I purchased a TriStar AV sender a while back and admittedly it was a cheap option. The actual send / receive worked fine but the IR from the remote control needed you to stick an eye shaped thing on a long wire over the front of the red light on the Sky box. I spent about 2 minutes setting the whole thing up and about half an hour sticking the stupid eye thing on the front of the Sky box with clear tape. Every time I dust the Sky box, it takes me ages to realign the eye.

Anyway now the eye has stopped working completely and I'm secretly pleased. I'm going to smash it into tiny pieces...

So, I need to replace the whole system. Can anyone recommend one that doesn't require me to act like I am auditioning for a presenting role on a shopping channel craft programme and has a built in IR thing? I've red the spec on a few that say "built in" IR then they proceed to list IR extender as a separate thing in "whats in the box" lists.

I think they all work like that.

It has to 'forward' the IR signal to the IR pickup on the home device somehow ..... not aware of it being able to do this by SCART?

I have a Philips AV sender (which I never use now I have multiroom ... if you're interested in buying it, drop me a PM!) and it has a little extension for the IR pickup (in fact, it has two as it's able to have two devices connected to it). It's oblong shaped and I always found it slotted quite nicely under the Sky box directly below the IR pickup on the front of the box with the wire for it hidden under the box. Seemed to fine set up that way. You *could* take it directly onto the pickup on the box, but you don't actually need to ....

I have the same AV sender and I have no problems with the IR eye's, I find them very easy to setup and very responsive.

Are you definately putting the IR eye in front of the IR sensor on the digibox and not in front of the IR remote LED that flashes when you push a button? people commonly do that thinking it's the sensor!

Are you definitely putting the IR eye in front of the IR sensor on the digibox and not in front of the IR remote LED that flashes when you push a button? people commonly do that thinking it's the sensor![/quote]

Hmmm.... good point. It has always worked before after the 30 minute sticky tape session but I am perfectly prepared to believe that, in my state of advanced tantrum, I've tried sticking it in the wrong place this time.

I've got one of those silver Sky boxes with the curved front that does nothing to assist with the sticking on of stupid eye things. I shall try tonight later and report back but you may well have saved me a few pounds if I've done something daft.

Ah. That may indeed not be helping.

Using mine with a Pace V2 Sky+ was no problem as it has square edges with the IR pickup right at the bottom of the front edge ..... which made wedging the IR extender from the sender box in there relatively easy.

i bought the philex version of the same and the sender is blu tac'd to the shelf in front of the ir receiver but facing directly up. i found that if i had it pointing directly at the receiver the remote didnt work at all. im guessing that something swamoed the received signal totally. but the philex email helpline told me to orientate it like that. hope that helps ??

I finally got this to work. As the eye is on the end of a piece of wire I had originally stuck this on the front of the box with clear tape as it cannot support itself. I discovered that the eye works fine if it is further away from the box, not actually stuck on it. It looks a bit Heath Robinson with the eye standing upright through copious amounts of clear tape. Fortunately its now in a cupboard. I guess if I hadn't bought the cheapest one available there might have been a nice little stand to hook it on.