# Severe Pixelation (Fios)



## shoeboo (Nov 28, 2006)

TLDR: I am curious if anyone is having pixelation problems with their bolt. 

I swapped a Base Roamio (no problems) for a Bolt at my family room tv. It initially looked great, but around 10pm it started to pixelate severely (I didn't notice until next morning). There are some splitters before the Tivo, but I didn't have any attenuaters inline, signal was 86%, 35db SNR. RS uncorrected steadily rising.

Having Fios, I started messing with attenuaters and found a 3db seemed to clear things up, then between 9:30 and 11:30 last night it started happening again.

This time I can't seem to cure it. I am wondering if I have bum hardware or something else is at play.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

shoeboo said:


> TLDR: I am curious if anyone is having pixelation problems with their bolt. I swapped a Base Roamio (no problems) for a Bolt at my family room tv. It initially looked great, but around 10pm it started to pixelate severely (I didn't notice until next morning). There are some splitters before the Tivo, but I didn't have any attenuaters inline, signal was 86%, 35db SNR. RS uncorrected steadily rising. Having Fios, I started messing with attenuaters and found a 3db seemed to clear things up, then between 9:30 and 11:30 last night it started happening again. This time I can't seem to cure it. I am wondering if I have bum hardware or something else is at play.


If you still have your Roamio I would swap it back in real quick and see if the problem is there with that. If it's not, then chances are high that yes it is a bad bolt. If it's the same bad pixelation then it's signal related.


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## FLEABttn (Sep 29, 2015)

I have fios and am experiencing no pixelation with my bolt.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

shoeboo said:


> TLDR: I am curious if anyone is having pixelation problems with their bolt.
> 
> I swapped a Base Roamio (no problems) for a Bolt at my family room tv. It initially looked great, but around 10pm it started to pixelate severely (I didn't notice until next morning). There are some splitters before the Tivo, but I didn't have any attenuaters inline, signal was 86%, 35db SNR. RS uncorrected steadily rising.
> 
> ...


Extra attenuation is often suggested on the board, but I had to clean up my signal to get my Roamio Plus working without pixelation on certain channels when I swapped out my FIOS DVR.

I had been using the coax through my house wiring and switching to an RG-6 homerun that was still in place from when I had Satellite cleaned it up.


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## shoeboo (Nov 28, 2006)

jonw747 said:


> Extra attenuation is often suggested on the board, but I had to clean up my signal to get my Roamio Plus working without pixelation on certain channels when I swapped out my FIOS DVR.
> 
> I had been using the coax through my house wiring and switching to an RG-6 homerun that was still in place from when I had Satellite cleaned it up.


My coax is daisy chained, with 4x 2way splitters before this TV. Not optimal, but wasn't a problem with the Roamio. As part of testing earlier I removed one of the splitters and pixelation disappeared, but then I put the splitter back and picture was still good and has been since. I am not expecting this fixed the problem and I may have to look at a homerun to this location but it is really hard spot to reach from the attic.


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## shoeboo (Nov 28, 2006)

HarperVision said:


> If you still have your Roamio I would swap it back in real quick and see if the problem is there with that. If it's not, then chances are high that yes it is a bad bolt. If it's the same bad pixelation then it's signal related.


Thanks, I do still have the Roamio and it is one coax splitter further down the line and working well. I will try swapping them if pixelation returns tonight.


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## shoeboo (Nov 28, 2006)

FLEABttn said:


> I have fios and am experiencing no pixelation with my bolt.


Would you mind posting your signal level and SNR on the bolt next time you have access? I am curious how it compares and whether it needs a stronger signal than the roamio.


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## andyw715 (Jul 31, 2007)

shoeboo said:


> TLDR: I am curious if anyone is having pixelation problems with their bolt.
> 
> I swapped a Base Roamio (no problems) for a Bolt at my family room tv. It initially looked great, but around 10pm it started to pixelate severely (I didn't notice until next morning). There are some splitters before the Tivo, but I didn't have any attenuaters inline, signal was 86%, 35db SNR. RS uncorrected steadily rising.
> 
> ...


MoCA issues maybe? I bought 2 moca adapters to connect my HD. But whenever I plugged them in I got pixelation. I decided to use the powerline stuff i had.


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## FLEABttn (Sep 29, 2015)

shoeboo said:


> Would you mind posting your signal level and SNR on the bolt next time you have access? I am curious how it compares and whether it needs a stronger signal than the roamio.


