Which SKY+ Box?

D

dpiper

Guest
Hi, I’m having problems with my V1 Sky Box (out of 1 year warranty) and I’m thinking up replacing or upgrading to SKY+ 160.

Rang SKY and get costings of £259 and £359.

For £259 I would get a V3 box with a 80gb drive, but Sky say I wouldn’t get a choice of Pace or Amstrad and that ‘it depends what’s in stock.’

For £359 I’d get the Thompson 160 box, but I’ve heard about the audio drop-out problem on the SKY movie channels. Does anyone know if this a problem is when playing back 5.1 sound or does effect recordings regardless of playback.?

Not sure which box to go for, can anyone advise?

Also heard a suggestion that if you threaten cancellation due to high cost of replacement SKY+ box you may be offered a V3 replacement fully installed for just £49. Is this correct? Should I push for it?

Dave
 
You can buy a PVR3 (PACE) for £159 online and since you already have the setup to accomodate SKY+ it's certainly better value than buying from SKY.

Those prices you were quoted are disgusting for a current customer considering the online price is the true reflection of the value of the hardware and includes a profit margin.
SKY have always priced hardware well above cost and it's something I have never understood, how many would be willing to replace older/slower boxes if they had a decent deal from SKY.

By all means negotiate strongly and that includes mentioning that the cost of a repair/replacment is out of range of your current budget and while you want to continue with SKY you have no choice but to consider freeview or cable.

Worse case the laugh and hangup, middle ground they do a deal and you get a refurb under call out and best result they offer you a new replacement, cheap:)

Good luck.
 
if you dont have Sky+ at the moment then it means you are upgrading your package, they should do you a deal on a Sky+ box......best bet is to find a way to get it under £100.....go for the PVR3, dont worry too much about make, not all the non-pace boxes are defective...some people have found theirs working ok.....you might get less recording than the 160 box, but for the cost difference u can pick up a cheap DVD recorder like the Panasonic DMRES10 (£160ish) which i got yesterday, works lovely for just archiving stuff u definitely want to keep......with the 160 u are only doubling what u can store from the PVR3, with a DVD recorder and the PVR3 you are still prossibly paying less or the same and u can keep permanently :)

if u already have Sky+ and just wanna upgrade the box then they might try and stiff you....best bet if you have been a customer for a while is to say you'd like to speak to a manager, they should then send you to customer care rather than customer services, there they might be more helpful, dont get angry at them, just say your a bit dissappointed etc and cant believe they wont do you a good deal, tell them you'll be happy to go under a new 12 months minimum contract, that might help....then if still no decent joy, say you guess you'll have to move to Cable then......cross ya fingers and pray....lol
 
Thanks for the replies,

Can I ask Starburst whether, if I was to buy a Pace PVR3 online, I would have any problems setting it up.

I guess I would just connect thw two cables as usual and insert my viewing card. Do I then need to ring SKY to get them to acticate software? and are they likely to give me a hard time as I wont have bought the box from them?


Dave
 
You could if all else fails take skys offer on http://existing.sky.com/offers.asp for £49 but you have to phone the number listed on the web page.You would also have to take out multiroom at £10 per month.
So one off payment £49 then 12 payments at £10 per month = £159

After twelve months cancel your multi room. :thumbsup:
 
dpiper said:
Thanks for the replies,

Can I ask Starburst whether, if I was to buy a Pace PVR3 online, I would have any problems setting it up.

I guess I would just connect thw two cables as usual and insert my viewing card. Do I then need to ring SKY to get them to acticate software? and are they likely to give me a hard time as I wont have bought the box from them?


Dave

Yeap..Phone sky and get them to marry your card to your new sky plus box.
They wont give you a hard time at all after all your are paying them a monthly subscription for the pleasure. :)
 

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