Got HD installed today and existing Pace V1 relocated on multiroom. Was told by the engineer that all existing recording should be intact. Checked before he left and they were. Stupidly - did not think to try playing one. They do not - have about four episodes of 24, assorted films and other stuff that I really want to see. I simply get an error message "recording interupted - please wait a mnute" when I press play.
FYI - my existing viewing card is now paired with the HD box, new card is in the pace V1.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Warburton
I suspect, tho I am sure others will correct me if I am wrong, but it is probably because they switched the cards from one box to another.
I know the subscription levels are the same (with the exception of the HD part on the main box) but still, swithing the cards suggests problems to me.
warbutton did he marry the cards to the boxes via telephone. maybe he should have kept your original card in original boxes? try swapping them over. he might have mixed them up
mine did the same i thought the box was broke it did it about three times this morning i turned it off at the wall turned it back on and it has being ok so far (touch wood)
Oooh! Hope you know you got a nod on the MediaMonkey!
Monday May 22
Ask Sat Man
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's ... Sat Man! A Sky TV engineer has set himself up on the web as an online agony aunt for all your digital TV queries. Pace 3000 stuck on standby mode? TV not compatible with the RGB output of your Sky box? Lost live pause and rewind on your PVR Mark 3? Never fear ... Sat Man is here! Well, actually he's called Gary and he used to work at NTL, but so far his offer of help has prompted nearly 1,000 replies and been looked at more than 100,000 times on Digital Spy website. Could this be a reflection of Sky's customer helpline? And should Gary be put in charge of it? "Off to work now I'll be back tonight to answer more questions," says Gary. Thanks Sat Man!
I have had a 40gb Pace Sky+ box for a couple of years now and within the last couple of weeks it has started intermitently pixelating and losing signal on all channels.
There appears to be no correlation to the weather or any other external cause.
I have done the standard things of turning off and resetting and swapping the inputs around all to no avail.
In System set up the Signal quality varies between half to two thirds and the strength between a third and a half. Is this normal?
Has this got something to do with the LNB or maybe the dish allignment?
If this is the case do I need to get a SKY engineer out to look at it or can a local trusted tradesman sort this out for less than the £65 SKY charge?
Oooh! Hope you know you got a nod on the MediaMonkey!
Monday May 22
Ask Sat Man
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's ... Sat Man! A Sky TV engineer has set himself up on the web as an online agony aunt for all your digital TV queries. Pace 3000 stuck on standby mode? TV not compatible with the RGB output of your Sky box? Lost live pause and rewind on your PVR Mark 3? Never fear ... Sat Man is here! Well, actually he's called Gary and he used to work at NTL, but so far his offer of help has prompted nearly 1,000 replies and been looked at more than 100,000 times on Digital Spy website. Could this be a reflection of Sky's customer helpline? And should Gary be put in charge of it? "Off to work now I'll be back tonight to answer more questions," says Gary. Thanks Sat Man!
At of time of me posting Sat Man has only contributed 43 out of the 960 posts in this thread. He was active this site on 02/02/2006. (Check his profile)
The top poster is Tenco who has contributed 143 times.
Unless Tenco is an alias for Sat Man then it should be Tenco thanked for all the assistance and not Sat Man.
We have two boxes in my house, one is Sky+ and the other is regular Sky Digi.
I want to buy another Sky+ box from eBay, but I've been told that I will need Sky (or another third party installer) to come and fit something on the dish. Is this true?
My friend bought one from eBay and it didn't record at first (but live pasuing etc worked) , but he rang up Sky and they got it working without coming out, so I don't see why they have to with me.
Hi,
Please i need an urgent help with my problem, I have a sky+ V2 and my receiver is stuck on standby, I know several people came across this topic but i can't understand exactly how to make my receiver alive again.
I tried force download it started normally but after finish the box still stuck on standby, please help me what should i do? is the HD damaged? if yes can i get any HD and replace?
