PVR's ok signal, standard freeview boxes not
since approx beginning of February the signal and quality on my 2 Vestel PVRS has remained unchanged and pretty good.
But on a freeview box in another room it became unwatchable due to pixellation- particularly on channels like Food network but even got to the stage when BBC1 unwatchable.
I have several old freeview boxes and have tried them all - all no good in either socket. Moved the PVR in place and it is fine no problem.
Not sure why signal has degraded but the PVR's are ok. Do they have some kind of booster?
I want my PVR back for 2 reasons -
1) I want to connect it back up to main tv to catch up on recordings
2) rather have a standard freeview box in other room as quicker boot time.
I have tried retuning the freeview boxes to no avail. Tried different cables etc
I'm currently on the lookout for another cheap Vestel PVR even without hard disk as this seems to be the only thing to work.
Any other suggestions ?
But on a freeview box in another room it became unwatchable due to pixellation- particularly on channels like Food network but even got to the stage when BBC1 unwatchable.
I have several old freeview boxes and have tried them all - all no good in either socket. Moved the PVR in place and it is fine no problem.
Not sure why signal has degraded but the PVR's are ok. Do they have some kind of booster?
I want my PVR back for 2 reasons -
1) I want to connect it back up to main tv to catch up on recordings
2) rather have a standard freeview box in other room as quicker boot time.
I have tried retuning the freeview boxes to no avail. Tried different cables etc
I'm currently on the lookout for another cheap Vestel PVR even without hard disk as this seems to be the only thing to work.
Any other suggestions ?
0
Comments
Do the PVRs and/or the other boxes have an option to show Signal Strength and Quality? If so what sort of level are you getting. Bearing in mind that the actual readings cannot be compared between boxes as there is no set definition of what 100% means. But if the Strength reading is low, 30-40% then that may indicate you have an issue with the aerial system.
If so then it would be more worthwhile sorting out the aerial than investing in new receivers. As there is a chance the aerial fault may get worse over time and you end up with nothing working.
One other potential cause of this problem is receiving from two different transmitters. A weaker distant one and a stronger local one. It might actually be the Freeview boxes with the more sensitive tuners and they might be latching on to the weaker distant transmitter if the frequencies it uses are lower than the local transmitter, so get picked up first in a scan.
If this is the case you may find duplicates of the channels numbered from 800 which are the local transmitter versions. If so the solution is to do a manual tune where you tell the box what UHF channels to use.
If you are uncertain what they are poke your postcode into the Coverage Checker box here
http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/
Tick the Detailed View box then click on Go. This gives you a list of available transmitters with the most likely one first. Scroll down and the table you'll see lists the UHF channel numbers you need in the columns headed N.
You are right I do pick up from 2 transmitters. In fact my strongest transmitter is not the one shown in the postcode checker as most likely, it is the alternative transmitter.
I can only pick up ITV from the weaker transmitter. I had already tried tuning with the UHF numbers.
It has always been this way so I cannot work out what has happened in last few weeks. If there is an issue with aerial I would have expected to see some degradation on PVRS also, although accept they have different sensitivity, but 3 or 4 different freeview boxes and none of them work.
Whilst I have a workaround I will leave any full aerial investigations until later in the year at least until after 4G switched on.
Based on this thread I might look at masthead amp and PSU.
Will post signal levels later when I work out which freeview box displays them best.
With all the bad weather we have had recently it is very possible the aerial has moved round or got waterlogged (assuming it's a roof aerial). Which will degrade the signal.
One other thing that might be worth checking. Use one box as your reference and try it on all the aerial points to check signal level. See if there is any appreciable difference between them.
You don't say what sort of cabling you have. If it's from the aerial to wall plates in each room might be worth lifting the wall plates off and checking the state of the connections. Not unknown for screws to work loose or a stray strand of screen braid to work loose and touch the inner conductor.
If you don't have wall plates but just a length of cable poking out the wall (or whatever) then check the state of the plug if it is a rewireable type. Make sure everything is in good order.
I think the multiple transmitters do have something to do with my problem but also think it is something to do with the new local channel LCN 8.
PVRS show very good quality and a nearly full level bar. They can also pick up a good signal from ITV from 2nd transmitter.
