Freeview picture and sound disturbance..not weather related tho

Hi..for about a month now we(Kapiti resident) have been experiencing significant picture distortion fade and sound distortion on our upstairs TV. TV is about 3-5 years old but works well and has a split Sky signal coming into it as well as Freeview(Strong box) (Signal comes in to downstairs TV).

We have had a freeview technicican up..and a mate of his.. and spent $135 so far to no avail. Box has been reset and re tuned but this didnt change anything. Comment was made that Strong is not an approved Freeview box but it has been working fine for last 2 years or so.

Sateliite dish feed was checked but seemingly okay.

Thoughts as to what problem could be and solution appreciated. Our first thought is buy a cheap new box, retune and go from there?

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Permalink Reply by Bill McMurray on October 16, 2013 at 22:13

Hi Trevor,

If you have a MySky downstairs and a Strong satellite receiver upstairs and both are running off the same dish, (and the MySky is okay), then there shouldn't be anything wrong with the dish!

I've been called out to about a dozen Strong receivers in the last few weeks (before the Prime drama), with all sorts of strange things happening - channels disappeared (Maori, Choice, etc), two TV 2+1 and no TV 1+1, channels breaking up, etc.

The problems all seem to have stemmed from 1st September when Freeview changed "U" to TV 2+1, then swapped TV2+1 and TV1+1 around, and it appears that some Strong receivers actually tried to change the channels around!! - even though they're not accredited units, - and got a few headaches as a result! (Strong recs are very, very good quality units - shame they're not accredited).

If that sounds like your problem, in each case I did a full power reset (pulled power plug out from wall for 30 secs), rescanned all the transponders, then sorted the channels again and every one of them came right.

Hope that might help you. - Otherwise buy a cheap sat box like you were thinking.

Cheers, Bill.

Permalink Reply by Trevor Knowles on October 17, 2013 at 9:28

Hi Bill..tech who came up did a full reset(albeit we now have all scrambled channels eg TYV3 is on 072) but it did not fix signal degradation problem. I tend to agree re quality of signal on Sky so not a strong(;>)) pointer to dish problem.

Bill McMurray said:

Hi Trevor,

If you have a MySky downstairs and a Strong satellite receiver upstairs and both are running off the same dish, (and the MySky is okay), then there shouldn't be anything wrong with the dish!

I've been called out to about a dozen Strong receivers in the last few weeks (before the Prime drama), with all sorts of strange things happening - channels disappeared (Maori, Choice, etc), two TV 2+1 and no TV 1+1, channels breaking up, etc.

The problems all seem to have stemmed from 1st September when Freeview changed "U" to TV 2+1, then swapped TV2+1 and TV1+1 around, and it appears that some Strong receivers actually tried to change the channels around!! - even though they're not accredited units, - and got a few headaches as a result! (Strong recs are very, very good quality units - shame they're not accredited).

If that sounds like your problem, in each case I did a full power reset (pulled power plug out from wall for 30 secs), rescanned all the transponders, then sorted the channels again and every one of them came right.

Hope that might help you. - Otherwise buy a cheap sat box like you were thinking.

Cheers, Bill.

Permalink Reply by Bill McMurray on October 17, 2013 at 11:03

Hi Trevor,

But did he do a "Full Power Reset"? If you've got all the Scrambled channels now, then he must have scanned for "All" channels instead of "FTA only", which means he didn't really know what he was doing. anyway.

Simple as this:-

1. If you're getting low signal strength and quality on MySky receiver and the Strong receiver, start at the dish alignment, then work to the LNB.

2. If you're getting pixillation and channels locking up on both MySky and Strong, get Sky to replace the LNB - There'll be no charge because it's affecting your Sky reception.

3. If your MySky has good signal quality/ strength and isn't pixillating, while your Strong is showing one, or all of the above, then the problem is somewhere from the splitter to your upstairs TV. Either one leg of the splitter breaking down, cable breaking down, bad connection in the cable, problem with the strong receiver, problem with the connection to the TV or a problem in the TV. - Any installer worth their salt should be able to isolate that in no time, unless it is intermittant. But you did say that the installer said there is plenty of signal at the input to the receiver! - Indicating the problem is in the receiver, connection to TV or TV itself.

Just trying to help, putting nearly fifty years of fault-finding/ diagnostics skills into play.

Cheers, Bill.

Permalink Reply by Biggles on October 17, 2013 at 11:30

Just another thought. Try taking your Strong Sat box downstairs and temporarily install instead of the sky box. If it all works OK then the box must be OK and the problem is elsewhere. Similarly try the Sky box upstairs.

What exactly are the symptoms with picture and sound? Pixellation and drop-outs or something else?

Permalink Reply by Trevor Knowles on October 17, 2013 at 12:19

Hi Bill..see answers in bold below

Bill McMurray said:

Hi Trevor,

But did he do a "Full Power Reset"?(??) If you've got all the Scrambled channels now(yes we do), then he must have scanned for "All" channels instead of "FTA only", which means he didn't really know what he was doing. anyway.(Agreed..he was here for 4 hours and my wife has just given up in frustration and said Im to sort it as Im fine in my man cave and hers is not)

Simple as this:-

1. If you're getting low signal strength and quality on MySky receiver(No..it is perfect..HDMI perfect down to blades of grass) and the Strong receiver, start at the dish alignment, then work to the LNB.