Ref lutherpete's post I've had exactly the same problem. No hassle for years and now no live pause or the ability to record. Error message says there is a system fault & please phone......Contacted sky & eventually advised by email to spend £65 on an engineer who would probably replace the box with a reconditioned one. First attempt when phoning resulted in the call being terminated when I questioned why I should I pay for a new box, £199 + a complete new instalation. Something doesn't seem right here.
Jock
Hi,
Please i need an urgent help with my problem, I have a sky+ V2 and my receiver is stuck on standby, I know several people came across this topic but i can't understand exactly how to make my receiver alive again.
I tried force download it started normally but after finish the box still stuck on standby, please help me what should i do? is the HD damaged? if yes can i get any HD and replace?
Good Morning. Apologies if this has been asked before.
Over the last couple of months my original PACE SKy+ has died a slow death culminating in me having a replacement installed 2 days ago.
It was replaced with an Amstrad DRX280, however there is now a constant ticking noise which is driving me crazy. It is obvioulsly the Hard Disk spinning around as it gets considerably worse when rewinding or recording etc, however i can still hear it all the time and even throughout the night when i am trying to sleep.
Could you tell me please if this is likely to improve? If not, am i within my rights to request a new replacement? as there is no way i can put up with this for much longer.
Good Morning. Apologies if this has been asked before.
Over the last couple of months my original PACE SKy+ has died a slow death culminating in me having a replacement installed 2 days ago.
It was replaced with an Amstrad DRX280, however there is now a constant ticking noise which is driving me crazy. It is obvioulsly the Hard Disk spinning around as it gets considerably worse when rewinding or recording etc, however i can still hear it all the time and even throughout the night when i am trying to sleep.
Could you tell me please if this is likely to improve? If not, am i within my rights to request a new replacement? as there is no way i can put up with this for much longer.
Any help would be great.
It will improve, because you simply get used to it. Sky will tell you that it is normal that the HDD makes a ticking noise whilst functioning, which is true. However the Amstrad is particularly noisy. The Thomson is noisy as well, but no where near as noisy as the Amstrad.
They will not exchange the Amstrad just because it is noisy, it would have to be malfunctioning on some way before they will exchange.
Can I ask, did you buy the replacement or was it a swap out? Did you pay for an engineer or do you have the breakdown insurance?
It will improve, because you simply get used to it. Sky will tell you that it is normal that the HDD makes a ticking noise whilst functioning, which is true. However the Amstrad is particularly noisy. The Thomson is noisy as well, but no where near as noisy as the Amstrad.
They will not exchange the Amstrad just because it is noisy, it would have to be malfunctioning on some way before they will exchange.
Can I ask, did you buy the replacement or was it a swap out? Did you pay for an engineer or do you have the breakdown insurance?
JC
Thanks for your reply.
It was a swap as i do indeed have the extra breakdown cover.
So basically what are my options? As there is no way i can continue with it like it is.
It was a swap as i do indeed have the extra breakdown cover.
So basically what are my options? As there is no way i can continue with it like it is.
They wont swap for the noise, but if, for example, your box developed another fault, then they would simply come and swap out the faulty box, for another one.
I have just had Sky + installed and all in all am very happy with it apart from one aspect Dolby Digital.
After carefully reading the instruction manual I noticed that Sky broadcast some movies in Dolby Digital and if I connected an Optical lead to my Denon 1802 Surround sound amplifier I would get Dolby Digital surround sound. Brilliant.
As my current set up uses a coaxial cable and there is no digital coaxial output from the sky box I had to purchase an optical cable -
After conecting it all up and playing National Treasure on SKY Movies 1 my box detected the Dolby digital signal straight away but to my horror the sound coming through was intermittent basically I could only hear every third word and my delight turned to misery.
I have made sure it’s not a faulty cable as it works on my CD recorder and did change the SKY set up to Dolby Digital.
SKY hadn't got a clue but the engineer very kindly came back out to see if a box swap would work - he swapped my Amstrad to a Thomson but the problem was the same - intermittent sound. He had no answers but had heard that some surround amps were not compatible with the SKY + box - but said he had never heard of intermittant sound just no sound at all.
