# I have had it with the stream dropouts



## sockgap (Sep 20, 2006)

Enough is enough. Things were improved for a while, but since my TiVo got the last system update the stream dropouts (where you lose audio and then get pixelation) are now just as bad as they ever were, if not worse. Just watching tonight's episode of Lost it has dropped out 5 times and I am only half way through the program. 
I have great signal strength and a clean feed to my TiVo so there is no excuse for this.
TiVo need to address this issue NOW. It is unacceptable to miss lines of dialog and have the picture keep freezing lke this. 
What can we do to show TiVo that we are serious about this? Return our TiVos? Start a a class action lawsuit?


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## rdrrepair (Nov 24, 2006)

sockgap said:


> Enough is enough.... Start a class action lawsuit?


Here we go again... :down:

I feel your pain, really I do. Have you tried new cable cards? Have you had a technician from the cable company come out? Have you asked TiVo for tech support? Does it do it on all channels? Does it only happen when you record? What has been the outcome.

If you don't want your S3 anymore then send it back! I wouldn't want anything that didn't work right either.


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

rdrrepair said:


> Here we go again... :down:
> 
> I feel your pain, really I do. Have you tried new cable cards? Have you had a technician from the cable company come out? Have you asked TiVo for tech support? Does it do it on all channels? Does it only happen when you record? What has been the outcome.
> 
> If you don't want your S3 anymore then send it back! I wouldn't want anything that didn't work right either.


What I want to know is why when someone comes in complaining about a problem and someone like* rdrrepair* gives a perfectly good response the OP never shows up to respond? This seems to happen frequently around here.

So OP, answer his question. Or are you a person who posts complaints then never even bothers to look at his own thread?


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## sockgap (Sep 20, 2006)

rdrrepair said:


> Here we go again... :down:
> I feel your pain, really I do. Have you tried new cable cards? Have you had a technician from the cable company come out? Have you asked TiVo for tech support? Does it do it on all channels? Does it only happen when you record? What has been the outcome.
> 
> If you don't want your S3 anymore then send it back! I wouldn't want anything that didn't work right either.


The quality has been up and down and up again with these same 2 cable cards. The biggest correlation I see is with TiVo software version. When I first got my S3 set up(ordered on day 1) it was terrible, then it was OK and now it is terrible again.

I get this on all HD channels. I do not have a antenna, so this is always cable.

The dropouts happen consistently when I rewind and play the dropout again, so are not replay artifacts but actual information that never made it to disk.

I don't see the point in getting Comcast out. My signal is very good and I have no reason to believe it's their fault.


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

sockgap said:


> I don't see the point in getting Comcast out. My signal is very good and I have no reason to believe it's their fault.


Thanks for responding. When you say your signal is good is this because of the strength you see on TiVo's meter? If so then you definitely need to have Comcast come out. TiVo's strength meter is not as accurate as what they can do with their meters.

I'd have them come out and check all settings from the box outside to all your outlets. They had to install a booster in mine to make it work right.

And that should be no charge. The only thing you will loose is time and if it fixes your problem, it's worth it.


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## klgood1 (Oct 21, 2002)

I would suggest buying (or borrowing) an antenna, just to see if you also get drop outs OTA. Then, you would know for sure that it's your cable setup/signal.


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

klgood1 said:


> I would suggest buying (or borrowing) an antenna, just to see if you also get drop outs OTA. Then, you would know for sure that it's your cable setup/signal.


OP thinks it's the S3. He doesn't think it's the cable box. Why go through the trouble of installing an antenna, even rabbit ears if he is paying for HD cable and he isn't getting it correctly.

Call the cable company.


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

hornblowercat said:


> So OP, answer his question. Or are you a person who posts complaints then never even bothers to look at his own thread?


OP posted at 10:55 PM, first response came at 11:29 PM, you chastised him at 5:43 AM, OP replies at 8:13 AM. I wonder if he was sleeping?


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

CosmoGeek said:


> OP posted at 10:55 PM, first response came at 11:29 PM, you chastised him at 5:43 AM, OP replies at 8:13 AM. I wonder if he was sleeping?


Did you notice I said "thank you for responding"?

I didn't notice what time the OP had posted. My bad.

Now OP, call the cable company.


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

Sockgap,

I live in Mountain View and have the same problem. The number of things that can cause this problem could be numerous. Since signal issues could be regional, I think it would be beneficial for those of us in the Bay Area to compare notes. Based on my research, I suspect it is a combination of signal issues and a deficiency in the S3's ability to handle those issues. One thing I would like to do is get several people in the Bay Area to record the same program at the same time and then to compare notes. This is probably too ambitious though. I am going to start another thread just for Bay Area S3 owners to see if we can start establishing some correlations that could help us understand our issues.


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## tomryan (Sep 9, 2006)

sockgap said:


> The quality has been up and down and up again with these same 2 cable cards. The biggest correlation I see is with TiVo software version. When I first got my S3 set up(ordered on day 1) it was terrible, then it was OK and now it is terrible again.
> 
> I get this on all HD channels. I do not have a antenna, so this is always cable.
> 
> ...


comcast told me my signal was great as well, but I still had pixelation issues, etc.. I put a 40 dollar amp in and I have no problems now.


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

tomryan said:


> comcast told me my signal was great as well, but I still had pixelation issues, etc.. I put a 40 dollar amp in and I have no problems now.


Very interesting. What amp did you put in? How did the amp change the signal strength reported by the S3? My signal strength is already reported at 99 so I am reluctant to add an amp. Actually I just got some attenuators that I am going to try. Does you amp also do any kind of signal conditioning? (probably not for $40). Anyway, I'd appreciate any product info you could provide so I could research it. Thanks.


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## gargoyle999 (Oct 28, 2006)

tomryan said:


> comcast told me my signal was great as well, but I still had pixelation issues, etc.. I put a 40 dollar amp in and I have no problems now.


I would also be interested in what type of amp was used. My signal strength shows 100 on all my digital channels. But I've been having a bad pixelation problem on HD channels since the 8.1 upgrade.


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## CraigHB (Dec 24, 2003)

I'm sooo glad I'm not experiencing these problems. After reading of the problems people are having with the S3, I felt it was a risk going with one. If it were me, I would try exchanging the unit and putting a new set of cablecards in it. I'd also check all my cable runs were properly grounded and check for faults like kinks or damage to the casing. Maybe I'd even go so far as to "ring-out" the cable runs and check for intermittent shorts at the terminations. I'd reduce the number of splitters if possible. After that, I'd give up and go with a service provider DVR. Hopefully you won't have to eat the expense. I bought my S3 from Costco for that contingency. They'll give you a refund for any reason as long as you own the unit. You could try the Comcast box or possibly go with satellite. I've read Dish has the best non-TiVo DVR.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

sockgap said:


> The dropouts happen consistently when I rewind and play the dropout again, so are not replay artifacts but actual information that never made it to disk.


So do you have a QAM tuner in the TV so you can hook the cable directly to the TV and watch a program live (shudder the thought) with the TV's tuner AND record it on the Tivo.

Note where the glitch(es) happen in the live broadcast, and see if it's the same glitches you see in the Tivo recording.

If so, then it's likely your signal. If not, it could be the Tivo or splitters or something.


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## George Cifranci (Jan 30, 2003)

I get lots of audio dropouts with my S3 using Time Warner Cable in Columbus.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

I live in the Cupertino Foothills near you guys and I get occasional dropouts and pixelization problems here too. It only happens on digital channels and I know for a fact that I have enough signal strength. I own a signal meter and I have around +6 dB and that's actually at the upper end of optimal. 

I have always assumed the dropouts were coming from the cable company side but I've never actually compared to see. It's not worth the trouble to me to even try and troubleshoot it. I'm not gonna be able to fix it anyway and so far, it hasn't pissed me off enough to consider the hassle of going back to DirecTV with no future for TiVo or going to Dish Network and having to learn a whole new DVR. It happens about once or twice per hour long show. I can live with it until "they" (whoever THEY are) figure out what's wrong and fix it. 

I have many of my favorite season passes duplicated to the Comcast DVR that I also have here. Just in case something goes wrong with my S3 I have a backup. I don't use the Comcast box for much except to allow me PPV anyway... 

For what it's worth, I've seen the exact same dropouts and pizelization in the exact same places in duplicate recordings I've made on the Comcast DVR. So at least in some cases, it's not the fault of the S3 box, but more a transmission problem from Comcast.


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## rdrrepair (Nov 24, 2006)

bareyb said:


> For what it's worth, I've seen the exact same dropouts and pizelization in the exact same places in duplicate recordings I've made on the Comcast DVR. So at least in some cases, it's not the fault of the S3 box, but more a transmission problem from Comcast.


It sounds like a transmission issue and no amount of cable card swaps will help - you might try the amp and see if it works - stabilize the feed.

:down: And, if that doesn't work, you could start a "Class Action Lawsuit" demanding that they (TiVo, ComCast, Lineman, FCC etc) get to the bottom of this once and for all!!!


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

bareyb said:


> I live in the Cupertino Foothills near you guys and I get occasional dropouts and pixelization problems here too. It only happens on digital channels and I know for a fact that I have enough signal strength. I own a signal meter and I have around +6 dB and that's actually at the upper end of optimal.
> 
> I have always assumed the dropouts were coming from the cable company side but I've never actually compared to see. It's not worth the trouble to me to even try and troubleshoot it. I'm not gonna be able to fix it anyway and so far, it hasn't pissed me off enough to consider the hassle of going back to DirecTV with no future for TiVo or going to Dish Network and having to learn a whole new DVR. It happens about once or twice per hour long show. I can live with it until "they" (whoever THEY are) figure out what's wrong and fix it.
> 
> ...


Great post! Thanks!

Some people have tried adding an attenuator to drop their signal level and a few have roported an improvement. I am going to try this myself.

Pretty cool to having a signal meter. Can it detect noise bursts or other signal quality measures?

I've taken the liberty to repeat your post over in the "Bay Area S3 owners" thread.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=4946802

feel free to post there too since your information is so valuable to other bay area users.


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## Replacement (Oct 22, 2006)

I have this same problem with only my HD channels and I just had a Comcast tech out to look at it. He checked the signal and it was within a good range. He then call his "lead" and he said that the siginal could be a little better. So the tech replaced a splitter with one with less db loss and changed a corroded fitting. He then rechecked the siginal and it improved a little. He said that we could try changing the cable cards, I told his last time I got cable cards it took 3 visits to get them working  . So we decided to leave it at that for now and see if that helped the problem.

What I really want to know is, is it Comcast or is it TiVo causing this problem. I have had this problem from the beginning and I got my S3 when it first came out, someone has to know what is going on...


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

Replacement said:


> What I really want to know is, is it Comcast or is it TiVo causing this problem. I have had this problem from the beginning and I got my S3 when it first came out, someone has to know what is going on...


For what its worth I am running just a OTA antenna with no Cable no Cards Nothing. Good quality cable from the antenna direct to the Tivo no splitters.

I have The exact same Problem! I spoke to Tivo 2 times about it and since I was under 30 days they sent me a new unit...It didn't change a thing. I still have the Exact same problem..
Sometimes its fine but when it starts acting up it really acts up. Last night survivor had drop outs every 5-10 minutes very irritating. I really am trying to figure this out. Tivo doesn't seem to acknowledge that it could be on there end. In fact both times I talked to them they said it was the first they herd of it?? I find that hard to believe.

What I don't understand is the exact same problem reported with Cable companys AND OTA antennas. Could it be possible that something (a bad signal from a appliance or TV) is getting in the Tivo box itself and corrupting the stream?
Just a thought


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## rdrrepair (Nov 24, 2006)

Have we considered the source? Let's say that the signal being sent is corrupted~Wouldn't that explain the signal issue?

I think CosmoGeek is onto something - get a pool of people in one area and check to see if there is audio or pixelation problems and report back.


bareyb said:


> For what it's worth, I've seen the exact same dropouts and pizelization in the exact same places in duplicate recordings I've made on the Comcast DVR. So at least in some cases, it's not the fault of the S3 box, but more a transmission problem from Comcast.


bareyb is recording on a S3 and a Comcast DVR and he has the same problem in the same area!!!


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## tomryan (Sep 9, 2006)

bareyb said:


> I live in the Cupertino Foothills near you guys and I get occasional dropouts and pixelization problems here too. It only happens on digital channels and I know for a fact that I have enough signal strength. I own a signal meter and I have around +6 dB and that's actually at the upper end of optimal.
> 
> I have always assumed the dropouts were coming from the cable company side but I've never actually compared to see. It's not worth the trouble to me to even try and troubleshoot it. I'm not gonna be able to fix it anyway and so far, it hasn't pissed me off enough to consider the hassle of going back to DirecTV with no future for TiVo or going to Dish Network and having to learn a whole new DVR. It happens about once or twice per hour long show. I can live with it until "they" (whoever THEY are) figure out what's wrong and fix it.
> 
> ...


I had 95-100 signal on most channels, but I was getting consistent pixelation and some channels wouldn't even come in..

The run for this particular Tivo is very long (over 70'), I added a motorola amp (40 bucks or so on amazon) at the splitter where the feed enters the house. Immediately all channels came in and since the installation, I have had 0 pixelation issues, 0 partial recordings, no problems what so ever.

ymmv of course


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

tomryan said:


> I had 95-100 signal on most channels, but I was getting consistent pixelation and some channels wouldn't even come in..
> 
> The run for this particular Tivo is very long (over 70'), I added a motorola amp (40 bucks or so on amazon) at the splitter where the feed enters the house. Immediately all channels came in and since the installation, I have had 0 pixelation issues, 0 partial recordings, no problems what so ever.
> 
> ymmv of course


And as I have pointed out many times, the TiVo signal indicator is not a true indicator of your signal strength. You proved that by adding the amp, but had you called a tech out and had them to a measurement for you they could have provided you the amp at *no charge*.

Don't waste your mney.

Oh and one other thing. Too strong a signal can also cause problems. That is why it's best to have a tech come out.


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## tomryan (Sep 9, 2006)

hornblowercat said:


> And as I have pointed out many times, the TiVo signal indicator is not a true indicator of your signal strength. You proved that by adding the amp, but had you called a tech out and had them to a measurement for you they could have provided you the amp at *no charge*.
> 
> Don't waste your mney.
> 
> Oh and one other thing. Too strong a signal can also cause problems. That is why it's best to have a tech come out.


maybe your cable provider would have provided it free of charge, but I had comcast out (multiple times) and they said the signal was fine in their books and if I wanted anything better, it was 75 dollars for an amp installed. I chose to purchase my own.. Sorry, should have stated that before.. needless to say, many of my neighbors (same size houses/runs) have multiple issues with their motorla comcast dvrs (pixelation/etc), but comcast says their signal is fine too..


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

Im also struggling with these dropouts/pixelations. Ive tried many many things. 
Ive tried....

1) High Pass Filter - eliminate return path signal
2) 10 db attenuator
3) 4 db attenuator
4) 4 db attenuator at cable amplifier input - is amp overloaded
5) different tap off cable amplifier

I have a dc blocker ordered and will try that. Cableco coming out tomorrow. Gonna ask them to try and increase signal level by 3-5 db and try that.