2. If you're getting pixillation and channels locking up on both MySky and Strong, get Sky to replace the LNB - There'll be no charge because it's affecting your Sky reception.(not an issue on MySki)

3. If your MySky has good signal quality/ strength and isn't pixillating,(agreed) while your Strong is showing one, or all of the above, then the problem is somewhere from the splitter to your upstairs TV. Either one leg of the splitter breaking down, cable breaking down, bad connection in the cable, problem with the strong receiver, problem with the connection to the TV or a problem in the TV.(yup I can see that logic flow) - Any installer worth their salt should be able to isolate that in no time(they didnt), unless it is intermittant(no its basically there all the time). But you did say that the installer said there is plenty of signal at the input to the receiver!(yeah when he was here the first time..not the 4 hour time I saw it giving strenght in %..was in the 90s I recall) ) - Indicating the problem is in the receiver, connection to TV or TV itself.(noted)

Just trying to help, putting nearly fifty years of fault-finding/ diagnostics skills into play.(Ta..:>))

A test I will do is plug our 32inch freeveiw inbuilt TV into the cable and see what it tunes in or does.

Cheers, Bill.

Permalink Reply by Trevor Knowles on October 17, 2013 at 12:21

Hi Bill..Im not that much of a techo sori. I would be worried I would stuff up what works downstairs!

Yup signal distorts badly sideways and up/down on diffeent parts of screen and sound goes as well.

Biggles said:

Just another thought. Try taking your Strong Sat box downstairs and temporarily install instead of the sky box. If it all works OK then the box must be OK and the problem is elsewhere. Similarly try the Sky box upstairs.

What exactly are the symptoms with picture and sound? Pixellation and drop-outs or something else?

Permalink Reply by Biggles on October 17, 2013 at 14:27

That sounds like the TV itself may be the problem. If the STB is connected via composite A/V then your picture should be perfect and would pixellate and drop out rather than distort as you say. If you don't get "no signal" or other messages then it's unlikely to be the STB at fault. That sort of picture you describe is like we used to get in the old analogue days when the tuner was slightly off channel. Confirm you have selected AV in on the TV to watch Freeview and are selecting TV to watch Sky? Can you try another TV off the Strong STB? It almost sounds to me like you are trying to watch Freeview via the TV's analogue tuner somehow and not AV in. That shouldn't be possible.

Permalink Reply by Trevor Knowles on October 17, 2013 at 19:16

Yup we use AV1 for freeview when viewing. Sky is actually loaded against #4 button on TV remote for some reason. Use of TV button gets it tho.

Red white and yellow leads all seem connected. Uses Y for red plug and PBb for white and video for yellow plug.

I will try out some of the tests and suggestions Friday nite or Saturday and get back.

Biggles said:

OK

That sounds like the TV itself may be the problem. If the STB is connected via composite A/V then your picture should be perfect and would pixellate and drop out rather than distort as you say. If you don't get "no signal" or other messages then it's unlikely to be the STB at fault. That sort of picture you describe is like we used to get in the old analogue days when the tuner was slightly off channel. Confirm you have selected AV in on the TV to watch Freeview and are selecting TV to watch Sky? Can you try another TV off the Strong STB? It almost sounds to me like you are trying to watch Freeview via the TV's analogue tuner somehow and not AV in. That shouldn't be possible.

Permalink Reply by Bill McMurray on October 17, 2013 at 21:48

Hi Trevor,

-Just noticed in your latest post you said "Y for red plug and PBb for white plug". The red and white are the audio cables and should be plugged into the red and white "Audio In" sockets. It sounds like they might be plugged into "Component Video" sockets - (red, blue, green). It would definately pay to just check that!!!

The yellow should be in the yellow "Video In" socket.

Hang in there; I sense you're getting close!

Cheers, Bill.

Permalink Reply by forumuser on October 17, 2013 at 21:52

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Permalink Reply by Biggles on October 17, 2013 at 22:07

Yes I agree you are getting close to a solution.

The red white and yellow cables should be plugged into the red white and yellow sockets on the STB and the red white and yellow sockets on the TV. If plugged into the red green blue sockets on the TV would explain your problems. I would expect terrible picture and no sound. For component connection you need red green blue cables for video (both STB and TV) plus red and white for sound. Also gives superior picture quality. Mind you any reputable tech should have noticed if they were connected incorrectly.

Bill McMurray said:

Hi Trevor,

-Just noticed in your latest post you said "Y for red plug and PBb for white plug". The red and white are the audio cables and should be plugged into the red and white "Audio In" sockets. It sounds like they might be plugged into "Component Video" sockets - (red, blue, green). It would definately pay to just check that!!!

The yellow should be in the yellow "Video In" socket.

Hang in there; I sense you're getting close!

Cheers, Bill.

Permalink Reply by Trevor Knowles on October 18, 2013 at 20:24

Nah..false hope!. The plugs are all good. Red white and yellow exit STB and conenct to audio in and video on TV..nowhere near component.

So 2moro I will try some of the easy things we have talked about earlier...swap TV and look at cables.

How does one scan on FTA only not all channels. what does FTA mean/cover that All doesnt?

Trev