Amstrad Sky+ box... What a P.O.S

[speedymct]

I had to have my Sky+ box swapped over today (used to have the Thomson).
It had to be changed because of a faulty modem (the rest was fine with no problems). After the engineer left I discovered that he had left me with an amstrad box

After having a fiddle with it, I'm not happy. It is extremely noisy, & it seems to take an eternity to change channels. To put it mildly It's P***ed me off, seeing as far as I was concerned, there were no problems with the Thomson unit. Question is now, how can I get another Thomson box from Sky? Cos I'm not putting up with this thing. Does anyone have any experience of this box?

Gonna get on the phone to Sky tomorrow & have a moan I think...

[Fordy]

oh, you'll find its not just the $ky+ box that is a POS but all Amstrad goods associated with $ky.

[President Gas]

I've had Sky for about 6 years now and started off with a Panasonic digi box.

Never had a problem with it. Signed up for Sky+ at the start of January and was supplied with an Amstrad box. Worked semi-ok for a few weeks (hard disk was noisy - the clicky thing - very slow response but generally worked as in it displayed channels and recorded stuff).

After the v4 EPG update it turned into a complete piece of It would frequently lock up, fail to record programs for spurious reasons, (power cut while we were watching another channel), refuse access to planner etc etc.

It was replaced last weekend with....another Amstrad box which already is doing exactyy the same thing. I've had the thing 4 days and already it's failed to record 50% of the programs scheduled and has needed to be rebooted at least a dozen times (and we were out for most of Sunday too!).

I phoned Sky tonight to get it sorted and the CS bod said sorry etc but then mentioned that they were aware of "problems" with the Amstrad box, specifically related to not being able to access the planner, that they would be sorting "soon" with an OTA update. Therefore "company policy" at the moment was to not schedule engineering visits for Amstrad boxes with this problem. Oh joy of joys.

I told them I wasn't paying almost £50 a month for something which only worked 50% of the time and after the usual "talk to my supervisor" wait, have an engineer coming to replace this Saturday. If if pulls another Amstrad from the back of the van he shall be sent off and told to return with something that works. If no such unit is forthcoming then the service will be cancelled as it is obviously not fit for purpose.

It is obvious to me that one of two things is happening, given my previous 6 years with not a lot going wrong:

1. Sky+ as a software solution is not up to snuff and needs a lot more work to make it stable.

or

2. The Amstrad boxes are complete cack and Sky have a nerve, a cheek and a brass neck to charge £50 a month for any type of "service" based on them.


In short - Amstrad is pants and shoukd be got rid of forthwith

/rant over

[spikedad]

You've got a long way to go yet. I have just gone through 5 (five ) Pace Sky+ boxes in just over a year. Pace refused to acknowledge any claim saying warranty period has expired.

Rang Sky and said please cancel my account - result visit by Sky engineer, Box replaced with brand new PVR3 (a Thomson as it happens) so maybe I'll be OK for a little while.

It seems they were all HD failures. Where do they get their HD's from? I've been putting HD's to much harder use for years and have never had a serious failure. Most of mine were Maxtors which have been fine in computer use but it seems that when Pace , or anybody else, puts them in PVR's they fall off their perches. Maybe it's the software.

[ianf1979]

i have just been through the bother of getting a 4 week old amstrad pvr replaced... the thing was a nightmare. everything that you have described and more... after 3-4 fruitless calls to CS and an engineer visit with a replacement yup you got it... amstrad, i placed a well worded and polite complaint letter to james.murdoch@bskyb.com and 20 mins later i had a phone call back telling me i would get a Pace pvr3 replacement, dont give into them, quote the sale of goods act 1979, ie its not fit for purpose and was inherently faulty at time of sale

[speedymct]

Thanks for all of your replies! I'm gonna get on the phone then.

The pace box worked just fine, except for a dead modem which I wasn't even aware of. Just started getting the dreaded letter of doom from Sky saying that my box wasn't connected. Personally I think it's a bit of a cop out swapping over for an Amstrad. Bloody Alan Sugar..

[clockworks]

I've had my Pace V1 for 4 years. The HDD died a couple of months ago, which was a good excuse to upgrade it.

I'd had very few problems before the HDD died, and no need for an engineer.
The only thing I did was turn off instant replay, which made the box a lot quieter. Since I very rarely watch TV "live", I never used instant replay anyway.

[speedymct]

Well.. Contacted Sky last night & spoke to a very helpful lady & told her that the Amstrad is playing up (tried live rewind & the whole unit froze). It's Sooooooo Sloooooooooow as well as noisy, juddery, crap.

Sky are sending an engineer out on Saturday to check the box out. God help the poor man. I ain't letting him go without leaving me a Pace

[Nick_UK]

Originally Posted by Fordy

oh, you'll find its not just the $ky+ box that is a POS but all Amstrad goods associated with $ky.

All Amstrad goods, period.

You're fired !

I love my Amstrad,

honestly i have pace and pos and the pos performs better.

[Fordy]

Amstrad are stuck in a time warp, open an Amstrad $ky box and you'll find valves.

[speedymct]

Originally Posted by Fordy

Amstrad are stuck in a time warp, open an Amstrad $ky box and you'll find valves.

Funny you should mention that..

I did open the box & there was a little man pedalling furiously on a machine with a million cogs.. That explains the ticking, whirring, humming & buzzing.

Unfortunately, I'm old enough to remember how dodgy Am$trad goods were in the 80's, & it seems that they're still using the same technology.

Think I might apply for the apprentice.

[Fordy]

could you imagine the look on his face.

If I were him I'd sack the whole R&D at Amstrad, they're taking the pish.

[speedymct]

Do you reckon they've actually got an R&D dept. I imagine this is how a conversation would go...

Man 1 "we've got a problem with the parts supply for the sky+ box"

Man 2 "oh yes? what's the problem?"

Man 1 "well, we're down to the last ZX81, so we're gonna run out of CPU's shortly"

Man 2 "damn, we'll have to upgrade to the Spectrum instead then..."

Hopefully there's a few ppl out there who remember Clive Sinclair's finest..

[speedymct]

BTW.. There's definitely something up my my Am$trad box.. I'm sure Chelsea lost on it last night.