Yeah I'll take a look when I get home.

SNR I'm not seeing but signal strength is either 85 or 87.


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## shoeboo (Nov 28, 2006)

andyw715 said:


> MoCA issues maybe? I bought 2 moca adapters to connect my HD. But whenever I plugged them in I got pixelation. I decided to use the powerline stuff i had.


This is it, there seems to be an issue when I have the Moca network active, especially if there is an active transfer (which is why it seemed to occur after turning off for the night, was accessing shows on a mini).
My only other connected Moca devices are Fios Quantum gateway router (Moca 2.0) and 2x Tivo Minis.
Video demonstrating issue:


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

shoeboo said:


> This is it, there seems to be an issue when I have the Moca network active, especially if there is an active transfer (which is why it seemed to occur after turning off for the night, was accessing shows on a mini). My only other connected Moca devices are Fios Quantum gateway router (Moca 2.0) and 2x Tivo Minis. Video demonstrating issue:


That may explain it then. Your Roamio (base?) doesn't have moca so the only device creating the moca network was your FiOS router, so you didn't have any issues with it. But now you added the Bolt which also can create a moca network so they're most likely competing with each other and interfering, causing your pixelation.

Solution seems like it should be to only use one of the devices to "create" the network. I would continue using the FiOs router to do this and turn it off in your Bolt.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

Cleaning up the coax sounds like an answer. But if you can't, is there a place in the router settings where you can change the moca channel higher or lower? You might have to dig to find it.

If there's a coax setting called Broadband or WAN or something similar, ignore that one. You want to change the frequency of the Home/Office/Network. (I have Fios but only an Actiontec router, so I don't know the exact location or lingo used in the new router. lol.)

If the router uses a high channel/frequency, a lower channel/frequency might help.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

An easy solution could be to place a POE filter on the cable going to the Quantum router.

(If turning off MoCA on the Bolt doesn't work for you for some reason.


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## shoeboo (Nov 28, 2006)

Pretty disappointed that Moca on Bolt doesn't seem to work for me right now. I was not trying to create a Moca network, just connect to the existing one and bridge the ethernet port which has a switch with 5 other devices. I have an actiontec Moca 1.1 adapter that I put back in service at that location. Because of the difficulty running any new cables, I was excited to upgrade that run to Moca 2.0 as almost everything else on my network is cat6.

Of note, my Verizon Quantum gateway router creating Moca network at 1150 MHz (Tivo Moca ch15) which should be well out of the range of linear programming. 
I can not seem to change the frequency in the router settings page, and the Bolt doesn't seem to connect at 2.0. Maybe I need to upgrade the 2 older splitters to Moca 2.0 ones to be able to push the frequency higher?


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## johndoedoes (Oct 10, 2015)

shoeboo said:


> Pretty disappointed that Moca on Bolt doesn't seem to work for me right now. I was not trying to create a Moca network, just connect to the existing one and bridge the ethernet port which has a switch with 5 other devices. I have an actiontec Moca 1.1 adapter that I put back in service at that location. Because of the difficulty running any new cables, I was excited to upgrade that run to Moca 2.0 as almost everything else on my network is cat6.
> 
> Of note, my Verizon Quantum gateway router creating Moca network at 1150 MHz (Tivo Moca ch15) which should be well out of the range of linear programming.
> I can not seem to change the frequency in the router settings page, and the Bolt doesn't seem to connect at 2.0. Maybe I need to upgrade the 2 older splitters to Moca 2.0 ones to be able to push the frequency higher?


That's so strange. I have a Bolt with MoCA coming from my FiOS Quantum Router.

I don't have any splitters (that I can see) and I'm not having any issues.

If I were to add a Mini (using the FiOS Quantum MoCA) are you saying I'll run into issues?


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

shoeboo said:


> Pretty disappointed that Moca on Bolt doesn't seem to work for me right now. I was not trying to create a Moca network, just connect to the existing one and bridge the ethernet port which has a switch with 5 other devices. I have an actiontec Moca 1.1 adapter that I put back in service at that location. Because of the difficulty running any new cables, I was excited to upgrade that run to Moca 2.0 as almost everything else on my network is cat6.
> 
> Of note, my Verizon Quantum gateway router creating Moca network at 1150 MHz (Tivo Moca ch15) which should be well out of the range of linear programming.
> I can not seem to change the frequency in the router settings page, and the Bolt doesn't seem to connect at 2.0. Maybe I need to upgrade the 2 older splitters to Moca 2.0 ones to be able to push the frequency higher?


