Odd this, as I know the DHD4000 is 8k compatible, and wasn't expecting any problems, but no matter what I do I can't get the DHD4000 to pick up the new 8k BBC mux.

Signal overload perhaps? Anyone else with any problems?

Matt

Now retried about 1.5 hours later (10pm) and this time it "found" an extra Mux whilst scanning (so found 7 in total). Now have BBC One back etc. Odd that it didn't work first time, as the Panasonic TV and TV DTT card both picked up the BBC mux when re-scanned at the same time as the DHD4000. Oh well, write that one off to "unexplained phenomenon"!

Matt

same here in leyland, all my other digital pvr,set top box & tv retuned ok.
thomson 4000 gives differing results on retrys mostly 6 mux sometimes 7.
the 6 mux do not include bbc1, bb2 etc 7 does but with poor picture.

tv, luxor pvr receiving similar signal from pair of aerials has no problem picking mux 62.

tryed fooling the thomson capture software to no avail.

anyone else struggling with 4000?

I have two Thomson 4000's and they have been perfect for 3 years now. Since yesterday's changes at Winterhill I have been struggling. Several retunes finally restored reception of BBC1 & 2 but the killer for me is the freezing of the picture and break up of sound that now makes BBC 1 viewing impossible. I have two relatively new digital TV's on the same aerial system fed thro a distribution amp and they receive BBC1 OK. One Thomson box is first in line to the aerial before the distibution amp and that gets the picture breakup equally badly.

I also have a Humax 9200 and fortunately that does not give picture breakup on BBC1 but it does suffer from the other fault reported in these forums of exceptionally slow response now to channel changes and playback functions.

Anyone know why these 'simple' channels changes can have caused these problems.

I am not a happy bunny. Grrrr. Surely I dont have to replace my three recorders!

Peter

yesterday managed 7 mux on my dhd4000, today only 6.

emailed digital uk, got a stock email back.

suspect they knew precisely what was about to happen, general answer is get new equipment, ok i go out and buy some kit, and then in december, oh dear, i can go out and buy some more kit. oh and in 2010 with hd i can get some kit. a professional oversight of these technical issues would have delivered both a customer friendly and an efficiently planned changeover process.

its not good enough, tax payers have a right to expect a better service than this.

2 major retunes in a month suggests a lack of interest in their effect on consumers.

Interesting to hear of other oddities. Perhaps this is just weirdness whilst one mux is 8k and the remainder are 2k. My parents and my in-laws also have DHD4000s in Granada-land and at least one of their boxes has shown the same refusal to pick up the channels at first, and then eventually getting it right.

On a similar note, I experienced on particularly weird feature. Before the retune we had "strictly come dancing - it takes two" scheduled for a daily record - 18.27 to 19.03 daily.

I was contemplating a restore to defaults, so just in case I photographed the record list in case I needed to refer to it. As it happened, I then retuned without the restore to defaults so I didn't need to look at the photo. But when we came to watch the programme, it had recorded something else from BBC2 later in the evening. I checked the record list and the scheduling *for that programme only* had shifted from the right times to 21:41 to 22:17. I then checked the photo from the previous night, and the times were different again (21.23 to 21.59). So the DHD4000 has, of its own accord, changed the scheduled times of these recordings twice in two days!!

No other scheduled recordings appeared to be affected.

Strange!

Matt

Hi All,

Just thought i would let you know, my parents have got the above with the same problem, cannot tune bbc1 or bbc2, tried a few times. I have emailed digital uk, see what happens

cheers

I'm starting to think that these issues are signal over-load related. Given that some boxes (mine included) are perfectly happy receiving the 8k transmissions, surely that can be the only other possible situation.

I suggest we start trying to debug this. One thing that would be really useful would be making sure everyone has tried manual tuning of the multiplex.

From memory, go to Setup then Technical Help and you'll see a display which shows the two tuners and which channel they are locked onto. Highlight tuner one, and change it so that it shows channel 62 (the new 8k BBC A mux). What is the signal strength? Is a picture displayed? If you select manual tune from the bottom, are any channels listed?

If its signal overload, try taking any amplifiers out of the loop, adding an attenuator (or some simple splitters in series to duplicate the effect of an attenuator) or try tuning with the aerial out of the back of the DHD4000 but held about 0.5cm away from the socket on the back. In all of these scenarios, try to tune / retune the box.

There is no known technical reason why DHD4000s shouldn't be compatible with the new transmissions, so we need to find out what is the problem that seems to be plaguing quite a few of us.

