How to get a new Sky Box

Maxwell

Hi There,

Having minor problems with my little white (pace) sky box and wanted to change it, but never got round to it. Well as I now have some serious kit in my home cinema rack, I was hoping to get a new sky box (the new black and silver one Ive seen) so they can all look decent together.

Can these just be bought from a dealer and the card just plugged out of the other one and into the new one or does it have to be installed?

Any notion on how much they are?

Did a google and got the one I want:
Pace DS440NB Sky Digibox

Pic:

byte

What's wrong with your current Pace box, and what makes you think that the box is the problem?

Any dealer should be able to sell one to you, but just make sure it's the Pace, as the Thomson and Amstrad's are indentical (on the outside)

Price for one is about €199 or less. satellite.ie sells them for €183.99 for example.

All you need to do is swap the boxes, and put your viewing card in the new box.

You'll then need to ring Sky and get them to pair the card to the new box. Most channels will continue to work without pairing, but premium channels like Sky Sports and Sky Movies will give "This is the wrong card for this settop box" message.

kbell

Why not go for sky + or HD if you want to complement the "serious kit in your home cinema rack"

You should be able to upgrade to either, by contacting a local supplier or sky themselves.

Skyuser

Is there people still out there who don't have Sky+ ? It's only 150 euro.


.

jesus_thats_gre

Poor water on your existing one to short it. Call Sky and tell them the dog pissed on it. They will tell you there is a charge for a new one. Tell them you are gonna disconnect. They will offer you an engineer call out and a new box for free without a new contract.

watty

I think that is dangerous advice.

Aquos76

Skyuser wrote:

Is there people still out there who don't have Sky+ ? It's only 150 euro.


.

and €75 install, unless you take up the multiroom option from them.

watty

+15 Euro a month for ever if you want to record even free TV. And it won't work with ITV, BBC3 BBc4 etc

Jfla

2 quick questions.

Does the phone line have to be connected all the time?

If so, Does it addd much to the phone bill?

netwhizkid

Maxwell wrote:

Hi There,

Having minor problems with my little white (pace) sky box and wanted to change it, but never got round to it. Well as I now have some serious kit in my home cinema rack, I was hoping to get a new sky box (the new black and silver one Ive seen) so they can all look decent together.

Can these just be bought from a dealer and the card just plugged out of the other one and into the new one or does it have to be installed?

Any notion on how much they are?

Did a google and got the one I want:
Pace DS440NB Sky Digibox

Pic:

Hows your hearing? Because unless you are fairly deaf I'd advise against getting that digibox, the f'ing thing never stops buzzing.

Since day one my digibox which is a Pace DS440NB never stops buzzing. It emits a sound similar to those ultrasonic anti-rodent devices and funnily older people can't hear it. It is also like the sound used in those anti-loitering machines designed to shoo away teenagers from shop entrances; which was also adapted into a silent ringtone to use by students in the classroom so that the teacher couldn't hear it.

As far as I know the buzzing is caused by a generic design fault in the power supply and it affects all those digiboxes not just a certain batch. Both Amstrad and Thomson make digiboxes that are exactly identical to the pace one but have got different components under the bonnet so to speak. While the Digibox is certainly styled ok the mechanics of it are sh*te, so go for the digibox just simply the Amstrad or Thomson version.

Anyone else experience this buzzing? I took it into my sky retailer for them to change it; but they wouldn't change it citing that they couldn't hear the noise and suggested I get my hearing checked. However most people my age who have seen the box can hear the noise and it is uber-annoying.

DMC

I have the solution. Grow up!

watty

Pace much better than Amstrad or Thomson, generally. It's not a design fault. it's magnostriction at ultrasonic frequencies. A few people can hear higher frequencies than 1000s of the rest of us

However my guinea pigs need abouut 40 fps to see a moving picture, 25fps just looks like separate slides to them and can hear alsmot up to bat frequencies. They haven't complained about the TV or Sat SMPSUs, though only one ever watched TV. The others all ignore it.

Cats also ignore satellite SMPSU and even pictures of cats on TV as they go by smell.

Maxwell

Thanks for the reasonable replies - as for the smart ones, I will avoid replying to.

The problems Im still having are as follows:

- Changing channels: very slow and there is a delay.
- Changing channels: can't use the back button and therefore have to go into the menu to select the previous channel, very annoying as you can imagine.
- Viewing listings: Very slow to go through the channels, sometime it just locks up


There are more, but don't watch as much telly anymore.

Think I will ring Sky with these problems and see what they say.

As for the comments about why I don't have sky+ or hd, it because I don't watch much tv, let alone be recording it. Im into movies and watch those instead, and I have a HD Dvd player for my high definition needs and until SKY HD gets alot more content, I think I will stay away.

TheDriver

Don't laugh at netkid, it is proven that younger people can hear higher pitch sounds until they do indeed grow up, some retailers even put in dog whistle type stuff to egt rid of youngsters hanging around coz they're the only ones who can hear it.

byte

So far I've used all 3 makes of the new style Digiboxes.

Personally, I still prefer the Pace. I haven't really noticed the noise, though that said, I haven't spent much time in the vicinity of one.

The Thomson's are grand also, though have a problem with landlines that have Eircom's Call Answering. Basically the box takes too long to dial out and the call answering cuts in before it has dialed, thus no callback. I'm not sure if that problem has been rectified, though Sky Tech were aware of the problem.

The Amstrad's are OK too, though after having 2 out of 20 fail inside a month, I'm still not overly keen on them! That said, I've had a Pace fail too though I've installed more of them.