Sky + Vertical line Ghosting on Amstrad box

[Greamec]

HI all,

Managed to get Sky + installed this week for £99 , could not belive the battle I had with them considering I have been with them on the full package for five years. I was pushed to ( " I want to close my account " ) which made me nervous as I like sky a lot, but after a couple of very long phone calls they offered a refurbished box which lucky for me turned out to be a new one as the chap who installed it only had new ones.
Got to say sky plus is great BUT !!!!
I did not notice it at first but when you look close at the screen I can see narrow vertical lines ghosting across the screen .
I am using good quality scart leads and have tried unpluging everything except sky but the lines are still their, I am out of ideas and I am not looking forward to ringing up sky and complaining about a problem like this without having some AMMO ie hopefully some information from you guys.
PS. I did not have this problem on my old box.

Best regards
Greame

[JohnG]

I believe a lot of people have noticed this on the Amstrad Sky+ if you do a search you should be able to come up with some more posts. I have the Amstrad Sky+ box but have never noticed any vertical lines

[Greamec]

Thanks for your reply john, I did a search but can only find two other posts on this subject that do not help much , can you point me in the direction of some more please.
Has anyone ever solved this problem?
R's Greame

[Emm]

The problem you describe;

'vertical lines ghosting across the screen'

If they're moving (left to right by any chance?) it may well be a ghost image of what ever terrestrial channel your TV is set to.

Try selecting an untuned in channel on your TV and then view your AV Sky picture again.

If the lines have gone, you can achieve a permanent cure by removing pin 19 on the TV end of your scart lead. This should prevent the terrestrial 'bleed through' you're observing.

Bear in mind that vertical banding (fixed rather than moving) can be an undesirable trait of Amstrad '+' boxes, and a swap out is unlikely to cure it if your TV highlights this.


Hope that helps.

[Greamec]

Hi Emm ,
Thankyou for your help, I tried changing the TV channel like you said but it seems that my problem is with fixed lines so the box may be the problem. Do you know why this problem only happens for what seems to be a small ammount of users.
Thanks again
Greame

[stevestarr13]

had the same problem on two amstrd boxes, second one failed because of hard drive problems. I moaned to sky and they sent a 3rd box which was a pace, no problems at all. Maybe a call to sky with a failed drive report and complain about the banding will get a pace for you too, worth a try. Anyway keep bugging them I am sure if they have to visit you enugh they would rather supply a pace box to get you off their backs.
BTW how did yu get the £99 deal? my neighbour has tried and tried with no success

[JohnG]

I would be interesting to know what other equipment people have who are experiencing these vertical lines. I have a Panasonic television and so far have not noticed any of these lines.

[Greamec]

Hi Steve,
Thanks for your reply, I think sky must have tightened up on the £99 for existing customers and I think I was very lucky. After a lot of moaning the girl I spoke to mention the possibility of a second hand box for £99.00 but they had none in stock so she said to ring back in a week.
The next day I thought why not try it on and I rang Sky plus sales and said that I wanted to take up the offer of a refurbished box , she went away and came back saying how much were you offered a refurbished box for ,(interesting I thought) I thought should I try lower than £99.00 but decided to say that I had been offered £99.00 and she said no problem we can do that . I was then asked do I want multiroom and I said NO, she said no problem but when the installer come I must tell him that I do not want multi room.
The installer came and I told him I did not want multi room so he rang up his sky engineers department ( not sure if they have to do this for every job or if there is a potential problem) and they said that the install was not to go ahead. I was mad and asked to speak to the manager who was not budging from the point of view that the £99.00 was an offer that must include multiroom (he was a jumped up **!!!**! )
So at this point I started taking names, the installer was a star saying that he wwas in the area all day so if I get it sorted he would come back.
I called sky customer services and was ready to close my accout, explained what had happened and that at this point sky have two choices 1.) give me the offer for £99.00 and probably not here another word from me for another 5 years or 2.) close my account and refund my £99.00. The women phoned back telling me the enigineer would be back and £99.00 was fine.
All in all I was on the phone for a couple of hours really getting messed around, the whole process is set up to grind you down and get your wallet out. This was a small victory for loyal customers, Sky realy do not understand that concept but they do know the powerful position they are in which is a shame.

Anyway hope that makes sense
R's Greame
PS shame about the vertical lines though

[Greamec]

Originally Posted by JohnG

I would be interesting to know what other equipment people have who are experiencing these vertical lines. I have a Panasonic television and so far have not noticed any of these lines.

Hi John,
My TV is a Sony KV28LS60.
Would it be a 100 hertz related problem?

[JohnG]

My Panasonic is 100 Hertz. One thing that could be relevant is that I'm not sending the RF signal through the Amstrad box, that goes straight into the TV.

[Greamec]

I am not sending it through the Amstrad either, good thought though.
Must be the Amstrad box then. LOL

[Emm]

Sounds like you're seeing the banding that is unfortunately a 'feature' of Amstrad+ boxes.

It appears that some TV sets accentuate these lines more than others, hence your inconclusive searches.

Adjusting the contrast and/or brightness settings on your TV may help to make the banding less obvious.

[Greamec]

Thanks again Emm, I did adjust the contrast to high and that has helped.
I think I will try for a new box, I wonder if they will upgrade to the 160 hard drive version for a fee? Do they have this problem?
R's Greame

[Emm]

Originally Posted by Greamec

...I wonder if they will upgrade to the 160 hard drive version for a fee?...

Only a 'phone call to Sky will answer that...Let us know what they say (ie how much etc) if you decide to go that route.

Originally Posted by Greamec

...Do they (Sky+160) have this (banding) problem?...

Don't know. Bear in mind that this is a new product (from Thomson in fact) so may well have teething problems...

[srobbo999]

I doubt that they will upgrade you to the 160 box for free, I have had this problem for 3 weeks now. I have phoned Sky on 3 occasions and had a different reply each time. I spoke to someone on Friday that seemed to know what they were on about, he told me that this was a known problem that comes about with 100Hz tv sets, as previously noted, some worse than others. The worst part was that he told me that he could not send an engineer out to see me as there was nothing that could be done as the box was not malfunctioning. I told him that they could send out an engineer with a Pace box to replace the Amstrad and he told me that he was not authorised to do this. He gave me the email address for customer services and told me to take it up with them. I sent them an email on Saturday but I have had no reply yet.