[microbe]

I'm having a spot of bother with my setup after a christmas addition or two and some severe faffing around with the numerous scart leads round 'the back'.
Toshiba wd32zd, 32 inch dolby digital telly with 3 scarts:
1 Symphonic combined DVD/VCR, digital coax connected for DD sound when playing DVDs. (Christmas replacement for Old DVD and sepperate SVHS vcr)
2 Tivo output scart to TV
3 Telewest Digital cable box output to TV.
1 and 3 = perfect sound. Tivo output has an slight echoy effect reminiscant of 'Hall' setting in DD surround sound setup (but it's not set for that).

Tivo itself has 3 scarts obviously:
1 input from TW digital box (VCR output of TW box)
2 output to TV
3 'VCR' input/output, connected to Technosonic PVR (99 quid from Aldi)
Press aux on TIVO remote, direct picture/sound from TW box, okeydokey, no problems at all.
Press vcr on Tivo remote, bounces to Technosonic PVR, again perfect Picture/sound.
Press Live TV (or watch a TIVO recording) and it's "Hello echo effect" (speakers in a bucket style).

I'm thinking there's nowt (nothing, for those of you not of a Northernish extraction) wrong with the TV as swapping the TV inputs around just moves the dodgy sound to whatever the Tivo's plugged into.
I'm thinking there's also nowt wrong with the scart cables as after swapping them all around (and I have got 5 active ones round the back, plus a drawer full of spares), the sound problem remains on whatever the TIVO output is using.

Am I missing something, or has my Tivo got a cold?

Looking forward to any replies,
Paul

 

[stevensdrs]

I would suspect the PVR 101. I have one too and experience crosstalk from it through the scart. Try taking it out of your loop and the sound problem should go away.

 

[microbe]

Well I'm going to try any/all reasonable suggestions (not into consulting the juju men though, or any sacrificial offerings!).
Disconnected VCR (PVR101) scart completely, sound problem still there on TIVO Live TV, not there when I press Aux to get the TW signal directly, not there when viewing the terrestrial channels 1-5 directly on the telly either (boy it's a long time since I even looked at them, what's all that time wasting cr-p breaking up the prorams on commercial channels every 6.3 minutes?).

Any other suggestions?

Could it be an internal problem in the tivo at some point before the AUX and VCR scart signals are fed into the output to TV scart? I'm getting sound from all 4 speakers ( FL, FR, LR, RR. Centre and sub seem ok) which might make me think Tivo's putting out a mono signal, not stereo, and the Tosh DD' processor is trying to 'create' some stereo effect. Normaly front left and right give the stereo and the rears only give 'effects' to add the surround sound , like cars passing behind or doors slamming in the distance.

 

[Automan]

1. Does the problem go away if you press the AUX button on your Tivo remote?
2. Do you get this echo when playing back a Tivo recording?

If 1 = yes and 2 = no it may be the following...
However, from your message 2 = yes which is odd unless they have been recorded with the echo. Old recordings any better?

The normal cause of this issue is if you are listening to the audio output of your STB (Telewest box) at the same time.

Tivo introduces a small delay to picture and sound as it has to record / play it.

You have to make sure you are only listening to the audio of out Tivo only.

Automan.

 

[microbe]

OK, so I tried disconnecting the TW scart to Tive to see if that helped, it did get rid of the sound issue, bu obviously reverting to "Tivo can't display live TV" message, as i'd unplugged the sourse I was trying to watch, DOH!
I re-connected and unplugged the TW feed scart directly to TV, this made no difference, other that no Picture via Scart 3 or when pressing Aux. (incidentally, I thought pressing AUX would just feed TW straight through the TIVO un altered, no slight delay for recording etc but I now notice that pressing AUX on the tivo remote bounces the TV to scart 3 (test message top right of screen) when TIVO is connected on scart 2. Pressing aux again pops me back to Tivo live tv, scart 2 message top right.).
When re-connecting the TW scart direct to TV I did create an interesting missfeed error on the telly whereby I was watching TW directly on scart 3 but getting sound from both scart 3 AND scart 2, the TIVo. As you said,there is a slight delay but from this I was able to hear exactly how short (or long) it was, around 1 second (Razzle dazzle on CBBies was on, counting 1, 2, 3, folowed by the 'echo' counting 1 2, 3. Pressing LIve TV bounced the TV back to just one source though, still with the 'echo' effect I decscribed in the first post, though I'd bette stop calling it an echo, having just heard a true echo, it's not that.

I get sound from the rear surround speakers where there ought not be any (all the same sounds as from the fronts, hence a disorienting sound as speech does not norlmally come from 'behind you', oh dear, I'm going all Panto season again!), and sound via anything other than TIVO is fine so it's not the DD decoder.

 

[microbe]

OOps, also forgot to mention, recordings upto 2/1/06 play fine, after that point are recorded duffly (nice term). What did I do 2/1/06 you ask? I played around with the scart connections trying to 'tidy' the rat's nest up a bit, morale to that story, "if it's working ok but looks untidy, LEAVE IT ALONE!!!".

Sadly disconnecting and re-connecting everything has not helped fix the problem and SHMBO is getting slightly annoyed with me (but she wanted it tidying). Is it possible for me to have actually damaged something whilst disconnecting/re-connecting? I did have everything switched off and physically unplugged (though for obvious reasons I don't like powering down the TIVo or TW boxes, there's always that terrifying "will the damm thing restart properly" moment until either the TW box shows channel 890 or the little fella slides down the slide into Now playing.)

 

[Automan]

Not sure about Toshiba TV but some Sony's & Panasonic permit you to control the output of sound from the TV and which source it uses.

Does the Tivo make "echo free" recording if made when the TV is switched off?

Otherwise you may just want to try and recheck your cable config.

Basic normal settings are

STB TV OUT -> TIVO AUX IN -> DVDR IN - DVDR OUT -> TV AV1
OTHER PVR TV OUT -> TIVO VCR IN/OUT

Good Luck

Automan.

 

[microbe]

Well Well,
Having unplugged and re-plugged EVERYTHING that lurks beind my Telly this evening 2 interesting things happened, and one potentially serious one was averted, just!
Interesting thing one, during the unplug t all and then re-connect, I mamaged to make the wonky sound problem worse! It not only affected live TV via Tivo (although not the Tivo internal RF tuner channels, just the Teleworst ones) but also spread to the TW signal direct (by pressing Aux and/or selecting scart 3 on the tosh).
Interesting thing 2, after giving up as a bad job (sound problem worse), I pushed everything firmly into place and began to push the telly back into it's corner when, the Telewest box went off, in the middle of Corra (that's the potentially serious/fatal bit) but during the adverts thank god! Frantic scrambling for replacment fuses saw me pulling a spare fig of 8 power cable from the Spare Sky box upstairs and plugging that back in. After a few minutes wait the TW box re-booted, Corra came back after the adverts (whew, lucky timing) and, the sound quality was back to normal!

Can a dodgy power cord really cause wonky sound?
Could something have been so 'unhappy' as to eventualy blow a fuse?
Did the TW box just need a rest, longer than the 30 seconds or so I'd been giving it over the weeknd whilst fiddling with all the connections?
Hi Ho, all's well that ends well, at least the sourse of the problem wasn't my Tivo.
Happy Microbe.