 8PSK modulation, a symbol rate of 23000 with an FEC of 2/3 (the combination of which needs almost the same signal strength above the local noise floor as the first example, about 0.1db difference) gives ~44.39 Mbit/s, or about 1/3 of an increase in data capacity. On that alone they could fit the services of four DVB-S transponders into three DVB-S2 transponders without a notable bitrate sacrifice for affected services.

What is strange at the moment is that there has been two DVB-S > DVB-S2 transponder switches (as noted above by @mackersdublin ) concerning some free-to-air channels but where all services remain using MPEG2 video encoding instead of upgrading to MPEG4 AVC video encoding - using the latter would increase compression efficiency further and allow even more services to be squeezed into a transponder, but there appears to be no sign of this happening. Maybe we'll see it when August comes, but there must be some other technical reason for Sky not adopting MPEG4 AVC video for SD services on the platform? Sky HD+ receivers I've mucked around with over the years are certainly capable of displaying MPEG4 AVC SD video, so I'm gonna guess it might be something at Sky's end?

As for anything else beyond simply converting transponders to DVB-S2 operation, it would certainly make sense in eliminating SD duplicates where the HD version of the channel comes as a standard part of a Sky subscription (e.g. the elimination yesterday of TG4 on SD), but everything else is just guesswork or wishful thinking at this moment.

KildareP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121997750#Comment_121997750

Sky have always been enormously conservative when it came to changes on the satellite problem in terms of broadcast parameters.

It wouldn't surprise me if we see a migration to DVB-S2 first followed by a second migration to MPEG-4 encoding on non-HD channels after August. At this stage the vast majority of their encoders would be capable of both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 encoding so it's just a technical reconfiguration.

Then again it is possible there is some technical limitation baked into how the NIT and/or EPG data is broadcast that would instantly break the SD boxes if a combination of MPEG-4, an SD channel and DVB-S2 was introduced. The Sky+HD boxes still utilise the same EPG structure as non-HD do so it has to remain backwards compatible with a near 30 year old platform until the SD boxes are officially discontinued.

galtee boy

The SD closures continue, Virgin Media 1 & 2 standard definition closed on Sky today.

irishgeo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122022521#Comment_122022521

It would be no loss if the picture quality is the same as the **** quality they serve up on soarview.

Mickey Mike

VM3 will have to go HD at some point.

EdmondShiels3

Was Virgin Media not part of the HD sub on sky?

KildareP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122025003#Comment_122025003

It's not available on Sky via satellite at all.

loyatemu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122025008#Comment_122025008

yes it is - I have all the VM channels on Sky Q.

KildareP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122025117#Comment_122025117

Virgin Media 3 HD is not available on Sky via satellite.

Glaceon

When VM took over UTV Ireland, they pulled the HD service from Sky, leaving the renamed VM3 in SD only.

mackersdublin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122025200#Comment_122025200

VM used UTV Ireland HD's capacity on Sky to launch 3e/Virgin Media Two HD AFAIK, back in 2016

galtee boy

SD shut down continues, RTE 2 sd closing on Monday 22nd April.

galtee boy

RTE 1 SD closing on April 29th, so that's all Irish channels available in HD only on Sky, except Virgin 3 and RTE News which haven't had HD variants available on Sky since they were made available on Sky.

Mickey Mike

That transponder (DVBs) they are on will close too some time in the summer, that's why all this is happening, some how I feel when they move fully to DVBs2, RTE may well drop the+1 channels.

mackersdublin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121993477#Comment_121993477

Another TP changed from DVB-S to DVB-S2 yesterday - https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/comment/104539524#Comment_104539524

TP 95 https://en.kingofsat.net/tp.php?tp=733

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122071459#Comment_122071459

Received signal strength on this is a fraction of what it used to be for me now. Very odd.

No other S2 transponders are lower than normal

Mickey Mike

I have no signal at all at all on my old sky box, this is all I'm getting, remote control won't key in numbers. Did Sky make more changes recently?