Why does my Sky HD box still allow recording without a contract?
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[Deleted User]
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I though Sky disabled the "Sky+" features after termination of contact.
18 months ago I jumped ship from Sky to Virgin. It was a good move and I have been happy with the V+, but last weekend I was rummaging through the loft and found my old Sky+ HD box.
I plugged it in and to my surprise it allows me record all of the FTA channels. I cannot access CH5 and a few other channels, but 5 days later reocording still works. Have Sky changed their policy recently or is this some lucky annomaly? I still have the original viewing card plugged in and I have not connected it to a telephone line since turing it off 18months ago.
18 months ago I jumped ship from Sky to Virgin. It was a good move and I have been happy with the V+, but last weekend I was rummaging through the loft and found my old Sky+ HD box.
I plugged it in and to my surprise it allows me record all of the FTA channels. I cannot access CH5 and a few other channels, but 5 days later reocording still works. Have Sky changed their policy recently or is this some lucky annomaly? I still have the original viewing card plugged in and I have not connected it to a telephone line since turing it off 18months ago.
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Comments
As you have found, the old blue card still enables recording and playback of the free to air channels, because it missed the disable recording command. My thoughts are it's unlikely any more kill commands will be sent to the old blue cards any more, but just to be safe, I pull my card out of the box if it's not actually recording or playing back.
But as I say, be very careful. Under certain circumstances, use of a new White card in the box will disable that box recognising the old blue card at all, and hence you would lose the recording ability.
So you have a tough choice to make. Keep on using the old card to record and play the free to air channels, or buy a new freesat from sky card to also allow you to watch the free to view channels (five usa, fiver, sky 3, Viva, channel 4 HD and five HD) but activating the new white freesat from sky card will most likely make the box refuse to recognise the old card, so you would lose your recording functions completely even if you put the old card back.
My guess is that at some point in the future, a software update will stop the boxes recognising the old cards anyway, so use and enjoy the recording ability while you can.
If you want to watch (but not record) five, it can be tuned in with "add channels" and viewed with "other channels"