SA Cable boxes are indicating signal levels at around +4 dbmv with 34-35 db SNR. 

Tivo signal strength indicates around 94 for most channels (for what its worth).

Another member has 3 S3's and all of his are doing it too.

I also have OTA antenna connected. I rarely see a dropout event with the antenna.

This is driving me insane.


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## Teeps (Aug 16, 2001)

My S3 only has the audio drop out and pixelation issues on cable digital stations, such as speed and versus. I use OTA for all local broad casts and do not see the same problem.


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

tomryan said:


> maybe your cable provider would have provided it free of charge, but I had comcast out (multiple times) and they said the signal was fine in their books and if I wanted anything better, it was 75 dollars for an amp installed. I chose to purchase my own.. Sorry, should have stated that before.. needless to say, many of my neighbors (same size houses/runs) have multiple issues with their motorla comcast dvrs (pixelation/etc), but comcast says their signal is fine too..


If they say everything is fine then there is no sense in installing an amp. I wonder however if there was a problem if they still would have charged you?


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

SCSIRAID said:


> Im also struggling with these dropouts/pixelations. Ive tried many many things.
> Ive tried....
> 
> 1) High Pass Filter - eliminate return path signal
> ...


All indications are you should be getting a good signal and shouldn't be having these problems.

SCSIRAID I know your an early adopter so I assume warranty has expired. Have you talked to TiVo about this? Not that it may do any good. Also have you tried OTA?


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

hornblowercat said:


> All indications are you should be getting a good signal and shouldn't be having these problems.
> 
> SCSIRAID I know your an early adopter so I assume warranty has expired. Have you talked to TiVo about this? Not that it may do any good. Also have you tried OTA?


Ive spoke to Tivo quite a few times. I actually talked to them yesterday too. I reported the problem back in September so they assured me previously that I am still 'under warranty' due to this problem. They told me then to wait for 8.1 as this would fix it. They are still ready to replace the Tivo as soon as I say 'Go'. I have a few more things to try as I cringe at the thought of losing my content and having TWC do ANYTHING with my working cablecards....  The tech I talked to yesterday said Tivo really believed that 8.1 was going to fix it but obviously it hasnt. TWC is coming out tomorrow to check signal stength. Im gonna ask them to get me 3-5 dbmv more signal to see if that helps. I switched taps on the amp today and removed the panamax surge protector from the coax.... no change...

OTA works fine... I see a 'glitch' every once in a while but nothing to get upset about. I have an antenna in the attic.

One thing I did find out today was that the 2-4 second of lost audio I was seeing was acutally due to my receiver and ac3/dd encoding. I ran analog from the Tivo to the amp and the audio dropouts are actually in the couple tenths of a second range. It still shouldnt be happening though. I recorded some stuff last night on both the Tivo and the 8300 and again verified that the glitches are NOT on the 8300's recording. The stuff I recorded last night showed about 6 glitches per 30 minutes.


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

SCSIRAID said:


> Ive spoke to Tivo quite a few times. I actually talked to them yesterday too. I reported the problem back in September so they assured me previously that I am still 'under warranty' due to this problem. They told me then to wait for 8.1 as this would fix it. They are still ready to replace the Tivo as soon as I say 'Go'. I have a few more things to try as I cringe at the thought of losing my content and having TWC do ANYTHING with my working cablecards....  The tech I talked to yesterday said Tivo really believed that 8.1 was going to fix it but obviously it hasnt. TWC is coming out tomorrow to check signal stength. Im gonna ask them to get me 3-5 dbmv more signal to see if that helps. I switched taps on the amp today and removed the panamax surge protector from the coax.... no change...
> 
> OTA works fine... I see a 'glitch' every once in a while but nothing to get upset about. I have an antenna in the attic.
> 
> One thing I did find out today was that the 2-4 second of lost audio I was seeing was acutally due to my receiver and ac3/dd encoding. I ran analog from the Tivo to the amp and the audio dropouts are actually in the couple tenths of a second range. It still shouldnt be happening though. I recorded some stuff last night on both the Tivo and the 8300 and again verified that the glitches are NOT on the 8300's recording. The stuff I recorded last night showed about 6 glitches per 30 minutes.


 I have the same problem and talked to Tivo also. And since I had not filled mine yet with any programs I went for the swap out of another new S3 and it made no differance. Nothing changed at all. I am using a OTA antenna only.


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## tomryan (Sep 9, 2006)

hornblowercat said:


> If they say everything is fine then there is no sense in installing an amp. I wonder however if there was a problem if they still would have charged you?


Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, the S3 did not work 100% (some channels didn't come in, pixelation on other channels). According to Comcast, the signal was within their specifications and that I could request an amp (75 installed) if I wanted anything better.

I elected to purchase a 43 dollar amp (Motorola) and install it myself. Since I have done that, the S3 works 100% (all channels, no pixelation, etc).

on a side note, every neighbor I know that has a comcast provided motorola dvr has pixelation and drop out issues.. so I'm happy, they're not and it cost me 43 bucks.

With all of my experiences with Comcast (and the nightmare of getting my cablecards up and running), I elected to go my own route and I'm quite happy now.

Of course, ymmv.


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

tomryan said:


> Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, the S3 did not work 100% (some channels didn't come in, pixelation on other channels). According to Comcast, the signal was within their specifications and that I could request an amp (75 installed) if I wanted anything better.
> 
> I elected to purchase a 43 dollar amp (Motorola) and install it myself. Since I have done that, the S3 works 100% (all channels, no pixelation, etc).


Wow, what a ripoff, and how could it be possible that your signal was "fine" if after you add the booster and everything works great. I say your tech sucked or his equipment sucked.

I have TW and they treated me much better then that.


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

tomryan said:


> Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, the S3 did not work 100% (some channels didn't come in, pixelation on other channels). According to Comcast, the signal was within their specifications and that I could request an amp (75 installed) if I wanted anything better.
> 
> I elected to purchase a 43 dollar amp (Motorola) and install it myself. Since I have done that, the S3 works 100% (all channels, no pixelation, etc).
> 
> ...


What was the signal level? Did they happen to tell you?


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## tomryan (Sep 9, 2006)

hornblowercat said:


> Wow, what a ripoff, and how could it be possible that your signal was "fine" if after you add the booster and everything works great. I say your tech sucked or his equipment sucked.
> 
> I have TW and they treated me much better then that.


or, option 3, all of comcast sucks..  I want to scale back on my services (I am not watching hbo/starz/showtime) but I do not wish to waste any more of my time dealing with them and cablecard issues.. as much as I would like to believe they could remove those services without messing up my account, they have unfortunately shown me otherwise multiple times..

also, want to add, the issues I was having were much worse after 8.1x then they were with 8.0x.


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## tomryan (Sep 9, 2006)

SCSIRAID said:


> What was the signal level? Did they happen to tell you?


yes, but I don't recall.. sorry..


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## rcr2 (Feb 3, 2007)

what kind of card do you have - SA or Motorola?

There is a documented problem with SA cards, although no one seems to have officially acknowledged it yet, or reported that anything is being done about it.

I have to reboot daily due to cards cutting out, and I have a perfect signal coming into the house.


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

rcr2 said:


> what kind of card do you have - SA or Motorola?
> 
> There is a documented problem with SA cards, although no one seems to have officially acknowledged it yet, or reported that anything is being done about it.
> 
> I have to reboot daily due to cards cutting out, and I have a perfect signal coming into the house.


I have SA cards, and had some issues but TW fixed them for me. But getting that done wasn't easy, and I still don't watch the channels they fixed.


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## tomryan (Sep 9, 2006)

rcr2 said:


> what kind of card do you have - SA or Motorola?
> 
> There is a documented problem with SA cards, although no one seems to have officially acknowledged it yet, or reported that anything is being done about it.
> 
> I have to reboot daily due to cards cutting out, and I have a perfect signal coming into the house.


motorolas


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## A2Tivo (Sep 11, 2004)

tomryan said:


> also, want to add, the issues I was having were much worse after 8.1x then they were with 8.0x.


This seems to be the main point that people are missing. The problem was there with the original 8.0 ... went away with the service pack in the fall, and has come back with a vengence in 8.1. This appears to be a Tivo problem. I only record OTA on my S3 and the pixelation issues with 8.1 are right back to where they started.


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## tomryan (Sep 9, 2006)

A2Tivo said:


> This seems to be the main point that people are missing. The problem was there with the original 8.0 ... went away with the service pack in the fall, and has come back with a vengence in 8.1. This appears to be a Tivo problem. I only record OTA on my S3 and the pixelation issues with 8.1 are right back to where they started.


Yes, the problems were noticebly worse, but they existed pre 8.1x. Once I installed the amp, I've had 0 issues. not one pixelation, nothing. I could never say that before. I'm not saying an amp will solve everyone's issues, just that it solved mine and that for anyone who has laid out the money for the s3 (two in my case), 43 dollars was well worth it to me.


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

tomryan said:


> Yes, the problems were noticebly worse, but they existed pre 8.1x. Once I installed the amp, I've had 0 issues. not one pixelation, nothing. I could never say that before. I'm not saying an amp will solve everyone's issues, just that it solved mine and that for anyone who has laid out the money for the s3 (two in my case), 43 dollars was well worth it to me.


What make and model amp did you install? I am thinking about trying the same thing. Did you have audio drop outs along with pixalation.


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

A2Tivo said:


> This seems to be the main point that people are missing. The problem was there with the original 8.0 ... went away with the service pack in the fall, and has come back with a vengence in 8.1. This appears to be a Tivo problem. I only record OTA on my S3 and the pixelation issues with 8.1 are right back to where they started.


This doesn't make sense. How do you know it's not an antenna issue? How are you so certain it's the S3's fault. Do you have a STB that you can hook up to compare? Pixelation is usually a faulty signal. And as Tomyryan said once he added a booster his problem was fixed.

Reason I say this is the S3 has been hailed for sometime now as having far superior reception than a regular STB. Do you have cable? Can you compare that way?


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

wrh30 said:


> What make and model amp did you install? I am thinking about trying the same thing. Did you have audio drop outs along with pixalation.


Please, don't waste your money. The cable company should provide this if necessary at no charge.

I will admit however they seem reluctant to use them. Everytime they come out to my house they always talk about removing the amp, but without the amp I don't get any digital, period.


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

hornblowercat said:


> Reason I say this is the S3 has been hailed for sometime now as having far superior reception than a regular STB.


How did they quantify their claims? Link please. (links to your own posts don't count)


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

hornblowercat said:


> Please, don't waste your money. The cable company should provide this if necessary at no charge.
> 
> I will admit however they seem reluctant to use them. Everytime they come out to my house they always talk about removing the amp, but without the amp I don't get any digital, period.


The problem with Amps is that they need a clean signal to amplify. In "most" cases they do nothing at all (except perhaps in the owners mind) or they magnify existing problems and actually make the picture worse. Are you absolutely sure the amp is the fix? Sometimes an amp will act as a "ground breaker" and will solve some ground related problems, but quite honestly in ten years of owning a cable business I have yet to see a single instance where an amp such as the one you describe, actually helped. I've removed several and THAT helped, but so far, in a properly designed system I've yet to see any need for one. Maybe I'll try tossing one on my system and see what happens... Could be one of those mysterious "voodoo fixes".


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

hornblowercat said:


> Please, don't waste your money. The cable company should provide this if necessary at no charge.
> 
> I will admit however they seem reluctant to use them. Everytime they come out to my house they always talk about removing the amp, but without the amp I don't get any digital, period.


I don't have cable just a OTA UHF antenna here and about 32 miles from the towers. For some reason I have the most problems with CBS but the other digital channels ABC NBC PBS also has drop outs, not nearly as bad as CBS. Signal meter on the Tivo shows constant 94-95 except on PBS is peged at 100. Am running a 50 foot line direct from antenna to Tivo, I don't know if this has anything to do with it but CBS the main PROBLEM channel has a really strong analog signal that I am picking up with the UHF antenna which looks fantastic. When I a/b the Regular analog with the Digital they almost look identical. Yet the digital channel is the only one that gives me problems. The analog ch is 10 and the digital is 10-1.
Is it possible the analog could be interfering with the Digital?


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

wrh30 said:


> I don't have cable just a OTA UHF antenna here and about 32 miles from the towers. For some reason I have the most problems with CBS but the other digital channels ABC NBC PBS also has drop outs, not nearly as bad as CBS. Signal meter on the Tivo shows constant 94-95 except on PBS is peged at 100. Am running a 50 foot line direct from antenna to Tivo, I don't know if this has anything to do with it but CBS the main PROBLEM channel has a really strong analog signal that I am picking up with the UHF antenna which looks fantastic. When I a/b the Regular analog with the Digital they almost look identical. Yet the digital channel is the only one that gives me problems. The analog ch is 10 and the digital is 10-1.
> Is it possible the analog could be interfering with the Digital?


What UHF antenna are you using? Is it outside or in the attic? Digital UHF channels have very different 'issues' than analog channels. One of the worst is multipath. You might try reaiming your antenna. If there are tall structures in the path, you can get reflections which result in multipath. Dropouts and pixelations are usually what happen with multipath.

Attached is a document from an engineer at our local CBS/Fox affiliate.


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

CosmoGeek said:


> How did they quantify their claims? Link please. (links to your own posts don't count)


In this case I can really only do one thing, and tell you that based on what I've been told in this forum that many people have been able to hook up their S3 with just a pair of rabbit ears. One guy even suggested a coat hanger.  That's all I have believe me or don't that's up to you.

I know all about the pixelation thread and your own personal issues. I think as I have read in your threads that you are of the belief it could be an area issue. That is my belief as well.

There is a review that was done shortly after the S3 was released. It is what I based my purchase on. It's from Cnet's editors.

http://reviews.cnet.com/TiVo_Series3_HD_DVR/4505-6474_7-32065631.html?tag=prod.img.1#more


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

bareyb said:


> The problem with Amps is that they need a clean signal to amplify. In "most" cases they do nothing at all (except perhaps in the owners mind) or they magnify existing problems and actually make the picture worse. Are you absolutely sure the amp is the fix? Sometimes an amp will act as a "ground breaker" and will solve some ground related problems, but quite honestly in ten years of owning a cable business I have yet to see a single instance where an amp such as the one you describe, actually helped. I've removed several and THAT helped, but so far, in a properly designed system I've yet to see any need for one. Maybe I'll try tossing one on my system and see what happens... Could be one of those mysterious "voodoo fixes".


If your box gets too strong a signal you're right, that will cause problems as well. Am I absolutely sure? Well, if I unplug the amp none of my digital channels work. That makes me pretty confident that the amp is needed.


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

SCSIRAID said:


> What UHF antenna are you using? Is it outside or in the attic? Digital UHF channels have very different 'issues' than analog channels. One of the worst is multipath. You might try reaiming your antenna. If there are tall structures in the path, you can get reflections which result in multipath. Dropouts and pixelations are usually what happen with multipath.
> 
> Attached is a document from an engineer at our local CBS/Fox affiliate.


