I bought the Asda Dual branded version of this box at the weekend.
It works fine except for one thing.
When using the RGB connection to the TV the Red seems displaced a millimetre or so to the right.
It is not particularly noticeable on close ups but on distant shots of people wearing red or reddish colours and red on screen graphics such as BBC news it is quite noticeable.
A bit like a projection tv with the convergence fractionally out.
Obviously this has a derogatory effect on background detail particularly anything in the red-brown range.
Faces also appear with a faint greyish band on the left side with a flesh colured bleed over on the right.

I have considered that it might be due to my scart connection but I am using an existing lead that worked perfectly ok with the Daewoo Setpal box that this unit replaces.

Does any one know of a hidden service function to adjust the red "timing" to correct this?

For the time being I have switched to using the SVideo output which gives nearly as good a picture without the red error.

If it were me, I'd be taking it back immediately for a replacement. Undoubtedly it's a hardware fault, why put up with it? You may find it gets worse the longer you leave it.

I purchased the Digihome version of this machine from Argos last August and reported in this forum that of the three that I had obtained all had to be returned due to the shift in colour. It appears that the Digihome converts the mpeg signal to PAL before using this signal to record onto the hard drive. This process causes the colour to be delayed when converted back to RGB and results in this anoying defect. The picture appears OK if you select compositive video output, but of course you loose some of the RGB definition and get all the problems connected with PAL.
As a postscript I have a Tevion now which tends to do the same but delays the whole colour content by one complete picture line so there is a small error in the vertical rather than horizontal!
Last edited by television2004 : 15-03-2007 at 13:03

I doubt that very much. The Digihome (like most DVRs) will record a partial transport stream to the HDD with little, if any, processing. On playback the partial transport stream gets converted to an analogue signal.

Are you sure you not just got a crap telly?

You've put that far more diplomatically than I was going to .

If this effect is appearing on a batch of units, it's undoubtedly a design fault in the rgb conversion process.

If it's just your tv you'll get the same effect on other rgb devices connected to it.

Yes, the whole point of a PVR is that it records the incoming digital data stream - whch makes it dead easy to do, and means you get perfect recording. This is why you can't record via SCART, because there's no A2D and compression available.

I don't know what TV television2004 is using but on checking with other sets I own the problem is only really noticeable on a very good telly.
This unit is normally connected to a 32" Philips TV with Pixel Plus 2 processing. This has the effect (amongst others) of enhancing the detail in the picture (subjectively) quite considerably, it also changes the scan rate from 625 lines 50Hz to 833 lines 75Hz.
I have discovered that it is this enhancement that shows up the fault.
If using on my old 28" 50Hz TV in the bedroom or the 14" portable in the kitchen the problem is barely noticable on the 28" (and then only because you are really looking for it) and not at all on the 14".

Possibly I may be being too fussy for what is, after all, a very good value for money machine. It may well be that you get what you pay for (That'll teach me for nipping in to Asda for a loaf of bread).
If it annoys me too much it will be relegated to the bedroom.
It's certainly a good machine with which to stick your toe in the PVR waters as it were

I am viewing on a good branded 42" Plasma and the picture is perfect (via RGB).

Your problems could be due to faulty Digihome unit(s) but more likely the picture-enhancing process your very good telly adds to the output signal. Can the enhance mode be disabled to see if the colour problem goes away?

I have noticed this too and am watching on a 42" Panasonic PW7 with ISF calibration and good quality scart through a RGB>VGA converter.

Nothing else I have ever connected to this display has had this problem.

I doubt it's a bad batch of Digihomes, I suspect it's a general poor build or cheap components.

