Digibox quality

Take a look at the

uk.tech.digital-tv

newsgroup - lots of experience on recption issues wrt digiboxes and satellite tv reception in the UK - no discussion on dedicated mains spurs - you will be relieved to know <g>

Derek

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Broadcast quality is good so it's likely to be a reception/aerial problem. I was advised to a get a different type of aerial (wide band?) suitable for digital signals and now don't get any reception problems.

John3 and Derek, many thanks for your advice I had the aerial split to feed the TV upstairs as well.Feeding just the digibox has solved the problem.Is there a way I could still feed the tv upstairs? are signal amplifiers any good? if so what sort?

I have the feed split and "upstairs" fed by a 4 way amp in the loft seems to work OK. Don't know what make it is though.

Howard

Each time the cable is split it halves the signal.

Most STB's have a diagnostic page, showing signal strengths, bit error rates etc.

This will tell you whether the problem is signal related. The strength of the signal with digital is far less of an issue than it's quality, although of course the two aren't entirely unrelated. It is why most of the transmitters run tiny powers, in comparison to the power levels of analogue transmissions though, which has an impact upon noise immunity, which is where most of the digital reception problems lie.

If the cabling is old you'll get much better results from satellite-grade double-screened cable, and make sure the connections are all soldered or crimped - this is uncommon on analogue TV installations, the centre conductor is often just pushed in loosely.

The set top boxes vary though, my Netgem very rarely blocks, but the cheaper box I use in the bedroom is much worse, on exactly the same signal.

Andy.

I've just replaced my Nokia digibox with a PACE TWIN-DIGITAL digibox. It incorporates a PC type hard-drive with a ten hour recording capacity.

Playback quality is indistinguishable from the broadcast signal (unlike VHS tapes) and it has all the benefits of instant access etc:

As with the Sky+ box, one can 'pause' live TV and catch up with it later.

It has two tuners - hence the name; meaning that one can watch and record two digital channels at the same time.

All this for around £225, and no monthly subscription costs.

Does anyone have a problem with the audio feed becoming oddly out-of-sync with the pictures (a bit like bad lip-sync)?

I've noticed this a few times; we have a Nokia digibox, and the signal strength is good.

John

I get a weird echoey sound from my Sony Digibox (otherwise it's excellent) this is cured completely by taking the digital out from the Sony and feeding it into my surround processor.

quote:

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Originally posted by J.N.:
I've just replaced my Nokia digibox with a PACE TWIN-DIGITAL digibox. It incorporates a PC type hard-drive with a ten hour recording capacity...

...Playback quality is indistinguishable
All this for around £225, and no monthly subscription costs.

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J.N. -- So you keep paying the normal Sky subscription, but get all the Sky+ advantages?

I ask because Sky told me I'd have to pay another £10 a month on top of my basic subscription to take advantage of Sky+ with one of their own boxes.

Cheers,

Tim
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Os nid Campagnolo yw hi, dyw hi ddim yn werth ei marcho...

The Pace Twin Digital looks excellent and the price will give the competition some headaches. Its being offered at less than £200. The twin tuners give you a way of feeding a second TV as well (or a DVD/VCR). Instantly select a programme for HD recording just by clicking on it in the listing view. What could be easier? All that and it works with Freeview, so no subscriptions to pay - way to go methinks!! now where's my piggy-bank?

David

quote:

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Originally posted by Tim Danaher:

quote:

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Originally posted by J.N.:
I've just replaced my Nokia digibox with a PACE TWIN-DIGITAL digibox. It incorporates a PC type hard-drive with a ten hour recording capacity...

...Playback quality is indistinguishable
All this for around £225, and no monthly subscription costs.

---

J.N. -- So you keep paying the normal Sky subscription, but get all the Sky+ advantages?

I ask because Sky told me I'd have to pay another £10 a month on top of my basic subscription to take advantage of Sky+ with one of their own boxes.

Cheers,

Tim
_____________________________

_Os nid Campagnolo yw hi, dyw hi ddim yn werth ei marcho..._

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Yeah its a tad confusing esdp seeing as PACE make both the Sky+ box and have their own Twin Digital. With the sky one you have to pay an extra 10 quid a month I believe. Paces own Twin Digital works only with freeview NOT with Sky service, nor will it work with analogue service.

Anyway as David says its the way forward. Just add a DVD recorder for archiving. Now when will we see a naim DVD recorder? Considering the price of top end current DVD players (pioneer 1000 ukp) you'd think that for the substantial extra price naim are to charge for the their DVD it would include recording. I can see naim shooting themselves in the foot with DVD if they dodnt get it right - so take your time guys.

The newsgroups do have a lot of adverse comments re the Pace Twin and its reliability - tendency to crash etc.

Whereas the Sky+ box does appear to be reliable - whether a different software team program for it or not I do not know.

Derek

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I guess the s/ware must be different for the two machines, although I believe the h/ware is basically the same. No comments in the reviews I've seen about instability or unreliability, which newsgroups have you seen it on?

