Thomson: DSI 4214

Your Views

Comments (25)

What are your views on this product? Tell other Digital Spy users what the strengths and weaknesses are, and don't forget to include your rating out of five!

Mitch, Preston on May 26th, 2008
Just been given this box for a possible repair. Suspect fault power supply but appears OK. The video output is very poor, barely see the picture. From the comments below I will not bother to fault find and throw in the bin.

Satman, Xabia on October 16th, 2007
Much better box for Spain than the Pace DS440N.

Andy, Benidorm, Spain on August 24th, 2007
Great box never had a problem with it don't know why other people are having so much problems with it. Best Old Skool Sky Box I have had.

Starchan, Aberdeenshire on May 8th, 2007
Work OK, Still getting a number of breakups and freezing.

Babs, South Yorkshire on February 7th, 2007
Good box boots up pretty quick, good picture quality, fast at changing channels etc. Happy with it but then again there is no such thing as a perfect box, each to their own.

Richard, Coventry on January 21st, 2007
I have the same problems as most, Blue bars top and bottom when you change from 4.3 to 4.3L, Rolling lines on the screen, And the picture quality is not good, Think a call to Sky CS in in order

Rowland, Bedford on January 16th, 2007
Fine until I use fast forward when playing back a recording. It seems very jerky compared with my previous Pace.

Kevin, Isle of Man on January 11th, 2007
Sky+ installed yesterday and the alternating noise level (every 10 seconds) that can be heard coming from the Thomson box is driving me insane After three calls to Sky, I finally called the local engineer myself to explain the problem. Promised an alternative replacement.

Joy, Staffs on December 30th, 2006
Very quick box, good reception. Just upgraded from an old Grundig - found this to be very quick at starting up, and fast on channel change.

Tomasti, South Wales on December 2nd, 2006
I recently had this box installed as changed from Sky+ (Amstrad) back to old school Sky. First of all I must say I am very surprised there are so many poor reviews of this Thomson! As stated by other posters, this box is really fast - the fastest sky box I have ever used. Faster than a Panny, Grundig or the Amstrad PVR I’ve switched from. I guess the look of the thing is down to personal taste, but personally I think its a great improvement on STBs of old. It has got sleek curves and a funky blue 'sky' logo - plus it looks great next to my Xbox 360! I think the problems reported by other users here may have been a firmware issue as I cannot find any fault with this box. Highly recommended.

Mike, Staffs on November 25th, 2006
Excellent Box, super picture, signal strength at 88%

Andy, North Somerset on October 6th, 2006
I self installed this box to fully operational in 15 min, into an existing system. It works fine, produces a good picture and is MUCH faster than the old Pace box. Honestly I don't see why anybody is having problems with it, unless the quality from Thompson is really patchy!

Ian, Tamworth on September 23rd, 2006
I've had this for a couple of weeks now in place of a Grundig box that was starting to fail, and I have to say it is pretty ugly, with one of the worst designs I've ever seen. The picture quality is pretty poor. The picture quality wasn't that much better with the Grundig though, and a lot of how bad the picture looks is down to digital TV any way and the over use of compression and noise filtering (something that has got progressively worse over the last year or so) and the low resolutions used on some channels. Sound also seems worse than with the Grundig, with a distinct wishy washy sound to it, on all channels. Rather than sounding like 192kbps audio it now sounds like 128kbps audio. I also have the same problem as Mark Elliott, with a distinct shift over to the left, so bad that I am missing details (like text) off the left on some channels and get a black bar to the right. This is pretty off putting. I have also noticed that the image is slightly squished vertically on some channels, which means the aspect ratio is not quite correct now. It does however change channels much quicker than the Grundig did, which could take any where to a second some times, and going in to any of the menus is much quicker also. I've not had any problems with regards to freezing, audio de-sync or the remote not responding, but I have had a few occasions where the was a very brief audio and picture glitch. All in all I'm pretty disappointed with it and the drastic shift of the image is enough for me to contact my local engineer about getting it swapped out.

Colin, York on September 5th, 2006
This is a brilliant box. Our first generation Grundig box malfunctioned recently (electrical supply module problems - a known fault on these models), so rather than pay the ridiculous call out charge levied by Sky (an eye-watering £65.00!) plus repairs, we decided to buy a new generation box for around the same money as the Sky call out charge. Read all the reviews of the new Sky set top boxes and thought that the Amstrad DRX550 or the Pace 430N was probably going to be best so set about finding one or the other on the internet. Couldn't find the Pace in stock anywhere so opted for the Amstrad. Noticed that the design of the Amstrad and the Thomson were identical but the Thomson slightly cheaper so we went for one of these. According to the online reviews, like http://www.satone.tv/digiboxes.htm this box has similar internals to the Pace, which was fine with us! So far, we've been absolutly delighted with the Thomson. The picture and sound quality is excellent, certainly far better than our original Grundig box, and the channel & menu changing like lightning compared to our first box! Very rapid! It's important to note that we've always used gold-plated scart and AV leads so this probably accounts for the quality of sound and picture and we've also set up our TV, VCR & STB as the info given on http://www.homecinemachoice.com/articles/wvarticles/general/200105_connections.php and NOT as the tyical set up diagram contained in the Sky instruction manual supplied with the box, so this has probably led to the great results we're getting. All in all, we're very satisfied indeed with the Thomson set top box. 5 out of 5 for us!

