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[tickmike]

Do you use a 'Digital TV Set Top Box.' If so have you noticed missing words at the start of say the news ?.
Eg1. This is ... six o clock news ("the" is missing).
Eg2. Good evening this is .... midlands today ("east" missing).
I have noticed it it the first few seconds of the programs.
Is it our sets or has anyone else noticed it.? 

[oldfogy]

If it's anything like Virgin Media digi box's, it happens all the time, sometimes for up-to 30 seconds at a time.
It also happened on one account for the last 2 minutes of a film, (film just froze, again).
No apology's, no nothing.

Maybe for such a small amount of time you do not notice it freezing.

[tickmike]

I forgot to say the picture is ok, I have not seen it freeze.
Just the missing odd words.

[roseway]

It's not uncommon for that to happen with digital TV, although I would normally expect the video to stutter as well. It happens on my media centre PC when live viewing, but it doesn't happen with recordings. I've tended to assume that it's something to do with initial buffering.

[UncleUB]

We have a freeview box(goodmans) and yesterday the picture on certain channels went from widescreen to 4:3 format.I find the whole thing very tempremental.

[jazz]

I had a Panasonic set top box and had no great problems with it (though it did occasiobnally take it into it's head to reboot and start channel searching at unexpected moments just after you had switched on).  I've just bought and installed a Humax 9200TB PVR (http://www.martindawes.net/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=PVR9200B&cid=digital_set_top_boxes&pcidl=&language=en-GB) which is a set top box with twin tuners and all the record, pause live tv, etc facilities that the Skybox has (without the need for big monthly subscriptions!).  I'm amazed by what it will do and how well it works.

[UncleUB]

Has anyone got or used one of those digi boxes with the card slot for satanta sports/topup tv.Just wondered if there any good.

[Floydoid]

Can anyone particularly recommend a decent freeview box?... I'm going to have to get one... as soon as our 30 year old communal aerial system is upgraded.  I have no access to cable here, and I'm darned if I'm going to pay the council £135 for planning permission to erect a Sky dish.

[UncleUB]

I have read many good reports above the Humax ones(see Jazz,s link above).They are quite expensive though.Have a search on

www.pricerunner.com.

[guest]

http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=221276&doy=8m3

Put your own hard drive in and its a recorder - simple enough to do although you don't have to. We've got a pretty dodgy signal - especially on the ITV multiplexes - but this seems to cope much better than other boxes we've tried. Dual tuner so you can watch one channel and record another.

I got one of these last year and it just works, which surprised me enormously as I think I got it in a sale and paid £40 for it. It doesn't have the greatest menuing system (especially on record/playback side of things) but I haven't discovered any major "gotchas". If you have any old IDE hard drives lying about then its a very cheap way of buying a DVR.

[tonyappuk]

Tickmike

I think your missing sound points to a marginal signal from your aerial although it is strange that it is not accompanied by picture breakup or freezing. Because of the way that digital TV is decoded in your STB and the various forms of error correction employed, if the signal drops for any reason to a value near the threshold for your particular STB/chipset, the error correction can't cope and we get sound breakup/losses and/or picture funnies. One of the blessings of the digital era! I speak as an (very) old analogue TV transmitter man.

Tony

[dave.m]

Can anyone particularly recommend a decent freeview box?... I'm going to have to get one...

Floydy,
Only the best at Garstang Towers.
We have one from Asda for the manager's living room tv and a top of the range Aldi one for her bedroom tv.
Nothing wrong with either of them and both under twenty quid each.
dave

[kitz]

I bought one of the under £20 ones from Asda for my bedroom...  works fine.
I quite like how it has another stand so you put it on its side... which is a good space saver.
Its actually smaller than my router.

[Floydoid]

Hmmm, I'm not really near to Asda... but I gather that boxes around the £20-30 mark should be just fine?

[mr_chris]

Would think so.

There's so many cheap boxes that work very well nowadays, I wouldn't expect to pay more than £20-25 tops for one.