I am using a DB8 mounted in my attic here is the antenna I am using
http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?PROD=AD-DB8&xzoom=Large#xview

My zip code is 65631 just want to get the Major networks. 
I was wondering if it might help if I installed a amp that would block the VHF signals. Channel master makes one. I don't have any tall building around me. It is a pretty straight shot to the towers. It is in the attic which was a tight fit but the house has a regular shingles and vinal siding. No metal except for the gutters. I read that it is possible to get multipath or interference from appliances in your house like a microwave. A web site suggested taking a am radio not tunned to a station and walking around the house listening for changes in the static which would mean RF leakage?

I tried this and did notice when the am radio got close to my TV it got VERY loud. I am hooked to a Standard CRT Sony wega which is where the Tivo is hooked to.

I also have tried rotating the antenna which didn't seem to change anything. I even tried unhooking one side of the antenna thinking my signal might be to strong that didn't seem to change anything either, my signal was still showing 94 on CBS with half the antenna unplugged.
I am just trying to figure out what is going on before my 30 day return period is up. Also BTW I have talked to Tivo and they sent me another S3 but it does the exact same thing. didn't change a thing.


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## rdrrepair (Nov 24, 2006)

wrh30 said:


> ...I have talked to Tivo and they sent me another S3 but it does the exact same thing. didn't change a thing.


That quote... I seem to hear that a lot.

I wish I could buy one of those refurbished - nothing wrong with them S3's that TiVo keeps replacing! I have read countless times that "TiVo sent me a new unit and that didn't fix the issue".

In your case you have OTA - most cases it's cable - It sounds like a signal issue in most of these. I think the S3 bashing is a little over stated - I had 2 small issues that were fixed with the update - All in all I am very please with my S3!


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

rdrrepair said:


> That quote... I seem to hear that a lot.
> 
> I wish I could buy one of those refurbished - nothing wrong with them S3's that TiVo keeps replacing! I have read countless times that "TiVo sent me a new unit and that didn't fix the issue".
> 
> In your case you have OTA - most cases it's cable - It sounds like a signal issue in most of these. I think the S3 bashing is a little over stated - I had 2 small issues that were fixed with the update - All in all I am very please with my S3!


Yes Tivo was very good about trying to help. I did not ask for a replacment, it was there idea. I was just going to return for a refund.

I think in most cases this could very well be a broadcast issue. What I am concerned with is the amount of money it cost and something is not right and not a lot of suggestions on what could be causing the problems.

If this is something I can fix I will be thrilled as I would hate to give up my S3.
But on the otherhand I can not justify 1000.00 and put up with audio drop outs and pixalation problems just so I can own a Tivo.


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

wrh30 said:


> I am using a DB8 mounted in my attic here is the antenna I am using
> http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?PROD=AD-DB8&xzoom=Large#xview
> 
> My zip code is 65631 just want to get the Major networks.
> ...


With the signal levels you are showing, I doubt that an amp would do any good, in fact it may make things worse. I would try relocating the antenna or working the aiming. The DB8 is supposedly a very good antenna. However, it may be more antenna then you need and contributing to your problem. One thing you could try is to email the engineering team from a local station and ask for an antenna recommendation based on your location. That is a service that WRAL does for folks here.


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

rdrrepair said:


> That quote... I seem to hear that a lot.
> 
> I wish I could buy one of those refurbished - nothing wrong with them S3's that TiVo keeps replacing! I have read countless times that "TiVo sent me a new unit and that didn't fix the issue".
> 
> In your case you have OTA - most cases it's cable - It sounds like a signal issue in most of these. I think the S3 bashing is a little over stated - I had 2 small issues that were fixed with the update - All in all I am very please with my S3!


That may be true. In my case, I have done about everything under the sun to resolve my dropout/pixelation issue. After 5 months I have finally asked for a replacement (and Tivo is in support of that path) but am not optomistic that it will solve the issue. Im just totally out of ideas. I guess next week I will either be happy or there will be another 'refurb' Tivo for you to bid on


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

hornblowercat said:


> There is a review that was done shortly after the S3 was released. It is what I based my purchase on. It's from Cnet's editors.
> 
> http://reviews.cnet.com/TiVo_Series3_HD_DVR/4505-6474_7-32065631.html?tag=prod.img.1#more


Regarding reception quality, this is what the review said:



> Video quality was generally excellent--which is to say, we noticed no differences in the TiVo's video quality vs. that of respective cable and antenna reception on other devices (the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR and Samsung SIR-T451 over-the-air tuner).


Thanks for the link. If you ever do find a real technical review of the S3 regarding reception performance with actual measurements, let me know.


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## BillL (Oct 6, 2004)

rdrrepair said:


> That quote... I seem to hear that a lot.
> 
> I wish I could buy one of those refurbished - nothing wrong with them S3's that TiVo keeps replacing! I have read countless times that "TiVo sent me a new unit and that didn't fix the issue".
> 
> In your case you have OTA - most cases it's cable - It sounds like a signal issue in most of these. I think the S3 bashing is a little over stated - I had 2 small issues that were fixed with the update - All in all I am very please with my S3!


My original TiVo had two issues. One was terrible pixilation on tuner 1 and no pixilation on tuner 2 on the same exact channel. The other issue was rebooting even after 8.1. I got a refurb last week. Rebooting is completely gone which is a relief. The pixilation was still terrible on any channel that had a frequency in the 600s. ESPNHD was completely unwatchable but only on tuner 1! I figured out a way to fix this issue, though. Unplugged the antenna, reran the guided setup as cable only. Now there is no pixilation on either tuner. The only downside is that I cannot use the box to record OTA. Oh well.


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

A new one for me tonight. Watching OTA NBC which was doing fine, The Tivos second Tuner kicked in to record another channel. At the exact time the recording started on the other network I lost all audio on the channel I was watching. 

I was out earlyer messing with my Antenna position trying to fix pixalation issues on CBS.
Maybe I need to do a reboot. This is a first.
Audio came back by changing channels


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

SCSIRAID said:


> With the signal levels you are showing, I doubt that an amp would do any good, in fact it may make things worse. I would try relocating the antenna or working the aiming. The DB8 is supposedly a very good antenna. However, it may be more antenna then you need and contributing to your problem. One thing you could try is to email the engineering team from a local station and ask for an antenna recommendation based on your location. That is a service that WRAL does for folks here.


Ok this is really weird....I took your advice and have been messing with the aiming of the antenna in my attic all night trying a little at a time. I have the DB8 UHF antenna states it is good for 70 miles..I am 31 miles from my Towers. Since this was going in my attic I knew I would lose signal so I went for the more powerful Antenna.

It seems no matter how I aimed the antenna my signal strgenth would not change not much at all. This seemed very weird since I am 31 miles away. Just for grins I unscrewed the coax from the antenna and I still had some signal and picture going in and out on the digital channels!

I got my cheap walmart 5 dollar set of rabbit ears and took it up in the attic and replaced the DB8 and I got all my digital channels back with good strength about 92 on the Tivo meter. I am getting drop outs still on HD but this is a 5 dollar pair of rabbit ears in my attic and it is pulling in digital signals on all major networks.

I will work on this more and update when I find out whats happening.


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

CosmoGeek said:


> Thanks for the link. If you ever do find a real technical review of the S3 regarding reception performance with actual measurements, let me know.


So you're saying you won't accept my word when I tell you I have read in this forum people who have claimed that the OTA tuner works great?

And how much better of a rateing can you get then "excellent"?

CosmoGeek it seems that you question anything I say not on this thread but on other threads. If you want a "technical link" search for it yourself.


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

wrh30 said:


> Ok this is really weird....I took your advice and have been messing with the aiming of the antenna in my attic all night trying a little at a time. I have the DB8 UHF antenna states it is good for 70 miles..I am 31 miles from my Towers. Since this was going in my attic I knew I would lose signal so I went for the more powerful Antenna.
> 
> It seems no matter how I aimed the antenna my signal strgenth would not change not much at all. This seemed very weird since I am 31 miles away. Just for grins I unscrewed the coax from the antenna and I still had some signal and picture going in and out on the digital channels!
> 
> ...


If you are 92 on rabbit ears then the DB-8 is likely WAAAAY too much antenna.

The signal strength meter is really about useless on the S3. If your TV has ATSC and a signal strength meter then you might get more useful measurements with it.

Im using this antenna at 20 miles with excellent results. No amps. Its even split to drive 2 receivers.

http://www.solidsignal.tv/prod_display.asp?PROD=ANCM3022


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## chrispitude (Apr 23, 2005)

I have glitches too. What's strange is that I have started noticing them on my analog cable channels too. They are MPEG pixelation blocks, which means they are being introduced during the encoding process and were not in the original signal.

- Chris


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## tomryan (Sep 9, 2006)

chrispitude said:


> I have glitches too. What's strange is that I have started noticing them on my analog cable channels too. They are MPEG pixelation blocks, which means they are being introduced during the encoding process and were not in the original signal.
> 
> - Chris


are you sure they're analog channels? check and see if you can set a recording quality for an analog channel show. I'm guessing that you are receiving a digital simulcast.


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## BillL (Oct 6, 2004)

tomryan said:


> are you sure they're analog channels? check and see if you can set a recording quality for an analog channel show. I'm guessing that you are receiving a digital simulcast.


No, he is correct. My analog stations pixilated as well.


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## chrispitude (Apr 23, 2005)

tomryan said:


> are you sure they're analog channels? check and see if you can set a recording quality for an analog channel show. I'm guessing that you are receiving a digital simulcast.


Positive. It's Game Show Network, which is in the analog range and which I recorded previously with my Series 2 (no digital cable then). The Series 3 is just glitching while encoding/recording the channel.

I also get the fairly consistent glitches during digital/HD recording that the original poster gets. My channel strength shows 96+ on all digital channels.

- Chris


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

chrispitude said:


> Positive. It's Game Show Network, which is in the analog range and which I recorded previously with my Series 2 (no digital cable then). The Series 3 is just glitching while encoding/recording the channel.


The analog range and S2 mean nothing at all. The cable company can be sending two versions of the show out: one digital and one analog. The cable card on the S3 will use the digital version, while an S2 uses the analog version. For example, I can record channel 27 on my S3 and S2 (both without cable boxes) at the same time. The S3 will record the digital version and the S2 the analog.

As the previous poster said, the easiest way to tell if it's an analog or digital signal is to see what happens when you record a show on the channel. If it's analog, you'll have the option to change the recording quality, but if it's digital you won't.


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

Anymore reports on the Audio and video drop outs? 
I never was able to get mine working like it should. OTA great antenna great signal no cable cards involved..
My 30 day return refund was running out so My S3 got shipped back for full refund.

Anyone interested in a like new DB8 OTA Antenna? Thinking about putting it up on Ebay


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## rdrrepair (Nov 24, 2006)

wrh30 said:


> Anymore reports on the Audio and video drop outs?
> I never was able to get mine working like it should. OTA great antenna great signal no cable cards involved..
> My 30 day return refund was running out so My S3 got shipped back for full refund.
> 
> Anyone interested in a like new DB8 OTA Antenna? Thinking about putting it up on Ebay


Why would we want your Antenna?  You just stated...


wrh30 said:


> It seems no matter how I aimed the antenna my signal strgenth would not change not much at all. This seemed very weird since I am 31 miles away. Just for grins I unscrewed the coax from the antenna and I still had some signal and picture going in and out on the digital channels!
> 
> I got my cheap walmart 5 dollar set of rabbit ears and took it up in the attic and replaced the DB8 and I got all my digital channels back with good strength about 92 on the Tivo meter. I am getting drop outs still on HD but this is a 5 dollar pair of rabbit ears in my attic and it is pulling in digital signals on all major networks.


A few posts before? This was your second TiVo and it still did the same thing? I'll stand by my earlier statement.


rdrrepair said:


> I wish I could buy one of those refurbished - nothing wrong with them S3's that TiVo keeps replacing! I have read countless times that "TiVo sent me a new unit and that didn't fix the issue"


It's a shame -- I have been following your dilemma and hoping you had it figured out. Sounds like you gave it a great effort :up: -- Multiple posts, almost 6 months and two TiVo's, Amps, Traps... am I missing something??? Oh yeah, besides the $5 rabbit ears you never tried replacing the Antenna... I would bet that @ 30+ miles you should have had better luck??? I hope you're not turned off by TiVo? What is your gameplan now? VCR...  Series 2... Future Series 4? You stated that you don't get cable... Only OTA. I hope TiVo's Tuners aren't that fickle, but maybe it is? Good luck to ya, I really thought you would have tried another Antenna?


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

wrh30 said:


> Anymore reports on the Audio and video drop outs?
> I never was able to get mine working like it should. OTA great antenna great signal no cable cards involved..
> My 30 day return refund was running out so My S3 got shipped back for full refund.
> 
> Anyone interested in a like new DB8 OTA Antenna? Thinking about putting it up on Ebay


Changing to a lower gain directional antenna would have probably solved your problem. My OTA reception is solid. A high number on the signal meter doesnt mean your signal is good. Strong doesnt always mean good. Multipath is the enemy of digital TV.

Like this one... http://www.solidsignal.tv/prod_display.asp?PROD=ANCM3022
or this one...... http://www.solidsignal.tv/prod_display.asp?PROD=AD-DB2


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

wrh30 said:


> Anymore reports on the Audio and video drop outs?


Now as to stream dropouts on QAM with Cablecards.... work is ongoing. TWC checked signal strength, connectors, tap, BER and said signal was correct. Tivo sent me a brand new replacement unit, TWC installed fresh cablecards but problem persisted. Replacement Tivo with recorded content is on its way to Tivo engineering for analysis. TWC is contacting Scientific Atlanta. 8300 tuned to my two most watched cable channels (DHD, Science Channel) indicated after 4 hours a BER of Zero. This is some strange stuff. Suggests an MPEG issue or interaction between Tivo and Cablecard issue.

Fun fun fun.....


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

SCSIRAID said:


> Changing to a lower gain directional antenna would have probably solved your problem. My OTA reception is solid. A high number on the signal meter doesnt mean your signal is good. Strong doesnt always mean good. Multipath is the enemy of digital TV.
> 
> Like this one... http://www.solidsignal.tv/prod_display.asp?PROD=ANCM3022
> or this one...... http://www.solidsignal.tv/prod_display.asp?PROD=AD-DB2


That was going to be my next thing to try, It could be a mutipath issue. But to be honest I was just burnt on trying to figure it out and time was running out on the return.
Could the Tivos tuners be that sensitive? I mean there was no differance between the 120.00 DB8 Antenna and the 5 dollar Rabbit ears mounted up in the attic  The Tivo acted the exact same with both antennas. Same audio and video drop outs, a little worse with the rabbit ears.
I even got digital signal drop in and out with the cable unscrewed from the antenna all together!

And I am 30+miles from the Towers.

Anyway for now I will just stick with my S2 which Tivo transfered my Lifetime back to from the S3.

