Skybox

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

HAs been turning off on its own. Happened twice today.

Thought it was a power cut at first, but it wasn't. Is my box going to die soon?

[krusty]

I dont know about yours , but mine has been going off for the past few days . Just goes to red light , switch it back on and it searches for channels then comes back on?

[Anton Redman II]

The procedure on Sky’s website on how to disable auto standby is

* Press the Services button on your Sky remote.

* Select Setup.

* Push up twice to highlight Auto Standby.

* Push left (or right) once to change ON to OFF.

* Push down once to highlight Save New Settings and press Select.

* Push the Sky button to return to whatever you were watching.

[krusty]

I do not think it is auto standby as it searches for channels each time.

[Thebiga]

Mine has been doing exactly the same thing over the last 4 days. I to thought it must have been a slight powercut but now I know its probably something to do with sky somehow! What could it be? Not changed any settings atall and auto standby is switched off where it always has been.

Very strange...

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Wow, glad it's not just me then.

Must be something sky are messing about with then.

Definitely not auto stand by, I've never even heard of that function.

[Will]

It might well be a power supply fault, or overheating. Many Sky digiboxes are prone to these problems, particularly those in use in France which tend to be older ones anyway. Look at www.satcure.co.uk.

Satcure can supply replacement power supply units, parts, cooling fans etc. If you do not have a Sky subscription with your box you can bring yourself up to date with a Freesat receiver that can cost as little as a replacement second hand Sky box or a cheap generic box.

Even if you haven't heard of auto standby you should still have it - it was a feature that was implemented by Sky a while back in the software updates, so it would have been loaded onto your box without you knowing, though you would find it when the box switched itself off. But as you say the box searches for channels it sounds as if the power to the box is turning off (as it might with a dodgy power supply) rather than going into standby.

[Quillan]

Mine 'reset' a few days ago but I think that was to do with new channels like ITV1-HD coming on line. Other than that no problems at all.

[Gemonimo]

Sky went awol from my TNT box a few months ago and no technician could figure out why. I hadn't watched english tv for twenty years and didn't miss it.Then a few days ago when I was re-setting the box after a power failure, Sky suddenly reappeared.  Just in time for the elections... yawn.... yawn....

[Loirette]

Well how strange!  We have also been having the same problem so we checked the auto-standby and that was set to off.  I guess we will wait and see if it settles down. 

[Martin963]

Could be related to similar problems described here......?

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1238719

[cooperlola]

It's been happening to me too.  I thought my box - now 6 years old - was just getting tired.  It's been so annoying as it keeps turning off mid-programme so I lose things I'm recording.  A real bar steward in the middle of the night. 

Martin, I looked at that discussion.  Sadly, I can't take the card out because then I lose 5.  Very annoying.

[AnOther]

Coops you know you can set up CH5 manually so you don't need the card.

Press the "Services" button.

• Select number 4 (System Setup), and then 4 again ("Add Channels").

• In the appropriate fields enter the following (you move through the fields using the up and down arrow keys).

• In the Frequency field enter: 10.773,

• The next three fields are toggle fields, i.e. using the left and right arrows will change the value.

• Toggle Polarisation to : H

• Toggle Symbol Rate to: 22000

• Toggle FEC to : 5/6

• Then select the last button - Find Channels.

• Channel 5 will now be in the list of channels maybe called 6335

• Use the Yellow button to place a tick beside each one you wish
  to store and when you've finished ticking press "Select". The channel
  will now be stored.

You can view it by pressing the "Services" button, then 6 ("Other

Channels"), use the arrow keys to move to the channel you want and

press "Select".

Don't know if my boxes have started playing up but I'm sure I'll find out from 'er indoors when  I speak to her this evening !

[cooperlola]

Yes I know.  But my problem is in recording whilst not watching (my o/h hates the telly so it's always off in the evenings when all the stuff I want to see is on.)  Last night for instance I recorded three programmes in a row - one on More 4, then one on 5 and a third on More 4.  I set these up in  Auto view and left them to record.  With your method I would have needed to be there to change the programmes over.  If you know a way of getting this done without being there, I'd love to know it!

