[JANNINO]

I have 4 THDs in my home and all of them have pixelation issues mostly on the local HD channels (I live in northern NJ). I spoke to Tivo tech support who after we spent some time running through the diagnostics screens, says the issue is that the cable cards are not "paired" to the units. We determined thsi since the host validation on the cabel card conditional access screend says "unknown 00". They then directed me to talk to Verizon to ge the cable cards paired correctly.

I then spoke to the Verizon tech guys and they say that the "pairing" of the cards happens automatically since there is no screen they have that pairs the cards together. I went thorugh each cable card with the Verizon techs, deactivated and reactivated each cable card and I still have the pixelation issue.

Does anyone know how Verizon should be "pairing" the cable cards properly?

 

[aaronwt]

All I know is my tech entered the correct info from the TiVoHD cable card screen on his laptop and a few minutes later everything was working. I have no pixelation problems on both of my boxes I'm using with FIOS.\

One card at a time and it worked. Much quicker than the Comcast tech yelling the info over the phone mutiple times until they had the information input correctly.

 

[bkdtv]

Verizon doesn't do pairing. But they do have to authorize the cards.

Pixelization is a signal issue.

 

[wrobbie]

I was at my cousin's place last weekend - lucky gent has FIOS - and he had the exact same pixelization issues. I know this doesn't help much, but it does seem to be fairly widespread...

 

[JANNINO]

BKDTV - Verizon also thinks its a signal issue and they are sending a tech out this Saturday to check signal strength. But I doubt that signal strength is the problem as all four of my THDs have pixelation issues. I also have a Verizon DVR and there are no pixelation issues on that TV.

 

[aaronwt]

If the signal is too strong the TiVoHD might have some problems. I had a slight problem when I had one of my TiVoHD boxes connected to Comast. As soon as i attenuated the signal a little the picture was perfect.

 

[bkdtv]

BKDTV - Verizon also thinks its a signal issue and they are sending a tech out this Saturday to check signal strength. But I doubt that signal strength is the problem as all four of my THDs have pixelation issues. I also have a Verizon DVR and there are no pixelation issues on that TV.

As aaron notes above, it is entirely possible that your signal strength is too strong. The output from many FiOS ONTs is too 'hot' (strong) and will cause pixelization on the TivoHD if not attenuated.

 

[JonHB]

As aaron notes above, it is entirely possible that your signal strength is too strong. The output from many FiOS ONTs is too 'hot' (strong) and will cause pixelization on the TivoHD if not attenuated.

What is the measureable range that would constitue being too "hot" or even too weak?

 

[bkdtv]

What is the measureable range that would constitue being too "hot" or even too weak?

Verizon's ONTs provide output a signal that is between +18 and +24 dB, depending on the model. I'm fairly certain that is too "hot" for the Tivo. Of course, each splitter will reduce that somewhat.

I don't know at what point a signal becomes "too hot" for the Tivo.

 

[JANNINO]

I checked the signal strength on all 4 of my THDs and here's what I found:

- When tuner 1 is set to channel 826 (ESPN HD), the signal strength is 100% virtually all of the time. Signal output is 37db constant. No pixelation occurs.

- While tuner 1 is set to ESPN HD, I set tuner 2 to channel 7 (local ABC non-HD). The signal strength is 100% most of the time, dropping to 93% on occasion. Signal output varies between 36 and 37 db. No pixelation occurs.

- While tuner 1 is set to ESPN HD, I set tuner 2 to channel 807 (local ABC HD). The signal strength varies between 100%, 93%, 81% sometimes 75%, Signal output varies between 36 and 37 db. Some pixelation occurs.

When I go through the same routine above but SWITCH tuners 1 and 2. I still see the same results, which means I think there is an issue with Verizon's signal strength in their local HD channels.

Does anyone else with Verizon Fios have this same problem??

Is the signal output I am seeing (36-37 db range) too hot?? Too cold ???

 

[AbMagFab]

I checked the signal strength on all 4 of my THDs and here's what I found:

- When tuner 1 is set to channel 826 (ESPN HD), the signal strength is 100% virtually all of the time. Signal output is 37db constant. No pixelation occurs.

- While tuner 1 is set to ESPN HD, I set tuner 2 to channel 7 (local ABC non-HD). The signal strength is 100% most of the time, dropping to 93% on occasion. Signal output varies between 36 and 37 db. No pixelation occurs.

- While tuner 1 is set to ESPN HD, I set tuner 2 to channel 807 (local ABC HD). The signal strength varies between 100%, 93%, 81% sometimes 75%, Signal output varies between 36 and 37 db. Some pixelation occurs.

When I go through the same routine above but SWITCH tuners 1 and 2. I still see the same results, which means I think there is an issue with Verizon's signal strength in their local HD channels.

Does anyone else with Verizon Fios have this same problem??

Is the signal output I am seeing (36-37 db range) too hot?? Too cold ???

There's another thread on this, check it out.

I had a similar problem, as did edrock200. For me, attenuating my signal so the SNR was down to 31/32 resolved all pixelation issues on my TivoHD (with FIOS). Signal strength also dropped to 60/70, but that doesn't appear to be an issue.

I had to attenuate -11db to get it down, but it's been very stable now, where before it was pixelating severely within a few minutes.

Give it a try. If you don't have any attenuators handy, the 4x splitter are -7.4db and the 2x splitters are -3.5db. You can chain them together. If you find this works, just buy some cheap in-line attenuators to get the total -db you need.

The magic SNR number appears to be 31/32. When I had it even at 33, I stiill had a fair amount of pixelation/macroblocking.

 

[JANNINO]

OK - based on advice I got from the Verizon Fios TV forum, I looked up the stats on my 4 Tivo Hds. Now I am really confused. Here are the results:

Scenario 1: both tuners on same channel (non local HD). SNR around 34-37 db, signal strength between 81-87, RS Corrected = 0. RS Uncorrected not zero but low. CableCard diagnostic shows Connected: yes, Enabled by CP:yes, auth: subscribed. No pixelation issues.

Scenario 2: both tuners on local HD channel. SNR starts to fluctuate from 29 to 31 to 33 to 35 (basically all over the place). RS Corrected now not equal to zero and continually moving upward. RS Uncorrected also moving upward. CableCard diagostic says Connected: yes, Enabled by CP: yes but auth: changes to "missing_program_rekey". Bad pixelation issue.

I have no idea what is happening?

Apparently, there is an issue with the local HD channel signal but not so with other channels. I also do not get how the authorization can change from "authorized" to "missing_program_rekey" just by changing channels.

Anyone care to take a stab at a solution here??