Terrible Picture

makoa · 11-12-2008, 12:09 AM

Hello all, I just got my tivo and subsequently registered here today because I am having some issues getting the picture to look decent. It is very pixelated and blurry, far worse than my television is without going through tivo. My thinking is that it is just because there are so many cables going from the wall to my tv through the system that the picture is worse from that.

I changed the aspect ratio to widescreen, tried video smoothing, and did the video hookup but on the second test it freezes for 10 seconds and says there was an error so I cannot complete that.

My cable provider is comcast, I have a motorola DCT700 cable box, and a Tivo series 2 DT DVR.

If anyone out there has any advice on how I could get my picture quality up, it'd be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

greg_burns · 11-12-2008, 11:43 AM

Anything you watch through the Tivo (live or recorded) is being encoded to MPEG-2. That encoding can downgrade the picture somewhat which may explain the difference between using the Tivo and just the TV. But it sounds like you have something else going on, because the difference is not usually quite that noticeable, IMO.

makoa · 11-12-2008, 02:11 PM

Yeah, the picture is pretty awful, I am just watching tv through the cable box, bypassing tivo at the moment. I have a rather nice television and it is just being wasted while using tivo. If the problem can't be solved I guess I'll return the box.

greg_burns · 11-12-2008, 02:27 PM

Have you considered getting an S3 rather than an S2? With cablecards you could get your digital channels perfectly w/o the reencoding the S2 is doing.

LADYBUGBLUE2002 · 11-12-2008, 04:11 PM

I had similar issues...but I found a couple of areas that can help.

First are you using the s-video output from the Tivo to the TV? If not try to use that connection as it will give you the best picture.

Second, are you recording your programs at the basic recording quality or something higher? I have a bigger screen tv and on the old tube tv I didn't notice a difference in quality but noticed it doesn't look good on the bigger screen. Note, you need to adjust any current season passes to record at a higher quality level if the default is at basic when creating the season passes.

Third, you need to see if the cable coming into your home is being split too many ways and needs an amplifier. I believe most cable companies can come out to check the signal levels and boost the signal or you can pick one up yourself at Radio Shack.

That helped me, and while it is not perfect in my situation I couldn't get a Series 3 or HD tivo so it will have to do.

greg_burns · 11-12-2008, 04:42 PM

I would just mention that when viewing "Live TV" (which is really just the buffer, nothing is truly live anymore) on a Tivo it is always at Best quality regardless of your default recording level.

makoa · 11-12-2008, 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LADYBUGBLUE2002

I had similar issues...but I found a couple of areas that can help.

First are you using the s-video output from the Tivo to the TV? If not try to use that connection as it will give you the best picture.

Second, are you recording your programs at the basic recording quality or something higher? I have a bigger screen tv and on the old tube tv I didn't notice a difference in quality but noticed it doesn't look good on the bigger screen. Note, you need to adjust any current season passes to record at a higher quality level if the default is at basic when creating the season passes.

Third, you need to see if the cable coming into your home is being split too many ways and needs an amplifier. I believe most cable companies can come out to check the signal levels and boost the signal or you can pick one up yourself at Radio Shack.

That helped me, and while it is not perfect in my situation I couldn't get a Series 3 or HD tivo so it will have to do.

The av cables are going into the side video on my tv. I haven't even tried recording anything, because I wouldn't want to watch anything of this quality. As for the cable coming into my house... lol... it is going to like 10 tvs or so. However, the cable is fine when not going through the tivo, so I'm not sure that would be the case.

As for the s3, this one is refurbished and was $80, and money isn't exactly flowing right now lol, so it's what I can afford.

Just another thought, tivo only came with one av red/yellow/white cable so I had to take a different, old, crappy one and that one is going from the cable box to the tivo, and I guess that could be affecting the picture.

I don't know I guess I'll just return it and get the generic comcast dvr plan.

Thanks for all of your guy's time and help.

lastdeadcat · 11-12-2008, 06:10 PM

Try to get a better cable box from your cable company. When my cable company changed over to all digital cable, I had to get a box for my remaining S2 box. My TiVoHD got CableCARDs.

My cable company usually gives the Motorola DCT 700 digital box, but I asked for a box that had S-Video output for my S2 TiVo. They sent a Motorola 2200 series box that had S-Video out and as a bonus that I didn't think to ask for was a working serial connection to change channels. The rule of thumb is to always use the best video and audio connections you can make with the equipment that you have.

From best to worst connections are HDMI, component (really a toss up between these two), S-Video, composite, then coax.

I think the best that you can get out of the CDT 700 box is composite video. I have a 52-inch HDTV and the picture I get from this DCT 2200 box with the S2 is really good. It is just as good as I get from my TiVoHD using an HDMI connection with SD content.

Also as mentioned above, use the "Best quality" setting on your S2 if you are using an HDTV.

TolloNodre · 11-12-2008, 08:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by makoa

The av cables are going into the side video on my tv. I haven't even tried recording anything, because I wouldn't want to watch anything of this quality. As for the cable coming into my house... lol... it is going to like 10 tvs or so. However, the cable is fine when not going through the tivo, so I'm not sure that would be the case.

If you literally have your cable signal split across 10 TVs, that's likely the cause of your pixellation. You might consider a signal booster. The cable may 'work fine' with the TV only, but the TiVo is obviously a different piece of equipment and may not like the signal level and/or quality.

LADYBUGBLUE2002 · 11-13-2008, 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by makoa

The av cables are going into the side video on my tv. I haven't even tried recording anything, because I wouldn't want to watch anything of this quality. As for the cable coming into my house... lol... it is going to like 10 tvs or so. However, the cable is fine when not going through the tivo, so I'm not sure that would be the case.

As for the s3, this one is refurbished and was $80, and money isn't exactly flowing right now lol, so it's what I can afford.

Just another thought, tivo only came with one av red/yellow/white cable so I had to take a different, old, crappy one and that one is going from the cable box to the tivo, and I guess that could be affecting the picture.

I don't know I guess I'll just return it and get the generic comcast dvr plan.

Thanks for all of your guy's time and help.

You have more splits than I have and we needed to add two signal boosters...one where it amplified the entire house and then where I had the big screen tv. You can buy the amplifiers at Radio shack and return if it doesn't seem to help or get your cable provider to test the signal and add where necessary. Hope this helps as it really helped us.