Help; Sky Q / Clever Audio Bods

[greenwoo]

Need a helping hand from the great and the good.

After beating Sky up yesterday to reduce the cost they told me about SKY Q, which we can get for a bag of peanuts and a mars bar. At 1st i wasn#t interested, but they i realised that it could be a winner.

The wifi indoors is awful as it has to travel through umpteen walls down a long bungalow...and i had been thinking about installing a MESH type system frm BT to take care of that. When Sky told me that they'd fit however many boosters it needs to make it work i rubbed my hands together at the prospect of a 'freebie'.

BUT - i've hit a snag.
It seems that the SKY Q Mini boxes that provide content to 2nd/3rd tv's only have an HDMI/Optical output.
In my den i just use a Plasma panel for the telly and the current old style Sky box has audio out which i plug into my mixer/speakers. And for the picture i just use a scart lead ( the panel only has Scart/pc/composite inputs).

I'm lagging far behind when it comes to HDMI /Optical and the like....so my questions are...
1/ Is there a way to convert HMDI to a scart plug ( guessing this is the easier question)
2/ Speakers/audio....how can I (no idea if its poss ) translate an Optical out/lead to end up with either normal phono jacks or similar to plug into the mixer?

Any clever so and so's know a workaround?

[b33fy]

Convert the hdmi to VGA and plug into screen. Optical can be converted to analogue for the mixer. Pray that there is a menu in the box to split the audio/video signsl. May be worth downloading an instruction book to check it out.

It sounds like quite old tech.. don’t want to spend your money for you though it might be worth thinking about upgrading?

[b33fy]

Looking at a couple of images there is a 3,5mm A/V output, use that to the mixer and a converter on the hdmi to the monitor. They should work if not you should be able to switch outputs in the setup menu system somewhere.

[greenwoo]

Mike....i'll recheck, but i have a feeling that the image you found may have been for the main Sky Q box, not the additional ones (mini box)....those as far as i can see just have the 2 outputs mentioned.

It is an 'old' style set up....infact its replicated in the lounge as well as the games room. Back in the day a panel was the best way to get a decent sized screen and as i never want to use a tuner/speaker function on those tv's its worked well.
Loathe to change the one in the games room, because its an 'occasional' tv rather than sitting glued to it...and the motion for sports is excellent ( plus would have to run new cables into/over loft) and would still want to listen via external speakers.

Will try to get a manual too....

[jeffw]

The Sky Q repeaters will only be for Sky Q and they charge you for them. Much better to get Ethernet installed and then get a replacement 4K telly for the Plasma

[greenwoo]

The Sky Q repeaters will only be for Sky Q and they charge you for them. Much better to get Ethernet installed and then get a replacement 4K telly for the Plasma

@ Jeff....
after a long haggle, they assured me that they'll supply as many repeaters (free) as needed to get the signal to the 2nd or 3rd Sky Mini box. Its not the optimum solution for wifi/bband access around the home, and i do have ethernet cables waiting to be terminated in a cple of rooms. But in the meantime, i figured that the Mini boxes will create a wifi hotspot....so i am thinking/assuming that i'd get more of the house covered that way.

as for the tv's....
agree, but am about to pull the pin and buy 2 new ones for lounge/bedroom and can't justify throwing out my games room one.

Found an optical to analogue audio converter, and a powered hdmi to scart which i imagine would do the trick for that plasma.

Now just trying to get my head around the lounge/av set up...
SKY Q > AV via optical ( got to check thats how its set up now as that Amp doesnt have HDMI)
SKY Q > TV via hdmi

[jeffw]

Sky Q WiFi is only for Sky Q boxes, you can't use it for laptops etc.

It is a much better system than the old Sky HD boxes but does make a much bigger use of Broadband (you need a really good link if you want to use multiple Sky Q Minis at the same time.

Worth doing though !

[greenwoo]

ah looks like there's 2 answers to the wifi point....

If you have Sky broadband and Q hub all Q boxes automatically act as WiFi Hotspots.

If you have 3rd party broadband I’m afraid they do not.

[jeffw]

Do you have Sky Broadband?

[greenwoo]

yes Jeff.....and don't plan on changing as we're locked in for another 15mths or so....

just bit the bullet and ordered 'Q'...
seems with the converters i should be able to do what i want.

Next headache is i see that modern tellies have a VESA pattern to the mounting bracket. Course the current one doesnt match up by a mile......new one would be 200/200 and the existing is huge ( didnt measure but guessing 400/500)....don't want to lose that bracket as it kicks the screen nicely away from a side way. May have to get an adapter plate made up as all i can see so far are adapters to go from 1 VESA size to another.....
FFS....used to be exciting buying new gear, now its a frigging headache.