Freesat : Best Digibox with SVideo

[pringtef]

I've recently been reading about Freesat, and am planning on purchasing a box and activation card to be able to receive this. However, i'd like to one that has Svideo out (ideally through the normal nine pin connector), so i can feed in into my pc and scale it for my projector.

Can anyone recommend one with very good svideo output? I'd say my budget is up to about £150.

[Nick_UK]

As far as I'm aware, the only Sky boxes with s-video are Sky+ boxes.

[SeanT]

there is a standard one with s-video out, grundig springs to mind, if you do a search you should find the model pretty quickly, and searching for "sky s-video" on ebay might do the trick too

[Steve999]

Hi,

I would look for a Grundig GDS3000. It is the latest of the Grundig boxes before they became Thomson and has S-VHS. I use one in my motorhome and it is an excellent box with fast software.

Be mindful that the Grundig boxes suffered with poor quality capacitors in their power supplies. The GDS3000 has improved quality capacitors over the earlier models but may still, in time, be susceptible.

You can buy a capacitor repair kit for about a tenner from here - http://www.satcure.co.uk/index.html - if you fancy a bit of soldering. If you don't, then make sure that you get some kind of guarantee that it's in full working order.

Steve

[gavan]

Originally Posted by pringtef

I've recently been reading about Freesat, and am planning on purchasing a box and activation card to be able to receive this. However, i'd like to one that has Svideo out (ideally through the normal nine pin connector), so i can feed in into my pc and scale it for my projector.

Can anyone recommend one with very good svideo output? I'd say my budget is up to about £150.

There are only a few models which have s-video out. An older standard digibox, Grundig I think, and all the Sky+ boxes. As a bonus, the Sky+ boxes have an optical digital out that supports DD5.1 where the programme material has it.

You can buy a new Sky+ for 160 quid or less so even if you don't enable the Sky+ features it would make a very good choice just as a plain receiver.
You'd need a second LNB for recording and you'd have to be on at least 2 premium channels or pay 10 quid a month to use Sky+ to it's full potential though.

If you don't mind being tied into a Sky deal, I think they'll upgrade you to a new Sky+ box (possibly the new 80gig Pace V3) for 99 quid, or for 49 quid you can have a Pace V1 refurbished model - both including a new LNB and cabling ... might be worth checking out. You'll have to agree to hook it up to a telephone line for a year and probably have to take at least 2 premium packages if you don't have them already.


Gav

[SeanT]

the guy is talking about freesat tho, so the grundig is probably the best option as it's hardly gonna be freesat if he takes out a sky subscription.

however, i've been a bit braindead over the last couple of days this has been up, your best bet is to get a nice rgb scart brand new or top notch digibox and then buy an rgb - svideo converter, as then whatever digibox you have you'll always have an svideo output in fact, i'm using mine to get a second s-video output from my sky+ box so that the amp doesn't have to be on for my svhs archiving

[pringtef]

The communal sky installation in our tenement is the bog standard one, so sky+ wouldn't have been available anyway.

I'd forgotton about RGB to Svideo, actually had one of the JS boxes a while ago, shows how my mind is slipping.

Can you recomend a decent rgb output digibox. Picture quality is really the main thing for me, though being able to change the channels at a decent rate would also be good. I know Sony do a freeview box, but do they do any digiboxes for sat?

[gavan]

Originally Posted by pringtef

The communal sky installation in our tenement is the bog standard one, so sky+ wouldn't have been available anyway.

I'd forgotton about RGB to Svideo, actually had one of the JS boxes a while ago, shows how my mind is slipping.

Can you recomend a decent rgb output digibox. Picture quality is really the main thing for me, though being able to change the channels at a decent rate would also be good. I know Sony do a freeview box, but do they do any digiboxes for sat?

Whether or not you want to use all the features of Sky+, you can use a Sky+ box as a regular digibox with only one feed giving you s-video and optical digital out. You can buy a new Pace V2 for 160 quid which is only just a tenner more than your budget.

Normal Sky digiboxes run to 100 quid new, an RGB->svideo converter isn't free and means an extra bit of kit and PSU. Plus most of them don't offer RGB passthrough for your TV/DVD recorder whereas Sky+ boxes give concurrent RGB and s-video outputs.


Gav