STB Freezes often
 

Hello All!

I recently had a bit of a problem with my TV system which I thought was down to the STB. I arranged for an engineer to come and take a look. Big mistake!

He just bustled in and exchanged the box without listening too much to what my problem was. As it turned out he needn't have changed the box since the problem turned out to be somewhere else in my TV system.

After it was changed, I was left with 3 further problems:

Firstly, my new Samsung Box has no Audio Out unlike my old box. With the TV and HiFi system I have, this is a bit of a problem. I explained this to the guy but he wasn't interested. As far as he was concerned he had done his job once I got a picture and the crappy sound on my TV.

Secondly, this box freezes at least once a day, and probably more frequently. This means that it is a bit touch and go when I want to record anything when I am out.

Finally, I have a media centre PC. It controls the STB but you have to stick a little LED flasher in front of the remote receiver on the STB. I think that this is a crude way of doing it but that’s how it works. Well it worked well for the old STB but it is very hit and miss for the new one. When you add this problem to the "freezy" issue it becomes almost impossible to record anything automatically.

Has anyone else experienced any of these problems? Are there any fixes or workarounds that anyone knows of?

Cheers folks.

Re: STB Freezes often
 

The audio issue is simple. Buy a scart with phone breakout lead, should be available from any decent high street shop that does hi-fi including the Currys / Comets type places, or Maplins.

If the STB is freezing on a regular basis, and has been replaced, it implies the signal is not quite in tolerance on the cable feed. You need an engineer to test and adjuste the levels. Phone faults.

As for the remote control that's a toughie. The remote control signalling method is the issue. Many of the Pace STBs used IrDA as the infra red signalling. That is acutally less common, and throw out most remote sender units. The more standard RC5 signalling is used by the Samsung STBs. Most senders will work, but perhaps not the ones that were designed for the Pace STBs.

Re: STB Freezes often
 

Hello,

About the Phono problem: I have got round it. As it happens my Media centre PC only has a composite video or an S video input. So I had to buy an active Scart to S Video converter from Maplins. Luckily I found an phono out on the back of that. So that is now fixed.

As for the freezing problem, I'll take the advice that I have just read at the top of the forum about checking the cleanliness of the card contacts but then I'll be onto CS again if I can't resolve it.

Finally, when the engineer came, he told me that my original remote controller would work OK, which it does…provided the STB is not frozen!

I guess I have a lot of messing around to do before I have solved this problem.