iankb
03-19-2007, 09:38 AM
Having threatened Sky with cancellation, because my old Grundig digibox locks-up and fails to change channels, I'm now a proud owner of a shiny new Thomson box, at no cost.
"No I don't want to pay £65 for a replacement. Please cancel".
"No I don't want a replacement at half-price. Please cancel".
"If you insist on giving me one for free, and installing it this weekend, I'll resist the temptation to cancel."
The Thomson box is very sexy, in a silvery white colour, curved like an Xbox 360, and a gently-illuminated blue 'Sky' sign on the front. Lucky enough, the very helpful Sky engineer couldn't find an old refurbished box to give me. However, the box has a rather odd reaction to the TiVo channel changes (through a Sky-Eye).
Although it will happily change channels if you key in the channel number on the TiVo, or when the TiVo changes channels for a recording, it does not respond to using channel-up/down on the TiVo remote, nor to selecting a channel in the onscreen guide. In those circumstances, it neither displays a failed channel number entry, nor causes the red light to flash on the digibox.
Since the TiVo sends all channel changes as channel numbers, irrespective of how selected on the TiVo, I can't see how these methods differ. I've tried Thomson, Grundig and Sky 20006 and 20016 codes, at all speeds.
I've left it on Sky 20006 fast, and that appears to be working fine. However, I still can't see why the other methods of selection wouldn't work. Obviously, if I'd just tried the channel up/down keys when setting it up, I would have assumed that none of the codes would work.
Chatting to the very helpful Sky engineer (he was explaining that the delay in releasing the Playstation 3 in the UK was that we expected all 16 of the processors to work, as opposed to the 5 that they got away with in Japan), he said that he was due to go out to the States to train DirecTV engineers in installing the NDS boxes. I tried to explain that the TiVo-aware population out there might find the Sky boxes to be a little light on features when compared to the DirecTiVo.
"No I don't want to pay £65 for a replacement. Please cancel".
"No I don't want a replacement at half-price. Please cancel".
"If you insist on giving me one for free, and installing it this weekend, I'll resist the temptation to cancel."
The Thomson box is very sexy, in a silvery white colour, curved like an Xbox 360, and a gently-illuminated blue 'Sky' sign on the front. Lucky enough, the very helpful Sky engineer couldn't find an old refurbished box to give me. However, the box has a rather odd reaction to the TiVo channel changes (through a Sky-Eye).
Although it will happily change channels if you key in the channel number on the TiVo, or when the TiVo changes channels for a recording, it does not respond to using channel-up/down on the TiVo remote, nor to selecting a channel in the onscreen guide. In those circumstances, it neither displays a failed channel number entry, nor causes the red light to flash on the digibox.
Since the TiVo sends all channel changes as channel numbers, irrespective of how selected on the TiVo, I can't see how these methods differ. I've tried Thomson, Grundig and Sky 20006 and 20016 codes, at all speeds.
I've left it on Sky 20006 fast, and that appears to be working fine. However, I still can't see why the other methods of selection wouldn't work. Obviously, if I'd just tried the channel up/down keys when setting it up, I would have assumed that none of the codes would work.
Chatting to the very helpful Sky engineer (he was explaining that the delay in releasing the Playstation 3 in the UK was that we expected all 16 of the processors to work, as opposed to the 5 that they got away with in Japan), he said that he was due to go out to the States to train DirecTV engineers in installing the NDS boxes. I tried to explain that the TiVo-aware population out there might find the Sky boxes to be a little light on features when compared to the DirecTiVo.