Has anyone come across this or got any ideas I have now got the Amstrad SKY+ box back It all works fine in Dolby Pro Logic II through both my Coaxial(through DVD recorder) and optical cable(Direct through SKY +)
If I have Sky+ installed, the engineer needs to run a cable from the dish to make the new Sky+ box work.
Each Sky channel needs exclusive use of an LNB so the Sky+ box needs 2 and the Sky box needs 1 = 3 LNB feeds so 1 wire to wherever you will move the Sky box and 2 to the Sky+ box. The installer will do all that. Cheaper if you get the bits off ebay and do it yourself but dangerous (Fitting an LNB outside a 15th-floor apartment for example!)
If I get another cable run from the dish to another room, can I then use my existing Sky Digibox in that room?
As I said above
(At least I'll get a decent picture compared to what I'm currently getting from my loft aerial.)
Unless you put a £30 freeview box on your loft-aerial feed then you will have digital quality!
Will I only be able to watch the same programmes in each room or can I have 2 channels on at same time?
You get one channel per feed so the Sky box will give you one channel to watch, the Sky+ gives you 2 (And you can record 2 while watching a 3rd that you already recorded!) and if you do get the freeview box, you can go mad and watch the above mix and have a third channel available for another telly!
So if someone wants to watch the film recorded last night – they watch it from the Sky+.
Someone else, on another telly, can watch any channel on the Sky+ box and a 3rd telly can watch the freeview channel.
While analog TV is still being transmitted, you can go mad and tune yet another telly in the usual way to the analog content!
Aerial
splitter o/p a ---- telly A via uhf
splitter o/p b
Freeview box in/out ---- telly A via SCART 1 / freeview telly
LNB o/p 1 ---- Sky box --- telly 1 / telly A via scart 2 / telly 3 via SCART / UHF
LNB o/p 2 ---- Sky+ ch 1 --- telly 2 / telly 1 via scart 2
LNB o.p 3 ---- Sky+ ch 2 --- telly 2 / telly 1 via scart 2
Sky+ recorded material --- telly 2 / telly 1 via scart 2
:cool:
There are other options, but that is enough 'tellys' for now.
Find your own mix!
Hi Sat_Man,
I've asked this before but never got a 100% answer. As I have 2 dishes to use can I feed a Sky+ box using both dishes with a single LNB or do I have to fit a Quad LNB to one of them?
Hi Sat_Man,
I've asked this before but never got a 100% answer. As I have 2 dishes to use can I feed a Sky+ box using both dishes with a single LNB or do I have to fit a Quad LNB to one of them?
Cheers
Ian
Easy!
Every Sky box input requires a feed from a single LNB output.
Some LNBs have more than 1 output.
If there are as many or more LNB outputs than you have inputs then you can make it work. They DONT need to be from the same LNB as long as each o/p has it's alignment done okay to Astra.
So:
Connect a good-quality cable (Recommended: WF100) from each O/P to each input. It doesn't matter if you take one feed from a mono LNB on each of two dishes as long as one goes to each input.
<If you need to go on a ladder, use the best ladder safety code you can browse on Google!>
Check you have a good signal on all inputs ( s/b over 75% in good weather and over 50% to avoid dropouts at any time - more if you have an Amstrad box!) You may need to tweak the dish to get a better signal and rotate the LNB slightly to improve the signal.
It is worth slightly 'leaning' on the dish at the compass points to see if the signal only drops (it was lined up in the best position) or gets better (get the spanner/screwdriver out and, carefully, make the adjustment)
Go into the details page and make a note of all the data.
If you are adding a box, Sky will need to know the s/n etc to set multiroom up.
Call Sky and make sure that you have multiroom set up for your installation.
The most important Sky+ box must be the Primary item.
All other(s) are secondary items.
After all that hard work - voila! you have a working system
Now pat yourself on the back and take the free drink from your mates who can watch the footy with you while the family watch other things :cool:
Comments
I suspect, tho I am sure others will correct me if I am wrong, but it is probably because they switched the cards from one box to another.
I know the subscription levels are the same (with the exception of the HD part on the main box) but still, swithing the cards suggests problems to me.
