thanks fergusrb, i think my last post was mis-understood... the starview I have is not "the box".. so I don't think I should put v4.50 onto it... so if you have any other ideas it will be much appreciated . . one more thing i did notice about it aswell, the channels that seem to have "no signal" all seem to be the +1 channels (e.g. e4+1, living tv+1, more4+1, bravo+1 etc...)
if you have you cable split you won't get a signal for those channels so you can either remove the splitter or buy a signal booster.
cheers ryanmg, i've got a separate connection for the bedroom so i guess i'll give a signal booster a try... thanks again for your help