Page 1 of Sky digital set top boxes/ any good for digital radio.

Are the Sky set top boxes that they give away free with subscription any good, Im more intrested in the Digital Radio output , but comments on picture quality welcome also.

Do they have Digital outputs optical/ co-axial for sound output/recording.

And how does the digital radio on the set tops compare to a good hi-fi analog tuner.

This item was edited on Sunday, 4th February 2001, 15:48

Only the Sony digibox has an optical output. There was along delay until these were introduced - $ky & Sony argued for months !
When it finally appeared a couple of months ago, the box was found to have operational bugs as well as being very slooow. I believe it was temporarily withdrawn until these were sorted out.
As for audio quality, with the amount of compression used by B$kyB, I wouldn`t recommend $ky Radio channels for a true "golden ears" hifi person, Theoretically it would be OK but statistical multiplexing falls down when too many channels need maximum bnadwidth simultaneously.

Chris Muriel, Manchester

None of the Sky boxes have digital outputs. The Sony`s have been disconnected on Sky`s orders.

You don`t need a Sky box to listen to the Radio stations on Astra 2. Most of the stations are free-to-air, so any DVB satellite receiver can receive them and will give you better sound than the Sky boxes. Many have at least one, if not two digital outputs as well. Maynot be free, but they are miles better.

A friend of mine is in the process of comparing a Videologic DAB Tuner with the Sky radio output and seems to feel the DAB tuner sounds better, probably because the DAB broadcasts are at a higher bit rate than the Astra 2 broadcasts.

If you are seriously interested in radio and thinking of satellite, forget Sky and Astra 2. Astra 1 and Hotbird are the satellites to go for. You can choose from about 300 radio stations catering for all tastes and broadcasting in equal or better quality than anything on Astra 2 and pretty much on a par with quality analogue. In fact, most of BBC Radio has been on Astra 1 in analogue for some time in better quality than their FM broadcasts.