I figure by the time I figure out what is wrong the price of the S3 will be lower ( I did pay the BIG price at 799 direct from Tivo) I can always buy one again. Lower Price but Without the lifetime


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## tinkererguy (May 14, 2002)

tomryan said:


> I had 95-100 signal on most channels, but I was getting consistent pixelation and some channels wouldn't even come in..
> 
> The run for this particular Tivo is very long (over 70'), I added a motorola amp (40 bucks or so on amazon) at the splitter where the feed enters the house. Immediately all channels came in and since the installation, I have had 0 pixelation issues, 0 partial recordings, no problems what so ever.
> 
> ymmv of course


Not finding this amp at Amazon, any chance you could post a link, or a model #? This sounds like the most promising fix out there, I too have sporadic pixelation and Cox has run out of ideas (they're handheld meter says it's fine, and the Motorola HD tuner they rent to me looks fine with no pixelation).


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## tinkererguy (May 14, 2002)

tinkererguy said:


> Not finding this amp at Amazon, any chance you could post a link, or a model #? This sounds like the most promising fix out there, I too have sporadic pixelation and Cox has run out of ideas (they're handheld meter says it's fine, and the Motorola HD tuner they rent to me looks fine with no pixelation).


Nevermind, I believe I now found it (RF, antenna, amp were all invalid search terms, but booster worked)
http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-GI-S...4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1174483421&sr=8-1

Motorola Part # 484095-001-00 site:
http://broadband.motorola.com/catalog/productdetail.asp?image=large&productID=204

Motorola manual:
http://broadband.motorola.com/consu...nloads/Signal_Booster_Installation_Manual.pdf


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

tinkererguy said:


> Nevermind, I believe I now found it (RF, antenna, amp were all invalid search terms, but booster worked)
> http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-GI-S...4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1174483421&sr=8-1
> 
> Motorola Part # 484095-001-00 site:
> ...


This is most likely a lot better amp....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...MEWA:IT&viewitem=&item=260094500860&rd=1&rd=1


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## tinkererguy (May 14, 2002)

SCSIRAID said:


> This is most likely a lot better amp....
> 
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...MEWA:IT&viewitem=&item=260094500860&rd=1&rd=1


Looked at the ebay post, saw this fine print:
THIS IS A 1 PORT Amplifier. SORRY for Misleading INFO.

Ideally, looking for two ports myself, ideally one that somebody has already tested with the TiVo Series 3 (I have 2 of them).


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

tinkererguy said:


> Looked at the ebay post, saw this fine print:
> THIS IS A 1 PORT Amplifier. SORRY for Misleading INFO.
> 
> Ideally, looking for two ports myself, ideally one that somebody has already tested with the TiVo Series 3 (I have 2 of them).


Just use a splitter on the amp output. A 2port amp just imbeds the splitter.

Here is a 2port Viewsonics. I am currently using an 8 port viewsonics.

http://cgi.ebay.com/VIEWSONICS-VSA-...itemZ9706994924QQcategoryZ39803QQcmdZViewItem


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## tinkererguy (May 14, 2002)

SCSIRAID said:


> Just use a splitter on the amp output. A 2port amp just imbeds the splitter.
> 
> Here is a 2port Viewsonics. I am currently using an 8 port viewsonics.
> 
> http://cgi.ebay.com/VIEWSONICS-VSA-...itemZ9706994924QQcategoryZ39803QQcmdZViewItem


Yeah, was trying to keep it simple and avoid splitters, but went ahead and bought the Motorola tonight at local Circuit City, kind of assuming I was going to have to return it (it's $80, but $50 after rebate), far better deals available elsewhere:
http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=553683/search=motorola+signal+booster

The good news is that the Motorola Signal Booster seems to actually work, minimizing or nearly eliminating the TiVo Series 3 pixelation issue I've had with some digital channels (on all but one channel). See the attached gif below for details on how I wired it.

If I go with 3 way split at the TiVos, to include my Cox provided Motorola 6200 HD receiver (non DVR), then I get lower signal strength and pixelation issues on more channels (digital, 100-184). If I go with just one TiVo S3, thus eliminating a splitter, then I get perfect reception on all channels, even the most troublesome of all for whatever reason, channel 120 G4. Strangely, HD channels have always been fine for me, as were over the air.

Still missing channels (blank, not pixelated) on one set of Cablecards in one of the two TiVos, where a "cold hit" signal sent from Cox doesn't resolve it, so will still have Cox come out this Friday as scheduled, and swap those 2 Motorola cable cards (the other unit has perfect channel line-up). Will ask installer to also change out some of the older RG6 cables and ends (~10 years old), and use their splitter. Perhaps I'll then have perfect reception on every channel, we'll see Friday...

I will also be trying this same Motorola amp in my brother's new home, where Comcast (with Scientific Atlanta cable cards) services his week old TiVo Series 3: he also has pixelation issues, though not as severe as mine. Since he has only one S3 unit servicing his whole house (using RF modulator and IR repeaters), install will be straight forward. I had noticed signal around 88-90 on some of his channels when the new installer was still there, but little he could do to adjust, and his cable tuner box worked fine (no pixelation, and set aside after installer left), basically the same situation as at my Cox home, although his VOIP based phone service via the cablemodem's RJ-11 port means he has one less split outside his home, so I had (wrongly) assumed he might not be as likely to have pixelation, I realize now there's a lot more factors of course, but am glad a fix (really a kludge) may be available for S3 owners that isn't too terribly expensive.

Too bad the Cox-provided amplifier don't seem to work, oh well...

Will keep you all informed...


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

It seems like Cox uses cheap equipment. TW replaced all my splitters with their own, even splitters that they admitted were good but they wanted the "right" equipment set up.

But that's not why I came here today. I came to report that for about a 1/2 a second while watching The Hallmark Mystery Movie (the one with John Larraquette), I had a drop out. The picture warped and I missed about a syllable of sound! This was on encrypted digital cable.

Needless to say that now that I have experienced this major bug I plan on not only launching a major campaign about how bad the S3 is, I also intend to file a class action law suit.

Are you with me?


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## rdrrepair (Nov 24, 2006)

hornblowercat said:


> ...for about a 1/2 a second while watching The Hallmark Mystery Movie (the one with John Larraquette), I had a drop out. The picture warped and I missed about a syllable of sound! This was on encrypted digital cable.
> 
> Needless to say that now that I have experienced this major bug I plan on not only launching a major campaign about how bad the S3 is, I also intend to file a class action law suit.


  I too had this same issue on my S3 while watching the same show -- me thinks it's a transmission problem from higher up. I believe I have narrowed it down to a sunburst on the other side of the planet. The sunburst affected my ability to watch and listen to the Hallmark channel.

I think the class action lawsuit should also include NASA for launching an unprotected satellite. I'll research who pushed the button at NASA to send it up. I will let you find out who designed and built said equipment -- call me when we are flush with cash.


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## tomryan (Sep 9, 2006)

tinkererguy said:


> ...
> The good news is that the Motorola Signal Booster seems to actually work, minimizing or even eliminating the TiVo Series 3 pixelation issue I've had with certain digital channels. See the attached gif below for details on how I wired it.
> .... Will keep you all informed...


glad to hear it worked out for you!


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## tinkererguy (May 14, 2002)

tomryan said:


> glad to hear it worked out for you!


Yes Tomryan, I certainly have you to thank for it, so glad you posted your Motorola finding on this forum for the many S3 users.

In case this hasn't come across, I'm still quite happy with my S3. And despite big potholes in the road, most haven't been noticed by family (we stick with HD most of the time), and having the 750GB drive in one of the S3s makes the wait for eSATA a non-issue. There simply is no alternative in the marketplace at the moment that I can see: my whole family hated the Cox-provided Motorola DVR, and the DirectTV DVR interfaces, and there is no TiVo software yet for the Cox or Comcast DVR units.

I still plan to discuss the matter with TiVo engineers to close this out (they wanted me to get get back to them, and have been very good to me through this process of figuring out what's up).


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

rdrrepair said:


> :I think the class action lawsuit should also include NASA for launching an unprotected satellite. I'll research who pushed the button at NASA to send it up. I will let you find out who designed and built said equipment -- call me when we are flush with cash.


Sounds like a plan. Say. Do you think that we can include Russia in on this? I mean if we find out the space station is at all involved, I think we ought to include them in as defendents. Cha ching, cha ching, let that cash register ring!


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## moscovitzd (Dec 6, 2006)

I'm wondering how many folks who are experiencing this problem have opened a support case with Tivo. I've called them multiple times because of audio dropout with pixelation and the CSRs tell me they've not heard of anyone reporting this problem. Have any of the Tivo reps that monitor the forum commented on this problem?

To give some background I have Cox cable and SA cards. I've had Cox replace the SA cards several times. Cox has checked the signal coming into the house and at the Tivo on multiple visits and they added an amp. I might pursue the Motorola amp because nothing thus far has improved the situation. Tivo did send me a replacement unit at their suggestion. Same problem exactly. I did try it with OTA and had the same dropouts. Cox installed a new set of SA cards with the replacement unit, same issue. Frustrating.


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

moscovitzd said:


> I'm wondering how many folks who are experiencing this problem have opened a support case with Tivo. I've called them multiple times because of audio dropout with pixelation and the CSRs tell me they've not heard of anyone reporting this problem. Have any of the Tivo reps that monitor the forum commented on this problem?
> 
> To give some background I have Cox cable and SA cards. I've had Cox replace the SA cards several times. Cox has checked the signal coming into the house and at the Tivo on multiple visits and they added an amp. I might pursue the Motorola amp because nothing thus far has improved the situation. Tivo did send me a replacement unit at their suggestion. Same problem exactly. I did try it with OTA and had the same dropouts. Cox installed a new set of SA cards with the replacement unit, same issue. Frustrating.


I opened a support case back in Sept/Oct right after I got my unit. A Tivo with recordings with the dropout issues is in transit and will arrive at Tivo development on monday for them to 'rip' and examine the recorded mpeg.

My experience mirrors yours with one exception... OTA for me is perfect. I only have issues with encrypted QAM. I tried amps, filters, attenuators, dead chickens and nothing made any difference. I even thought about trying a ball pein hammer. 

I know of 6 S3's in my area and all 6 of them are doing this dropout and pixelation nonsense.

From my discussions with Tivo, it doesnt appear that many have opened support cases on this problem so I dont believe it is seen as a big field issue.


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## mercurial (Oct 17, 2002)

Yes, I'm one of the 6 only mine seem to do it occasionally on UNencrypted QAM, digital stations (premium and "regular") and I *think* I saw it on an analog channel. I have to go double check what channel a particular show is being recorded on to be sure of that last one.

Big thanks to SCSIRAID for working this issue. Maybe he'll join us one Wednesday and we'll buy him lunch.


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

I've called and all they wanted to do was send me a new S3. I wanted to talk to somebody in engineering. The CSR said no can do, which is what I expected, but I was a little surprised that the CSR said they can't even contact engineering. They must have some way to get problems reported to engineering but not that this CSR was aware of. I asked what they have discovered or done in their attempts to diagnose this issue, and he had no information. 

We know that in some cases, another DVR recording the same show off of the same feed will not demonstarete the problem, so it is not unreasonable to expect TiVo to investigate this issue. It appears that for certain signal issues, the S3 is not as capable as other DVRs of handling them optimally. I just want to know if there is anything they can do about it. 

I wish TiVo would quit being so defensive and paranoid in their information dissemination policy. It wouldn't kill them to let us know what issues they are working on. It wouldn't kill them to issue release notes. It wouldn't kill them to let us know what they concluded when they did investigate a problem.

If they could just tell me why it happens and if they are or aren't going to be able to fix it, I could move on and live with it if I have to. Their silence prevents closure and keeps threads like this alive.


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## TiVolunteer (Jul 10, 2001)

mercurial said:


> Yes, I'm one of the 6 only mine seem to do it occasionally on UNencrypted QAM, digital stations (premium and "regular") and I *think* I saw it on an analog channel. I have to go double check what channel a particular show is being recorded on to be sure of that last one.
> 
> Big thanks to SCSIRAID for working this issue. Maybe he'll join us one Wednesday and we'll buy him lunch.


I've got 3 of the 6 that SCSIRAID is talking about. I'm seeing pretty much the same thing except I do see it sometimes on OTA. However, I think I'm dealing with a multi-path issue on my OTA.

We "tag-teamed" the TWC support staff -- it is pretty bad when they know you by the sound of your voice and have your number posted on their desk. I had one of them the other day tell me that SCSIRAID says "hi".

So, big kudo's to SCSI for pulling this together. I hope his RMA'ed S3 gives TiVo some clue as to what is going on.


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

TiVolunteer said:


> So, big kudo's to SCSI for pulling this together. I hope his RMA'ed S3 gives TiVo some clue as to what is going on.


+1 :up: Thanks SCSIRAID. You are one of my favorite posters here and a real asset to the forum.


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

CosmoGeek said:


> I've called and all they wanted to do was send me a new S3. I wanted to talk to somebody in engineering. The CSR said no can do, which is what I expected, but I was a little surprised that the CSR said they can't even contact engineering. They must have some way to get problems reported to engineering but not that this CSR was aware of. I asked what they have discovered or done in their attempts to diagnose this issue, and he had no information.
> 
> We know that in some cases, another DVR recording the same show off of the same feed will not demonstarete the problem, so it is not unreasonable to expect TiVo to investigate this issue. It appears that for certain signal issues, the S3 is not as capable as other DVRs of handling them optimally. I just want to know if there is anything they can do about it.
> 
> ...


TiVoJerry works in engineering. Have you tried to pm him?


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

I already returned mine for this problem. After talking to 2 diff CSRs and a Tivo Tech guy that had no clue and them acting like they never herd of this problem tells me they have a a issue they cant figure out. They gave me a replacment but it did the same thing. So I returned the replacment and got a refund.
Mine was strickly OTA digital no cable cards no analog. Maybe my problem could have been multipath issue, But I have a hard time accepting this as the culprit when there are so many reports of the exact same stream drop outs with Cable. Does not make any since?

I realize there are many happy S3 owners that have no problems at all but IMO only something is not right with the box, Might just be a software problem but my concern was it could be hardware. They are already starting to show up on ebay with the lifetime service because the reason being "It wont work with my cable co".


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## mercurial (Oct 17, 2002)

I have seen multi-path and similar issues on OTA with other boxes (both TiVo (HR10) and non (Samsung HD tuner)). They look relatively similar. I wouldn't rule out multi-path for OTA issues- it maybe hard to visually distinguish a CC/TiVo stream issue from a "regular" OTA issue if you haven't tried another OTA box.


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

Could it be possible that the tuners in the S3 are very sensitive and have to have almost a perfect signal to not have any drop outs? Maybe this is related to dual tuners? If this is the case could it be fixed with a software update?

It just seems weird that we have the same symptoms reported on this forum with both combinations OTA and Cable.

I have done some reading on HDTV computer cards for OTA. And have found many people having problems with those also, Not necessarily the same but just problems making them work..And they were just single tuner cards.

I am no HD expert When I get this figured out and the problem fixed I plan on purchasing another S3.. I Love my S2 and was real disappointed I had to return the S3


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

mercurial said:


> I have seen multi-path and similar issues on OTA with other boxes (both TiVo (HR10) and non (Samsung HD tuner)). They look relatively similar. I wouldn't rule out multi-path for OTA issues- it maybe hard to visually distinguish a CC/TiVo stream issue from a "regular" OTA issue if you haven't tried another OTA box.


Agree. I believe the OTA stuff is different. I will see a glitch on OTA but it happens very infrequently.

