Amstrad DRX 180

Author's product rating:   

Ease of Use
Ease of Installation
Range of Features
Value for Money

Advantages:	Watch, record or even rewind live TV
Disadvantages:	Does occasionally lose signal and recording might be affected

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Do you watch a lot of telly?
Do you get frustrated at spending ages trying to set the video recorder or start swearing if your kids are not around to do it for you?
Do you have sky but wish that you could record one programme whilst watching another?
Do you wish you could record every episode of your favourite show in one go so that you never forget to do it before you go out?

If the answer to those questions is yes, then this is the product for you.

First of all what is it?

Sky+ is the latest generation of TV receiving equipment from BskyB, a system that not only allows you to receive literally dozens of TV and radio channels but also allows you to record within the same piece of equipment.
The sturdy looking off white box contains a 40GB hard drive that enables you to record up to 20 hours of your favourite programmes. The front of the box is quite plain and simple featuring simplified viewing and recording controls and two slots for your viewing card and interactive card. The viewing card slot is hidden behind a bottom-hinged flap that protects the card. This is much better than the old pace box where the card sticks out and can easily be snapped off (something that we experienced to our cost with our old sky box)
Size wise, it is quite chunky. Bigger than the old sky box, about the size of a video recorder.
The Amstrad box is the one that we got although as it is the Sky fitters that install the equipment, I wouldn't guarantee that this is the box you would receive although I would suggest that they are all going to do a fairly similar job.

Installation.

As I have mentioned the Sky fitters deal with the installation so that is easy and will only trouble you to provide a cup of tea. He will install the box and dish (if you do not already have one from a previous Sky installation.) He will fix up all the connections to the back of your set, video and DVD or surround sound system, should you have one and make the connection to the phone line again if you don't already have this installed. This will of course all be tested and demonstrated before you sign his paperwork to say that you are satisfied with the installation. And that's it, easy as that, you are good to go.

Connection.

As the Sky fitter will install the equipment there is no problem but should you wish to change your configuration by maybe installing a surround sound system then this box has two Scart sockets and an S video socket as well as audio connections.

The manual.

The manual is extensive and easy to follow and will help you come to grips with your new box in a suprisingly short space of time, especially if you are already familiar with normal Sky.

Use of the equipment.

If you are new to sky then sitting being faced with the TV and a rather complicated remote control could be a bit daunting. Don't worry though it is easy to get the hang of and once you have familiarised yourself with it then it will become second nature.
Basically all functions can be accessed from your remote control, including basic functions for your TV such as volume or channel selection. All your terrestrial TV channels, video, and DVD will have their own channel as normal and Sky will have its own as well, ours is channel 5. For TV viewing this is really the only one you need as all the terrestrial channels can be accessed through the sky channel (and the picture is far sharper than the one from our terrestrial Ariel.) There are two ways to select your programme to view. Either from the sky guide that enables you go through pages of menu's to find what you would like to watch or an information bar that you can flick through that appears on the bottom of the screen at the touch of the select button. Both of these let you see a synopsis of the programme and simply selecting will enable you to view.

Very easy. If you had a previous incarnation of Sky and are just upgrading then you will know how to use the viewing part, that has not changed.

The clever bit.

The + bit of this new system allows you to record and even play around with live TV.
You nip out to the kitchen to make a quick cuppa or the phone goes making you miss that goal or that romantic scene that you had been waiting all film to see. No problem, Sky+ lets you rewind live TV to catch the bit you missed.
You loved the song you had just heard and want to watch the video again. No problem, just rewind again and again and watch it as many times as you wish.
How is this possible? Well your sky box records what you have just watched every time you watch something so that previous bit of viewing is always there enabling you to watch it again. Of course if you change channel then you will lose it, but it is a very good feature.
Recording could not be simpler, no more mucking about trying to set the timer on the video recorder. All you have to do is go to the Sky guide, select the programme you want to record, press the record button and that is it, simple as that. There is also a feature that lets you record all episodes of a selected programme with the push of one button too. This is handy if you wanted to record Corrie every time it was on but usually managed to forget to set the video and missed that exiting episode that everyone was talking about.
Another first for sky is that you now don't have to be tuned in to what you wish to record so you could be watching your favourite soap whilst you record that blockbuster movie.
The programmes you record are accessed from the Sky planner option in the Sky guide. A list of all the programmes you have recorded are shown here complete with whether you have viewed them or not and also tells you if there was a problem with the recording (more on that later.)
There is also an option to keep recorded programmes so if you want to keep your favourite film then just press 'keep' and it can't be erased until you decide you no longer want it.
Should your hard drive become full then viewed programmes will be erased from the disk starting from the oldest automatically to make room for new programmes to be recorded. This is something to be aware of as your partner or the kids might want to view something you have already seen but it has been erased before they can do so (the voice of experience speaking here.)
When watching recorded or replays of live TV you can fast forward through the adverts or rewind to see something again as you like.
This is quite a leap forward in TV viewing and one I am glad we invested in.

Problems.

Not many really, the main one being that when you are recording and the signal drops then you may well lose a chunk of what you were recording or even see the whole thing terminated. This doesn't happen often but can be annoying when it does occur.
The system can also freeze for no apparent reason. This has only happened to us a couple of times and is remedied by switching off and restarting the whole thing. This does take a little while to boot up and of course should you happen to be recording then you will probably lose it. These are only minor inconveniences really as we have found them to be very infrequent.

Price.

It is quite expensive and more than the basic Sky as you would expect.
To nail down the price is quite hard as Sky have so many offers on at any one time. There are also offers if you are upgrading or if you have your old box moved to another room to enable multiroom viewing. Then of course it depends on which viewing package you choose. There is a wide range from the basic entertainment package to the entertainment plus movies or plus sports or Sky world which offers entertainment, movies and sport. So I think regarding price you would have to decide which package you wanted to fit your own circumstances and then take advantage of the best offer to suit yourself. As an example this is what it cost us.

We chose the skyworld package and had our old box moved to another room at the same time so benefited from an offer that gave us free installation and only had to pay £99 for the new box.
There is of course the by no means small matter of the monthly fee. This costs us £52 pounds a month for Sky+ and our old box on multiroom plus the Skyworld package and breakdown insurance.
That might seem like a lot of money and it is but we think it is worth it to keep the kids happy for a little while if nothing else.

For the latest up to date offers I would recommend a visit to the Sky site.

Overall

In my view it is one of the best investments we have made, it really is a versatile system that makes TV viewing a varied and easily manageable experience. Yes it is expensive and it has a few minor problems but overall we have found our Amstrad sky+ box to be reliable and (touch wood) we have not had any problems that have required us to contact Sky at all.