Opinions on this UPC Box

dubsaab

I have been having trouble with my UPC signal for the past six weeks, on all three boxes in the house, picture freezing, breaking up and then getting a loss of signal message. I am fed up with UPC's feeble attempts to sort this out and am seriously considering going the Freesat route (Thanks to Watty in the foreign satellite board for all the advice)

I am encountering some resistence at home on ditching UPC, so they are getting one more chance.

UPC's latest attempt to solve the problem is the replacement of one of the boxes with the one in the attached photograph, the underside of the box is covered with NTL stickers. I find the box to be slow in changing channel, it has no teletext and the EPG is an old version. The box it has replaced is one of the standard silver UPC STB's.

Has anyone any experience of this type of box? Is my hunch right that it is an old box that they are trying to fob me off with?

Thanks.

shanemhoban

thats a very old box! and its rubbish

Infoanon

shanemhoban wrote: »

thats a very old box! and its rubbish

That box is at least 5 years old - it won't freeze...but the epg is dire and causes endless problems with widescreen etc

The Falcon

Infoanon wrote: »

That box is at least 5 years old - it won't freeze...but the epg is dire and causes endless problems with widescreen etc

After weeks of complaining about freezing signal etc., UPC finally sent out an engineer with a replacement box (same as the one in your photo).

The engineer told me that the box I had was ancient (a big silver one) and that the 'new' box was the latest and would solve the prob. The replacement box did sort the problem but I now suspect that the engineer was telling porkies that it was the latest spec.:mad:

I'm having trouble with widescreen and very slow epg so I think I will be getting back on to UPC pronto!

dubsaab

The Falcon wrote: »

After weeks of complaining about freezing signal etc., UPC finally sent out an engineer with a replacement box (same as the one in your photo).

The engineer told me that the box I had was ancient (a big silver one) and that the 'new' box was the latest and would solve the prob. The replacement box did sort the problem but I now suspect that the engineer was telling porkies that it was the latest spec.:mad:

I'm having trouble with widescreen and very slow epg so I think I will be getting back on to UPC pronto!

The thing that is really getting me is that I have been given various excuses for the problem I am having, ranging from: The cable to the house needs to be replaced, an appointment to do this on the 18th of December was missed and that there is interference on the line.

If only one box was having this problem I could accept that it is a box issue, but all three were having this problem at the same time and they have offered no explanation of why my broadband speeds are so erratic.

Infoanon

dubsaab wrote: »

The thing that is really getting me is that I have been given various excuses for the problem I am having, ranging from: The cable to the house needs to be replaced, an appointment to do this on the 18th of December was missed and that there is interference on the line.

That is annoying , the old silver boxes can not handle the EPG upgrade that took place at the end of October.

UPC know this ! and had to replace a number of the silver boxes the same week - there are postings on this site which cover this same topic

Standard problem with UPC is that their staff are not kept up to date with whats going on - they could have told their staff : silver box freezing = you need a new box , alas.....

icdg

Infoanon wrote: »

That is annoying , the old silver boxes can not handle the EPG upgrade that took place at the end of October.

That's an NTL box. It doesn't even run the same EPG software, its a completely different platform. They've recently changed the colour scheme to make it look like the UPC EPG but underneath it is still the old NTL software.

docdolittle

I have the same box, it is unbelievably slow at times and is a nightmare to deal with. It has frozen god knows how many times and made the pictures start turning different colours too (with all cables being set up properly)

coylemj

I have the same box in the bedroom and it works fine, the s/w was upgraded late last year. My only gripe with the s/w is that you can often go into options menus and there's no obvious way to go back but the box works fine.

Infoanon

coylemj wrote: »

I have the same box in the bedroom and it works fine, the s/w was upgraded late last year. My only gripe with the s/w is that you can often go into options menus and there's no obvious way to go back but the box works fine.

Are you referring to the old silver NTL box or the box in the attached picture aka small black upc box ?

The old silver boxes are falling over since the software upgrade

gin_and_tonic

I have that same UPC box for the multi-room (standard non-interactive/HD box). Its fine. The EPG and the box in general is not as good at the Cisco systems HD DVR but it does the trick and for 5€ extra a month, what's to complain about.

That box is made by Pace, which is the same company Sky Digital and a lot of companies buy their equipment from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pace_plc

I haven't had any problems with it. Just make sure your TV is set to the correct size or else your screen will keep flicking.

Alwayson

dubsaab wrote: »

I have been having trouble with my UPC signal for the past six weeks, on all three boxes in the house, picture freezing, breaking up and then getting a loss of signal message. I am fed up with UPC's feeble attempts to sort this out and am seriously considering going the Freesat route (Thanks to Watty in the foreign satellite board for all the advice)

I am encountering some resistence at home on ditching UPC, so they are getting one more chance.

UPC's latest attempt to solve the problem is the replacement of one of the boxes with the one in the attached photograph, the underside of the box is covered with NTL stickers. I find the box to be slow in changing channel, it has no teletext and the EPG is an old version. The box it has replaced is one of the standard silver UPC STB's.

Has anyone any experience of this type of box? Is my hunch right that it is an old box that they are trying to fob me off with?

Thanks.

I had the same experience today. The picture-freezing problem was going on for a while, the UPC guy originally came before Christmas and more or less implied it was my imagination as it didn't happen while he was here. This time I was ready for him and had filmed footage on my phone of the TV screen with a frozen soccer match on it, so he had no choice but to change the UPC box.

I had read your original post before he came and when he produced the same box as in your photo, I told him it looked old and he told me no, it was the latest one. Its a PACE DC221KN which you can trace online. Its a box unique to NTL in Ireland (the NTL is underneath with a UPC label clumsily attached on the front) and appears to have been in vogue around 2005-06.

The picture-freezing appears to be cured but when I change channel the picture appears then briefly disappears then appears again. There was also some dithering with the screen setting changing from one format to another on certain channels but this appears to have stopped since I set widescreen as default. Picture quality may also be slightly poorer than with the "newer" box he replaced. He took that box away together with my card and left a different card in the older replacement box. All services seem to be the same as they were.

I think there are now several people on this thread who have been told by UPC that this is the latest box. I doubt its a coincidence that several different technicians have installed the PACE box on the basis its the latest model so this would appear to be company policy. If I am being lied to and am paying for obsolete technology, I would be very interested in taking a mini-class action against UPC via the consumer association as UPC technicians are in my house every other month between TV and broadband problems and I have no doubt at this stage that they are not capable of reliably providing the services they advertise.

coylemj

Infoanon wrote: »

Are you referring to the old silver NTL box or the box in the attached picture aka small black upc box ?

The old silver boxes are falling over since the software upgrade

I have the Pace box, the one in the OP's photo and it works fine. As gin_and_tonic said above, for 5 euros a month what's there to complain about?

dubsaab

coylemj wrote: »

I have the Pace box, the one in the OP's photo and it works fine. As gin_and_tonic said above, for 5 euros a month what's there to complain about?

If it was for anywhere other than the main TV I would not be complaining, but the UPC plan was, if this box sorted the issue (which it has not), to replace all three boxes with it. It is presently attached to the main TV and try as I might I cannot get it to behave on a widescreen TV, in addition, it is slower than a politician admitting to a mistake, and, does not have teletext.

All I want is to be able to recieve a satisfactory service without the picture freezing or the 'loss of signal' message popping up.