Here are a couple videos of what I see on Encrypted QAM

http://home.nc.rr.com/dkeener/hd1.mpg

http://home.nc.rr.com/dkeener/hd2.mpg

The long audio dropout is due to the receiver losing lock on the DD stream. If you listen to the audio thru analog cables, the dropout is much shorter.


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

wrh30 said:


> Could it be possible that the tuners in the S3 are very sensitive and have to have almost a perfect signal to not have any drop outs? Maybe this is related to dual tuners? If this is the case could it be fixed with a software update?
> 
> It just seems weird that we have the same symptoms reported on this forum with both combinations OTA and Cable.
> 
> ...


No way to know..... Signal STRENGTH certainly isnt the issue... The SA boxes certainly have no problem whatsoever with the stream. The real puzzler is why some of us have the issue while others have ZERO problem (Hook for example never saw any dropouts). That tends to suggest that there is something going on relative to either the signal or the stream. The fact that Tivolunteer's 3 boxes do it at different places while recording the same show tends to suggest signal instead of stream.... Hopefully the analysis of the mpeg by Tivo will shed some light. TWC was contacting SA so I will have to ping them and see what became of that.


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

SCSIRAID said:


> Agree. I believe the OTA stuff is different. I will see a glitch on OTA but it happens very infrequently.
> 
> Here are a couple videos of what I see on Encrypted QAM
> 
> ...


Your first video "hd1.mpg" was exactly what mine was doing .

I was using a 120.00 DB8 antenna in the attic, then for grins I unhooked it and put a pair of rabbit ears in the attic and the Tivo did the exact same thing, no change.


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

hornblowercat said:


> TiVoJerry works in engineering. Have you tried to pm him?


Jerry is very aware of this..... I probably wouldnt barage him with PM's on it. Perhaps a thread with 'Tivojerry... I have it too.....' would show how pervasive the issue is. He will see it.


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

wrh30 said:


> Your first video "hd1.mpg" was exactly what mine was doing .
> 
> I was using a 120.00 DB8 antenna in the attic, then for grins I unhooked it and put a pair of rabbit ears in the attic and the Tivo did the exact same thing, no change.


Yup... I replied to your post on that. I believe you had waaaaayy too much antenna. A DB2 would have done fine. I think you are fighting multipath.


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

SCSIRAID said:


> Yup... I replied to your post on that. I believe you had waaaaayy too much antenna. A DB2 would have done fine. I think you are fighting multipath.


On the DB8 it is actually just like two DB2s strapped together. It has 8 bowties 4 on each side with 2 separate cables going into a combiner.
One of the things I tried was I took the antenna apart and was able to replicate the DB2 by just using one side with 4 bowties and I took the signal combiner off.
When I remounted the antenna it looked exactly like a DB2.

Still had the exact same problem with no change whatsoever. My signal strength did drop a little that was it. Still had drop outs. Remember I am 31 miles from the towers and mounted in the attic. I cant see how with that set up taking half the antenna out of the loop it would still be to much antenna.


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

The only other thing I wish I had tried was a directional antenna because I am baffled why the rabbit ears also were able to pick up signal. If I have multipath issues it must be bouncing all over around here.

But also what I dont understand is people report the same problem with cable?


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

wrh30 said:


> On the DB8 it is actually just like two DB2s strapped together. It has 8 bowties 4 on each side with 2 separate cables going into a combiner.
> One of the things I tried was I took the antenna apart and was able to replicate the DB2 by just using one side with 4 bowties and I took the signal combiner off.
> When I remounted the antenna it looked exactly like a DB2.
> 
> Still had the exact same problem with no change whatsoever. My signal strength did drop a little that was it. Still had drop outs. Remember I am 31 miles from the towers and mounted in the attic. I cant see how with that set up taking half the antenna out of the loop it would still be to much antenna.


Actually, The DB8 is like FOUR of the DB2's strapped together.

http://www.antennasdirect.com/attic.html


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

SCSIRAID said:


> Actually, The DB8 is like FOUR of the DB2's strapped together.
> 
> http://www.antennasdirect.com/attic.html


yeah you are right My Bad, I was thinking about the DB4...I looked at the DB2 when I made the purchase but at the time I didnt think there would be anyway that would be enough antenna.

I always thought bigger was better


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## mercurial (Oct 17, 2002)

Not in OTA antennas...


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

Ok I hate to beet a dead horse here and don't mean to clog up this thread with the same questions. But I really want to figure out whats going on with these drop outs. 

IF I had to MUCH antenna then why would the rabbit ears act the same way? My main problem channel which was the worst of them all was CBS. With the DB8 my signal strength was showing 97-99 on CBS. I am only using CBS as a reference because that channel seemed to act up the worst. 

Then I took the DB8 apart and turned it into a DB4 took half the antenna out of the loop and remounted it.

Same problem and my signal strength was a little lower showing about 93-94 on CBS.
Then I took the DB8 out of the attic completely and stuck the rabbit ears up there. CBS then showed a signal strength of about 80-81 with only rabbit ears in the attic. Still NO change in the way the Tivo acted. It would play fine and then the drop outs would start. The drop outs were more frequent with the rabbit ears. But with these three combos I have covered signal strength from 80 up to 99 with the same results. Also I should mention my hardest channel to get is ABC as far as signal strength and with the rabbit ears it was unwatchable.

However with the DB8 ABC seemed to be the most stable with a stregth showing about 80-81 So I am worried if I tried a smaller antenna like the DB2 I could lose ABC.

Now the BIG question. Why do people report the SAME audio drop out problem with Cable?


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

wrh30 said:


> Ok I hate to beet a dead horse here and don't mean to clog up this thread with the same questions. But I really want to figure out whats going on with these drop outs.
> 
> IF I had to MUCH antenna then why would the rabbit ears act the same way? My main problem channel which was the worst of them all was CBS. With the DB8 my signal strength was showing 97-99 on CBS. I am only using CBS as a reference because that channel seemed to act up the worst.
> 
> ...


I concluded you have too much antenna when you said you had a 99 signal strength plus you still got good strength with rabbit ears. I dont know your terrain situation so its difficult to be certain what is going on. Multipath is a bear to deal with. Usually you attack it with aiming, more directionality and less gain. I dont recall any discussion about the other stations.

As to the BIG question.... You are making an assumption that the dropouts are the same.... I believe they are NOT the same. But whether Im right or not hasnt been proven. The good thing about digital TV is that it is very insensitive to noise and doesnt degrade with signal strength dropoff (to a point)... the bad thing about digital TV is that virtually anything that 'causes it problems' all tends to look identical to the viewer... dropouts and pixelation.

With analog TV... signal strength issues resulted in 'snow', multipath resulted in ghosts.... You could tell what you were up against... not so easy with digital.


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

SCSIRAID Thanks for all your help, I am going to continue to monitor this thread and try to figure out whats going on, If I can fix it I will purchase another S3 in a heartbeet.


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

You know when I had the SA 8300 I had constant drop offs and pixelation problems. I always believed it was a broadcast issue. In my case when I got the S3 those problems vanished.

Now that's not to say that once in a while I don't see a hick up or two but those are very rare and compared to what it was like previously it's simply amazing.

So why am I saying this? I'm backing SCSIRAID in what he says about how difficult it is to say what causes pixelation and sound drop offs. No adjustments were made to my set up when cable cards were installed (they did check all signals).

It's a tough situation to figure out.


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

wrh30 said:


> SCSIRAID Thanks for all your help, I am going to continue to monitor this thread and try to figure out whats going on, If I can fix it I will purchase another S3 in a heartbeet.


One thing you might want to do is drop an email to the engineering dept of your 'strongest' channel and your 'weakest' channel telling them where you live and asking them what antenna they would recommend.


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## jrm01 (Oct 17, 2003)

wrh30 said:


> Ok I hate to beet a dead horse here and don't mean to clog up this thread with the same questions. But I really want to figure out whats going on with these drop outs.
> 
> IF I had to MUCH antenna then why would the rabbit ears act the same way? My main problem channel which was the worst of them all was CBS. With the DB8 my signal strength was showing 97-99 on CBS. I am only using CBS as a reference because that channel seemed to act up the worst.
> 
> ...


 Have you tried to bypass the S3 and view the stations directly on the TV. If so, do you have the same reception and problems?


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## jrm01 (Oct 17, 2003)

I have the feeling that I am headed for the same problems being reported on this thread. I just bought the S3 yesterday and tried to install it without the cable cards (Comcast coming later today for that). Everything was fine with one tuner, but the other tuner produced only a gray screen. TIVO CSR told me to remove coax-splitters and try again. I did - same problem. They told me to exchange the box (from Best Buy). I did - same problem. Next they told me the problem was the HDMI cable. They said I should use Component until my software was updated. I switched cables - same proble, except the second tuner now has a weak black and white picture. this is all analog channels right now. I checked later and found that I already had the 8.1a software level anyway.

I called them again and they said I needed a signal amplifier, but that I should get one that boosts the signal 10db, nothng more and nothing less. (I noticed that thee Motorola amp mentioned here is a 15db boost.

Right now I am waiting for Comcast to show up today and see what they say.


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

jrm01 said:


> Have you tried to bypass the S3 and view the stations directly on the TV. If so, do you have the same reception and problems?


Unfortunately I only have a 32 inch Sony Wega CRT, I don't own a HD set..I was using the S video output of the S3. I also tried the componet out but same results both outputs. One thing that is kind of strange is like I said CBS was very strong and with that antenna I was able to a/b CBS Analog ch 10 with the digital ch- 10.1 and on My Sony Wega you couldn't notice hardly any difference in quality.
CBS and Fox were the only channels I could pull in a good analog signal with that antenna


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## moscovitzd (Dec 6, 2006)

So out of curiosity did anyone notice the problem got worse after the 8.1.1 update? I had the occasional audio drop out with pixelation with the earlier version but not bothersome enough to complain about. After 8.1.1 was installed the problem on my two S3s worsened. I know 8.1.1 fixed bugs and added a few features but in my case it amplified the dropout problem. As I and others have stated it would be great if someone from Tivo would acknowledge this is a known problem they are addressing. I would be more than willing to help them troubleshoot the problem. I have another S3 I was going to give to my folks but because of the unresolved problems its heading to Ebay. They have a nice stable S2 right now so I don't want to rock the boat. I'm a huge Tivo fan but right now I cannot recommend the S3 to anyone until I know the significant problems are resolved. I realize there are many S3 owners who aren't having this issue but clearly there's a large group of us who are.


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

moscovitzd said:


> So out of curiosity did anyone notice the problem got worse after the 8.1.1 update? I had the occasional audio drop out with pixelation with the earlier version but not bothersome enough to complain about. After 8.1.1 was installed the problem on my two S3s worsened. I know 8.1.1 fixed bugs and added a few features but in my case it amplified the dropout problem. As I and others have stated it would be great if someone from Tivo would acknowledge this is a known problem they are addressing. I would be more than willing to help them troubleshoot the problem. I have another S3 I was going to give to my folks but because of the unresolved problems its heading to Ebay. They have a nice stable S2 right now so I don't want to rock the boat. I'm a huge Tivo fan but right now I cannot recommend the S3 to anyone until I know the significant problems are resolved. I realize there are many S3 owners who aren't having this issue but clearly there's a large group of us who are.


Tivo knows about this problem I think they are just playing dumb because they don't know what is wrong. Before returning my Tivo I talked to a CSR and opened a case to let them know I had audio and video drop outs, and at that time the person said something like "Really? I have never herd of this" It sounded like a fib just the way they said it, just my opinion..Then they put me through to a Tech guy and he just sat there on the phone saying nothing really, He did say he also has never herd of this problem. Then I tried a few thing that I already have mentioned which nothing helped so I called Tivo back and got another CSR and he didn't go as far as saying he has never herd of the problem but when I pressed him he reluctantly also said something like no I have never herd of this. Then I just told them I wanted a return and they tried to talk me out of it and said they would extend my 30 day warrantee and send me a spanking brand new box..I was reluctant but agreed and sure enough I didn't change anything on my end and the new unit did the same exact thing. As for the 8.1 it had already rolled out but when I first hooked up I still had 8.0 and it did have a few drop outs but didn't seem that bad. But the first call in it upgraded to 8.1 so I don't know if it made it worse but it was dropping out with the 8.0 also. When I called to return the second one for a refund they almost didn't do it..Thankfully I kept all my case numbers and names, because they tried to tell me that I was passed the 30 days and they would not refund. They tried to say they had no record of my 30 day extension. Then when I dug out the case number walla all sudden they see it.

I returned the box and got a refund for the box but not the 199.00 lifetime transfer. They say its on the way so hopefully no problems.. Advice?? Make sure you keep all your case numbers if you have any problems.


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

wrh30 said:


> Tivo knows about this problem I think they are just playing dumb because they don't know what is wrong. Before returning my Tivo I talked to a CSR and opened a case to let them know I had audio and video drop outs, and at that time the person said something like "Really? I have never herd of this" It sounded like a fib just the way they said it, just my opinion..Then they put me through to a Tech guy and he just sat there on the phone saying nothing really, He did say he also has never herd of this problem. Then I tried a few thing that I already have mentioned which nothing helped so I called Tivo back and got another CSR and he didn't go as far as saying he has never herd of the problem but when I pressed him he reluctantly also said something like no I have never herd of this. Then I just told them I wanted a return and they tried to talk me out of it and said they would extend my 30 day warrantee and send me a spanking brand new box..I was reluctant but agreed and sure enough I didn't change anything on my end and the new unit did the same exact thing. As for the 8.1 it had already rolled out but when I first hooked up I still had 8.0 and it did have a few drop outs but didn't seem that bad. But the first call in it upgraded to 8.1 so I don't know if it made it worse but it was dropping out with the 8.0 also. When I called to return the second one for a refund they almost didn't do it..Thankfully I kept all my case numbers and names, because they tried to tell me that I was passed the 30 days and they would not refund. They tried to say they had no record of my 30 day extension. Then when I dug out the case number walla all sudden they see it.
> 
> I returned the box and got a refund for the box but not the 199.00 lifetime transfer. They say its on the way so hopefully no problems.. Advice?? Make sure you keep all your case numbers if you have any problems.


As I have pointed out it's awful hard to say what is causing dropouts. SCSIRAID agrees with this point. To say TiVo is "playing dumb" is your opinion but I don't think so. I think the problem is complex, has to do with the area you live in and what kind of performance comes out of the cable DVR. In my case the cable DVR delivered a far inferior performance to the S3. I think that blaming TiVo for your issues is not very well thought out.


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

hornblowercat said:


> As I have pointed out it's awful hard to say what is causing dropouts. SCSIRAID agrees with this point. To say TiVo is "playing dumb" is your opinion but I don't think so. I think the problem is complex, has to do with the area you live in and what kind of performance comes out of the cable DVR. In my case the cable DVR delivered a far inferior performance to the S3. I think that blaming TiVo for your issues is not very well thought out.


I dont believe Tivo is playing dumb either... There are so many legitimate reasons for pixelations that they most likely chalked them up to signal strength, too many splitters, lousy cable, etc etc. I was fortunate enough to connect with someone who listened and recognized that I knew what I was talking about, tried many reasonable experiments to debug it and was willing to follow his recommendations and when the problem persisted, he recognized that there may be something to this.... Time will tell.

