Occasional Picture & Audio Problems on S3

[Tippy]

I'm having two problems (different, I think) that I need some help with.

1. Occasionally, and always on one of my five HD channels, I go to a channel (either recorded or live) and I get a picture that is extremely pixelated (see attached) and has unintelligible, beeping audio. This seems to happen more in the morning but other than that, I can’t isolate it but I have found that is happens on more than just one specific channel. When I’ve been able to, I’ve switched over to my SA8300HD, checked the problem channel on the SA unit, and the picture/audio have been fine. I think the problem is occurring on both tuners but I’m not positive. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

Note: I’ve tried to force a tuner switch when encountering this problem but I haven’t found an easy way to switch the tuners (from one cable-card to the other). Is there any easy way to do this?

2. This morning when I turned on my TV (via the Tivo) I did not have any audio. I did some playing around and discovered it was only on channels 100 and above (I assume these are the digital channels, but I don’t know how to verify this). I checked these same channels through my cable box and they were working fine. I forced two recordings (nothing was previously recording), played around for a few minutes, and then voila, the audio came on. Any suggestions?

Details:
S3 unmodified
Charter cable with two cable cards
HDMI connection from Tivo to TV
Philips plasma (and using audio from the TV)


THANKS IN ADVANCE!

Edit: My signal strength is running in the 90s generally. I checked it specifically on the channel with the pixelation and audio problem and it read 94.


P.S. How do I insert an image directly into the message? I see the "insert image" icon above but can't figure out how to put the image in the message other than attaching it. Thanks.

[jfh3]

First thing to do is have the cable company come out and make sure your signal level (dBmv) on the cable is good - not too weak or too hot, both of which may cause occasional problems like in your picture.

There are other potential causes as well, but that's the first thing you should check.

[ehardman]

I have the same problem. It comes and goes. The same feed that the Series 3 uses provides a perfect picture to my Pioneer 5070 plasma with a cable card. I can't figure it out. I am beginning to wonder if the Series 3 requires a stronger signal than my Pioneer.

Several others have posted similar problems over the last several days. Tivo support tells me I have 2 bad cable cards, but I think that is BS.

[bicker]

Why? We know that CableCards are flaky... what makes you think that they're specifically not the source of the problems?

[ehardman]

Why? We know that CableCards are flaky... what makes you think that they're specifically not the source of the problems?

Cox came out to do my original install. The installer had 9 cards. the first card worked right away when placed in slot 1. The other 8 cards all brought up a 162-2 (bad card) error. Tivo said the cards are bad.

We put one of the "bad" cards in slot 1 and the "good" card in slot 2. Now the "bad" card worked perfectly and good card no longer worked (it was now in slot 2). With this, it was determined that slot 2 was bad and not the cards. Bear in mind Tivo the whole time still believes it was bad cards.

Got the Series 3 replaced, the installer came out with the same "bad" cards. He put them in the new Series 3 and everything worked perfectly the first try.

In my opinion, when something doesn't work as expected, Tivo support's stock answer is "bad card." There are known software related problems with audio and video dropouts that Tivo has admitted they are working on.

[Tippy]

I forgot to mention that my signal strength is running in the 90s generally. I checked it specifically on the channel with the pixelation and audio problem and it read 94.

Tippy

[Tippy]

The HD channel that was pixelated this morning is still pixelated now. :mad: The problem channel is CBS HD, though it has been NBC HD on previous occasions. The funny thing is it only seems to affect one channel at a time.

I did a restart of the Tivo and that didn't help. I also checked the signal strength again and the problem channel was 93, about the same as the other channels. I also switched over again to check the problem channel on my SA 8300HD and the picture on that unit (still on the problem channel) is fine.

Can someone tell me how to switch from one tuner to the other? If the problem occurs only on one tuner/cc, that would indicate to me that it is indeed a cable card problem. If it occurs on both, I'm not sure what that indicates (Tivo, cable, or cable card). :confused:

Any other suggestions? I am going to get the cable guy over next week but I'm not sure that I'll get much help from him when the picture out of the standard cable is working fine on the TV and the picture out of the SA cable box is fine as well. I expect I'll get "it's not the cable, it's your Tivo. Why not just use the SA box?"

Any advice/suggestions that may help diagnose or narrow down the problem would be greatly appreciated! :)

[jfh3]

I forgot to mention that my signal strength is running in the 90s generally. I checked it specifically on the channel with the pixelation and audio problem and it read 94.


Signal strength as reported by the Tivo has no corelation to signal strength/quality coming in on the cable.

Get your cable company to verify the signal level coming in to the box (you want as close to 0 dBmv as you can get) before you spend a lot of time looking at other things.