Have just noticed the sky+ box has a usb port on the back, does that mean i could hook my laptop up to it and maybe copy recorded programmes to my laptop ?

Just a thought.

What do you all think ?

Not sure about the USB, but if you take the hdd out of the box and connect it to the PC, there is software that will let you copy it to another drive or back it up onto the pc. It's a really weird format though as the sky box records the whole satellite stream, rather than encoding it to MPEG or whatever.

No. HTH

AFAIK the USB ports on Sky+, Virgin Media Boxes etc are for software engineers use. The BT Vision + box has a USB port which IIRC was to enable a keyboard to be attached for internet TV which never happened. Sky, Virgin et al all encrypt their content so that the files cannot be read with any existing programme. There are a few Freesat decoders to which a seperate HDD can be connected via USB, whether they need to be connected to the decoder for playback or not, I don't know.

On my Sky+ box the usb socket doesn't actually appear to be connected to anything, so no.

In short, no.

Like i say im not tech minded like that, so thanks for the help.

Only wanted the peppa pig off it for my daughter.

The port is usually dead but can be activated from a 'secret' settings menu so that you can use a wireless dongle to connect to anytime+

I use the USB port on my Sky HD box as a place to plug in my phone charger / XBox controller charge lead. Whilst it serves no purpose as far as Sky goes, it is on some boxes powered so you can plug chargers/usb fans/usb snowmen etc. in.

If you look at the back of your Sky HD box, some also have an E-SATA connection. This also does nothing, although there have been rumours for many years that it may activated as a means to add a second HDD. BUT we are talking years here, and its not happened yet.

The port is usually dead but can be activated from a 'secret' settings menu so that you can use a wireless dongle to connect to anytime+

It can? Do you know how?

Like i say im not tech minded like that, so thanks for the help.

Only wanted the peppa pig off it for my daughter.

Just get a dvd, they're cheap enough and rip it onto a computer. i've used handbrake and itunes as i have an ipad but there must be similar for more native PC/android formats.

It can? Do you know how?

I dont believe it can at all, the wireless dongle mentioned is simply a standard ethernet to wireless adapter with Sky firmware on it that plugs into the ethernet port on the back of the box. Nobody on any of the Sky forums I frequent has ever found a way to make it do anything.