Free sky tv at home

[rich5315 10]

Hi where i used to work we had another depot in dubaii, the manager came over to visit for a week and stayed in a hotel. He told us the next day he couldnt believe we had to pay for sky tv. In dubai it was free, all the channels including movies and sports. so it came to my attension that the decription sky use is built into your sky box not the signal from the satellite.

I rang sky to alter my sky package and i got on to this subject and the sky man said yes its free abroad, like when you go to spain and the local bar has sky sports on, they dont pay for it.

I said to him if i bought a cheap foreign satellite reciever and plugged my sky dish into it already pointing at the satellite would i get free sky. The sky man said yes i think you would get it all free but sky dont want you to know this.

I woould split the cable and still have sky on a minimum monthly package so i could still record but this would save me £50 a month.

What does anyone think, lets get round this rip off britain thing

[speleo1 10]

one way to find out try it

[dosxuk 10]

1) You can't just split the feed from a satellite dish like you can a TV aerial. The boxes send signals back to your dish so having more than one box connected can cause neither to work.

 

2) The decryption used by Sky is a combination of software/hardware in the box and software on your viewing card. It's not decodable by the box alone. Many channels are free-to-air (unencrypted) and don't require a viewing card or subscription to be able to watch them. Any which are free-to-view and subscription only (encrypted) will require a compatible box and viewing card. Sky protect their encryption routines that much that not even Freesat could get permission to include the routines in their boxes, so they can only recieve free-to-air channels.

 

3) The satellites used in Dubai are not the same as those used in the UK, and can have completely different channel set ups - they may well have Sky's film / sport channels broadcast unencrypted, where as the satellites you can pick up here don't.

 

Free Sky is just a myth. If it wasn't, Sky wouldn't have a business (or would find ways to stop free viewing). Analogue Sky broadcasts were pretty trivial to hack the encryption, and there was a pretty big industry in selling hacked viewing cards. Nobody has yet managed to hack the digital encryption, and when groups have looked like getting close, Sky have updated the routines to bypass whatever loophole they had found.

[kenthack 10]

sky was supposed to have offered a big payment and a top job to anyone who could hack it and not get caught

[rich5315 10]

surely kenthack sky wouldnt know who was picking there signal out the air? Like tv detector vans never existed, they track you buy your tv licence. Theres been something similar to this earlier in the year a pub landlady did what i suggested shes won the first round in european court, but she was in a pub down south, but like i said i would keep my sky subscription to a mininum they wouldnt know which reciever i was watching on, would they?

[kenthack 10]

no the payment and job offer was fpr someone to hack their system and make it work

the encryption is the key to getting sky for free

as said abroad the signal is sent using different satellites and unless your dish is aimed at it and is big enoughth to get a signal you wont get the foreign channels

had a quick look and there are channels broadcasting free uk football

plus down south means easier to get the foreign channels as its closer to the european satellites footprints

[Bikertec 12]

If this was the case then a sat receiver that wasn't a sky box would pick up the free channels which they don't.

[kenthack 10]

even freesat boxes have software that blocks some channels

free to air sat boxes will allow all the channels that are broadcast without encryption from the satellites that the dish is pointed at

[dosxuk 10]

Like tv detector vans never existed

 

They did, and could be demonstrated to work. Admittedly, not to the resolution that the authorities would have you believe, but they could detect use of a television set, and potentially the channel the set was tuned to (by matching it to the current sync rates of the transmissions). Anyway, that's off topic...

 

Theres been something similar to this earlier in the year a pub landlady did what i suggested shes won the first round in european court, but she was in a pub down south, but like i said i would keep my sky subscription to a mininum they wouldnt know which reciever i was watching on, would they?

 

She wasn't recieving Sky channels though, and she wasn't getting them for free. She had a paid up subscription to a foreign broadcaster to receive their channels. The case centred around whether or not the football authorities could sell the broadcast rights to their matches on a country by country basis and restrict people from moving equipment / viewing cards between the countries.

 

If you wanted to go down that route, you'd have to find a country which uses satellites that are physically receivable in this country, and find out how to get one of their boxes and viewing cards.

 

If this was the case then a sat receiver that wasn't a sky box would pick up the free channels which they don't.

 

There are free-to-air channels which are broadcast unencrypted and are recievable by any DVB-S / DVD-S2 reciever, and there are free-to-view channels, which are encrypted and can only be watched on boxes from the company which does the encryption (basically Sky in the UK). With a valid viewing card (doesn't need to have a current subscription on it) the box can then decode those channels and display them for free. This used to be done with lots of channels which showed content which was only licenced for the UK. Now one of the satellites has a much tighter beam which only covers the UK, so broadcasters have switched to free-to-air transmissions which don't require them to pay Sky to encrypt thier signals.

[rich5315 10]

So how could our boss in dubai get all the sky channels free not just sport? And why did the man at sky say "yes you could get sky free with a foreign receiver but sky wouldnt want you to know that"

[muddywolf 10]

Hi where i used to work we had another depot in dubaii, the manager came over to visit for a week and stayed in a hotel. He told us the next day he couldnt believe we had to pay for sky tv. In dubai it was free, all the channels including movies and sports. so it came to my attension that the decription sky use is built into your sky box not the signal from the satellite.

I rang sky to alter my sky package and i got on to this subject and the sky man said yes its free abroad, like when you go to spain and the local bar has sky sports on, they dont pay for it.

I said to him if i bought a cheap foreign satellite reciever and plugged my sky dish into it already pointing at the satellite would i get free sky. The sky man said yes i think you would get it all free but sky dont want you to know this.

I woould split the cable and still have sky on a minimum monthly package so i could still record but this would save me £50 a month.

What does anyone think, lets get round this rip off britain thing

If you don't want Sky, don't pay for it, if you want it pay for it, if you want it free bugger off abroad (not that I believe it).

 

If it was true how long would Sky keep broadcasting if lots of people starting doing it, and subscriptions fell through the floor?

[kenthack 10]

look up slingbox. this is done over the net and i believe still needs a uk subscription to make it work