Our digibox just died...

[beanzontoast]

I agree, just like the TVs you used to see with video recorders built in. Our recorder box died too, just inside warranty, which was pretty good as we got a full refund and, technology moving on as it does, bought a better box for the same money :0)

Check out the revue sites. Some of the boxes are hopeless and others seem to fair much better. Is it a hard drive recorder? Hard drives basically have finite life and I'm sure they'll be making them more cheaply then they used to.

It's like that with CD transports. The very first ones were among the best ever made. After that they started cost cutting, now they're all crap.

You can't really complain. These things are so cheap they have to be considered disposable. It's the consumer's own fault, they want everything at the lowest price and the manufacturers just go along. It's why the focus is on technology, rather than quality, as it's a lot cheaper to do.

That's what Mrs B said. Bit sad if that's the case though.

To answer some of the other points people made -

It is well ventilated. No nasty RF sources (other than the tv itself) nearby.

No hard drive.

I actually chose it because on the reviews it came out pretty well (though I haven't seen a digbox review yet where there weren't some people who'd had problems and were saying negative things).

Three of the failed boxes have come from the same supplier, so I may well point this out to them and see if it makes any difference.

 

[asterix]

Had to take back an LCD telly last week. Curry's had been selling these 19" cut-price Hitachis but it kept playing up: switching itself off, not channel-changing, etc.

When I took it back they saw the box and had the refund ready almost as I walked through the door! Now have a Sharp from Richer Sounds that is good.

 

[Mr Pig]

That's what Mrs B said. Bit sad if that's the case though.

Yes, it is sad. Pathetic. The result of a want, want, want, culture.

I love older things, kit that is made to last.

 

[beanzontoast]

Yes, it is sad. Pathetic. The result of a want, want, want, culture.

I love older things, kit that is made to last.

Aye to that. Can't see anyone in 50 years time reminiscing about the lovely digibox they had!

 

[Mr Pig]

Aye to that. Can't see anyone in 50 years time reminiscing about the lovely digibox they had!

Funny to think that people will still be using record players after CD has died ;0)

 

[Mr Pig]

My mate spends most much of his free time and money collecting Bang and Olufsen hifi

The stuff that still works? B&O is a bad example, it was style-over-substance even back then!

 

[Mr Pig]

Some of the early B&O stuff was very attractive I thought. I loved the sleek look of their systems, you've got to remember that no one else was doing stuff that stylish at the time.

Bear in mind that the above system was from 1974! I mean good grief, do you remember what most hi-fi looked like in 1974? This was typical of the 'late' seventies!

Early B&O stuff was art.

But it still very much form over function. Their turntables in particular were really annoying. To get them flat enough they used thin disks of aluminium for the platter and knitting needles for tone-arms. They were crippled from the start.

Then they started making loudspeakers that looked like scaffolding poles with pointy bottoms! And these thin tubes a few inches in diameter are supposed to shift enough air to reproduce drums properly? It's ridiculous.

 

[dodgy]

We stopped paying for Sky a while back as we weren't really using it, apart from the kids who would happily spend all day slumped in front of cartoon channels. Our ancient Sky box started playing up, so we recently got one of the new Humax freesat 320 GB hard disk recorders. Apart from a few early software niggles it's a really good machine. It is nice being able to pause live TV etc. Not cheap at £290+ though.
And free to air HD TV is very short on the ground as yet, good as it is when you see it. ITV HD is a joke for the most part though.

We've got a Humax Foxsat HDR, too. We haven't had a VCR in our house in nearly 10 years having got into TiVo back in about 1999/2000, but then we wanted high def so bought a Sky HD box which has been a big disappointment in terms of the hardware, reliability and features (no search on the EPG for instance). The Sky HD box would sometime crash and inexplicably not record something.
The Foxsat HDR isn't quite up to the usability of the TiVo, but it's pretty damn good and pisses all over the Sky HD box. I'm impressed, but what a palava trying to find one! Reminds of trying to obtain a Wii about a year ago

Dave.

 

[dodgy]

I did modify my TiVo which is a much more daunting undertaking than what is required for the Foxsat, I understand it's just a simple HDD swap. I'm finding the 320GB in the Foxsat ample, especially as you can archive to USB.

 

[col]

Talking of old stuff that lasts,my mother and her boy friend have been buying blank videos and players for years,and wait for it,they are betamax format.They are built like tanks and are still working well now,the same one we watched as teenagers when we hired those first films at two pound a time from the mr video shop,which was a lot then.

 

[Mr Pig]

they are betamax format.

Betamax was better than VHS, at the time I assumed it would win the format war. Sound quality in particular was great, better than you could get out of any cassette player and up there with most pro machines.

 

[col]

Betamax was better than VHS, at the time I assumed it would win the format war. Sound quality in particular was great, better than you could get out of any cassette player and up there with most pro machines.

Even a video shop owner said this about betamax,i think its proved itself to some of us,its lasted nearly 30 years up till now.

 

[beanzontoast]

+1 for Betamax. At the time we bought our first machine, the guy in the Co-op said that Betamax was the better format, so we went with it. This was at a time when VHS and Betamax machines were about equally present on the shelves.

 

[sheva]

we`re still using an old nokia "ondigital" box which used to take a smartcard before they went bust, now just receives the freeview channels. eight years we`ve had it and still going strong.
one of these:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/nokia-freeview-box_W0QQitemZ330293822641QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_AudioElectronicsVideo_Video_TelevisionSetTopBoxes?hash=item330293822641&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1301|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A2|240%3A1318

 

[bonk man]

we`re still using an old nokia "ondigital" box which used to take a smartcard before they went bust, now just receives the freeview channels. eight years we`ve had it and still going strong.
one of these:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/nokia-freeview-box_W0QQitemZ330293822641QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_AudioElectronicsVideo_Video_TelevisionSetTopBoxes?hash=item330293822641&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1301|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A2|240%3A1318

We are using one of these as well.... different badge but same machine and remote..... its ok.....works with a coat hanger aerial as well