new samsung boxes more trouble then they worth?

Hiya all now i connect through a cable stand alone modem myself as stb connection was a big no no.

We was okay with our old digi box and c+w keyboard but due to some error it had they replaced it with this Samsung thing and purple ntl keyboard.

There is no rear audio sockets ( thats hif fi sound gone ) the keyboard is worst I have seen and to use.

Its sluggish changing channel

We want our old box back

Seems we have taken a step backwards and my dad is seriously thinking of jacking ntl in if they wont change this stupid box and keyboard for something which works.

[Mal]

Originally Posted by peacedude2k4

There is no rear audio sockets ( thats hif fi sound gone ) the keyboard is worst I have seen and to use.

You'll need one of these...
[img]Download Failed (1)[/img]

...scart leads, code VA23A from www.maplin.co.uk

I've had no problems whatsoever. I find that it's the opposite, everything is quicker. I don't use a keyboard, so I couldn't comment on that.

Plus it now matches everything else, colour wise

Well it seems a step backwards from old box

[seaneeboy]

Have yuo called NTL to ask about this?

[Kneebs]

If your video has audio outs, set your video to the av channel and use them - thats what I did. (I hardly ever record other channels on the video, so it just stays on the av channel).

I also have a samsung, and on the odd occasion, it can take a second or two to change channel, sometimes longer, but mainly you can quickly scroll through the channels with practically no delay.

Sometimes though, if I have Azureus running (Bit torrent), web page browsing can be slow (sometimes over 30 seconds for a page to fully load), even though its downloading at only say 20-30K, and uploading at about 10-15K (1 meg connection)

[BBKing]

Does whamming data through the box affect the TV at all?

Also, hows your PC CPU and RAM doing when you're doing a lot of P2P? What's the actual bandwidth usage?

(Had to vote 'no' btw, I know the technical details of why they're better ).

[Kneebs]

CPU hovers between 10-30% (XP 2800+), memory sits at half a gig free (1 gig total mem).

Bandwidth is often less than half of whats available (can be downloading at only 30-40, uploading at 10-15), and web browsing can be alot slower than normal.

If I'm downloading flat out (rare), the box can sometimes take a couple of seconds or more to change channels, although I'd say this is quite rare, and sometimes happens even if not downloading, so I don't think its that what causes it.

[Ramrod]

I think the new box is better. Channels change much more quickly now. The old pace box acted like it was on a go slow.

[Kneebs]

Another thing I have noticed with this box, which never happened with the Paces' I had, is that occasionly, the sound will 'pop' and the volume level will drop so I have to turn the tv volume up. At least I don't have to reach for the tv remote to do it tho

[Feenix]

The Samsung boxes are a breath of fresh air around here. The Pace boxes are slow, ugly and outdated - Samsung's STB is much faster at changing channels, interactive, anything to do with a menu system and can handle 1.5mbit broadband not forgetting it is shiny silver too.

As an install tech you can pretty much rely on a Samsung to work first time. On the other hand Pace boxes tend to not work, most of the time... imho

So two thumbs fresh for Samsung and a for Pace

[andrew_wallasey]

I think the Samsung boxers are great.

[BBKing]

CPU hovers between 10-30% (XP 2800+), memory sits at half a gig free (1 gig total mem).

Lucky you - I find that caning it on P2P markedly slows down anything on my XP3200+, but it only has 512Mb RAM...

The BIOS could do with some tweaking too, mind.

Edit: Post 666 - shame it wasn't in a religion thread in Current Affairs...

[MovedGoalPosts]

I'm not convinced that it is better or worse.

The digi TV seems OK and responsive, mostly, but I have had some picture freezes. The lack of phono ports was swiftly dealt with by the installing engineer who provided a scart with phono cable. The STB remote is supposed to be able to control volume, or so the engineer said, but it just gives me the old PACE type message, to use my TVs remote.

The broadband seems appalling. If I'm on the silver service, why does it take 10 seconds to load the average web page Dunno if that is due to P2P (which is throttled right down, and averages only 10mbps up/down,but it dont get much faster when I switch P2P off), if I put the router onto the smasung, it'll crash within a day. But is this the Samsung, or is it a signal fault. I'm just never in at the moment, at the right times of day, to call faults to give them an ear bashing .

Still it's a nice colour and I don't think it's quite so good a room heater.

[ntlrocks]

lol, good point. Pace boxes...esp 4001's are basically little black but very powerfull radiators

[Kneebs]

Right, I've been doing some testing with uploads / downloads / p2p with the samsung...

When doin no downloads / uploads or no p2p running, pings to www.bbc.co.uk take about 20ms, with no packetloss whatsoever, web pages take about 4-5 seconds to fully load

uploading alone to ntl webspace (at 25-30Kb /s), ping time increases to around 150-200ms, some packet loss (3%), web pages take about 10-15 seconds to fully load.

downloading alone from download.com (at about 110Kb/s), ping times jump to about 150ms, no packet loss. web pages take about 8-10 seconds to load.

Uploading to ntlwebspace and downloading from dowload.com together....this is where it gets bad !! downloading drops to 25-30Kb/s, uploading drops to about 16Kb/s, pings average about 150ms, webpages take about 20-40 seconds to load fully.

when p2p (azureus - bit torrent) is running, with download rate 40-80Kb/s, uploading at less than 15Kb/s, average ping is about 60ms, packet loss is 32%, and webpages take over 40 seconds to load , and occasionly the page doesn't load correctly (see attached)

Anyone else suffer from this, either on a samsung, pace, or SACM ? My PC aint the problem - CPU sits only runs at 1-30% through all this, and ample free memory. Is this the norm, or is it a problem, and am I likely to get fobbed off by tech support ?

Cheers