pixelation watching live TV

[uncle-buck]

We have a Philips DSR704 DirecTIVO unit. The antenna was knocked out of alignment by Hurricane Ike, but has supposedly been re-aligned by DirecTV techs.

While our service was down, I installed a new hard drive (the old ones were over 4 years old) and loaded an image with Instant Cake.

The challenge is that some channels are showing intermittent pixelation while watching live TV, some show consistent pixelation, and some channels are just fine. For example, the Golf Channel is highly pixelated and Fox News is fine.

I suspect an antenna alignment issue. What's the best way to find out for sure?

[John T Smith]

It's been about 6 years since I bought it so don't have a link anymore, but I mounted my own dish at the house we built 6 years ago, and again a bit over a year ago in our current (and last!) house

With your own signal meter it is very easy to put it in series with either line coming from the LNB and then make your own tiny adjustments

What are your signal readings at your unit? In Vancouver WA mine are

01 95
02 92
03 94
04 33
05 94
06 95
07 93
08 93
09 93
10 95
11 95
12 20
13 95
14 94
15 93
16 94
17 93
18 100
19 94
20 44
21 95
22 95
23 95
24 95
25 95
26 41
27 95
28 100
29 96
30 94
31 92
32 96

[uncle-buck]

Thanks for your reply. I'm thinking it might be a cabling issue - because the Golf Channel comes in fine on the other TV's in the house. In any event, DirecTV is sending someone out, free of charge, to fix it next week.

[uncle-buck]

Turned out to be dish alignment. Finally got a good tech to re-align our dish and all channels are coming in loud and clear.

[uncle-buck]

Whoops, I spoke too soon. Pixelation is back, but on different channels this time. I'm going to replace the hard drive next week and see what happens.

[John T Smith]

Also read these to see if the problem and the fix applies to you
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=318681
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=333631
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=388409

[uncle-buck]

Thanks, John.