And if Im wrong and they are 'playing dumb'.... As long as they are working on the problem, I dont really care.  All I want is the problem fixed...


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## bonedoc206 (Mar 24, 2007)

I recently got my TIVO for HD and several of my HD recordings have either NO sound or one track of the background music, no voices or other tracks for the first 15 minutes of the recording. The video is fine. What's up with this??


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

bonedoc206 said:


> I recently got my TIVO for HD and several of my HD recordings have either NO sound or one track of the background music, no voices or other tracks for the first 15 minutes of the recording. The video is fine. What's up with this??


You've not provided much info here.... Is it Cable or OTA? Cablecards? 8.1 firmware? HDMI? Any specific channel or several channels involved? How is the audio connected? Have you tried changing the audio setting from dolby digital to pcm?


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

hornblowercat said:


> I think that blaming TiVo for your issues is not very well thought out.


I know Tivo has had to have had many complaints about this audio and video drop out problem as it is all over this forum.
And to tell me they never herd of it?? Thats what I blame Tivo for. I would respect them more if they said yes we have had some reports of this and we are working on it. They could have connected me with a tech person that knows about this stuff to ask me some questions about my particular setup and maybe help troubleshoot. Instead they just say "I Don't know whats wrong, want a new box?" Try a reboot? 
Here is another one for you. Before I found out that the front clock was suppose to stay dim even though it was set on bright? I thought this was a problem with the Tivo. I reported this to the Tivo CSR and his response was oh man it sounds like you defiantly have a bad box if the light does not stay bright.

I later found out from this forum that is the way it is designed to work.


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## squiredogs (Aug 14, 2006)

wrh30 said:


> I know Tivo has had to have had many complaints about this audio and video drop out problem as it is all over this forum.
> And to tell me they never herd of it?? Thats what I blame Tivo for. I would respect them more if they said yes we have had some reports of this and we are working on it. They could have connected me with a tech person that knows about this stuff to ask me some questions about my particular setup and maybe help troubleshoot. Instead they just say "I Don't know whats wrong, want a new box?" Try a reboot?
> Here is another one for you. Before I found out that the front clock was suppose to stay dim even though it was set on bright? I thought this was a problem with the Tivo. I reported this to the Tivo CSR and his response was oh man it sounds like you defiantly have a bad box if the light does not stay bright.
> 
> I later found out from this forum that is the way it is designed to work.


When I called TiVo after the 8.1 update brought signifigant pixelization issues, they also told me that they hadn't heard of the problem. That was like a month ago though. I have a case number. I had to call comcast to hit my cards over the phone a second time. That seemed to help for a while. This week, I've noticed a few more creeping back. And I have the wierd issue of the guide coming on randomly.

I'm also OK if they would just let us know they're working on it. The S3 is one high, high maintenance box (for the user), unfortunately.


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## CraigHB (Dec 24, 2003)

squiredogs said:


> The S3 is one high, high maintenance box (for the user), unfortunately.


Yea, I have to admit the S3 is sort of a tempermental *******. I've been getting by with mine, but it does freak out a bit every once in a while. Fortunately, I'm seeing this problem rarely, but I have seen it. The times I've encountered it have been rare enough that I have no way of telling if it's the TiVo or an interruption in service from my cable provider. I have seen interruptions in service from my cable provider even before the S3. They're certainly not perfect 100% of the time.


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

squiredogs said:


> The S3 is one high, high maintenance box (for the user), unfortunately.


High maintenance? What in the world are you talking about? I don't have to do anything with my TiVo except set up season passes. Maybe for some users, but the majority of us don't have problems. Look at the polls that have been done on this forum in the past. And WRH30, again saying it's a TiVo issue doesn't hold water. Just because people post about pixelation issues in this forum doesn't make it a TiVo problem. As I stated with my old DVR I did have pixelation and the S3 stopped it almost completely. I would say I see a slight drop maybe once every couple of weeks and that can be a broadcast issue. We had some thunderstorms in my area the other day and that caused some pixelation.

Finally let me end by saying never, ever ask a TiVo CSR any type of technical question. You'll always get the wrong answer.


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

hornblowercat thats fine if you disagree with me. I do not know why you feel the need to come defend Tivo so much. 

People are having real problems here with a very expensive DVR and so many on here rag on anyone who dare say it could be a Tivo problem.

Maybe you are correct and its not a Tivo problem at all. I stated my main complaint was that Tivo refuses to even acknowlage that there have been any reports of audio and video drop outs. I find that very hard to believe but maybe its true I am very openminded.

I am going to keep on this until I figure out whats going on at least with my problem with drop outs. I really want to buy another S3 I love the thing I just want it to work right.

I will figure this out. 

My next step is I am going to go ahead and purchase a HD TV with a built in tuner withen the next month. I have not changed anything as far as my set up with the antenna/cables/powerstrip..Everything will be the same as it was with the S3 and I will see if I still have Audio and video drop outs. 

If I do still have problems then I know it was not the S3.


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## jrm01 (Oct 17, 2003)

I have a problem that may be related to some of the issues posted here, but it manifests itself differently. Before I had my cablecards installed in the S3 I had problems with the analog channels. they appeared to be OK on one tuner, but with the second they were weak and without color. I tried many things working with TIVO CSR (rebooting, switching from HDMI to Component, eliminating cable splitters, and finally swapping for a new S3 box from Best Buy). None of it helped. They finally told me to get a RF amplifier for my cable (10db gain).

Before I could do this Comcast showed up to install the CableCards. This went smothly, mainly because the Rep had never seen a TIVO box, and he just followed my directions.

The problem remained with my Analog channels, and I had occassional Grey Screen with HDTV channels. I bought a RCA RF Amplifier (powered in-line without splitters), and it does not seem to have changed anyting. My Analog channels on one tuner are still black & white, and the HDTV channels occassionally go Grey.

I had Comcast test the signal strength and they said it was perfect. I'm not sure what the readings mean, but he said they were between 0 and -1, and that was very good.

TIVO signal strength shows 95-97 on the channels that I've checked (of course you can't check this on the analog channels).

I have connected the same cable that is going into the TIVO directly into the TV and the analog channels come in fine.

Now I seem to have another anomoly. When I switch to an analog channel I get a signal. When I change channels to another analog channel the Program Display shows the new channel, but the picture continues to show the original channel. I can click thru all the channels and it appears to be changing channels (based on the Program Dsplay) but the original analog channel contimues to be shown.

Any suggestions or ideas on what to try next?


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

wrh30 said:


> hornblowercat thats fine if you disagree with me. I do not know why you feel the need to come defend Tivo so much.
> 
> People are having real problems here with a very expensive DVR and so many on here rag on anyone who dare say it could be a Tivo problem.
> 
> ...


I'm not disagreeing with you. You may have a problem with the S3. I simply say there are many reasons this could be happening and the majority of people who own S3's are not experiencing them.

And your right, I do defend the S3 because if nobody says anything positive then the impression people get would be the S3 is a pos. It isn't.

I truly hope you find the answer. I hope it's not the S3 but if it is I don't think your alone. I do think your in the minority.


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## chrispitude (Apr 23, 2005)

jrm01 said:


> The problem remained with my Analog channels, and I had occassional Grey Screen with HDTV channels. I bought a RCA RF Amplifier (powered in-line without splitters), and it does not seem to have changed anyting. My Analog channels on one tuner are still black & white, and the HDTV channels occassionally go Grey.


I can't figure out how your HD content could go gray. HD content is an encoded bitstream. There is no way for an HD program to be recorded such that the luminance was recorded, but not the chrominance. I think this is your clue. I suspect the program is recorded from cable just fine, but the problem is in the TiVo's output or with your display device.

How is your S3 connected to your TV? HDMI? Try hooking it up to a composite display and see if your gray HD content is still gray. Maybe it's a weird HDMI interaction.

- Chris


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## jrm01 (Oct 17, 2003)

chrispitude said:


> I can't figure out how your HD content could go gray. HD content is an encoded bitstream. There is no way for an HD program to be recorded such that the luminance was recorded, but not the chrominance. I think this is your clue. I suspect the program is recorded from cable just fine, but the problem is in the TiVo's output or with your display device.
> 
> How is your S3 connected to your TV? HDMI? Try hooking it up to a composite display and see if your gray HD content is still gray. Maybe it's a weird HDMI interaction.
> 
> - Chris


Thanks for the response, but I don't think that is the problem. The Gray screen is actually generated by TIVI when there is no reception on a channel. I even ocassionally get the message that TIVO is seaching for the signal. I started out with HDMI and then switched to Component. No change. The problem is still there and seems to be geting worse. It is not just on recorded shows. When I am watching one channel and hit LIVE TV to switch tuners I get the same thing (Gray screen - searching for signal). I know it is not a cable card problem since I was having the same problem with the analog channels before I instaled the cablecards.


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## jrm01 (Oct 17, 2003)

I had posted some problems on this link several days ago and I thought you might be interested in an update.

My problem was a black & white picture on just one of my analog tuners. I had tried several suggestions from TIVO: change from HDMI to Component, return the S3 and get a new one (at Best Buy), eliminate splitters, and buy a 10dB amp for the line. I tried everyone, and none helped the problem.

TIVO continued to issist that the problem was with Comcast, so I disconncted the cable and connected a set of rabbit ears to the Antenna lead and reran Guided Setup for antenna only. I knew the rabbit ears worked for analog and HD since I was already using them for a direct connection to the TV on another input.

Lo and Behold, the exact same thing happened, both Digital tuners were fine, one analog tuner was fine, and the other analog tuner was all black & white picture! I was sure that this proved that it was a TIVO problem.

I checked the Serial numbers for the first two units that I had, and found that the first 12 digits of the 15 digit number were the same. So I went back to Best Buy to exchange it for a second time. This time I checked all the serial numbers of what they had in stock. Five of them were almost the sae, so I picked the only one with a much different serial number. I came home, hooked it up and viloa, my problem has disappeared. All four tuners are working properly.

Since I took out the cable cards from the old unit and reinserted them into this unit I assumed I would have to call Comcast to get them re-paired and re-authorized, but actually they seem to be picking up all the channels the way the are, even the encripted HD channels. Think I'll leave things the way the are now for awhile and see if it causes problems.

All I have to do now is wait 2-3 days until TIVO updates my firmware to 8.1.1 (it's at 8.1a now.

What an experience! 

Leads me to this question. Everyone here who is experiencing the audio/video drop-out: Have you tried disconnecting cable and using antenna only just to see if the problem persists? I am using a very cheap bowtie antenna that I found in my sock drawer and it picks up 5 HD and 3 analog stations just fine (here in lowly Pittsburgh) so it may not be an expensive test. If the problem persists you can eliminate cable from the list of potentiala problems. Just a suggestion.


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## jrock (Aug 27, 2002)

I've been having the dropouts on Cablecard 1 for months. Once in a while it will stop for a few weeks. I have been reading the forums here and got the motorola 32x booster and hooked that up today and re did the guided setup and it still has the dropouts on cablecard 1. I unplugged it and left it off for like 10 minutes and nothing will get rid of the dropouts and pixelation on cablecard 1. So should I call comcast and get a new cable card or call tivo and try to get a new tivo?

-Joe


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## BillL (Oct 6, 2004)

jrock said:


> I've been having the dropouts on Cablecard 1 for months. Once in a while it will stop for a few weeks. I have been reading the forums here and got the motorola 32x booster and hooked that up today and re did the guided setup and it still has the dropouts on cablecard 1. I unplugged it and left it off for like 10 minutes and nothing will get rid of the dropouts and pixelation on cablecard 1. So should I call comcast and get a new cable card or call tivo and try to get a new tivo?
> 
> -Joe


Chances are its your slot, not your card.


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## glassonion (Nov 26, 2006)

jrm01,

are you still pixelation-free? could you be on something with the serial #s? both of my S3 show tiling and have very similar serial #s, first 10 digits exactly the same...


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

SCSIRAID said:


> Agree. I believe the OTA stuff is different. I will see a glitch on OTA but it happens very infrequently.
> 
> Here are a couple videos of what I see on Encrypted QAM
> 
> ...


I don't have a Series 3, but I've been reading these threads, and I didn't know what the problem looked like. Thanks for posting those videos.

I must say that while it sure is annoying, and a fix is needed, I expected much worse. I have that kind of stuff happening with my SA 8300HD box all the time too. As long as I've had digital cable (on and off since 2000), I've always had these issues. I figured it's just how things will always be. Haven't you guys had these issues with digital cable before? It's actually one of the reasons I never really liked digital cable. Give me a half-assed analog picture over a great digital one with dropouts any day...

I hope TiVo works it out though and tries to do their part in minimizing the problem.


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

MickeS said:


> I don't have a Series 3, but I've been reading these threads, and I didn't know what the problem looked like. Thanks for posting those videos.
> 
> I must say that while it sure is annoying, and a fix is needed, I expected much worse. I have that kind of stuff happening with my SA 8300HD box all the time too. As long as I've had digital cable (on and off since 2000), I've always had these issues. I figured it's just how things will always be. Haven't you guys had these issues with digital cable before? It's actually one of the reasons I never really liked digital cable. Give me a half-assed analog picture over a great digital one with dropouts any day...
> 
> I hope TiVo works it out though and tries to do their part in minimizing the problem.


Using cableco equipment, dropouts did occur but were actually fairly rare in my experience. They occured at basically the same rate at which I see glitches OTA on digital. While I agree that when looking at an individual dropout it may not seem all that bad... but... the RATE at which the dropouts occur is what really makes this problem aggrevating. For me, I see one of these glitches every 5-10 minutes of _every_ recording from an encrypted QAM channel.


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

Can somebody explain technically what is going on with one of these events? 

Why is the audio dropout ~2 seconds? 

Why does the video pixelization follow the audio dropout? 

Why is the pixelization duration shorter than the audio dropout duration?

What does the signature of these events tell us about how TiVo is processing the digital stream?


It seems that some error in the digital stream causes the S3 gets lost. Rather than trying to preserve continuity, the S3 seems to kind of reset and start over. I suspect that the duration of the actual stream disruption is very short (much less then 2 seconds) so it seems to me that there is a lot of room for the S3 to do a better job of handling the event and preserving continuity. I base this belief on the fact that other hardware seems to be able to do a better job. The big question is if improvements could be made through software changes or would they require hardware changes.

This may be a personal preference, but if they could just improve the audio dropout I could live with the pixelization. I suspect that the audio information is largely intact but that the S3 just stops processing it while it attempts to handle the video stream issue and then resync the audio and video streams. Clearly I don't know anything about digital cable decoding but I'm sure somebody else does.


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

CosmoGeek said:


> Can somebody explain technically what is going on with one of these events?
> 
> Why is the audio dropout ~2 seconds?
> 
> ...


In my case, the two seconds is only present on the digital audio output and is surely exaggerated by the receiver. If I listen to analog audio instead, the audio and video glitches are nearly simultaneous. This could be due to the mpeg processing 'pipeline'... the digital audio might be getting muted as soon as the near end of the pipe 'drops out' but with the analog continuing down the pipe sync'd with the video output. Just a guess on my part though....

