Sorry if this is a duplicate of a prior post, I thought I had seen this information on here before but have been searching and cannot find it.

Could somebody please tell me how I can get into the 'engineering' menu on my Homechoice box. The guy who fitted it used this to display the strength of signal into the box and he had some problems getting a strong enough signal for it to work. Now he is long gone and I am getting occasional picture freezes, before I call Homechoice tech support I'd like to know if the signal strength could be the cause.

Try this: http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/...red+green+blue

I have had Homechoice for a while as well. I too get ocassionally freezes but nothing major. One thing I have noticed is that my line can vary between 17db's and 14db's depending on the time of day and wondered how this compared with other people. I take it that higher is better.

Recommend that you ring Tech Support.
I rang them about something else, which they resolved. Five minutes later they rang me to say that they had been checking my line (slow day?) and had noticed that I had been suffering noise on the line, which had caused picture freezes the night before (first I knew but my daughter confirmed that this was true). Tech Support said they were going to do something (can't remember what) and that I would lose my picture for about 5 minutes. All true and 5 minutes later everything came back and no picture freezes since.

Thanks, would you say that it improved the picture. By the way I have been on firmware 02.03.06 since I have had the unit does this ever get updated?

Thanks simply gray did just that 30 mins ago and they updated my profile and asked me to reboot. I notice that under the Engineering screen (by pressing Red,Green,Blue when box in standby) tells me that my DB rating is now 25 (against 17db previous). Anyway hope this solves the freezing I notice that my internet download speed is around 1.5mb with the homechoice box on TV, the full 4mb when it isn't whereas before there was no change.

I was told by tech support that the "reboot" and "update of profile" can solve remote issues, give you a better picture with no glitches. We shall see.

Thanks for the info pissedbob and everyone else who has added comments. When I display the RGB menu I get:

CMSG2 rate 904 margin 21db atten 18.0db
RMSG2 rate 4064 margin 9db atten 34.0db

Do these figures look normal to those in the know ?

Quite a bit different to mine but not sure which is best

CMSG2 rate 1196 margin 23db atten14db
RMSG2 rate 10396 margin 24db atten 28db

As I understand it the first line refers to your upstream speed & signal quality, and the second line is for the downstream.

The first two numbers on each line are a) the maximum speed going into/out of the box (in bits/sec) and b) the signal-to-noise ratio (higher is better, up to a point).

NB: the speed is the maximum going into the box, including bandwidth for the TV service & regardless of which package you're subscribed to.

So plugman's figures are good (~10Mb, good signal-to-noise ratio) and yvs24's are not (~4Mb, poor). I'd ring tech support if I were you

For what it's worth I get:

CSMG2 rate 1244 margin 25db atten 4.0db
RSMG2 rate 8612 margin 18db atten 9.0db

(though interestingly if you then press yellow on that screen you get a whole different set of figures..)

Thanks pissedbob and plugman, your figures gave me some ammo to talk to Homechoice customer services. They have now changed my profile and I get a much higher rate on the upstream and downstream figures. Nothing noticeable in terms of the TV picture as the freezing was pretty intermittent but I have noticed a huge upwards jump in Internet speed. It was almost as if I previously had a downgraded service and now I'm (almost) getting what I should have had all along.

I've been trying the red/green/blue after the red light goes and the blue sync light begins to flash but can't get the stats page to appear. Does this remote code still work for everyone? Maybe I am timing it wrong. Any help much appreciated.

Yes, Just press red green blue in order when no light is on the box ie when it is in standby.

Hope this helps.

Hmm, the problem I have is that when I switch the box to standby, the blue light is still on. It's definately in standby as there is no TV signal from the SCART. Once the box is switched on and after the blue light has flashed to gain sync, the blue light has always remained on on my box.

I thought this was perfectly normal, does the blue light go out on everyone else's box when it's in standby?

If you have a PC or router connected to the box and switched on, the blue light generally stays on.

To do this test, switch it off and then on again using the button on the box. When the red light goes off, press red then green then blue. Works for me

Ah, thanks for that. It worked fine after I unplugged the ethernet cable. As soon as I plugged it back in , the stats page disappeared. I wondered why it wouldn't work!