David

PS: These seem to be going for less than £180 on eBay - even brand new ones!

quote:

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Originally posted by hicapman:
John3 and Derek, many thanks for your advice I had the aerial split to feed the TV upstairs as well.Feeding just the digibox has solved the problem.Is there a way I could still feed the tv upstairs? are signal amplifiers any good? if so what sort?

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The way I get a feed to my extra TV's is as follows:

The main Aerial lead goes straight to the digibox, which is connected to the VCR, which is connected to the TV.
I have a "Y" connector on the output from the VCR with a lead running up into the loft.(most VCR's amplify the signal slightly, so I have no problem with loss of signal) The other lead from the "Y" connector goes into the TV.
The lead running to the loft is connected to a couple of 6 way amplifiers which I bought from my local electrical wholesaler (B&Q etc. sell similar ones)
Each lead from the amplifier outputs then run to the extra TV sets.
The beauty of this set-up means the Digibox RF along with the VCR RF signals are also sent to the distribution amplifier, so I can view these sources on all TV's, just by tuning in the channel for each source.
I hope this makes sense!

Computers are supposed to work on 1's and 0's - in other words "Yes" or "No" - why does mine frequently say "Maybe"?......

David

Often discussed on
uk.tech.digital-tv

Derek

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quote:

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J.N. -- So you keep paying the normal Sky subscription, but get all the Sky+ advantages?

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Tim
Are you confused or me?

I have nothing to do with 'Sky' or any subscription costs.

I guess the confusion comes from the fact that PACE also make the Sky+ digibox/hd recorder.

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.Is there a way I could still feed the tv upstairs? are signal amplifiers any good? if so what sort?

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If you only want to feed one additional TV and it has a SCART socket, you can use a wireless TV/Video Sender, which avoids the need for amplifiers and cabling.

These devices come in pairs, Transmitter & Receiver and work on the 2.4Ghz band. You plug the Transmitter into the SCART on the back of your VCR and the receiver into the SCART on the remote TV. Some versions even include an R/C relay to allow use of the video/digibox handset from the remote location.

RRP of these is £50+, but they regularly sell on eBay for £30-35, at which price they're probably worth a punt. Just search on eBay for 'video sender' and you'll find plenty.

David

Hi,

Does anyone else out there have problems with the quality of their digital pictures ?
I use Sky Digital and find that at times the picture can be fantastic and at other times dreadful. The affected channels particulary are BBC1,2,ITV3,CH4, but CH5 is fine (not that I watch it much).
I suffer alot from shimmering on movement( even on people slightly moving their faces) and also pixellation (picture breaking up into little squares) on fast movement effects, e.g strobe lighting or smoke, fast camera pans).Also odd movement on backgrounds.
I've tried swapping over digiboxes ( I have an Amstrad), but the problem is still there. I've had Sky installed for 3 years and the problem used to happen om my 50hz tv. I recently bought a 100hz widescreen and the problem is there. I'm making more use of the digibox now, as 4.3 analogue pictures obviously don't look good on a widescreen and generally digital is better anyway.
Sky and others tend to blame these picture problems on 100hz tv's, but as it was happening on my 50 hz tv as well, then that is not the case. I've heard it said, that you can have either a great picture on channels 1,2,3 & 4 or a great channel 5 and not so good other channels. Truth or nonsense ? Does this apply to digital pictures?
The way I see it, I have the following options :-

1.Contact Sky - I've already mentioned the problem and they've done a few on screen tests to no avail. Call an engineer out , which costs £60 pounds, but if it is not sorted, I could be liable to pay out for more call outs or sign up for a maintenance contract £ 75 and hope its a problem on the dish/cable/LNB. ( I've tried new scarts by the way)

2. Change to cable- Has anyone done this change and are cable pictures as good as Sky ?

By the way - Derek Wright- I've tried logging on to uk.tech.digital-tv, but can't find the site.

Any help or opinions on this matter , would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Rod

P.S Borrowed a freeview box and the picture looked great, but need the extra channels

quote:

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2. Change to cable- Has anyone done this change and are cable pictures as good as Sky ?

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We got both NTL and Sky services at the moment. I would say NTL cable is worse than Sky. Cable picture quality is not very good at all - often pixelated. Also the sound quality on satellite is better than cable. Finally the cable box's interface is very slow and not as intuitive as sky's, it also has on occaisons crashed.

By the way if your wondering why we got both, its that we started with Satellite but then NTL, phone provider, had an offer of free cable TV or internet for a year if you take the unlimited telephone call feature, which we were anyway. So we got it for free and thats how we do the second room viewing Having seen both services in action I wouldnt pay for NTL cable TV!

Rod

"I've tried logging on to uk.tech.digital-tv, but can't find the site"

it is a news group and not a web site - typically you will use your mail reader to access the newsgroups - you will have to register the name of your ISP's news server to your mail reader program.
I use a a stand-alone news reader called ProNews/2 but I doubt that it will run on your machine.

Derek

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The other easy way to find it is using Google. Go to the Google web-site, select the 'groups' option and enter 'uk.tech.digital-tv' in the box and click 'search'.

David