Q: Standard Sky decoder with Component AND S-Video?

Forums › Sky, Neon, Lightbox › Q: Standard Sky decoder with Component AND S-Video?

gyrogearloose

22 posts

Geek

#72103 20-Nov-2010 13:52

My old decoder failed on Thursday night and I can't resurrect it by removing the power, removing the card (etc) despite having tried numerous times over 3 days since. I saw reports on TM that a lot of people had trouble at exactly the same time, but most people seem to have theirs running again. I've book the Sky technician for monday and I expect they will replace the decoder (I suspect it was a failed software upgrade).

I currently run a custom SCART to S-Video/3.5mm stereo jack into my Hauppague HVR-2200 tuner card for recording, and a Composite cable to the TV for direct viewing. The TV is a legacy widescreen CRT without HDMI, and my best input would be Component.

Do Sky have any standard decoders with both S-Video and Component outputs?
Thanks!

Niel

3267 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#407128 20-Nov-2010 18:05

The small silver box will do that. It has 2x SCART sockets. The one for TV can do either composite, s-video, or component. The ons for VCR can do either composite or s-video.

But be warned they are having issues with the (cheap) small silver box. It is not too bad, just sometimes the user interface freezes for a few seconds and then changes to a random channel. Or volume goes to maximum. I think the boxes are just getting old and worn out.

You can never have enough Volvos!

old3eyes

9119 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#407145 20-Nov-2010 18:47

I was never able to get my silver box one to do scart. The option was grayed out so used Svideo which was most likely an overkill for most of Sky's SD channels.

Regards,

Old3eyes

gyrogearloose

22 posts

Geek

#407155 20-Nov-2010 19:26

Niel: The small silver box will do that. It has 2x SCART sockets. The one for TV can do either composite, s-video, or component. The ons for VCR can do either composite or s-video.

But be warned they are having issues with the (cheap) small silver box. It is not too bad, just sometimes the user interface freezes for a few seconds and then changes to a random channel. Or volume goes to maximum. I think the boxes are just getting old and worn out.

And you've actually tried this? My current decoder is a black Zenith, and previous testing established that if you selected Component on the TV scart, then the only option available on the VCR scart was composite. It seemingly didn't have enough video outputs to do Component and S-Video at the same time.

old3eyes

9119 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#407159 20-Nov-2010 19:32

old3eyes: I was never able to get my silver box one to do scart. The option was grayed out so used Svideo which was most likely an overkill for most of Sky's SD channels.

Actually it should read component. My typo..

Regards,

Old3eyes

Niel

3267 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#407171 20-Nov-2010 20:35

I've got the small silver box. Used component to start with because I believed component would give a better quality picture until I compared it with s-video. One of the issues are HD LCDs have a sample rate higher then the Sky box so you can see an offset between the components which you would not on an SD TV. S-video overcomes the issue since the TV has to generate the colours from chromonance and luminance.

Anyway, the bottom line is yes I have used component on the TV SCART connector and at the same time s-video on the VCR SCART connector. The SCART setup menu item first asks for the TV SCART output and then for the VCR SCART output before returning to the setup menu. It is easy to miss this, looks like it is just asking the same question twice.

The reason I asked specifically for the silver box to be installed was because it could do component and s-video at the same time which the black ones can't. Actually all I wanted is the box with the fastest processor to handle the menus, the black boxes became sluggish a number of years ago when Sky "improved" the menus with fancy pictures and stuff.

You can never have enough Volvos!

Niel

3267 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#407324 21-Nov-2010 16:13

I had a quick look at my small silver box setup and can add that you can not have RGB and s-video (but you can component and s-video).

You can never have enough Volvos!

JimmyH

2886 posts

Uber Geek

#407327 21-Nov-2010 16:33

My silver box (the Pace-230NZ from memory) will do both.

Like Niel I specced this because I wanted the component out, and it was the only box they had that would do this at the time. Also the Pace boxes are newer, otherwise I could have got a sluggish older refurb box.

I am also having problems with channel changing. Sometime, when a recording is booked or I change channel it changes to the preview channel (channel 0) instead of the one I want. Don't know if this is unique to the Pace box?

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

Niel

3267 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#407341 21-Nov-2010 17:14

Pace DS230NZ. All kinds of trouble lately. I believe it is a firmware issue as I did not have the problem for about 2 years before. The other day when a technician swapped out my box he confirmed they are having lots of trouble with them. The swap-out did not fix anything, but a couple of days later there was a firmware update which did fix most of the issues.

You can never have enough Volvos!

JonnyCam

643 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#407529 22-Nov-2010 09:19

I am also having problems with channel changing. Sometime, when a recording is booked or I change channel it changes to the preview channel (channel 0) instead of the one I want. Don't know if this is unique to the Pace box?

I used to have this on my old black sky box, (ds232?) but believe they fixed it with firmware update, so should be able to fix the silver ones too.

Niel

3267 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#407805 22-Nov-2010 18:11

JonnyCam: I used to have this on my old black sky box, (ds232?) but believe they fixed it with firmware update, so should be able to fix the silver ones too.

The small silver box broke, was fixed, broke again but at least better. It is now only about once ever couple of days instead of about once every add break (when channel surfing...). It's been going on for months now.

Still, I think the small silver box is the better choice for many reasons. One of them being better support for outputs.

You can never have enough Volvos!

DarkCypher

80 posts

Master Geek

#408462 23-Nov-2010 18:48

Does the Mysky box also have the same problem as the silver pace one's?