Are some Freeview boxes more resiliant to signal drops than others ?

mjw123

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Have had a pace twin for a couple of years and bar the odd artefacts the signal & picture are fine even though we are not in the best of areas for signal strength.

Recently we purchased a Digifusion from Argos for £20 to run on another TV from the same aerial feed and it freezes on several channels - noticbly C5 rendering it useless

One might assume the second draw on the Aerial could affect it but the Pace copes fine still.

This leads me to believe the cheaper STB's have very little resilience to anything less than a very good signal - is this the case ?

If so can anyone recommend a more resilient STB than the digifusion ?

TIA,
Mike.
 
The problem is usually in the quality of the tuners inside. The Pace ones were pretty good - and not cheap. Probably you got what you paid for, sadly. As technospark suggests, giving a stronger signal for the tuner to chew on will help. Failing that, get a new rooftop antenna (and make sure that as much of the cable is renewed as possible - often water gets into the exposed parts.
 
My Pace twin was quite resilliant to glitches in the signal but when it did get caught out, I knew about it - the error recovery was not the most elegant and often large blocks on screen were affected.

I have now replaced my Pace with a Humas 9200T (Hummy) and it is equally resilliant (or more so) to glitches than the Pace and when it does get caught out, its error recovery is much better and only small areas of pixelation occur.
 
I've done some more research and heard there's one available at Amazon for just over £20 that's aparantly really resiliant. Will give this a try.

Had a new wideband aerial and booster fitted last year by an aerial contractor so that side should be fine.

I'll let you know how I get on :thumbsup:
 
Suspect you have a marginal signal setup - many potential reasons - and all you are seeing is slight differences in box 'resiliance'. Recommend to get a proper accredited aerial installer to come and give it all the once over and be able to tell you how many dB you have / are losing.
 
Yep been down that route and got the signal about as good as it'll get in my area (bottom of a hill north facing !)

So as per my original post i'm trying to identify the 'stronger' receivers like the pace twin.
 
My Panasonic box picks up glitches whenever someone sneezes within a twenty mile radius..whereas on the same aerial my Wharfedale from Argos hasn't spluttered yet.
 
Exactermondo my friend - that's what were are getting at here.

Which Boxes are as robust as a Rolls Royce and which are the Fiat's of the STB World !!

I'll start a list if people wish to add :-

Rock Solid
Pace Twin
Humas
DigiHome*

Shakin Stevens
Panasonic
Digifusion
Phillips DTR210

* Will order this to see how good it is.
 
You can add the Phillips DTR210 to the Shakin Stevens list.
 
Yes I do recall the term masthead booster mention by the Aerial man. It's permanently plugged into the mains on the ground floor next to one of the aerial points
 
Rock Solid
Pace Twin

Shakin Stevens
Digifusion
Sad and mysterious thing is - based on direct experience of a Pace Twin and a DigiFusion FVRT200, I'd reverse these two categories.........:confused:
 
To be fair the Digifusion was the £20 cheap and cheerful from Argos - The Hard Disk versions will be better made no doubt.
 
Guys,

The digihome STB I ordered from Amazon arrived today. I've heard good things about it so will test tonight and let you all know.

Mike.
 
Sony VTX-D800 Rock (diamond) solid.

Ye old Nokia 9580 OnDigi box shakin stevens but fab picture.
 
Well boys so far so good with the Digihome - not a single glitch even on C5 which is normally dire for me !!:thumbsup: ....big improvement over the Digifusion !!

So boys and girls if you haven't got a rock solid signal and you get drop outs etc then this could be the answer to your probs !

At just over £20 delivered from Amazon it's a steal as well :clap:
 
Digihome still superb - don't waste your pennies boy & girls on expensive immitations....this is the business ! :thumbsup:
 

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