Sky TV in schools?

[u8dmtm]

We want to provide a TV recording and streaming service which does the following:

 

• Allows staff to book TV recordings, including Discovery channels
  
• Allows those recordings to be stored centrally
  
• Allows staff / students to access stored recordings and view over network
  
• Allows simultaneous viewing of live TV over the network
  

 

Does anyone have any ideas of how we can do this? Since we need Discovery channels we will need Sky TV.

Edited August 28, 2009 by u8dmtm

[Chillibear]

Not wanting to be too much of a fly in ointment, but personally I don't know what Sky's policy is on redistribution and recording for non-personal time-shifting purposes (they may be happy about that use in schools), but the ERA (Home Page) license doesn't cover Sky. From the ERA FAQ:

What Licensees Can Record

 

In general, what can I record off-air?

 

The ERA Scheme permits recordings of broadcasts to be made for non-commercial educational use. A 'broadcast' is defined as a transmission for simultaneous and lawful reception by members of the public i.e. it is not encrypted or encoded and is for general reception, unlike pay per view services. The ERA Licence therefore covers scheduled free to air broadcasts on:

 

* BBC television and radio

* ITV Network services (including ITV2 and ITV3)

* Channel Four and E4

* Five television

* S4C

 

It also applies to any other licensed broadcast services. These cover both radio and television services.

You can of course record any of those services distributed via Sky, so record away for BBC1!

 

There are a couple of DSat receivers for PCs eg http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_4348.html) you could potentially control for recording, otherwise using an IR control (Red Rats are good http://www.redrat.co.uk/) to trigger a Sky box with an external capture card to do the recording.

 

Perhaps have a word with http://www.clickview.co.uk and see what they are up to these days. Otherwise if you do it yourself http://www.umediaserver.net/ is a decent streaming server. Or you could just serve the files up over HTTP, on a decent network that would be okay.

Edited August 28, 2009 by Chillibear
added some solution suggestions to balance the negatives :)

[Andrew_C]

Someone here asked Sky about a package, and it was very expensive. I can't remember for sure, but many hundreds a year... The same sort of figure as they charge pubs & clubs.

[RabbieBurns]

I enquired about getting sky for our boarding house, and was quoted the exact same as pubs and clubs. They deemed it as "public broadcasting".

 

Anyway, if you can afford the expensive subscriptions, you can do away with the sky box, and buy a Satellite PCI or USB card.

 

I used a Skysat Technistar card, quite old now, and an Infiniti USB card reader. And with the software such as ProgDVB was able to browse, save etc.

 

(This setup also let me share the 1 card to multiple receivers, so could watch more than 1 channel at once with the 1 sub, but that might be a wee bit illegal, this was at home and not at school)

 

You can buy most of the discovery stuff on DVD can you not. Probably heaps cheaper than the 300 quid a month or whatever it was for sky.

[Sylv3r]

According to this article the discovery channel was coming to freeview.

 

Freeview Digital TV News Update: Discovery Channel coming to Freeview in 2009

 

Not sure if they have sinced changed their mind or its coming later on in the year.

[russdev]

September Quest goes live.

 

Digital TV - News - Discovery confirms Quest launch date - Digital Spy

 

Russ

[Arthur]

Someone told me pubs get charged around £30,000 per year. Is that true?

[Sylv3r]

Someone told me pubs get charged around £30,000 per year. Is that true?

 

I think it probably depends on the size of the venue. The local cricket club pays around £1,000 per month here.

 

But the sport bars etc with all the addons Sky Sports, ESPN etc will probably me a lot more.

 

I suppose the increase in costs is probably the reason why a lot of local establishments buy extra dishes and beam in the football from abroad - although the police and sky are clamping down pretty heavily on this now.

[u8dmtm]

Just to provide an update to this. We received an email from Sky today with school-specific literature attached. Basically they do provide a schools service with a Schools Pack which also comes with free installation, free equipment and free upgrade from Sky+ to Sky+HD.

 

The cost is £ 15/month for the Schools Pack plus £ 10/month for Sky+, with free upgrade to HD.

 

So the per annum cost for the Sky Schools service with PVR is £ 300, with no extra up front costs.

[plexer]

Excellent, last time I enquired over this with sky and we nearly signed they wanted a ludicrous amount of money.

 

Ben

[enjay]

That schools pack sounds interesting - do you have a link to any documentation? I tried Googling Sky Schools Pack and the only relevant result was a link back to this page!

[MbroTech]

Does this also allow you to record programmes from Sky and use them via a VLE, similar to the ERA+ agreement?

[apoth0r]

Can you not subscribe to the Discovery channel online and save/stream content?

[MbroTech]

I haven't looked. I just wondered as Sky isn't covered by the ERA licence, and wondered if this Schools pack had a similar agreement. It's just for knowledge though, it's not something I am actively pursuing.

[apoth0r]

Someone told me pubs get charged around £30,000 per year. Is that true?

 

Last I heard it was about £600 a month, not sure about the sports packages costing more on top of that though

[oalcock]

Try TVCatchup - Never Miss A Show Again

 

*it can't record

*neither is it "sky" its freeview

 

but its still a good resource for people who want to use it.

[plexer]

hmm that website is operated and owned by a company in the Republic of Mauritius, seems dodgy.

 

Ben

[oalcock]

They have nothing to gain from being malicious as its free, they have gone to a lot of effort if they are trying to be dodgy. It works great for me anyway.

[MbroTech]

We have a full Freeview recording system in place, through which we can allow access to our video library to all staff and students on site or off. It's just the licensing implications I was interested in.

[u8dmtm]

That schools pack sounds interesting - do you have a link to any documentation? I tried Googling Sky Schools Pack and the only relevant result was a link back to this page!

 

I can't upload the files because the email from Sky says I must not. But you can contact Sky Business Division for a copy.

[mb2k01]

Sky Business - Sky.com is the link to the relevant Sky website you need for more info. I've been in touch and got some useful basic information.

[Disease]

The SKY Schools Package does indeed start at £15.00 a month + £10.00 for SKY+HD, you can get things like SkySports thrown in but you have to send in a letter asking for a concession and prove that it will only be used for teaching purposes. Thats what we are trying to do at the moment.

[enjay]

Thanks guys, I've passed the details on to our Librarian (who handles all our TV recording).

[australiana]

[*]Allows simultaneous viewing of live TV over the network

 

Does anyone have any ideas of how we can do this? Since we need Discovery channels we will need Sky TV.

 

Clickview Live is a new product that does this:

 

ClickView - the digital video solution for schools

[enjay]

Clickview Live is a new product that does this:

 

ClickView - the digital video solution for schools

 

At £2k+VAT, that's a serious investment! Quite a neat looking product, mind you. What's the hit on bandwidth like?