Cheapest place to buy a sky+ 160 box

[GrahameD]

Is it best to get from Sky, or can it be sourced for smiliar or cheaper price direct from a shop?

Dont mind installing myself. Actally prefer to as I can conceal cables better and use higher grade coax.

Grahame

 

[johndon]

Why not get a standard Sky+ box and install a bigger hard drive yourself - much cheaper than the 160 box.

John

 

[Roger G Cam]

As far as I know you can only get a 160 from Sky direct. Thats why the £60 installation fee is a bit of an irritation. The £300 (if you already have Sky+) or the £400 (if you don't) doesn't help much either.

You can also do an upgrade - yourself. Or, if you surf around there are companies selling upgraded boxes.

Rupert junior was making comments this week about making the 160 available to Customers at a lower price at some point - to allow them to benefit from the lower costs. But when.....that I am aftaid....is the question.

Roger

 

[nrmsmith]

http://www.simplydigital.co.uk/acatalog/Sky_Plus_Receivers.html

Just bought one from them at £309.

Cheers
Nigel

 

[GrahameD]

Thanks Mr Smith 309 without LNB and 329 with is not a bad price.
Unless anyone knows better.

I want those 2 USB ports I am sure soon we will see a use for them. Even it involves paying sky more $ to allow us to stream or view on PC, downloads, larger external disks, or what ever.

A shame those hard disks are not in removable caddies. Should be as easy to change the hard drive as it is to change a tape on a VCR.

 

[Roger G Cam]

Very interesting - shipping about £10 for a Saturday deliver? So £339?

A saving of....£20.

Hmmmmmm

Roger

 

[d3ll]

Why not get a standard Sky+ box and install a bigger hard drive yourself - much cheaper than the 160 box.

John

So could you upgrade the hard disk of a pace 3100 to say a 120gb with no problems

 

[Blu Ray]

So could you upgrade the hard disk of a pace 3100 to say a 120gb with no problems

Even more than that, 250gb I think is max?

 

[chic]

I have installed the you maxtor quickview 160 drive in my pace v2, its the same drive as used in the sky 160 box and its worked very well so far, its very quiet and the fan comes on even less than it did with my old 40 gig drive, it only takes about 15 mins to swap the drives over then do a full system reset with the new drive and thats it

 

[Roger G Cam]

So could you upgrade the hard disk of a pace 3100 to say a 120gb with no problems

Chat is that V1 Pace boxes will still get the 17 minute bug - but other boxes - including Pace V2 - are okay.

It is certainly a very cheap option - and bearing in mind that HDTV will be using new, expensive, huge HD's next year - might be a good interim option.

I, sadly, have a Pace V1 - and so can't upgrade the box. I would just like to get the price of the 160 down a bit - and retain something like a 1 year Sky callout arrangement.

Roger

 

[nrmsmith]

Very interesting - shipping about £10 for a Saturday deliver? So £339?

A saving of....£20.

Hmmmmmm

Roger

Assuming you want Saturday delivery & the Quad LNB.

However, if you are replacing an already installed Sky+ system, then you don't need the LNB. And they do a very reasonable £3.50 next day Parcel Force service. I ordered a Sky+ 160 yesterday at 11:15 am, for £312.50 inc. the order was despatched in an hour and it arrived on my doorstep at 8 am this morning.

Now installed and very nice too.

Nigel

 

[Roger G Cam]

Assuming you want Saturday delivery & the Quad LNB.

However, if you are replacing an already installed Sky+ system, then you don't need the LNB. And they do a very reasonable £3.50 next day Parcel Force service. I ordered a Sky+ 160 yesterday at 11:15 am, for £312.50 inc. the order was despatched in an hour and it arrived on my doorstep at 8 am this morning.

Now installed and very nice too.

Nigel

Nigel,

Interesting. Thanks for that.

Roger

 

[thfccambs]

http://www.simplydigital.co.uk/acatalog/Sky_Plus_Receivers.html

Just bought one from them at £309.

Cheers
Nigel

Thanks might go for that.

 

[HMHB]

What's the picture quality like on the Sky+160 boxes ? Are there any reported problems with this ?

 

[Roger G Cam]

What's the picture quality like on the Sky+160 boxes ? Are there any reported problems with this ?

I haven't seen anyone posting here or in "another place" about picture quality issues on the 160. They are posting about sound drop outs on Dolby Movies. The sound dropouts may not be limited to Dolby. They are reporting that Sky have said there will be a software download to correct the sound issue "soon" - but they were saying that before Xmas.

I think we are all waiting for the next round of upgrades - Sky have quite a lot of documented issues to resolve on the 40Gb boxes - and the big question is, what bugs will come with them.....July's downloads were a disaster.

So to answer your question - no chat about picture but there might be problems with sound on movies.

Roger

 

[nrmsmith]

I am suffering from the sound dropouts on Dolby 5.1 RECORDED movies. Odd that one. I watched "Down with Love" last night live - it was fine played with (virtually) no sound problems. I recorded it at the same time. When played back the recording was unwatchable because of sound dropout.

The picture is as far as I can tell, every bit as good as the Sky+ v1 Pace box I have just replaced.

The only other thing I find annoying is noise from the fan when the box is on (cheap plastic fan with noisy bearings) and from the hard disk when recording (I wonder whether the drive has been configured in "performance" mode rather than "quiet" mode.

Nigel

 

[wuf810]

Chat is that V1 Pace boxes will still get the 17 minute bug - but other boxes - including Pace V2 - are okay.

It is certainly a very cheap option - and bearing in mind that HDTV will be using new, expensive, huge HD's next year - might be a good interim option.

I, sadly, have a Pace V1 - and so can't upgrade the box. I would just like to get the price of the 160 down a bit - and retain something like a 1 year Sky callout arrangement.

Roger

How can I check what version of Pace box I have? Is it the Model Number (3.024), the Operating System Version (1.31A8) or the EPG Software version (sky+ 1.28.d) I should be looking at?

Thanks in advance, Michael.

 

[Roger G Cam]

How can I check what version of Pace box I have? Is it the Model Number (3.024), the Operating System Version (1.31A8) or the EPG Software version (sky+ 1.28.d) I should be looking at?

Thanks in advance, Michael.

I have a V1 and the Model number is Ph3_14

Also - they are quite big - the V2' s are smaller. Have a look on the Pace website -they have pictures of the V2's.

Roger

 

[wuf810]

Thanks Roger. Looks like I have a version 2 box, Slot on the left etc. Good news for me as I can now upgrade my harddrive. Thanks again. Michael.