JC
Why does my SKY+ box change channels without me using the remote? - I have a SKY GNOME attatched if this helps/hinders the answer.
Went into standby sometime during the night, and now it's doing it every 15 mins or so.
Amstrad PVR2.
http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=381742
Monday May 22
Ask Sat Man
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's ... Sat Man! A Sky TV engineer has set himself up on the web as an online agony aunt for all your digital TV queries. Pace 3000 stuck on standby mode? TV not compatible with the RGB output of your Sky box? Lost live pause and rewind on your PVR Mark 3? Never fear ... Sat Man is here! Well, actually he's called Gary and he used to work at NTL, but so far his offer of help has prompted nearly 1,000 replies and been looked at more than 100,000 times on Digital Spy website. Could this be a reflection of Sky's customer helpline? And should Gary be put in charge of it? "Off to work now I'll be back tonight to answer more questions," says Gary. Thanks Sat Man!
http://media.guardian.co.uk/diary/
I have had a 40gb Pace Sky+ box for a couple of years now and within the last couple of weeks it has started intermitently pixelating and losing signal on all channels.
There appears to be no correlation to the weather or any other external cause.
I have done the standard things of turning off and resetting and swapping the inputs around all to no avail.
In System set up the Signal quality varies between half to two thirds and the strength between a third and a half. Is this normal?
Has this got something to do with the LNB or maybe the dish allignment?
If this is the case do I need to get a SKY engineer out to look at it or can a local trusted tradesman sort this out for less than the £65 SKY charge?
Thanks
Pete
At of time of me posting Sat Man has only contributed 43 out of the 960 posts in this thread. He was active this site on 02/02/2006. (Check his profile)
The top poster is Tenco who has contributed 143 times.
Unless Tenco is an alias for Sat Man then it should be Tenco thanked for all the assistance and not Sat Man.
DtV
We have two boxes in my house, one is Sky+ and the other is regular Sky Digi.
I want to buy another Sky+ box from eBay, but I've been told that I will need Sky (or another third party installer) to come and fit something on the dish. Is this true?
My friend bought one from eBay and it didn't record at first (but live pasuing etc worked) , but he rang up Sky and they got it working without coming out, so I don't see why they have to with me.
Any ideas anyone?
Please i need an urgent help with my problem, I have a sky+ V2 and my receiver is stuck on standby, I know several people came across this topic but i can't understand exactly how to make my receiver alive again.
I tried force download it started normally but after finish the box still stuck on standby, please help me what should i do? is the HD damaged? if yes can i get any HD and replace?
I have recently moved house and took my Sky+ box with me but as yet do not have sky in my new house.
Problem is I can't get access to the recorded programs on my Sky+ box's hard drive as it is not connected to a satelite dish.
Just comes up message that no signal is being recieved and therefore will not let me into "planner" menu.
Is there any way around this i.e. tricking the box into thinking it is connected to a dish?
If there is I don't think anyone on this forum has found it yet.
Jock
Please i need an urgent help with my problem, I have a sky+ V2 and my receiver is stuck on standby, I know several people came across this topic but i can't understand exactly how to make my receiver alive again.
I tried force download it started normally but after finish the box still stuck on standby, please help me what should i do? is the HD damaged? if yes can i get any HD and replace?
Over the last couple of months my original PACE SKy+ has died a slow death culminating in me having a replacement installed 2 days ago.
It was replaced with an Amstrad DRX280, however there is now a constant ticking noise which is driving me crazy. It is obvioulsly the Hard Disk spinning around as it gets considerably worse when rewinding or recording etc, however i can still hear it all the time and even throughout the night when i am trying to sleep.
Could you tell me please if this is likely to improve? If not, am i within my rights to request a new replacement? as there is no way i can put up with this for much longer.
Any help would be great.
It will improve, because you simply get used to it. Sky will tell you that it is normal that the HDD makes a ticking noise whilst functioning, which is true. However the Amstrad is particularly noisy. The Thomson is noisy as well, but no where near as noisy as the Amstrad.
They will not exchange the Amstrad just because it is noisy, it would have to be malfunctioning on some way before they will exchange.
