SKY SKY HD BOX Black Set Top Box

I have had 2 SKY HD boxes, the first being the Samsung box. This would, as many reviewers have put previously, turn off randomly, freeze the picture, not record programs, etc, etc. I complained to SKY who sent an engineer with a replacement box which was PACE. Since then, trouble free viewing with football looking ultra realistic now in HD. Without the technical snags of the first box I would have given 5 stars as movies and sport in HD take your TV (we have a Panasonic) to the next level!!

I wish someone would explain why, when Sky decided to provide an HD service, they chose to go with a manufacturer who provided the cheap, noisy unreliable boxes instead of PACE who make the quiet reliable ones.

My story is not untypical and as it could run into chapters I will give you the highlights. I had 7 sky HD boxes in 14 months. I spent what felt like weeks speaking to poorly trained automatons at sky cutomer service who are only capable of helping you if they can crowbar you into one of their few categories of problems. If not, stuff you - they certainly won't have a sensible conversation with you. Whatever happens you will have to go, every single time, through the pointless series of checks they force you to complete whether or not you've already done them or if you know, from bitter experience, that they are irrelevant.

My sky box(es) used to fail to record about 5% of what I put in the planner with one or other technical fault - 9 and 12 were most common. It would mark about 15% of what I planned to record as RECORDED - but the programme would not play back (and no a sky planner rebuild does not work sky customer services - not even after the 10th time - and the fact that it didn't doesn't mean the customer did it wrong!) About once a week the box would freeze mid programme, turn itself off and then take anything up to half an hour to come back on. HD was great but the picture quality on any content not in HD was far poorer than the PACE box - ie the vast majority of what is on. Sky replaced the box, the dish and all the leads over those 14 months (to be fair to them the engineers were fantastic) but to no avail. And noisy?? OMG you had to turn the telly up two notches just to be able to hear it over the sky box! In the end they concluded that 'HD just doesn't work for you'. I cancelled the HD service and am back with my ultra reliable little PACE box. Thomson? rubbish! Don't touch Sky HD til they change the manufacturer of the box - thats my advice.

A word of warning to all those thinking about Sky HD. The HD boxes and customer service are rubbish! I've had Sky HD for over a year and am on my 4th box. The latest one I had to buy as Sky ignored the faults I reported within the warranty period and to cap it all I had to wait over 2 weeks without any Sky! Still waiting to have the conversation with them about compensation. I must have been mad to buy another box and commit to another 12 months. The latest box has never worked properly and I've spent hours on the phone to Sky, one call was 56 minutes, only to be past from one department to another, no one can help. I've submitted a couple of complaints via the Sky website, got acknowledgements and a promise of a "personal reply as soon as possible" but still nothing after 8 days!
This is supposed to be Sky's premium service - don't think so.
Morale of this story, think carefully before buying HD, if you do buy I really hope you have better luck and Service than I'm getting.