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...and indeed is it still possible to get one? We moved house in the summer and for long enough before that our recorded pictures would break up - just a little - and not enough to desperately want to sort it. We record on TV via Sky but watch live TV on terrestrial so I was never sure for a long time whether the problem lay in TiVo or in the Sky signal. However after the move with a brand new Sky dish installation we still had the occasional break up, and I discovered it was also on the live Sky feed, which took TiVo out of the equation. The new satdish set upo and the fact that it happened before seem to point to the Sky digibox. Would anyone agree? If so can you still get them?

Sounds plausible. I'd try ebay.

Any old STB called a sky digibox or is there something I need to look out for?

I don't think there are significant differences between standard sky boxes that would cause problems; TiVo has a couple of sky IR code sets so might need a tweak, but I think the viewing cards are a standard. You may need to phone sky to pair the card to the box. I'd try to get one that looks the same as yours, to minimise the risk, but on ebay people don't always use the right pictures! If there are any car boot sales in your area that haven't shut for the winter they can be another source of stuff like this, and you can see the box itself before committing to a purchase. I took the other approach when my picture started breaking up and upgraded to Sky HD, so sky provided a new box, but I had to commit to a new minimum contract.

You could try your local Freecycle group. Old boxes regularly come up when people "upgrade". If you place a wanted ad I'm sure you'll get some offers.

If your Sky viewing card is (or was) a subscription card you'll probably have to phone Sky to get it paired to the new box. It was a FTV card then this probably won't be necessary.

However, you might find you need a bigger dish - do you have a "Zone 1" dish or a "Zone 2" dish? The Zone 1 dish is supposed to be big enough for most of England and Wales, but I've found that many channels break-up with this size dish. A Zone 2 dish (which is slightly bigger) usually fixes this.

Intermittent break-up is usually a signal strength problem, whereas picture freeze may be due to a faulty box.

Hadn't heard of the zones 1 and 2 types but hopefully the aerial man fitted the correct on for us. I have picked up a pace digibox now for a tenner on ebay (I don't think there'll be a freecycle here - pretty rural). A FTV card so hopefully will work with new box (might come tomorrow). Picture break up is a mixture of freezing and break up, often freezing more than breaking up. Hopefully the new box will cure it.