Freeview box1 (my oldest box), aerial point 2 (back of house)
thanks to a post on here I found the secret manual tuning screen. Tried one UHF but before I could check the results it had auto retuned to anything it could find. On checking the quality and level - most were Q1 and approx 50% level but L-LON LCN 8 was showing quality 10 and was the only watchable channel. Added to that it was 'seeing' some level from a third transmitter!
Freeview box1 (my oldest box), aerial point 1 (front of house)
very similar results but not 'seeing' third transmitter. Only channel watchable was 8. Even before the box autoretuned ( which is pdq) the first UHF I tuned wasn't watchable.
No way to stop this box from auto retuning.
Freeview box2 (my newest box), aerial point 1 (front of house)
No manual tune method but similar results - channel 8 100% quality all others 0%.
Freeview box3, aerial point 1 (front of house)
A box that will let me manual tune one UHF and not autoretune - although the level and quality looked middling after tuning still not watchable. Except for channel 8 which is picture/sound perfect !
So all fairly consistent , not a box problem and not an aerial point problem.
My options :-
1) Do nothing - stick with Pvrs - easiest and cheapest !
2) Try a bandpass filter - but I still don't understand how the local channel is getting through and the other UHF numbers lower than it are not.
3) Try removing masthead amp in the hope it picks up the stronger signal well enough but blocks out weaker.
4) Call in aerial experts.
Drawbacks of option 3 - would need to add new connectors and not a great deal of room to stand safely and fiddle with wires. Don't won't to risk mucking up currently working signal to PVR.
Thanks for trying to help. I am going to stick with option 1 for the time being !
This auto tune you talk about. I'm wondering if it is an Add New Channels option kicking in? When you tried manually tuning did you wipe the existing channel memory? If you did not the box will retain the details of the previously tuned muxes and may well try and retune the channels.
What you can try is, use an Edit Channels option to delete every TV and radio channel, do an auto tune with the aerial unplugged, or do a factory reset on the box and cancel the auto tune when it restarts. And it should be possible to disable any Add New Channel option.
One of the boxes didn't even have an option to delete channels or reset so I resorted to the tuning with no aerial method for that one.
None of them had a menu option for not auto adding channels.
An attenuator is a cheap option to try. There is an optional retune scheduled for one of the transmitters soon so I'll wait until after that...
Well you were right about the fault getting worse over time and I nearly ended up with nothing working. Since my last post -
1) Son bought new TV mainly for gaming but it tuned TV channels perfectly no problems.
2) PVR's - non BBC/ITV channels degraded so much that not able to watch which didn't bother me much but other half likes a few - eg food network,
3) PVR's -then recently BBC1 and ITV suffer from intermittent but regular interference so bad that not able to watch . e.g seemed to be early evening then improve for a couple of hours then go off. Couldn't relate it to weather or other electrical devices.
So now it had got to the point where I had to do something - thinking it would possibly end up as new aerial. I should have followed up my own suggestion that I wrote in post 4. I was avoiding changing the masthead amp whilst things were ok especially as I needed to put plug ends on the cable but today I bought the whole kit thinking I might as well try it before calling an aerial installer in.
Changed the PSU only and it worked ! To think I could have solved it months ago and also in 2012 I temporarily changed the PSU trying to solve PVR playback glitching but it didn't make a difference so took it back. If I left it in place I wouldn't have had this problem. I would not have thought you could have got the gradual degradation with the PSU , thought it would either provide power or not.
So now freeview boxes work but actually have no need as other half says PVR staying in place. At least I have them as back up if PVR fails. Still a little early to say if totally without interference but looking good so far.
Yes, covered here. See point number 8.
http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/freeview_problems.htm
Power Supply capacitors tend to degrade gradually. You can speed it up by putting the PSU in a warm room and you can add to the excitement by placing it on a nice thick-pile, flammable carpet! (Don't try this at home without a fire extinguisher!)
If you are adept at soldering and hacking into plastic housings, it's usually possible to replace the capacitors but be sure to use the correct Low-ESR type. More info.:-
http://www.satcure.co.uk/accs/low_ESR_capacitors.htm#plague
Thanks. You could have told me that 4 months ago! ;-)
Relieved it is solved anyway.