NAC Preamps and SKY +

Posted by: Eddie Pugh on 04 May 2004

My old Sony Sky box and processor has co-existed quite happily with my NAC 82 for a few years now with no issues.

A few weeks back I was tempted by the Sky+ deal and upgraded to the Pace PVR box. Impressive bit of kit. I swapped out the 40Gig hard drive for a 120Gig drive and now have 60 hrs of easy to use video recording. Its also very quiet.

Only one snag and one that is proving difficult to pin down. The new Sky+ remote issues codes which switch the NAC 82's inputs. I don't know which buttons or key combinations on the Sky+ cause the problem but it is a bloody nuisence. Anyone experienced this problem and have you identified how to select NAC inputs on the Sky+

This could be really nasty and expensive if you have a second live input e.g a tuner or CD running while the Volume control is at 12 o'clock for the processor.

Are things any different with the new kit and the unity gain. I note Naim have switched the A/V button to where the old tape selector button was on the old kit and I must say that the Sky+ box does seem to have a slight preference to switch to this input.

I know that most of you will reply that I should not even be siting the kit in the same room but somebody out there must be using a Sky+ box with an AV2. Has anyone got a work around. Have Naim changed the RC Codes for the New Reference Series?

Eddie Pugh
Posted on: 04 May 2004 by artist
I also upgraded to a sky+,i have a 52 pre and when i change chanel on the sky remote it shifts the balance to the left(how easy is it to change the hard drive)
Posted on: 04 May 2004 by prowla
I think Naim can change your preamp's IR settings.

Paul
Posted on: 04 May 2004 by neil w
eddie

do a sky + search there is a fix from naim
ive had and still got the same problem sometimes
i too am interested in this hard drive upgrade please expand on this

neil
Posted on: 05 May 2004 by Richard Dane
The makers of the SKY+ box rather naughtily used codes that conflict with the RC5/6 codes we used in the NAC82, NAC102 and later NAC52. Anybody having difficulty with this should contact their dealer who can fit a modified control chip to your preamp to avoid this conflict.

Richard
Posted on: 05 May 2004 by tpc
quote:
Originally posted by Eddie Pugh:
A few weeks back I was tempted by the Sky+ deal and upgraded to the Pace PVR box. Impressive bit of kit. I swapped out the 40Gig hard drive for a 120Gig drive and now have 60 hrs of easy to use video recording. Its also very quiet.

Eddie Pugh


Eddie

Can you please give a bit more info on the disk upgrade. Was it a straight plug and go or was there more to it?

Thanks

T
Posted on: 05 May 2004 by Eddie Pugh
Many thanks for the info on the RC control chip upgrade.I browse here fairly often but completely missed that valuable snippet

Sky+ disk upgrade.

I'll post a link to some site where I found the info when I get home tonight. In nmy case I just swapped out the disk and did the full reset proceedure. Its been running for a few months now without any sign of the dreaded "17min" bug which is experienced by some upgraders. The % remaining is a bit bizarre but appart from that 60 Hrs recording time is available

A word of Warning though do not exceed the 120Gb disc size and go for a slow 5400 rpm Samsung if you can get one as they are virtually silent. Bigger than this and the Operating system can not deal with it.

Do a Google serch on SKY+ disk upgrade and you will find all the info

Eddie
Posted on: 05 May 2004 by Eddie Pugh
Sky+ Upgrade

www.hummer.co.uk/sky.htm

Here's the link I promised. This guy knows a lot more than I do about upgrading Sky+ boxes.
Be aware that there are V1 and V2 versions of Sky+ boxes. My recent Pace is a V2 and it was dead easy to swap disc drives. Literally a 10min job. I didn't modify my cooling fan although I rekon this is probably noisier than the disk drive. With the current Sky software the disk seems to spin continuously so spin up times are irrelevant. The fan though does seem to be intermittent, perhaps thermostatically controlled.

Eddie