Sky+ 160 Dolby Digital sound cuts out

I have a Sky+ 160 box and subscription I obtained through Germansky. When I watch tv (whether recorded or live) and the sound is Dolby Digital (2.0 or 5.1) the sound occasionally cuts out. When the program is not Dolby encoded the sound works fine. The Sky box is connected to my Bose Lifestyle 48 system via an optical cable. I have tried different cables. I have 2 other devices (a German satellite box and a DVD) and they both work fine with Dolby Digital.

I contacted Germnasky over a month ago, but they only tell me they are waiting for Sky to get back to them. Not very good service!

I'm wondering if I should demand a replacement box from Germnasky.

Anybody else have a similar setup? Anybody else having or heard of this problem?

You should have gone to Fielmann

Brille: Fielmann

It does sound like a Box problem..

I havent ever come across this fault before.. EXCEPT on a few very early Amstrad DRX100s.

I am sure that German Sky could send you a second receiver to try.. and if the new one is functioning to your satisfaction, they will sort out the problem for you!

G

If it's a Thomson or Pace Sky+ 160, then it's a known problem (to Sky) caused following a recent firmware update (that provided the new EPG layout) that might be fixed in a future firmware update. Not a problem German Sky can help with. The Sky+ 160 has not been a big success because of problems like this. They seem to have problems with datapaths onto the disk - possibly even the disks themselves. Better take a Sky+40/80 and have it upgraded to something much larger (250Gb is possible).

I checked some other forums and it does seem this is a known problem.

I have a Thomson box.

I wish Germansky would have told me this.

If German Sky do know about it, then as the supplier it's in their best interest NOT to tell you (or at least not admit they know about the problem) as they could be held liable for providing a faulty box. Their response that they are waiting for a reply from Sky is pretty accurate I would suggest. Same reason that Sky don't tell anyone either, and that you could only find this information from informal sources such as this.

My Sky+ 160 received a software update about three weeks ago. It went from Sky + 4.00o to Sky+ 4.01a. This seems to have improved the sound cutout problem. Is still occurs occasionaly, but much less frequently.

That being said, there is a new problem. The software update has changed the way the unit handles the digital sound. The digital optical signal stays on all of the time, even when the unit is in standby. This is causing the automatic digital optical switcher that I use to switch between several digital optical devices to not function. I have to change it manually now. This is causing untold grief for my technophobic wife who frequently wants to switch between English and German TV.

I sent an email off to germanysky today and will post when I get an answer.

Anybody else seeing this or have any advice?

Why send to Germansky? Problems such as this have nothing to do with them... They'll simply tell you they are looking into it or somesuch and never get back to you...

I paid a lot of money for the box and the service from germansky. That's why I go to them. I don't have any way to contact Sky directly.

How should I solve the problem?

How about contacting the manufacturer? It's not a fault with the system, but incompetence on behalf of the software development team. Your system is working to specification, which might not be the specification you like. As you are not alone with this problem, there is little you (or moreso Germansky) can do to fix anything.

Otherwise wait for 4.01d which your system should have, but was pulled by Sky for "Quality Control issues"

In short, everytime Sky fix one problem they cause two more...

As you are using/watching something which is strictly speaking not available outside of the UK, don't make waves over trivial issues. Simply be thankful you have some English TV

Ah, penny dropped.
What YL6 is really saying is that Sky is shite!
geddit?