No I can assure you that the colour lagged the monochrome signal so it was obvious that the two had been seperated from the original data stream. In order to produce compositive video output the baseband signal needs three components synchronisation pulses, the monochrome picture element and a supressed colour subcarrier at 4.43Mhz. It appears on the Digihome receiver that the data stream is converted first to this then re-converted back to RGB this results in the displacement. It is people who probably have cheap TVs who do not notice this displacement or do not know the difference between RGB and compositive video. To check go on Sky News and look at the red button in the bottom left hand corner it should be perfectly set in the white background. Of course you will need a scart lead not RF connection to your TV to get RGB and of course stereo sound. Altering the set up in the Digihome menu will also allow you to see the difference between RGB and CBVS.
The default setting for Digihome receivers is compositive video via the scart lead so some users would be satisfied and think the Digihome did not have this RGB displacement problem.
Last edited by television2004 : 16-03-2007 at 09:41

Which sort of brings me back to my original question.
Is there some way of adjusting this displacement.
I'm reasonably technically minded but not sufficiently to know if anything can be done.
Is there some way of delaying the luminance (e.g. monochrome) signal to compensate?
Would a resistor, capacitor or inductance inserted into the scart lead be capable of introducing this delay.
BTW as a note for anyone interested I have discovered that setting SVideo output for the TV scart also removes the chrominance signal (colour) from the composite phono socket.
It makes me wonder whether poor buffering in the video output stages of the box has anything to do with the problem.

I'm not up on my domestic telly theory, but here is a question for Bspks
1 Are you are sure you are viewing in RGB, most modern crt tellies perform quite poorly in composite (PAL), they have crap PAL decoders in them, you will often see a "fuzzyness" on chroma edges, and the sharpness controls are evil
See if it is your telly go to analogue itv teletext page 699 and look at the test signal to see if you get any red fringing, if you do then its your set and not the box.
The telly in my office (of a major broadcaster) is poor especially with my nose up to the glass.
Oh I presume you have a proper crt telly ?

As you would have seen from my earlier post yes I have a proper CRT telly.
It was DEFINITELY in RGB mode when witnessing the problem.
As I stated at the beginning of the post I have reverted to using SVideo for the time being to alleviate the problem. The picture is nearly as good as RGB but I can see the difference.
The composite (CVBS) signal also does not have the problem but, of course, the resolution of the picture drops still further when I can see the sort of colour bleed and tizzing on captions & fine detail expected with PAL.
This problem of red delay is most noticable on RGB when although the picture detail goes up as it should on viewing pictures without much red/brown content it causes severe fringing on fine detail with red/brown content.
When I get a spare minute & no-one else wants to watch TV I will hook up my DVD recorder to the RGB output, record a segment showing this fault and post a picture of it on this forum.

As far I can remember every ouput would be derived from rgbs, maybe someone in the know would enlighten us what the mpeg data stream of the hard drive is converted to when it becomes a traditional analogue video signal.
It is possible using delay lines to delay on component, but not really practical, I notice your box is only a few days old, so take it back for a replacement if you suspect a fault

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the digital data stream in YUV (luma and two chrominance components) format (like DVD's are recorded)? So the data stream (recorded or not) has to be converted to RGB (presmumably done digitally).
The americans use YUV much more widely than RGB.
YUV I believe uses less bandwith than transmitting an RGB signal would use.
I would guess that this conversion process is whats going a stray?

I have considered returning the unit but as other users have noticed similar problems I am wondering whether that would do any good.
Also I have already accumulated about 10 hours of library programming which would need to be transferred to DVD first.
However, I was given a much higher quality Scart lead at the weekend ,OFC, full high quality screening, gold plated plugs etc. (From a friend who bought a wall mount plasma and coudn't use it cos it's too thick and too long at 3m).
I tried substituting that and the problem improved but wasn't cured.
But, on going back to SVideo using this lead the picture is much improved and, as far as I can see, as good (subjectively) as the RGB should be.
(For any one wondering how I can compare to RGB if you look at my services listing you will see that I have Sky Digital as well as Freeview so that gives me a staright comparison on BBC and Channel 4, not ITV because that transmits at a lower resolution on satellite).
So I'm going to continue to use it this way for a few days to see if I can live with it.

Hopefully, someone will work out soon how to access the recordings on the hard disk and play them back on a computer. If the misregistration is still there, then it clearly is in the recording.