Digibox reliability - which is the best?!

PK - the king

Just wondering if anyone can point me in the direction of which make of sky digibox is the best. I'm about to get sky installed and have heard some pretty awful stories about some digibox makes failing.

byte

The Pace 2500's used to be terrible, with most of them needing a new tuner after around 18 months! I can't comment on the newer Pace boxes as I haven't installed them since the days of the 2500. During that time we changed our allegiance to Panasonic, and continue to use Panasonic only.

I don't think Amstrad are distributed here, but I would think it's best to avoid them anyway. Grundig is now owned by Thomson, which is hardly a good thing. :rolleyes:

Sadly, the Sony's are no longer in production. I'd say go for Panasonic, though perhaps Pace have sorted out their poor ZIF tuner modules with the later versions of digiboxes. I know they run through menus a lot faster than predecessors.

Lennoxschips

I had an Amstrad, but it was shoddily put together. The slots for the cards on the front facade didn't match up properly with the readers inside the box, so the card was always bent, and eventually snapped off. And the box crashed on a regular basis.

Eventually I got a pace 2500 and that's been running for two years now without any problems. If I had a choice I'd go for a Panasonic though, they seem to have a very good reputation.

halkar

Have a Panasonic TU-DSB 31 for almost 3 years and no problems.

watty

The poll is no use as many Brands at different times make good and bad models.

Any such poll needs to be Model Specific.

Also you need to differenate between Good Design badly assembled (which can be fixed by better QA) and Bad Design (which won't give good performance, or prehaps be unreliable, no matter how well built).

Amstrad can suffer from time to time with Build Quality.

Grundig are gone. But had poorly specified PSU parts in some models leading to failure if ventailation wasn't good.


Pace have made Good and Bad designs and Good and Bad builds on different models.

There was a range of Panasonics with design faults, needing a soldered in 3rd party module to cure it.

Sony don't make em any more.....


Unless you are in the trade and can see failure rates and problems for 1000s of uints any personal experience can be very unrepresentative.

sayireland

Not as relevant for everyone hear but for reception in fringe areas the new Pace 2600 is certainly the best. Unfortunately the Pace Sky Plus, while good, doesn't hold the weak signals as well.

PK - the king

Panasonic are good, you say? Oh! I heard from many people that their CPU ran a little too hot, and often burned itself out after a year or so although the on screen displays with panasonic are meant to be the fastest by far. I heard the Grundig PSU's used to fail after a few months, because the capacitor's wore out. I heard Pace are very reliable, and I know many people who have had a Pace for years with no problem, but I have ntl digital at the moment with uses a Pace box, and I'm not happy at all with the picture or service quality.

Of course, that could be just ntl and their screwed up software...

byte

To be fair, you can't compare a Pace "Sky Digibox" with a Pace NTL box. As you say, it's possibly problems with software/signals.

I have always found Panasonics reliable, and the new Panasonic DSB50's look sleek (though they're not out long enough to guage longterm issues). The Panasonics were indeed the fastest though I think the Pace 2600 would at least equal the Panny DSB31-40.

And for any digibox, regardless of manufacturer, I recommend good ventilation.

sceptre

Originally posted by PK - the king
Panasonic are good, you say? Oh! I heard from many people that their CPU ran a little too hot, and often burned itself out after a year or so although the on screen displays with panasonic are meant to be the fastest by far

The Panasonics with the vents on top need plenty of space (those holes are there for a reason). I've about an 8cm gap between the box and the shelf with the telly on.

EKRIUQ

Originally posted by LurkingIcon
The poll is no use as many Brands at different times make good and bad models.


Grundig are gone. But had poorly specified PSU parts in some models leading to failure if ventailation wasn't good.

I got a brand new Grundig box 6 weeks away from sky when my the old ones tuner packed in. Exact same box as the old one.

So Grundig are still there.

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by LurkingIcon
Any such poll needs to be Model Specific.

Grundig are gone. But had poorly specified PSU parts in some models leading to failure if ventailation wasn't good.

I've to put it on it's side with psu uppermost and some spacers under the lower edge or it hangs when the room gets warm.

Greenman

This what I did to my Grundig when the picture got bad. This might be overkill but it seems to work!!!
PS Could a mod please paste this pic!! Still can't figure that one out!!!

halkar

Grundig is not gone, it is still there. It's core bussiness sold to Alba (UK company) and Beko (Turkish company) both with experiences in Home Entertainment electronics

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by greenman
This what I did to my Grundig when the picture got bad.

Cringe - fans on top of the SMPSU
SMPSU - switchmode poser supply
ie. the capacitors have 400V in them and could kill you even after the power is switched off (and if the discharge resistor is not working - it might take bloody ages before they become safe.)

Anyway - I keep forgetting you can get 9V out the back of those things - though I don't think it has enough current to run a big fan.

Greenman

Thanks Capt'n Midnight for the info. The bottom line is I'm happy with it plus its totally out of harms way.:)