Unwatchable channels

japitts · 12-07-2010, 19:01

First noticed sometime (I forget exactly when) last week but posted on VM helpsite last night and a tech visit now booked..

Certain channels severely pixellated, sound squeaking and breaking up - and the box has rebooted once while trying to change off one of these channels..

Watch 124
Gold 126
Dave 128
Alibi 130
Yesterday 203
Eden 208
Discovery 212
Discovery + 1 213
Animal Planet 215
Discovery Knowledge 217
Discovery Science 219
Discovery Turbo 221
Good Food 260
Home 265
Discovery Realtime 271
Travel & Living 273
Home & Health 275

CS have said they can see a SNR issue remotely and have thus booked a tech. The thing that doesn't ring true to me, is that every other channel is perfect - it's only these (although I've not checked the channels from 310 upwards). It seemed to me almost as if one stream or frequency was duff.

We recently had a "no dialtone" fault on our VM landline that turned out to be a corroded connection in the street "hole", and I won't be surprised if this turns out to be the same..

Could someone "in the know" please convince me one way or the other that my theory is utter rubbish, or that CS are barking up a "red herring".

Thanks kindly :-)

Jon.

Peter_ · 12-07-2010, 19:06

They have to follow a diagnostic flow during which they interrogate the box, check for area issues and ask you what the box is actually doing during which they may get you to reboot the box, and those answers and the flow then inform the agent if an engineer is required or not, which in your case they have booked you one.

TheDon · 12-07-2010, 19:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by japitts

CS have said they can see a SNR issue remotely and have thus booked a tech. The thing that doesn't ring true to me, is that every other channel is perfect - it's only these (although I've not checked the channels from 310 upwards). It seemed to me almost as if one stream or frequency was duff.

An SNR issue could easily mean that one end of the frequency range breaks down whilst all others are perfectly fine. Different frequencies are effected by issues like this differently, it's perfectly possibly for most to be within tolerance but the extremities to have issues.

Digital Fanatic · 12-07-2010, 20:53

Yep, can be a SNR issue on your stb/connection causing an issue with some transport streams.

jb66 · 12-07-2010, 21:12

It's unusual for catv wires to corrode but telco wires in a sid bomb are really thin and corrode easily

Digital Fanatic · 13-07-2010, 12:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by jb66

It's unusual for catv wires to corrode but telco wires in a sid bomb are really thin and corrode easily

and some of them can get water logged too.

RedDragon · 13-07-2010, 14:34

The channels you have listed are spread over 2 mux frequencies which are next to each other, each mux carries about 10 digital channels and damaged connections or a faulty stb can cause faults on particular mux's,in any case a tech is required.

jono_h · 13-07-2010, 17:13

I've just had a similar issue. No problem on 101-105 but poor (& random) availabilty of other channels.

I thought it was going to be an overheating green cabinet, but it was a duff STB. One Engineer, one swap and all good again.

japitts · 14-07-2010, 06:00

Thanks for the replies - pretty much confirming one of my suspicions, that those channels must have something in common.

Here's hoping it's not a box fault, I've got a good 35+ hours of unwatched programs on the V+ and no immediate way of backing these up. Cue another post about an idiots guide to copying to DVD....