Can I ask, did you buy the replacement or was it a swap out? Did you pay for an engineer or do you have the breakdown insurance?
JC
Thanks for your reply.
It was a swap as i do indeed have the extra breakdown cover.
So basically what are my options? As there is no way i can continue with it like it is.
They wont swap for the noise, but if, for example, your box developed another fault, then they would simply come and swap out the faulty box, for another one.
Hope this helps.
JC
I have just had Sky + installed and all in all am very happy with it apart from one aspect Dolby Digital.
After carefully reading the instruction manual I noticed that Sky broadcast some movies in Dolby Digital and if I connected an Optical lead to my Denon 1802 Surround sound amplifier I would get Dolby Digital surround sound. Brilliant.
As my current set up uses a coaxial cable and there is no digital coaxial output from the sky box I had to purchase an optical cable -
After conecting it all up and playing National Treasure on SKY Movies 1 my box detected the Dolby digital signal straight away but to my horror the sound coming through was intermittent basically I could only hear every third word and my delight turned to misery.
I have made sure it’s not a faulty cable as it works on my CD recorder and did change the SKY set up to Dolby Digital.
SKY hadn't got a clue but the engineer very kindly came back out to see if a box swap would work - he swapped my Amstrad to a Thomson but the problem was the same - intermittent sound. He had no answers but had heard that some surround amps were not compatible with the SKY + box - but said he had never heard of intermittant sound just no sound at all.
Has anyone come across this or got any ideas I have now got the Amstrad SKY+ box back It all works fine in Dolby Pro Logic II through both my Coaxial(through DVD recorder) and optical cable(Direct through SKY +)
Thanks
GM
So if someone wants to watch the film recorded last night – they watch it from the Sky+.
Someone else, on another telly, can watch any channel on the Sky+ box and a 3rd telly can watch the freeview channel.
While analog TV is still being transmitted, you can go mad and tune yet another telly in the usual way to the analog content!
Aerial
splitter o/p a ---- telly A via uhf
splitter o/p b
Freeview box in/out ---- telly A via SCART 1 / freeview telly
LNB o/p 1 ---- Sky box --- telly 1 / telly A via scart 2 / telly 3 via SCART / UHF
LNB o/p 2 ---- Sky+ ch 1 --- telly 2 / telly 1 via scart 2
LNB o.p 3 ---- Sky+ ch 2 --- telly 2 / telly 1 via scart 2
Sky+ recorded material --- telly 2 / telly 1 via scart 2
:cool:
There are other options, but that is enough 'tellys' for now.
Find your own mix!
I've asked this before but never got a 100% answer. As I have 2 dishes to use can I feed a Sky+ box using both dishes with a single LNB or do I have to fit a Quad LNB to one of them?
Cheers
Ian
Every Sky box input requires a feed from a single LNB output.
Some LNBs have more than 1 output.
If there are as many or more LNB outputs than you have inputs then you can make it work. They DONT need to be from the same LNB as long as each o/p has it's alignment done okay to Astra.
So:
Connect a good-quality cable (Recommended: WF100) from each O/P to each input. It doesn't matter if you take one feed from a mono LNB on each of two dishes as long as one goes to each input.
<If you need to go on a ladder, use the best ladder safety code you can browse on Google!>
Check you have a good signal on all inputs ( s/b over 75% in good weather and over 50% to avoid dropouts at any time - more if you have an Amstrad box!) You may need to tweak the dish to get a better signal and rotate the LNB slightly to improve the signal.
It is worth slightly 'leaning' on the dish at the compass points to see if the signal only drops (it was lined up in the best position) or gets better (get the spanner/screwdriver out and, carefully, make the adjustment)
Go into the details page and make a note of all the data.
If you are adding a box, Sky will need to know the s/n etc to set multiroom up.
Call Sky and make sure that you have multiroom set up for your installation.
The most important Sky+ box must be the Primary item.
All other(s) are secondary items.
After all that hard work - voila! you have a working system
Now pat yourself on the back and take the free drink from your mates who can watch the footy with you while the family watch other things :cool:
Thanks for your help (post 973 above).