Tiscali TV/Homechoice Box Crashes

[Daveclark5]

Hi,

Im new to these forums so hello to you and was wondering if anyone has been experiencing the following problem.

Since my Homechoice service has switched to Tiscali TV I seem to be experiencing loads of crashes. The screen has a couple of green stripes across it and freezes. The internet works fine its just the TV and its driving me mad!!

Customer services have been helpful and swopped the boxes over but Im still having problems. Any ideas? Apart from going elsewhere as Im still under contract.

Thanks in advance.

[Darko]

nope i have had no probs with the tv since the switch but I hear a new box is being released in june/july with a pvr built in, this may remindy the issue:thumbsup:

Good luck and welcome to the madness

Darko

[Daveclark5]

Thanks. I have decided to leave it on at all times now so it doesn't have the oppourtunity to crash when I switch it on! :thumbsup:

I'm looking forward to The HD Box which would be cool for my oversized plasma!

As you can imagine the pictures not too great but no worse than freeview so I can't really grumble.

[richardgnz]

I had homechoice installed two days ago and I live in Putney, London.

I have only actually used the service yesterday. The TV locked up on at least 10 occasions throughout the day. A reset of the box sorts it out everytime but the reset process takes about 1-2mins to get back to the channel you were on.

This is quite poor and I am not impressed so far. My download speeds have maxed out on 30kbps !! I have signed up for the 8mb Max package and I would expect much better speeds than this!

I am not in a cable area and my landlord won't let me have a sky dish. My aerial on the roof is so poor that watching digital freeview is impossible and normal channels (Particulary on a rainy/windy day) is awful. My only option for quality tv reception was Homechoice.... I have tagged on the sky sports channel and I would not be impressed if I had to wait 2mins after a crash to return to a rugby world cup game....

I use to connect with Be for my internet (24mbps service) - I synched at the exchange with a 19mbps service and it was lightning fast! I live about 500 meters from the exchange....

I can't understand why the service is so poor. Does anyone know if there are firmware updates for this flakey box ? Or does anyone have suggestions as to what I should do?

[lucinthesky]

hello there!
signed up to this forum just to vent my spleen about tiscali tv, as i see im not the only person this is happening to.

i had it installed in october and i can say ive not had a single days service from it since without it crashing and doing the black screen of death continually..... im now on my 4th replacement box and 2nd router. I have foned the customer service line atleast every other day since i had it installed and have yet to get through a full program without it freezing.

and now things have got even worse!!!!!!!
last night it went down completely and stuck at number 4 when loading, today i had yet another engineer out who replaced the box with a different kind of box but couldnt get it working and left!!!! so now i have no television at all apart from the 4 channels on anologue wooo hooo

on foning the "customer care" line i have been told "sorry we cant help you" and thats that
ive never in my life had to deal with such a bunch of useless imcompetants with such a crap useless product

come back sky all is forgiven , ok u were overpriced and used to break up now and then but hey

i would say to anyone thinking of getting tiscali tv .... just dont
you really dont need more pain in your life

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[ecs]

I got the Homechoice service in 2004 and the box crashed every now and then before failing completely after about 18 months. They replaced it and the new one was exactly the same, the odd failure but mostly ok but again it failed after 18 months.

By this time, Tiscali had taken them over and they installed a brand new Tiscali box with an HDMI output, and a new router, in August.

The new box has been reliable although there is one major issue, which is that the picture intermittently becomes 'filmized' (de-interlaced) which means that the picture 'judders' badly on non-progressive material. I can stop it by changing channels, and then changing back, but it's a real pain.

Also, of course, the picture quality is absolutely appalling, and has been ever since I got the service. The only reason I stick with them is because there is no other way of getting Sky Sports where I live.

ed

[MK_Brett]

HI,

This is not a hijack for the thread, but should you register for the Tiscali TV forum http://www.tiscali.co.uk/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=412 we will then be able to pull your details and have a look for you.

[lucinthesky]

hiya mk brett

i have signed up for that tiscali board and am just waiting for someone to activate my account so look out for me

and thanks, if you can help me i will be eternally grateful because so far no one else has

[sheila10]

Hi, I just got Tiscali TV. There was a clash with my TV which is a philips Flat Screen. The remote for the TV would freeze and the only way to unfreeze it would be to turn the TV off at the mains. However this problem would come back.

So I looked at the settings on the tiscali box and I tried changing the settings/Freqency of the Tiscali remote but the whole thing froze and only the on/off button works. I tried rebooting the box and pressing 6 and 4 but nothing.

I've an engineer coming out on the 10th of June with a new remote but I think I will have the same issues.

Any suggestions.

Sheila

Oh and the picture is great providing you get a HDM1 cable to upscale. Tecos £3.97... bargin

[SmokingMagnum]

Hi Shiela

I had this problem with my Tiscali box and Philips tv. All I did was change the remote control settings in the TV Setup menu (channel 999) to Remote Control Setting 3. I then confirmed the change, restarted the box and everything has been fine ever since.

I don't know the model of my tv but it is a 42" plasma if that helps. It is not an ambilight model.

Tom.

[sheila10]

Thank tom,

I would go to channel 999 if the romote would work...

I have now made matters worse and thought I'd try resetting the factory settings on my philips TV.....Now I have no TV and just a lovely blue screen!!!!!

I have tried pressing volume and programme "-" together for 5 secs...but no luck... to completely frozen.

I tried pressing the menu button down but noooooo... that what made it go pooy....:oops:

Any bright Ideas anyone...

Philips model is 26PF5521D/10

It's times like these I'm glad I rent my telly as they can send me a new one.

Sheila

[sheila10]

Tom... when it all works and I need to change channel of the remote then I will go for number 3 and cross my fingers.

Thanks

[MK_Brett]

I would call Phillips up and ask them how to reset the TV. It should be fairly straight forward. Once this is done, reset the TTV remote frequency to avoid conflicts.

[sheila10]

I've an engineer for Boxclever (My rental company) coming out on Thursday to sort telly.

Then fingers crossed the telly will at least work.

[sheila10]

Telly is completely bust so they are getting me a new one on Tuesday... thank god for renting.

I've moved the TV from the bedroom into the living room and have the Tiscali box plugged in. It's only helped a little as the background to the viewer selection page was stuck on TV set up it's now back to normal with the info playing about Movies Now.

Remote however does not work. I have tried pressing Volume and Programme Up at the same time as buttons 4 and 6 on the remote but nothing. I've taken the batteries out and did a reboot of the box.

Any other suggestions?

[sheila10]

Well the man came with new telly and man came with new remote. Same thing happened. Just as the Tiscali man left. The F appeared on Screen. So I reset remote to channel 3 and its all working. Except the digital menu on the philips TV is not working.

Tiscali should make Philips aware of this issue. The Tiscali engineer said there is contain problems with Philips TV's.

I'm going to leave it all for the moment and in a few months as BoxClever for a non philips TV replacement.


Thanks all for help and only get tiscali if you don't have a philips TV.

[MK_Brett]

Do you have the old HC box or the Newer Tiscali box