I do agree that if the digital output didnt 'mute' and acted more like the analog out then it would be more tolerable...


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## TiVolunteer (Jul 10, 2001)

SCSIRAID said:


> I do agree that if the digital output didnt 'mute' and acted more like the analog out then it would be more tolerable...


It is not ideal, but I've taken to running the analog and digital at the same time. I cut back on my center channel a bit and leave the analog up just a bit (routed through the speakers in the TV). The audio dropouts are not as "jarring" when they occur and I can usually understand what was said instead of losing a lot more dialog on the digital.

It took awhile to find the right balance between TV speakers and the 5.1 but it is at least a stop-gap measure.

YMMV


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

TiVolunteer said:


> It is not ideal, but I've taken to running the analog and digital at the same time. I cut back on my center channel a bit and leave the analog up just a bit (routed through the speakers in the TV). The audio dropouts are not as "jarring" when they occur and I can usually understand what was said instead of losing a lot more dialog on the digital.
> 
> It took awhile to find the right balance between TV speakers and the 5.1 but it is at least a stop-gap measure.
> 
> YMMV


Are the digital and analog audio perfectly sync'd?


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

SCSIRAID said:


> In my case, the two seconds is only present on the digital audio output and is surely exaggerated by the receiver. If I listen to analog audio instead, the audio and video glitches are nearly simultaneous. This could be due to the mpeg processing 'pipeline'... the digital audio might be getting muted as soon as the near end of the pipe 'drops out' but with the analog continuing down the pipe sync'd with the video output. Just a guess on my part though....


This sounds very reasonable to me. Seems like there is an opportunity for TiVo to keep the audio stream flowing and eliminate the audio dropout. Would this be doable with a software update though?

Is this why I think that the S2 did a much better job? Is the S2 only processing analog audio?


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

CosmoGeek said:


> This sounds very reasonable to me. Seems like there is an opportunity for TiVo to keep the audio stream flowing and eliminate the audio dropout. Would this be doable with a software update though?
> 
> Is this why I think that the S2 did a much better job? Is the S2 only processing analog audio?


S2 is a pure analog box.....


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

SCSIRAID said:


> S2 is a pure analog box.....


Actually I didn't ask this right. I should have asked, Was my Motorola Set top box only processing the analog audio? It really isn't the S2 that appeared to do the better job but rather the Motorola set top box that appeared to do the better job.


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

CosmoGeek said:


> Actually I didn't ask this right. I should have asked, Was my Motorola Set top box only processing the analog audio? It really isn't the S2 that appeared to do the better job but rather the Motorola set top box that appeared to do the better job.


I would expect the Moto box do be doing basically the same processing as the S3. If you are hooking the Moto to an S2 then you are using analog audio which is coming from the digital stream on digital channels or straight analog for analog channels.


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## mercurial (Oct 17, 2002)

Samuel Jackson said:


> I have had it with this ************** dropouts on these ************** streams!


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

SCSIRAID said:


> I would expect the Moto box do be doing basically the same processing as the S3. If you are hooking the Moto to an S2 then you are using analog audio which is coming from the digital stream on digital channels or straight analog for analog channels.


So it is not fair to say that the S2 + Moto box did a better job since it never processed the digital audio in the first place. The Moto set top box didn't even have any digital outputs (Just stereo analog audio and S-Video).

For me, since the audio dropouts and pixelization events are much worse on HD channels, and since the audio dropouts make the events very pronounced, it is possible, I suppose, that I am getting just as many Pixelization events on non-HD channels with my S3 as I did with my S2. If the non-HD pixelization events weren't accompanied by the audio dropout, I wouldn't even call them a problem since they are sufficiently rare. The HD pixelization events are not rare for me but would be much much more tolerable if the audio would not drop out.

I'll have to try the simultaneous analog and digital audio to see if they are sync'd enough to act as a workaround for the audio dropout problem.


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

mercurial said:


>


There isn't a Samuel Jackson.


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## mercurial (Oct 17, 2002)

/zoom


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

CosmoGeek said:


> There isn't a Samuel Jackson.


You're right. It's Samuel L Jackson.


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

MickeS said:


> You're right. It's Samuel L Jackson.


I give up. I couldn't find this user either. I feel like this is part of a joke that I missed so I'm just going to pretend that I "get it".

LOL ... ROTFLMAO ... Samuel L Jackson ... That's a good one.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

CosmoGeek said:


> I feel like this is part of a joke that I missed


Trust your feelings.


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## mercurial (Oct 17, 2002)

Yeah, it was bad (though I didn't realize how obscure)- but it was the only way to get that voice out of my head every time I saw this thread bump in my UserCP...


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

CosmoGeek said:


> So it is not fair to say that the S2 + Moto box did a better job since it never processed the digital audio in the first place. The Moto set top box didn't even have any digital outputs (Just stereo analog audio and S-Video).
> 
> For me, since the audio dropouts and pixelization events are much worse on HD channels, and since the audio dropouts make the events very pronounced, it is possible, I suppose, that I am getting just as many Pixelization events on non-HD channels with my S3 as I did with my S2. If the non-HD pixelization events weren't accompanied by the audio dropout, I wouldn't even call them a problem since they are sufficiently rare. The HD pixelization events are not rare for me but would be much much more tolerable if the audio would not drop out.
> 
> I'll have to try the simultaneous analog and digital audio to see if they are sync'd enough to act as a workaround for the audio dropout problem.


Its not fair but not for the reason you indicate... The Moto is processing digital audio for digital channels.... It outputs it in digital form thru coaxial or optical and analog form thru the red/white outputs. When you connected to the S2, you used the red/white for audio.

For me... the issues only occur on encrypted QAM which is processed by the cablecard. The Moto box doesnt have a cablecard so the comparison doesnt apply.

If you have a high rate of dropouts on OTA or unencrypted channels they you likely have a different issue than I do.... maybe... Its all unknown until Tivo gets to the bottom of it.


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## TiVolunteer (Jul 10, 2001)

CosmoGeek said:


> Are the digital and analog audio perfectly sync'd?


Close enough. For the most part they seem perfectly in sync. When there is a "high contrast sound" (e.g. sudden loud noise), I can detect a slight delay in the digital. However, it is not enough to sound like an echo.

If anything, the analog seems to be more in sync with the video (via HDMI).


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## smileLP (Mar 26, 2003)

reading some of your posts (this is my 1st in this thread) and seeing some of you had success w/a signal amplifier, i went to radio shack and got one (radio shack's own brand), which says "boosts signal by up to 10 db" (which one of you wrote you were told was the precise amount you'd want; it didn't help - - should i try turning it "down" to say 5 db??)

anyway, as i said, i dont' think i see any lessening in the pixilating. i'm sure some of you had it go away completely, as you wrote, but for me it doesn't seem to have made a difference

do you think i should go for that more expensive specific one a few of you mentioned? might that have ANY chance of doing a better job cutting down pixilating? this one was $35, btw

also, i now have 8.1.1 software in my tivo. that's the new update, right? (someone had said something about an "alpha" or "A" appearing in there at some point). anyway, i don't believe this newest version changed anythign pixillation wise (if it IS the new version); it pixillates just as much as it did ever since i got the S3, which is once every 5 mins. or so

btw, i still have my analog S2 tivo and it virtually never pixillates. once every 5 hrs or so, and the pixillating only started when i switched to T-W's digital service (from analog). prior to that absolutely no pixilating on either tv/tivo

LASTLY, here in nyc, my T-W cable guy (the 5th one i had up here) told me that "in july" T-W would be introducing a new cable card, w/"advanced capabilities." would be nice if it solved the pixillation problem but somehow i suspect it won't; i've tried 50 things and nothing has worked

oh, i also bought an antenna from radio shack; will try that in a few days

lastly, as i wrote in another thread, i have been plagued w/weird background lines & shadows (always horizontal) whenever watchin an HD channel. this makes me crazy cuz i can only get rid of them by switching to 720 from 1020i, and there is definitely less of a "wow" factor at 720 (at least i think so). i've tried attenuators, diff. plugs, expensive power strips, monster cables, monster HDMI cables!, and a zillion other things but nothign has gotten rid of these background lines, shadows , contrasty things on the HD channels

ok, i've written enuf for now ; )


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## Spastic (Dec 8, 2002)

I've been having tons of problems the last 2-3 weeks. I don't remember when I got the last service update (my wife tends to clear out the messages before I see them). Before this problem started, everything was awesome. I almost never had any pixelation, and definitely no hangs. Now, I can't watch a single HD show without multiple freezes, pixelation, and sometimes reboots. SD seems to be better, or maybe it's just that the SD shows are analog (didn't check that).

I'm not sure if my problem is the same as reported in this thread. Usually, the whole screen will just freeze for a few seconds. If I look at my receiver I can see the Dolby Digital signal drop out when this happens. Many times there is no pixelation at this point, it's just a perfectly clear frozen screen. After a second or two it will usually pixelate and then resume playing. On three different shows though, it has actually rebooted the Tivo after a particularly bad one. The problems always show up at the same spots, so it's definitely in the recording.

I checked the signal strength and it's in the 96-98 range. I don't know what the problem is, but it has pretty much ruined watching TV for me. It's so annoying I get fed up and just turn the TV off. I'm thinking about calling Tivo about it tomorrow, but from reading the reports here there's really nothing they can do for me.


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## smileLP (Mar 26, 2003)

y'know, the "last 2 or 3 wks." could be about when many people got upgraded to 8.1.1

isn't that the case?


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## hornblowercat (Mar 4, 2007)

Spastic said:


> I've been having tons of problems the last 2-3 weeks. I don't remember when I got the last service update (my wife tends to clear out the messages before I see them). Before this problem started, everything was awesome. I almost never had any pixelation, and definitely no hangs. Now, I can't watch a single HD show without multiple freezes, pixelation, and sometimes reboots. SD seems to be better, or maybe it's just that the SD shows are analog (didn't check that).
> 
> I'm not sure if my problem is the same as reported in this thread. Usually, the whole screen will just freeze for a few seconds. If I look at my receiver I can see the Dolby Digital signal drop out when this happens. Many times there is no pixelation at this point, it's just a perfectly clear frozen screen. After a second or two it will usually pixelate and then resume playing. On three different shows though, it has actually rebooted the Tivo after a particularly bad one. The problems always show up at the same spots, so it's definitely in the recording.
> 
> I checked the signal strength and it's in the 96-98 range. I don't know what the problem is, but it has pretty much ruined watching TV for me. It's so annoying I get fed up and just turn the TV off. I'm thinking about calling Tivo about it tomorrow, but from reading the reports here there's really nothing they can do for me.


That's sounds very similar to the type of trouble I use to experience with the SA 8300 and though I could never prove it I always felt it was due to the hard drive. I turned in two of the SA 8300's and had the same problem each time.

It seemed that when I hooked up the Maxtor Quickview, which was made specifically for the SA 8300 the problem was worst. The SA 8300 had a Maxtor hard drive to begin with.

I can't say for sure because like I said I never could prove it but I'll bet it's the hard drive. Are you still under warranty? I'd contact TiVo if it's that bad.

One other thing. You mentioned signal strength. The TiVo signal strength is not a good measure for what you have coming in. When you had your install of cable cards done did they do a signal check? If they didn't you really should have them come out and check that.


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## tinkererguy (May 14, 2002)

tinkererguy said:


> ...
> I will also be trying this same Motorola amp in my brother's new home, where Comcast (with Scientific Atlanta cable cards) services his week old TiVo Series 3: he also has pixelation issues, though not as severe as mine. Since he has only one S3 unit servicing his whole house (using RF modulator and IR repeaters), install will be straight forward. I had noticed signal around 88-90 on some of his channels when the new installer was still there, but little he could do to adjust, and his cable tuner box worked fine (no pixelation, and set aside after installer left), basically the same situation as at my Cox home, although his VOIP based phone service via the cablemodem's RJ-11 port means he has one less split outside his home, so I had (wrongly) assumed he might not be as likely to have pixelation, I realize now there's a lot more factors of course, but am glad a fix (really a kludge) may be available for S3 owners that isn't too terribly expensive.
> 
> Too bad the Cox-provided amplifier don't seem to work, oh well...
> ...


Tried the Cox-provided amp at my brother's house, and tada, totally eliminated all pixelation on his TiVo Series 3 on Comcast (with Scientific Atlanta cablecards), for several days now. Probably the 550' driveway length was the root cause. May be asking for Comcast to come back and install their own amp, we'll see if worth the trouble.

As far as my own luck, haven't been home enough lately to deal with it, but improved some when replaced the last long cable length myself after the last installer from Cox replaced some ends: both efforts gave some reduction in digital channel pixelation. This isn't quite over yet, need to get better RG6 compression fittings installed and see if I can do even better (about 50% of digital SD channels around channel 120 have issues sporadically, ruining about 50% of recordings in that range).


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## TCServ (Apr 2, 2007)

Tinkereguy,

I'm curious to know if the amp helped your pixilation problem at all. I'm located in the southwest corner of your town and experiencing exactly the same problems, and it appears on the same channels. I've had Cox out every weekend for the past few weeks and made some progress, but get consistent pixelation and dropouts on many of the digital channels that are grouped in the same analog range. Meanwhile my Cox DVR is working just fine.

I've been working with the Cox area tech/supervisor and he is planning on contacting TiVo on behalf of myself and several other TiVo users in his service area experiencing similar issues. We're both not convinced whether it's a COX or TiVo issue, all we want to do is get it resolved.

From using the TiVo diagnostics, it appears that it may be tuner drift that is causing the problems. Whether this is a lack of stability of the TiVo tuner, or a lack of stability of Cox's signal is still to be determined. The tech working on this problem has seen this same issue with several first generation cablecard tuners in several brands of TVs. Perhaps this may be a similar situation.

Feel free to contact me directly through the board if you'd like to discuss this in more detail.


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## DCIFRTHS (Jan 6, 2000)

TCServ said:


> ... From using the TiVo diagnostics, it appears that it may be tuner drift that is causing the problems. ...


Can you please post how you do this type of test? Thanks!


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## TCServ (Apr 2, 2007)

DCIFRTHS said:


> Can you please post how you do this type of test? Thanks!


 There is a diagnostics screen where you can view current stats on the two tuners. It is accessed from Messages and Settings => Account and System Info => Diagnostics. I'm not 100% up on all the info, but as you scroll down you can see what channel each tuner is on, what the signal strength is, what the frequency is, how long it's been locked on that frequency, etc. Whatever channel the TiVo was tuned to when you go to this screen is what you can see stats on. Best part is that the info constantly updates (not just a snapshot in time).

In my case, when I left it tuned to one of the channels I was having problems with, I could see the frequency vary as well as the lock time would keep restarting. To me this looked like tuner drift or like the signal from Cox was drifting. All the high tech gear the tech had with him seemed to indicate that the cable signal was well within tolerance, and the perfectly stable picture through the Cox DVR seemed to support that. So the theory went to either the TiVo tuner has issues or that it is so sensitive that it loses sync with the slightest deviation in signal.


