NTL Cable Boxes

[Jez_Gafys]

After 4 calls outs to NTL due to choppy images and sounnd similar to a scratched/dirty dvd I got a new box. Before I have always had Pace boxes, in the past engineers have told me the pace boxes are ****e and prone to frequent crashes, which is deffo the truth for me.


The four years ive been with NTL ive gone through at least 6 boxes all Pace, and I cant tell u how many times the service as crashed, lost display, errored when trying to access interactive services etc. Well today after my fourth call regarding this fault, the engineer gave me a new Samsung silver box. I'd have to say so far im impressed is the same style OS as used on the Pace boxes the difference is its works and its fast. I can scroll between channels fast within a 2 second gap between changes, I can open the guide in less then 2 seconds and see whats on in 24 hrs inn less then 5 seconds without seeinng the words "searching". All together it really does seem a good box doinng that same as Pace one just better.

So if yah sick slow unresponsive, unstable NTL then complainn enough times you may eventualy get a decent Samsung box.

[Mavykins]

Ive got one of the silver samsung boxes, and its basically about 4 times aday making the picture go fuzzy and cuases the sound to go funny, about twice a day all the channels say you do not subscribe to this channel, untill i reset it, so i am getting a replacement, so having a samsung box might not be the end of your problems

[Killy]

my pace has crashed like twice in four years so i'm happy :p:

[Jingles]

Our NTL tv seems much slower than other peoples - I can't decide if its the connection or the box...

[Neon]

We ditched ntl tv in favour of freeview. Catch 22 if you ask me :(

[JeRkY]

had a silver samsung box for well over a year now. we got it when they did the first round of speed increases. seems ok, but the old pace box wasnt problematic for us either. However the silver samwang box sits more neatly with modern tft tv's aestheticly

[KingDaveRa]

NTL cable was fine until they updated the boxes to the CR3 version years ago. It was incredibly slow, and terribly unstable - I could crash it just by cycling through the now and next menu. I think the Pace kit is an older spec, so it just doesn't have the grunt to run the newer software properly. It was positively glacial last time I saw it.

[Jez_Gafys]

What I never understood is why viewing interactive features and things like the guide have always been slower then Sky. Surely have a fibre optic cable is faster then sky transmission?


I'll see if I have a model number on the Samsung box, see if it differs at all. I know mine is different to my mates silver box but I am not sure if his is Samsung, he also connects his pc to his sky box to get his cable internet.

[KingDaveRa]

It's not the connectivity that is the problem, it's the fact that the chipsets in the boxes are so slow at drawing the graphics and doing other mundane things. AFAIK, Sky and Terrestrial boxes pull all their data from dedicated channels, and then shove it into RAM caches, which they then go digging around in when they need it. NTLs stuff tends to go back to the headend to pull data off the servers there, which means more immediacy in the content being served, but the hardware in the boxes just can't shove it up on the TV as fast as the Sky boxes and recent Freeview boxes can. The older Ex-On-Digital boxes are just as slow.

[FL1X]

its samsung it WILL eventually burn your house down *please note this may not be true*

Nahh i just dont like samsung there products are unrealiable in my experiance.

[Jez_Gafys]

its samsung it WILL eventually burn your house down *please note this may not be true*

Nahh i just dont like samsung there products are unrealiable in my experiance.


So far they seem reliable to me, Got my LCD TV, Mobile phone an dnow NTL box all Samsung.

[FL1X]

I used to work for orange and the brand of phone that came back the most was samsung.
I now work for a company that handles PCs Laptops and LCDs the most common thing i hear from customers is, i used to have a samsung but....

just my oppinion personly i dont like them.

[Zatoichi.uK]

Mines been good, rebooted mayber twice in a year... My boss has the older one which changed channel alot slower apparently.

[Omnituens]

never had a problem with mine.

I just had a problem with my uncle getting rid of it.

[RocketKnight]

my pace has crashed like twice in four years so i'm happy :p:
Ditto!

[rick_2k]

Been through 6 boxes since cable came out.. what 5-6 years ago? so one a year for me!

Yep pace are ****.. ntl telewest whatever they are called now even admited to me when they came to replace my last box there is a bug in pace boxes that hasnt been looked at yet since cable started in the uk they are STILL waiting for a response to why the pace boxes crash and die (irreparable crash)... what 6 years? or so.

He went into alot of detail that i didn't really understand but basicly the people at pace don't really know what's inside there own boxes and what is wrong with them and why they **** up so bad.

The have since gave me a new model, different manufacturer (cant actually even tell who its made by il look at the details on that back later for brand) but its ****ing ugly! all has been fine since though its actually faster than the pace boxes too it doesnt take 5 seconds to respond like some of the old boxes ;).