Matt

my setup is a split aerial for a sony tv & the thomson dhd4000 and a split aerial for a luxor tu250. only thomson is not finding 62. have tried direct aerial into thomson as well. have got a couple of gizmos for aerial feed into a pvr with 2 tuners (not currently using). will record signal/quality for various settings and report back.

this is a good reception area, i am using a sony settop box upstairs in my office (other side of house to w/hill) using a tv loop aerial with ok results!.

will also try thomson in office/another aerial for info.

I really don't think that anything in your aerial setup will be to blame - if you got BBC channels before the switch over, you should get it afterwards. The only factors that have changed are the 8k vs 2k transmissions and the strength of the transmissions. Given that my box receives the 8k fine (now), you should be able to rule that out as a potential problem.

Have you tried going into the technical setup menu and tried the things I suggested?

Matt

Tuner overload should be investigated: cheapo attenuators from Maplin vs posher variable attenuators. The signal has gone up by 10dB which may overload some frontends. I know some PVRs are not happy with mixed 2k /8k transmissions. I wouldn't make any big investment decisions till December 2nd when a more stable system will be in place!

My DHD4000 has always retuned 1st time every time until the 4th Nov.
After the change I get bbc wales and multiple duplicates on 800 chans. Digital Uk, the chocolate fire guard, say that this should only happen if you are on a border between Transmitters. I live in Cumbria, not known for its Welsh borders!
FYI dont bother emailing Digital Uk, they never answer!
It took about two days to get BBC chans back and now the sound and picture breaks up on all of them.

What's your location (other than "Cumbria", big place!!)? Were you definitely receiving BBC from Winter Hill previously? Are you definitely receiving BBC from Winter Hill now? (Presuming you know how to check this?)

I don't want to sound like a Digital UK sympathist, but it is a fact that since the Nov 4th switchover, BBC digital transmissions from Winter Hill are significantly stronger than before (though this is mitigated to some degree by going to a less robust other technical thing (16QAM became 64QAM)). This being the case, provided you are still receiving BBC from Winter Hill, there should be no way that the picture breaks up now more than before, unless your DHD4000 has a problem with too much signal.

Its not all Digital UKs fault you know, the manufacturers are equally (if not more so) to blame.

Matt

I'm also having problems with breakup on PSB1 channels since yesterday on my DHD4000 (I'm on the Cheshire/Flintshire border receiving from Winter Hill. All other muxes seem fine, but all channels on PSB1 on ch66 seem to suffer from 'stalling' pictures every few seconds, and occasional minor sound breakup.

Strangely, the reception on the Toshiba TV which is the next item 'downstream' from the Thomson in the RF feed is absolutely fine.

Up until now I've always had to use the 'remove the RF connector and hold it very close to the socket on the unit' method when rescanning, and it's worked fine. Doing that now, though, results in it not finding PSB1 at all. If I leave it plugged in and do a rescan, it finds something like 13 muxes - which I guess are WInter Hill, some from Moel-y-Parc, and a couple of the Sutton Coldfield ones which usually seem to creep in. Having looked at the 'technical help' screen, though, it always seems to be picking out the WH muxes for selected channels.

I didn't realise the transmission power from WH had gone up by that much - I do have a masthead amp sitting in the downlead in the loft, so perhaps the signal's overloading a bit now. Maybe tomorrow I'll nip up there and bypass the amp, and try another rescan to see if it improves things (or buggers up the other muxes). At the moment, most muxes are showing signal strength and quality at around 6-7-8 on the 'technical help' screen - PSB1 is showing strength 10, quality 9.

Odd ....

haven't managed to get 7 mux for a bit(?), so manual tune/add won't help,
i did try it when i had 7 but bbc1/bbc2 were not watchable.

my thomson 4000 was the most reliable of all my pvr before retune.

the fact that others are suffering same symptoms suggests an
8k/signal strength/thomson interaction.

My Humax founds all the BBC Channels but wouldnt display anything on screen. There were duplicates in the 800 range and when I deleted those and rescanned I got the BBC channels in the right place - tho the machine is now very slow to respond - i believe it is mentioned in other threads that its caused by signal overload.

Mt DT 6300 picked up the channels but will not update the TV guide - so I can't record Medium tonight!!

But you can manually retune without scanning the muxes can't you? Just go into the technical help page, select the appropriate channel and then select manual tune?

Matt

tried manual tune, unless there is an alternative mux to 62 can't see that helping. managed to get 7 mux tonight but 62 is still useless.

haven't found my gizmos that might "wobble" the signal so that thomson
will pick it up & process it.