The switching off problem persists, btw - two programmes failed to record last night and Casablanca switched off in the middle this afternoon!

[AnOther]

What do you use for recording?

I record with my Tivos (never used anything else) which will cope with a manually tuned CH5 but of course even they cannot do anything with a Sky box which is switching itself off !

I do have a Sky HD box but as of yet have not quite decided whether to commit my viewing card to it or not. I don't think there is any way back from that other than marrying it to another ordinary Sky box in which case I probably could not use it in other Sky boxes to set the region I want as I can and do now.

What I really need is to find someone with a Sky HD box and see exactly how it works and whether it a viable alternative to 2 Tivos. I'm pretty sure it won't be so I think I'll end up selling it on, I'm not that fussed about HD anyway.

[cooperlola]

[quote user="AnOther"]

What do you use for recording?

[/quote]A Panasonic DVD recorder's hard drive.  All I've ever managed to do is to get it to record the AV channel and I programme the Skybox to put the individual programmes on Auto View.   

Can you transfer onto DVDs from your Tivo?

[AnOther]

Better, I can drag anything off as an MPEG file which I can then play directly on a computer, or convert to a DVD or any other format I wanted or needed to.

Given the bandwith I could download programmes to a computer from anywhere in the world where I had Internet access.

[devilsadvocate]

HUMAX HD PVR!! Brilliant! [:D]

DA 

 

[cooperlola]

[quote user="devilsadvocate"]

HUMAX HD PVR!! Brilliant! [:D]

DA 

 

[/quote]Can it record a manually tuned Ch 5 prog when amongst progs on the normal channels? Will it receive 5US and Fiver?

[Sizewell]

Hi,

My Digibox started to do the same ie picture freeze, go into standby and when I switch it back on, does a listing search. So, I thought it might have been on its way out (approx 5 years old). But I feel a lot better now that it appears that suddenly lots of others are having the same issue. [:)]

[cooperlola]

It's still going on too, Sizewell.   It happened in the middle of the night and I lost half of Curb Your Enthusiasm.  It is making me very grumpy!  No sign of Sky repairing the problem that I can detect.

[AnOther]

I'm yet to be convinced that it is actually a Sky problem Coops. If it were I would expect the various Sky/Satellite forums to be buzzing with it but I have seen nothing out of the ordinary on them. I'm sure this forum (and the 'other') would be inundated too if it were that widespread.

Heat and age are more likely culprits also minor mains glitches can cause problems for an ageing power supply without necessarily being apparent elsewhere or with other electronic equipment.

What is the make and model of your box ?  

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Maybe it's happening to us Frenchies only.

It's an attack!!!

[cooperlola]

[quote user="AnOther"]

I'm yet to be convinced that it is actually a Sky problem Coops. If it were I would expect the various Sky/Satellite forums to be buzzing with it but I have seen nothing out of the ordinary on them. I'm sure this forum (and the 'other') would be inundated too if it were that widespread.

Heat and age are more likely culprits also minor mains glitches can cause problems for an ageing power supply without necessarily being apparent elsewhere or with other electronic equipment.

What is the make and model of your box ?  

[/quote]I agree Ernie except I have a friend  whose box developed the same problem at the same time, and Martin's link suggests that indeed this problem is being flagged up in related fora.  I've got a new box on the way (ordered before I realised this was happening to so many other people) so when it arrives I'll let you know.

It appears to stop happening if you take the card out, but as related above, I can't get my ordinary DVD recorder to record the "fixed" 5 channel when amongst other programmes and I can't get Fiver or 5US either.

[AnOther]

Martin's links seem to be almost exclusively to do with the Pace DS430N, is that what you have ?

For the 'stiff the expat' conspiracy theorists none of my 3 boxes in France are suffering any ills but then none of them are Pace anythings, all Amstrads.