Pixalation problem on sat 2; suggestions?

[marklyn]

Over the past few months one of my HDVR2's has developed a pixalation problem which I started to notice on recordings of South Park. I have another HDVR2 in my bedroom, also recording SP, but never have seen the problem there and when I'm experiencing these issues on my living room HDVR2, I go to the back and check both tuners for the same channels... never a problem on the back unit. I diagnosed my problem to be my multiplexer so I purchased a new multiplexer and that didn't fix the problem. I then turned to the dish and re-aligned it (finding the weakest transponder - #17) and got 1-2 more points by the new alignment but that still didn't fix the problem. Last night I noticed that on channel 249 (Comedy Channel) it was pixelating a little but on channel 260 (WE) it was severely pixelating. I noticed that if I switched tuners, the other tuner would not pixelate at all (sat 1) but Sat 2 pixelated on those channels, especially 260. I even switched the cable input in the back thinking I may have a bad cable but it still did the same thing, cable switching didn't make any difference.
I did go through my sat strength screens and noticed on transponders 23-27 (or so) that, very quickly, sat 2 would zero out for a split second and re-aquire quickly. Other than that, both sat inputs seemed to stay around the same strength with sat 2 occasionally 1-2 points behind sat 1.

It sounds like the sat 2 input on the HDVR2 is faulty but I've never heard of this before on the boards. If anyone agrees with this, is there a way to fix a non-warranty HDVR2 or should I consider just replacing it with one from Ebay?

[doconeill]

I had this exact problem with my HDVR2. Tuner 1 is perfectly fine, but Tuner 2 pixellated, occasionally to the point of freezing the unit if left long enough.

There is no known fix. I disabled the second tuner for a while, but I realized how dependent I was on it, so I bought a new DSR708 from Weaknees and "retired" the HDVR2 as a spare unit.

I have seen a couple similar cases here, always with an HDVR2. I wonder if there was some weakness in the second tuner that it showing up as the units near 2 years old...

[marklyn]

It's strange though. I can move up/down the channel list and so far the only channels I notice it's pixelating on is the comedy channel & WE. Other channels seem to be fine.

I'm guessing there isn't an easy way to fix this issue and I don't really know if I've always had this issue or if it's something that cropped up over time.

[doconeill]

I know it wasn't always there on mine...it got worse over time once we first noticed it.

I'm sure it has something to due with the relative strengths of the signals as well. I didn't have the pixellation problem on the locals (they are carried on spot-beam, and thus have the strongest signals), but it was VERY noticeable on the Disney channels, which unfortunately it was often on (for my kids).

One othr thing I did to verify the issue - I replaced the hard drive (it still had the original), but it did not affect the issue at all.

[johnpoz]

Just wanted to say that I had this exact problem -- one of the tuners bad.. in my HDVR2..

Was driving me nuts for a while, thought it was rain fade when first noticed it.. Adjusted my signal.. then started to notice it when not a cloud in the sky 90-100 signal strength..

But since it only happened on one turner on 1 of 2 units - did not always run into the problem.. But it was not limited to any specific channels.. I saw it both on locals and higher channels..

It finally got really bad - and shows were not watchable on that tuner.. So picked up a dsr7000 from weaknees for $45.. man just checked $65 now.. Took the hard drive out the HDVR2 booted (used crypto) ran 51killer - put in my access card, rebooted back in business..

Just wanted to say thanks to the forums, and for and the zipper of course, for allowing me to be able to have access to the tools I need to move a hard drive from one unit to the other, and works great now..