Hi,
I am a proponent of using MoCA rated splitters especially in a situation like yours with 4 cascaded links. The reason you may be more likely to run into problems is because MoCA 2.0 achieves it greater speed by using multiple MoCA channels at the same time. While standard splitters may work in most cases, in marginal or problem setups do better with MoCA rated ones. The new homerun link you are considering will also probably solve the problem. If you decide to start swapping splitters, the first one I would try is the primary (usually multiport) splitter if not already done. Verizon sells some in there Equipment and Accessories Store and there is another source here, 
http://www.techtoolsupply.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=CATV+MoCA+Rated
If you can catch a Fios van in your area, you may will get one or two from their reps with a brief explanation.


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## shoeboo (Nov 28, 2006)

Seems like so far my issue is unique, but will provide an update:
I have not seen any pixelation using an actiontec Moca adapter to bridge the network instead of the Bolt. The internet speed reported by the Xbox one (same switch) is quite a bit slower than what I was getting through the bolt (60 Mbps Vs 154 Mbps). My internet speed is 150/150. 
-I swapped out the 2 splitters for Verizon Moca 2.0 ones, so all are the same. This didn't fix the issue. 
-I removed both Minis from the Moca network, so only router and bolt. I still get severe pixelation when streaming shows to other tivos (that are on Cat6). Bolt reports the network is Moca 2.0 when I do this, but I can't figure out how to change the frequency in the router setting from 1150 to another. 
This weekend I will probably try running a coax cable across the floor to take the splitters and existing coax out of the equation, but if it comes to running a coax homerun, I will also pull a cat6 and no longer need Moca at that TV.


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## fyodor (Sep 19, 2006)

I am having similar issues with a Bolt on fios . Curious if the OP ever found a solution.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

fyodor said:


> I am having similar issues with a Bolt on fios . Curious if the OP ever found a solution.


Seems like someone else around here was recently complaining about their BOLT pixelating whenever MoCA was enabled. I'll dig around and see if I can find that post/thread.

edit: That didn't take long...
http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=541844​
(Not that it will be of any help; just wanted to CC you on the thread, on the outside chance there's a correlation.)


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## fyodor (Sep 19, 2006)

Thanks-it's useful for diagnosing if no other reason.

I have been having pixellation issues with a Bolt-Mini combination on FIOS.

They seem to have shown up when I ran a cable from the coax jack in the bedroom to the Mini on the other side of the room. We had been using powerline previously but the connection was not reliable enough so we laid cable to do it by MoCA.

The Bolt itself had MoCA activated from the get-go and I didn't have issues. It seemed to be the activation of MoCA on the *Mini* which caused problems. I am hard pressed to understand why this would cause problems. The Tivo was getting very good signal strength (low 90s).

I actually deactivated the MoCA tonight on the Bolt since it's in the same room as the router already (connected them via Ethernet). Will report back. Next step will I guess be to get some kind of MoCA bridge for the Mini and see if that fixes the issue.


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## fyodor (Sep 19, 2006)

Switching off MoCA on the Bolt seems to have fixed the problem for me. Having it set to Ethernet +MoCA and using the Ethernet didn't do it. I actually had to to deactivate the MoCA.

Wasn't a problem for me since I had my FIOS router (with MoCA bridge) in the same room but otherwise it would have been a big problem.

Curious if this is a FIOS specific issue-this person seems to have had the same problem, which was solved by getting separate MoCA bridges.

https://forums.tivo.com/pe/action/f...D=11277136&channelID=10&portalPageId=10432560


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## shoeboo (Nov 28, 2006)

I checked and I am still experiencing the problem if I activate Moca. I had been working with Tivo and sent logs from my box. It sounds like it would take a Tivo software update to fix my issue.


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## mtnbkr (Sep 3, 2016)

I had the same issue. I was using Ethernet+moca in the Bolt to create my network and bridge to my router. I had severe picture issues on all channels and RS uncorrected errors that climbed steadily. I turned off moca and the problems went away. So I got an Actiontec bridge and let it create my network and set the Bolt to join a moca network. No more picture breakup and my RS uncorrected is at 0. 

There clearly is something wrong with the built in bridge that messes up the picture but moca alone works fine.


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