What does the technical menu show for signal strength etc if you tune a tuner to ch 62? What about if you leave it on that channel for a while? Have you tried just removing the coax from the back and scanning that way?

Matt

We are also having problems with BBC channels freezing or breaking up after the retune. I spoke to a digitaluk person in Chester yesterday and apparently there are a lot of people in the Chester area with similar problems, she also said that the transmissions were only at 20% strength but will be going to full strength on 2 December. Looks like we will have to wait until then and keep our fingers crossed.

Well she doesn't know what she's talking about then. The BBC mux from Winter Hill is now on full DSO power (100kw ERP) and won't change on 2nd December. All of the other multiplexes will change and increase to that same level of power on 2nd December.

Matt

Strangeness continues ...

Went up into the loft this morning and took the masthead amp (which was giving 15dB gain) out of the downlead. Tried a retune on the Thomson. All channels present and correct - but not only do channels on the PSB1 mux still exhibit the same 'breakup' symptoms, but lots of other channels now do exactly the same!

So ... back up into the loft, amp back into the line, and another retune. The situation I'm at now is that channels on muxes other than PSB1 are being received from WH perfectly clearly ; and I'm now getting PSB1 from Sutton Coldfield - perfectly clearly! Hmm.

The aerial I've got on the roof at the moment is a cheap and cheerful 'contract' type thing (wideband, I think) which I suspect is the one which was put up there when this house was built, so that's probably not helping much.

I think I'll live with things as they are for now until the December re-tune, and see what happens. If the power of all the muxes on WH are coming up to match mux1 it sounds like I might be able to do away with the amp at that point, but who knows?!

I'm thinking there might also be some mileage in a decent new aerial at that point, too - along with paying someone with the proper measuring kit to come and fit it for me and make sure that there's enough, but not too much, signal appearing at the end of the downlead. (I know what I'm talking about up to a point when it comes to these things, but I'm not going up on the roof to do a 'Rod Hull' and I don't have access to the required measuring equipment to check out exactly what my signal's doing.)

My first retune captured all 6 muxes from Winter Hill, but reception on the new BBC mux was very patchy due to overload; ch62 registered 10 on the signal strength. Reduced the gain on my distribution amp and retuned, several times, but lost 62 altogether. Eventually had to reset to default (yellow button) before retuning to find all 6 again. (You'll need to set your preferences etc again).

Manual tuning is a misnomer; you can't scan a specific mux with it, just add in programme channels from alternate muxes already detected.

If you do manage to tune it in, tweak your aerial gain by whatever means you have available so that ch62 strength is just below 10.

Well, where are we now?

I phoned Thomson and they suggested that I access the engineer's menu and reset to default settings. I did this on both my 4000's and when thet were turned on again they re-tuned but only found 6 frequencies, not 7. Both hung with the message push green to continue, but they wouldn't continue so I turned off and on again. As expected BBC1 and BBC2 were missing.

I re-tuned again from the standard menu and now they both found 7 frequencies and BBC1 and 2 were again receivable but unhappily still with breakups in picture and sound.

My Humax which is in-line just after one of the Thomsons continues to receive BBC1 and 2 without picture and sound breakup. THERE IS DEFINITELY SOMETING THAT THE THOMPSON CANNOT DEAL WITH, WITH RESPECT TO THE NEW TRANSMISSION FOR BBC 1 AND 2.

Thomson's advice is to wait until the after the next 'upgrade' in the transmission in December.

For what its worth I have a 9 dB attenuator in my aerial lead since 3 years ago. Why? I had an aerial installer look at my system to get my first Thomson box working. He checked and said that I had a good signal and he said it was a faulty receiver. To be sure, I asked him to put in a new down lead using the shortest route. It made no difference and susequently Thomson replaced my receiver FOC. However, when the installer had gone I found my signal was so strong now, that I had really bad cross modulation on the then analogue TV receiver. I cured this by putting in the 9dB attenuator. Several posters on here have said the the picture breakup problems could be due to too stong a signal. Well for me taking the attenuator out now does not make the breakup worse, if anything it makes it slightly better.

I agree it's not handling the new mux very well. My signal level is about 8/9 for channel 62 and would normally give very good reception, but I am now getting video blocking and/or sound dropouts every 15-20 secs or so. It affects recordings, live buffering and live viewing equally. BBC Radio and other muxes seem unaffected. I have other pvrs which don't have any problems with it at all.

They may be right about the upgrade, I've heard that some machines have difficulty dealing with the 8K and 2K modulations at the same time, the 4000 might be one of them.