All Thompson Sky boxes are pants in my experience, went through a couple of Thompson PVR3 HD boxes - both were really sluggish when Sky moved to the proper HD planner and both had their power supply capacitor's dry up
A bit of nagging got Sky to send me one of the newer Amstrad PVR5 boxes which has been much, much better. A friend had exactly the same problems with his Thompson HD box, got Sky to swap it for an Amstrad and all issues are gone
