Sky+ Should be brilliant,but is badly flawed.

I was a Sky customer for a number of years but gave it up because of poor finances. But as time wore on I was able to afford to get Sky re-connected. I did purchase a Panasonic Freeview Pvr before commiting to sky again. What a piece of rubbish it was. Noisy hard drive. Slow remote control response. Lock-ups and crashes. It went straight back to Richer Sounds who gave me a refund without even asking why I was unhappy with it. Obviously not the only one they had returned. Anyway, I decided to have Sky+ installed. I had read all the horror stories about Amstrad boxes on AV Forums, so when I called Sky to get reconnected I asked for a Pace box to be supplied. I was given the usual story about how I can't pick which box I want. I still can't understand why they carry on with this. When anybody buys a dvd player or tv, the salesman in any shop in the land will never say "Sorry sir, you can't have the Sony, you will have to take the Alba just because we say so." Basically they know you want their service and they do as they please. The engineer arrived on the agreed date and when the Sky+ box was revealed I was not surprised to find it was the dreaded Amstrad pvr3. I said nothing and decided to wait and see how it performed. All seemed well for the first two days then all the problems I had read about and dreaded appeared. Slow button response on remote,lip-sync problems,sound drop-out,blocky picture,missing recordings and I have had to turn it off and on again about thirty times in the last month. I have had to turn it off and on again five times today 07-03-06, just to get it to delete recordings I have already watched as it locks up after every attempt to delete a recording. I am going to phone Sky to replace the Amstrad, but it appears their is a lot of software problems involved aswell. It can't just be down to a shoddy box. Sky+ has been around for a good few years now and all the hardware should have all the glitches sorted by now, But I also believe worse is to come from Sky. Wait till everyone who has spent a few grand on High Definition televisions start having problems with their HD Sky boxes. We all know its going to happen.

 

Sky+ boxes are all made to the same spec, so theoretically they should all be the same - in fact the only place you'll see any trace of a manufacturer's name is on the bottom of the box. Sky don't worry about different manufacturers, to them a Sky+ box is a Sky+ box. You are unfortunate that you chose to return to Sky just after a software update, because some Sky+ boxes have been badly affected. Before that, it was only a very small proportion of people that were experiencing problems. The good news is that it will be fixed (eventually !). In the meantime, get Sky to replace the box - mentioning the Sale of Goods Act and Trading Standards often gets results.

 

Thanks Nick UK. I think I will give your suggestion a try.

 

I've been thinking of getting Sky for awhile and decided now was the time to do so. I was going to get Sky+ for the obvious benefits it has but after reading many, many posts both here and on digitalspy.co.uk about the dreaded Amstrad problems and the fact you can't choose your own box, I've decided to not bother with Sky+ and just get the standard box. Think I'll stick with my hdd/dvd recorder, I know that works as it should!

Why Sky stick with a manufacturer that obviously produces below standard products is a real concern. Wonder if the Amstrad is the cheapest?

 

I've had an Amstrad V2 box for almost a year now and never had a problem with it. Bear in mind that people who post on sites like this usually have a problem and need help or just a moan. Most people don't have problems so don't have aneed to post on sites like this.

Get Sky+ and if it has problems Sky have to sort it out for you. You will probably be OK though.

 

Been a Sky+ customer since it was launched having both the 160 box and standard Sky+ box as part of the multi room option they offer (I didn't even know sky boxes were made by different companies until reading through the various message boards having originally visited this site for help with a home cinema purchase). Having read the slating that non-pace boxes took I decided to check out the manufacturer of both boxes via the remote control menu options presuming they would both be pace - but they were in fact both amstrad.

Never had a problem with either (touch wood).

 

Couldn't agree more. For every whinger there's 100 satisfied customers. I've had Sky+ for 4 years now (2 boxes on multi-room), and I wouldn't be without it.

 

I also got an Amstrad PVR3 Sky+ box about 3 weeks ago. It had many problems and I ended up doing 3 reboots in 5 days. This was not acceptable and I phoned up complaining to Sky. A guy was sent out with a "new" box but was actualy a refurb. The guy was up front about it being a refurb and suggested that since it was a Pace PVR3 I should try it out and see how it goes. I wasn't keen on this (after-all I had paid for a new box) but I thought I would give it a go. To my surprise the refurb Pace box has been rock solid. I recommend that you ask for a Pace box again and even if it is a refurb you should take it.

 

Trusty v1 still going strong in it's fifth year.

It'll be a wrench to abandon it for SKY+ HD

 

Trouble is, that's easy to say when you are sat with an older box that works well. I had two Sky+ (Amstrad) boxes installed in December. What a nightmare, both had different problems, the one downstairs had the sound dropout and upstairs refused to switch off every 2 days and had to be rebooted. Downstairs was replaced with a Pace box that failed after 2 hours : Luckily Sky said straight away I needed another new one as it displayed a system fault message and wouldn't do anything at all (I was hoping for more luck with Pace). The engineer has given me my third box (another Amstrad) and it has exactly the same problems as the first. Back to square one, its almost unwatchable.

Upstairs has been replaced with a Thomson. Again hoping for a better experience, it has sound drop, is built like an Airfix kit and has the noisiest hard drive I have ever heard.

I am so fed up I am thinking of asking them to take it out and going back to my Sony HDD; which never misses a beat. Trouble is, it would be so good if it worked properly! There is nothing wrong with my signal, aerial, or reception when not recording.The quality control on these boxes reminds me of the worst days of the 1970's!

 

Well, you are forgetting one small detail - we paid much more for our boxes than you did. Most people should be able to figure out that you are not going to get brand new boxes for £89 (or £65, or whatever deal you negotiated). If you want brand new boxes, you can buy them at several outlets at ~£160 each.

 

If you are going to get an expensive enough sub that Sky+ would be 'free', you should really go for the Sky+. It does have problems and niggles but the advantages of it far outweigh the problems - IF you don't have to pay extra for it, that is.

If it wasn't for Sky+, I'd probably ditch Sky right now. Sky+ makes their service much more useful and much more like VFM. Once it's feasible for me to do so, I'll likely go the Freeview/Topfield route though.


Gav

 

I've always had sound dropouts on my V2 Amstrad I was thinking about changing my mirror sub box to Sky+ but decided against it as it was obvious that they wouldn't let me pick which model I wanted. Reading through other threads it does appear that the Amstrad is at fault with sound dropouts.
Edit - It seems to be a lot worse since they started having the HD channels in the EPG, which got me wondering if they have lowered the quality of normal Sky ?

 

Call me old fashioned, but if I pay for something I expect it to work.

 

Sky are coming with another new box, the fourth since December. Any idea where you can buy them privately from? I cannot find any on the internet

 

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