[jmpage2]

You people are sure impatient. Series 3 owners have been waiting for a pixelation fix for a year. Get in line!

Why are we paying extra for Tivo again?

 

[jmpage2]

I'm saving money with my TiVoHD. Comcast's HD DVR would cost more over 3 years than the TiVoHD will cost me.

I think your situation is not the norm.

In any event, most consumers won't outlay $299 for Tivo HD and subscribe for 3-years at another $299 if it has picture quality issues not present on the cable company box.

 

[jmpage2]

As I posted just now in another thread, TiVo HD initally as of now seems to be working without issue with 2 Moto (SCARD) cablecards with Verizon FIOS in Tampa. Ditto for my Series 3 box.

I wonder what the variables are causing problems on some, but not all, systems? Must be fluctuations in the signal strength.

I let Verizon leave 1 Moto DVR box when they originally installed my service just so I could check it out. I absolutely hated it, and when they came to install my cablecards, I had them remove it (I still maintain their HD STB's in all rooms just for the on-demand stuff). Far as I'm concerned, those STB DVR's can't even begin to compete with TiVo in terms of features and ease of use.

Fluctuations in the signal strength?

Come on.

This is obviously some sort of driver/hardware interaction problem, possibly with the cable cards. However, seeing as some users are reporting the problem even with analog cable I suspect it's far more likely that some of this is being caused by problems with hardware or firmware.

 

[jmpage2]

Obviously, as your single data point of experience, coupled with your extensive knowledge of the internals of the THD and cable plants around the country leads to the rock solid conclusion that signal strength has nothing to do with pixelation problems on any THD in the country.

Right.

Numerous people have indicated that improving signal strength has had no effect on pixelation with these boxes.

And btw, I am a telecom engineer with extensive experience with signal levels, DS3s, etc and I am probably as qualified as anyone to say "doesn't sound like signal strength has anything to do with this".

 

[jmpage2]

Real mature. Thank you for your valuable contributions to this thread.

And what is your contribution other than slamming others? Do you even own a Tivo HD?

S3 and Tivo HD don't even use the same hardware but you're qualified to make recommendations on what worked for you with your S3.

Have you read the numerous reports of people adding amplifiers, boosters, etc, to bump up their signal strength and it having no effect on this problem?

I'll tell you what, find someone who has fixed this problem with the Tivo HD by doing as you say and you'll be on better ground to tell someone to shove things in their piehole!

 

[jmpage2]

For the record I do own a THD (which I clearly stated in my last reply, so it looks like your reading comprehension skills are right up there with your engineering skills) - I've bowed out of the discussions up to this point because my pixelation problems were actually signal strength related and easily corrected. I had a crappy old 3 way splitter in the signal path feeding two other cable outlets that were not being used in the house. Once I removed this, everything started working fine. I get momentary (fraction of a second) dropouts very rarely, which is why I'm following these threads.

What finally drew me to jump in is your wildly incorrect statement that there is now way that anyone is having a problem with signal strength and if anyone is seeing pixelation is HAS to be a manifestation of this bug. Discouraging people from at least considering signal strength when troubleshooting this problem could very well stop people from fixing the problem (to a large degree) on their own (and that's the only way some will get the problem solved - no amount of software updates will magically fix a signal strength problem).

Again, like I clearly stated in my last reply I don't need to look that far because I fixed the vast majority of my pixalation problems by increasing my signal strength. Who's on the shaky ground now?

The "real mature" comment was directed at folks like Megory and unction who basically posted to cheer you on while contributing nothing of value to this thread. :down:

Tivo has already acknowledged that something is going on and I expect a software update that fixes software or drivers is going to be coming fairly quickly as they have probably been debugging this with people who experience the problem with some frequency.

Things like the "signal strength screen" that show up in the Tivo menus would also clearly show up in the CLI when doing diagnostics and I'm sure if Tivo felt that it was responsible for even a sizeable fraction of the problems that they would have stated so already to people contacting them about the issue.

I really don't know what your beef is with me, I have years of experience working with systems similar to the Tivo (large IP based PBX systems that run on Linux and interact with circuit hardware/firmware) but it seems you'd much rather "shout down" people who don't agree with you or belittle them.

Like I said, noone other than yourself has reported fixing this issue by boosting their signal. It's great that this worked for you, but apparently there is more to this problem than weak signal level.

 

[jmpage2]

My beef is that , when presented with the statement that signal strength could be causing people's pixelation problems you chose to very rudely state that there was no way that signal strength could cause someone's pixelation problems and came back with "I'm an engineer so I know what I'm talking about" when questioned on it instead of either a)ignoring the statement or b)politely stating that signal strength problems are not the case with the folks posting here like you.

If I had read your post and taken your advice, I would be stuck waiting for a fix from Tivo that would never come. I was merely trying to save other people from that fate by reminding folks that checking signal strength is a perfectly valid troubleshooting step.

The reason that the board is not filled with people saying that signal strength fixed their pixelation problem is that a) that's not real noteworthy and b)that fact is kind of off topic for this thread since your pixelation is caused by something else.

Well, this is the first post I made on the matter;

Fluctuations in the signal strength?

Come on.

This is obviously some sort of driver/hardware interaction problem, possibly with the cable cards. However, seeing as some users are reporting the problem even with analog cable I suspect it's far more likely that some of this is being caused by problems with hardware or firmware.

If that's a "rude" comment then I'd like to see your explanation of telling people with technical backgrounds to shove things in their pieholes being a civil response.

All you had to do is say "signal strength fixed my problem" and that would have been fine. It seems as though you'd like other people to be models of courteous behavior even though you, yourself, run around braying like a jackass at anyone who doesn't agree with you.

 

[jmpage2]

Jimbo,

While I can appreciate your frustration, not all of the blame lies with Tivo. Tivo is forced to provide content the only way that's feasibly possible which is the cable card spec mandated by the FCC over a decade ago.

It's not Tivo's fault that cable companies hate Cable Cards. It's not Tivo's fault that the installers are morons. It's not Tivo's fault that they have faulty hardware and inept operators punching numbers into the computers.

Cable is, for all intents and purposes, a monopoly. They don't like someone else playing in their sandbox even one little bit and they demonstrate that as much as possible.

As far as the "beta" quality of the Tivo HD, I agree wholeheartedly that Tivo should be paying us to test this crap and wait on fixes to the problems. I can't believe that Tivo hasn't seen these issues in Beta test and couldn't have gotten many of them addressed if the product was delayed another 3-6 months.

I think that the sad reality is that Tivo was scared of missing out on the lucrative holiday selling season and felt it was better to launch with the product in the state it is in today rather than miss the window and launch a more feature complete box next year.

 

[jmpage2]

I have a Motorola M-Card with a TiVo HD, and am experiencing pixelation & audio drop outs on both recorded & live showings.

There seems to be a general assumption on these forums that things are fixed for Motorola - they aren't. Perhaps it's better than before, though (I only purchased my TiVo in the last few weeks, so I have nothing to compare to - but it's still pretty bad).

I see the occasional pixelation problem with my Moto-Scards since the update, but nothing like I was seeing previously.

I'm inclined at this point to accept that the random problem once every several hours (or more rarely) has nothing to do with the Tivo HD.