Recording problem with Phillips Series 2 DTivo

[jhoweaa]

I have a Phillips Series 2 (DSR708) which has just recently started having problems with recording shows. Both tuners and signals seem fine while watching live TV, but if you are watching live TV on one tuner, if a recording starts up on the other tuner, a message comes up saying that there is a problem with the signal on satellite 1 and it needs to reacquire the signal. This is happening frequently. All diagnostics on the Tivo seem to indicate that things are fine. Signal strength is fine and other Tivos/receivers in the house are having no signal problems.

Has anybody else seen this sort of behavior? Is this indicative of some sort of hardware problem on the Tivo. The only coincidental thing is that this problem seems to have started after we had HD service installed. This necessitated a new dish and multi-switch. The satellite feeds to this particular Tivo are actually coming through a splitter that the installer installed. The main signal comes into a new multiswitch, and then the signal is sent into a switch before it is sent to the Tivo. It doesn't seem that this should be a problem since both tuners seem to have a reasonable signal when watching live tv.

Any information you can offer me to help diagnose the problem would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[John T Smith]

Go back on level and read the FAQ

DirecTv does NOT work with a splitter!!!

[JimSpence]

What you are seeing is indicative of using a splitter with a sat signal. If the two receivers happen to be tuned to a channel that uses odd or even TPs, everything will look fine. But, if one receiver tunes to an odd and the other to an even, then there is a signal problem. You must use a multiswitch.

[jhoweaa]

Thanks for the information. The 'professional' installers (contractors to DirecTV) are the ones who installed the multi-switch. I mentioned that I thought there was a problem using a splitter and was told that there wasn't (he gave me a more detailed explanation at the time which sounded reasonable but I don't remember exactly what he said) The reason he installed a splitter was that they only gave me an 8 port multi-switch and with the number of receivers I have, I need 9 outputs.

Is there an easy way for me to manually test this? Is there a way to know which channels are on an odd (or even) TP and I could try to induce the problem? Also, there is a third receiver hooked into the multi-switch, if I flip through the channels on that receiver, can I trigger the problem on the Tivo? I think I'll go try that anyway.

Thanks again.

[jhoweaa]

Just a quick followup. I just rechecked how the installer did the 'split' and I noticed that he did not use a regular cable splitter, but a special mini multi-switch. I now remember what he told me about the splitter. The 8 port multi-switch can feed both standard and HD channels whereas the mini-splitter will only feed standard definition. So, unless this multi-switch is defective, it would seem that my Tivo has some other problem. Is there a good way to verify that the mini multi-switch is working correctly?