Replaced Hard drive still pixelation - Now what?

[halestrm]

Hi, I have a Hughes Tivo/Directv receiver. Just replaced the HD with a new one due to EXTREME pixelation issues.

Installed new drive 6 hours ago and the pixelation is back. Called DTV and they say I need a new DVR and they will give me one with a 2 year agreement. Declined.

I have a tivo with a sep DTV receiver upstairs in the bedroom that never has this issue. Have tried to pay attention to if it is a set of stations or times but seems very random. Notice it a lot on Disney but with an 8 yr old, well, we watch a lot of Disney.

Any ideas on where I go from here? I am ready to cry. I do not want to lose Tivo but I really hate Cox cable. I need to receive and record 2 chan. at the same time, which is why I got the Hughes. (Hubby and I can never agree on what to watch/record when.)

PLEASE, help me before I lose my mind!

[TonyTheTiger]

You have two choices.

1. Take the deal. The R15 is no TiVo, but it will record two channels at once and you've stated your dislike for your cable option, so the commitment is really no big deal, or

2. Try to buy another used TiVo-based box from ebay or (for more money) one of the vendors that support this forum. They don't cost a fortune and, as long as you make sure that the account that the box you buy has no outstanding balance on it, you can activate it with no additional commitment.

[rbtravis]

Third Choice, have it fixed
Make sure S-Video cable is disconnected. Just use RCA plugs
if that does not work. See below
A good place to get it fixed:
http://www.ccscorporation.net/dss.htm
fast and reasonable. have it fixed, it's the green thing to do. :D

[kschauwe]

What HD did you install.
Also, what was the old HD?

[Dkerr24]

Not sure what steps you followed when you replaced the drive. Did you copy over the image from the old/failing drive? Perhaps the image was corrupt due to bad sectors on the old drive, and this was imaged onto the new drive. Did you install a fresh drive image?

[halestrm]

I bought the new hard drive from WeaKnees; I didn't copy anything over from the old drive.

I didn't know that the S-video cable could cause these problems. I will unhook it and see if that works. (Stupid q, but why would the S-video cable cause a problem?)

Thanks for the input. Keeping fingers crossed that the cable suggestion works.

[rbtravis]

I bought the new hard drive from WeaKnees; I didn't copy anything over from the old drive.

I didn't know that the S-video cable could cause these problems. I will unhook it and see if that works. (Stupid q, but why would the S-video cable cause a problem?)

Thanks for the input. Keeping fingers crossed that the cable suggestion works.The S-Video cable has been shown to cause problems with the second tuner. A TiVo design defect. If you use the RCA plugs the problem goes away with little loss of video quality. Good luck :)

[Mark Griswold]

The S-Video cable has been shown to cause problems with the second tuner.

The RCA composite outs can cause the same problems. I had been experiencing pixelation on the 2nd tuner, but was not using the S-video output. After searching around the forums, some people had suggested the RCA outputs can cause similar problems. I was using both RCA outputs (one to feed the TV, the other to feed my VCR). I disconnected the second output to my VCR and have not had a problem since.