Dharm, Redhill on August 21st, 2006
Although picture quality is good and it switches channels quickly, the box has a tendency to ignore remote control buttons (randomly) which is very annoying. There should a firmware upgrade made available to overcome this - come on SKY wake up!!! Looking to replace with the Amstrad DRX550 or Pace - forget the Thompson :-(

Mark Elliott, Peterborough on August 16th, 2006
I got this box by mistake - the seller on eBay stated it was a second-hand Amstrad DRX-550 for sale, but sent me a Thomson DSI 4214 instead. I'm annoyed as I wanted the Amstrad version, which has excellent reviews. After all the bad reviews about this Thomson, if I'd have known I was going to get one of these, I'd have stayed well away. I'm pursuing the issue with the seller, and hope to get a full refund, as none of this is my fault - I was sent a totally different make and model to the one advertised. Firstly, this box looks beautiful and the build quality is excellent, but sadly I can confirm that the picture quality really is as bad as what people are making out. Even using a high-quality thick gold plated individually screened scart lead, the picture from this Thomson is absolutely dreadful - jagged edges/interlacing all around on-screen objects and people!! Also, I don't have a widescreen TV, and the letterboxing is blue instead of black, very weird!! Another thing I noticed was a serious picture shift to the left, I know RGB output has a very slight shift to the left, but the picture on this Thomson box is way-off centre. Stay well away from this from this piece of crap. I cannot believe Sky are providing such junk - this box should be taken out of circulation.

Jason, Devon on August 15th, 2006
Completely rubbish sky box, had one 2 weeks, it was replaced, even the replacement had the same issues, i.e. blue bars, wavy lines, AWFUL letterbox mode picture, both would start to ignore remote control buttons, and lock up. My independant sky man has now found me a new pace ds431n, sadly just discontinued before the thomson came out, , which i had before, just waiting for it to arrive. I had the pace before, and it is a brilliant little box. The Thomson is utter rubbish, AVOID!

Patrick, Burnley on July 29th, 2006
I've just had this box fitted, and was disappointed with the picture quality, however i have just changed scart cables to a superior one, which seems to have cleared up a fair few picture problems

Dan, Staffordshire on July 25th, 2006
This box is excellent. It's the fastest box I've ever had and it works like a dream. The channel changing is no longer a chore because it does it in no time. I'd go as far to say that this is THE best box Sky have ever let the manufacturers make.

Martyn, North West on July 19th, 2006
This box is a disgrace. Very Poor picture quality, blocky, distorted and very bad sawtooth edges. If a Sky engineer gets this box out of the van for you, demand he puts it back in the van or cancel the installation straight away. Sky keep harping on about this box being just a good quality as the identical looking Amstrad & Pace box, however it is nowhere near as good! Overall total - 0/5 stars - it does not even deserve 1 star!

Andy, Mansfield on June 22nd, 2006
Poor picture quality, blocky and distorted, alot of sawtooth edges.

Matt, Fife on June 4th, 2006
This box would lock-up almost daily, failing to record, and very noisy. I now have the Amstrad DRX550, which is far better.

Alan, Stafford on June 2nd, 2006
Sky came to fit the Thomson digibox on the 27 May but had problems with interference on the sound, so they replaced it with the Amstrad DRX550 that looks identical but works perfectly well.

Nigel Hampshire on May 30th, 2006
Awful picture quality very low definition sawtooth edges on straight lines. Had two boxes from sky both just as bad. Changed to an Amstrad manufactured box that looks identical apart from the back panel, this has a much better picture.

Andy, London on May 26th, 2006
This box plumbs a new low in terms of quality and function. A Client of mine very recently had two of these boxes installed by one of Sky's contractors. These boxes have either a serious firmware problem or a manufacturing defect whereby they lock-up when the PICTURE option is selected from the set up menu. All I get is a black screen and no ability to select any of the Picture menu options. Only a hard reboot restores operation. Also these boxes appear to have been setup to have a default RGB output. However the quality is terrible and with poor contrast and smearing all over the picture. I have replaced both boxes with current Pace models and have perfect results. I'd be really interested to hear of anybody else's experience with this model. Any Sky installers or Thomson folks with anything to report?