Is pixelization a sign of a bad hard drive, or?

More often its a signal issue, whether its too low or too high.

 

Yes, this is likely signal issue. I would start by simply tightening all cable connections. Use a wrench or pliers and tighten firmly at all devices.

 

Cable or OTA?

TiVo's have a Diagnostic for each tuner:

90% is cable, 72% is OTA.

 

I experienced the same, pixelation seemed to be the fault of my hard drive (7 years old 60,000 hours)

 

After a little bit of cable card back and forth with Spectrum, I finally got up and running...

Forgive me, but how would replacing a hard drive cause a cable card authorization issue? I thought authorization codes were stored on the card itself?

 

No, your card is paired to the host device (Tivo) and this is stored on the drive.

 

Thanks for the clarification. That's valuable info for the update I'm planning!

 

When I replaced the drive on my R+ a few years ago the cablecard remained paired.

 

Thanks for the timely post. Our Roamio is almost 12 years old and been thinking of an upgrade to Edge. Original hard drive. No major pixelation to speak of but it does have remote control and menu screen load delays at times.

 

That's not possible for your Roamio to be that old.

The Premiere was released in March 2010 and the Roamio in August 2013. I'm guessing you are looking at lifetime service transferred to your Roamio from an earlier TiVo similar to our S3 purchased December 2006 which shows an activation date of June 2000 from our original S1 TiVo (we transferred lifetime service through a special $99 deal at the time).



Scott

 

Is your pixelization on live OTA viewing or on pause/playback/replay or recorded content?

Pixelization on recorded content or using pause/playback features then hard drive is suspect, but on live OTA viewing could be signal problems.