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

TCServ said:


> There is a diagnostics screen where you can view current stats on the two tuners. It is accessed from Messages and Settings => Account and System Info => Diagnostics. I'm not 100% up on all the info, but as you scroll down you can see what channel each tuner is on, what the signal strength is, what the frequency is, how long it's been locked on that frequency, etc. Whatever channel the TiVo was tuned to when you go to this screen is what you can see stats on. Best part is that the info constantly updates (not just a snapshot in time).
> 
> In my case, when I left it tuned to one of the channels I was having problems with, I could see the frequency vary as well as the lock time would keep restarting. To me this looked like tuner drift or like the signal from Cox was drifting. All the high tech gear the tech had with him seemed to indicate that the cable signal was well within tolerance, and the perfectly stable picture through the Cox DVR seemed to support that. So the theory went to either the TiVo tuner has issues or that it is so sensitive that it loses sync with the slightest deviation in signal.


Interesting.... what firmware version do you have? Its a static page for me... have to back up and reenter to update data...


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## jrm01 (Oct 17, 2003)

I have been a TIVO user for five years and love it. I was always very adept at using the triple-fast-forward to bypass commercial, and then hit the 8-second replay to reset to the end of the commercial when it went too far.

However, with my new S3 this operation appears to be very erratic. When I triple-speed thru and hit play, I am reset 15-20 seconds from the end of the commercial. If I let it go a little further, it still goes back too far. The whole operation is no longer smooth, but is very uneven. Anyone else notice this?


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## mercurial (Oct 17, 2002)

jrm01 said:


> I have been a TIVO user for five years and love it. I was always very adept at using the triple-fast-forward to bypass commercial, and then hit the 8-second replay to reset to the end of the commercial when it went too far.
> 
> However, with my new S3 this operation appears to be very erratic. When I triple-speed thru and hit play, I am reset 15-20 seconds from the end of the commercial. If I let it go a little further, it still goes back too far. The whole operation is no longer smooth, but is very uneven. Anyone else notice this?


Actually, I thought most everyone used Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select and then 30second skip. There used to be a backdoor for changing the wind-back amount....

Ah... Here it is under the Enter-Enter codes... Not sure if still works in the current release as the only one I use regularly is the 30s skip:

http://tivo.drosoph.com/


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## TCServ (Apr 2, 2007)

SCSIRAID said:


> Interesting.... what firmware version do you have? Its a static page for me... have to back up and reenter to update data...


Currently I'm running v. 8.1.1-01-2-648

It is definitely an dynamic page for me. The two fields I see changing when there is pixilation is "Signal Strength:" and "Signal Lock:". The thing to make sure of is that you have at least one of the tuners on a channel that is having the problem and that you page (channel) down to the area that pertains to the channel that's giving you grief.


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## smileLP (Mar 26, 2003)

when i first got my series 3, it seemed like i too was suddenly having probs. FF'ing through comm'ls and then getting it to stop at just the right spot - - something i too had gotten very good at

the problem seemed to abrubtly end a few wks later (no, this was not me getting used to it). perhaps one of their software upgrades?

i personally don't like the 30 sec. skip cuz invariably you miss the first second or two after the comm'ls end, so you have to use another button to go back 7 secs. or whatever and wait anyway. i find it's just simpler to use the FF X 3 option


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## Teeps (Aug 16, 2001)

Stream dropouts and pixleization; TiVo, Time Warner, or Cable Cards?

I record all local hd programming via OTA. Very few stream dropouts.
Any hd or digital material recorded via Cable Card there are many stream dropouts.
Any analog material recorded through Cable Card, no dropouts.

What is the problem?


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

Teeps said:


> Stream dropouts and pixleization; TiVo, Time Warner, or Cable Cards?
> 
> I record all local hd programming via OTA. Very few stream dropouts.
> Any hd or digital material recorded via Cable Card there are many stream dropouts.
> ...


Does it only pixelate on encrypted digital content? If so... sounds like same problem I have. Perhaps you could describe what you see. What happens to the audio?

Check the links in this post....
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=4993139&&#post4993139


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## smileLP (Mar 26, 2003)

fyi's, i got the motorolla signal booster/amp some of you said had fixed your pixillation problem

no such luck

also the cable guy was here and said my signal is optimal and i didn't need the amp

anyway, since it didn't improve things, i'm inclined to agree w/him

just one man's report...


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## A-1 (Mar 12, 2007)

I have this problem too on my S3. Have had Comcast out 7 times to fix this, replaced CC's checked the line coming into the house everything, even returned the Tivo for another one. Same issue, Drops signal and pixelation.

This issue occurs whether i use the splitter or not for my cable modem.

_This fix has the following setup 
Tivo, Monster 2.4ghz Splitter, Coax cables_

In my own tinkering i found a fix for me, might work for you.

Went into the the Tivo settings to Channels then Test Signal Strength.

With the read out going now go to the F-connector of the cable where the tivo connects to the splitter and start to loosen the connector, keep loosening till you hear or see signal changing. On mine i loosened it to almost off and the signal strength went from 76-88 tight to 92-97 loose.

Once the signal was at 92-97 i surfed some other channels and confirmed improvements in signal for many channels in low and higher ranges i went to live tv.

No more skips, no more pixelation. 

I hope this works for you.

Now i do not call this a 100% fix and still think there is a Software issue going on that i hope Tivo will resolve in the next update.


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

A-1 said:


> With the read out going now go to the F-connector of the cable where the tivo connects to the splitter and start to loosen the connector, keep loosening till you hear or see signal changing. On mine i loosened it to almost off and the signal strength went from 76-88 tight to 92-97 loose.


This should increase your noise since you now have a mechanically loose connection. I wonder if you have disconnected the center conductor in the process so that you now have an air gap in the center conductor? This could act like a high pass filter cutting out the DC and low frequencies. Some people reported an improvement with a DC blocking filter installed. You might try to get one of these and try it. Might be worth it since I fear that this loose connection is not ideal.


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## A-1 (Mar 12, 2007)

When i say loosened almost off i mean it is about 4 to 5 complete rotations from off.

I now have prefect picture and sound no noise with it loose.

If i tighten the cable it cuts out and starts pixelation again. ANNOYING.

I have a Filter, it made no improvements.

My filter


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## bizzy (Jan 20, 2004)

you might have a stray bit of shield conductor thats making contact when you tighten the connector down.


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## A-1 (Mar 12, 2007)

bizzy said:


> you might have a stray bit of shield conductor thats making contact when you tighten the connector down.


I thought that too, and tried replacing the cable and the splitter. Tried 3 different splitters and 10 different cables ranging in price and tech specs from low to highest quality i could find. No Change. Tight it pixelates, pauses, and looses audio.

When loose looks great no problems with audio or video.

However, i have started having this problem just recently. It's not very frequent but in the last week has been worse. http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=348126

I don't think they are related but you never know.

Either way I'm just glad i can sit back and enjoy my Tivo without pixels flying everywhere. I am also, still of the opinion that this issue has something to do with the software and am optimistic that it will be addressed in the next update.


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

A-1 said:


> I have a Filter, it made no improvements.
> 
> My filter


For your cable, I suspect that that is just a surge suppressor. The filtering is being done on the power only.

This is an example of what I was talking about:

http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Products/S/S-G104-voltage-blocking-coupler.htm


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## A-1 (Mar 12, 2007)

It does coaxial filtering too. Might not be what you've pointed out.

Have you used these types of filters to resolve this type of issue?


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

I have not used these but one other person posted here that it solved his problem. I would think that if this were your issue, then you would have pixelization on all digital channels. I have channels dependent pixelization issues so I haven't persued this approach. Other people have tried DC blocking filters and it didn't help them.


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## smileLP (Mar 26, 2003)

>> On mine i loosened it to almost off and the signal strength went from 76-88 tight to 92-97 loose. <<

hi. i'm a little confused. what if my tivo signal strength ALREADY is in the upper 90's?

also, i'm not quite clear on where you're loosening the RFK cable. i have the cable co. cable going into a splitter, and one of the cables from the splitter goes to the tivo. i'm not clear on what you mean by "where the tivo connects to the splitter."

and yeh, it's clearly the new tivo S3 software update (8.1.1.?) that has unleashed an avalanche of extra pixillation. my tv's never showed any pixillation til i switched to (T-W') digital svce; then had infrequent pixillation. now since the S3, every 4 mins. it does a little dance ; )


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## cfryer (Aug 21, 2004)

smileLP said:


> and yeh, it's clearly the new tivo S3 software update (8.1.1.?) that has unleashed an avalanche of extra pixillation. my tv's never showed any pixillation til i switched to (T-W') digital svce; then had infrequent pixillation. now since the S3, every 4 mins. it does a little dance ; )


I'd have to agree that it is an issue that is specific to the S3. Hopefully, it is software and not hardware. I have been a Tivo user for about 4 years. I went from a Sony SVR3000 to the HR10-250 and just installed my S3 yesterday. I haven't had CableCards installed yet and moved the OTA antenna from my HR10-250 (Cable installation tomorrow). I just looked at my S3 and it is having significant stream dropout issues - both audio and video while watching 'Live TV'. I have NEVER seen anything like this on my HR10-250 using OTA reception. If I watch the signal meter on the S3, it appears that audio dropouts occur when my antenna strength goes from about 93 to 95+. Also, there are occasional total picture drop outs and the signal meter plunges to zero. There are no splitters on my antenna.

I will do some testing tomorrow after the cable install and after I install a splitter. I plan to test the same OTA channel vs the cable feed and also test S3 OTA vs. HR10-250. (I may also try a DC filter)

Reading these forums for the past month working on pulling the trigger on the S3, I have to say I am deeply disappointed.

I seem to remember on some forum (this one, AVS, or deal database) that there might be S3s that have been sold with slightly different hardware. I wonder if this is a combination of software issue (I'm running v. 8.1.1-01-2-648) and hardware (ATSC tuners?)


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## George Cifranci (Jan 30, 2003)

Teeps said:


> Stream dropouts and pixleization; TiVo, Time Warner, or Cable Cards?
> 
> I record all local hd programming via OTA. Very few stream dropouts.
> Any hd or digital material recorded via Cable Card there are many stream dropouts.
> ...


I am seeing the same thing here in Columbus, Ohio with Time Warner.


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## A-1 (Mar 12, 2007)

I loosened the cable going from the splitter to the Tivo.

Also, our issues sound similar but may be completely different. Problem is many of the S3 users are having the same problem but it is via many cable co's and many setups, which tells me there is an issue with the S3 and i for one hope it is software based.


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## bizzy (Jan 20, 2004)

I see a dropout pretty much once a day on some recording or other on my S3. Both HD and SD programming, all over Comcast w/ Cablecard. The symptoms are always exactly the same- a 1 sec pause in audio followed by a breakup of video before both recover.

it's not terrible, but I do sort of feel stupid when it happens in front of my wife, who wonders why we spent billions of dollars dumping directv.


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## jrock (Aug 27, 2002)

I have pixelation on 1 tuner on ABC HD, NBC HD, and FOX HD. CBS HD seems to come in perfect on the bad tuner. The other tuner gets everything in perfect.

I try to leave the bad tuner on CBS and the good tuner on Fox hoping it will record using the chanels they are on but it doesn't always work. I wish there was a way to choose which tuner a program would record on.

I installed the Motorola booster and tried loosening the cable. Neither worked. On the bad channels when I go into the signal strength its always on 100 and never goes any lower since I added the booster.

I'm not sure what else I can do. I was an early adopter when it was first released. What kind of warrantee does it have?

What is really weird is it was fine when I first got it.. Then in late October / Early november I was having lots of partial recording.. That stopped in late november. Then mid December to early January I started getting pixelation just on ABC. Then that went away for a month then Feb through now it's been having problems again. Just one tuner and 3 HD channels. The partial recording problem never came back though (Knock on Wood).

 

-Joe


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## A-1 (Mar 12, 2007)

Jrock, it is stories like yours and my own experience that makes me think that this issue is related to the 8.1 winter update. As, a lot of people in this thread have stated.

Let's hope the 8.3 update for the S3 will address this issue.


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## smileLP (Mar 26, 2003)

do we know approx. when 8.3 update is comin'?


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## cableguy763 (Oct 29, 2006)

smileLP said:


> do we know approx. when 8.3 update is comin'?


2-3 weeks


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

cableguy763 said:


> 2-3 weeks


Good answer


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## smileLP (Mar 26, 2003)

guess what - - i called tivo and they said at first they were exchanging tivo's (for pixillation/drop outs), but now they know it's the software and are working to fix it. they could give me no idea on the time frame, but at least this is better than, "no, i never heard of that problem before"


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## richlove (Jan 13, 2007)

I have had audio / video dropouts since my first TIVO s3 I purchased in October 2006. I had that first unit replaced in January 2007 and the dropouts continue with that box. I have had Time Warner out here a million times (well if feels like a million times anyway). They have replaced cable cards, optimized the signal level, changed attenuation and splitters. Nothing helps. This is a TIVO probelm. I called TIVO for the millionth time today and they are going to replace the TIVO again.
What troubles me is that I see lots of posts on the internet about this problem but NO solutions.
I would feel better if someone would say that TIVO gave them a new series 3 and the problem went away.

Rich


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

Yup... deja vu.. all over again...

Tivo is still working on my returned S3 with recordings with pixelations.... No feedback yet.

One thing I am trying to do is get a cablecard working in my Samsung DLP to see if the same issue exists with it. However... no joy with that effort... It stops at 2 EMM's and I dont get any more or any digital channels... bummer....


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## richlove (Jan 13, 2007)

Regarding firmware upgrade to fix dropouts...
I called TIVO today and they said they had no knowledge that the next firmware would fix that problem. Guess it depends on who you talk to there. Sure would be nice to get an honest answer from someone.


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## smileLP (Mar 26, 2003)

to all you people who are sending your S3's back for new ones, hoping that fixes your pixillation/drop outs problem, you are almost certainly wasting your time

tivo is trying to fix the problem (they told me) for the next software update. it is NOT a hardware problem. i know this w/near-certainty cuz i have simply read too many posts where a new unit did not fix the problem and all the clues are pointing to the tivo software. for many people the prob. went from minor to major when they got 8.1.1

you really shouldn't bother sending your S3's back (they're expensive to ship!!)

just my opinion...


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

smileLP said:


> to all you people who are sending your S3's back for new ones, hoping that fixes your pixillation/drop outs problem, you are almost certainly wasting your time


I agree, but for different reasons. Many things can cause pixellization and drop-outs, not the least of which is errors in the data stream. Qualitatively spoeaking, I had as many drop-outs on the TWC DVR as I do on the Series III, and I continue to suffer the same problem on the digital set-top and my Mitsubishi HD TV with CableCards installed. Before anyone sends anything back, I suggest they proof out the system by putting an additional HD receiver (preferably a cablecard based one) right next to the TiVo. Make certain the connectors are tight and of good quality, and for preference try to have the TiVo on a port whose overall loss is the same as the TiVo (i.e., don't put the TiVo on a -7dB port and the test set on a -3.5dB port of a three way splitter). If nothing else, get the CATV company to put a test receiver right next to the TiVo to provide evidence (not proof!) it isn't the CATV system.



smileLP said:


> tivo is trying to fix the problem (they told me) for the next software update. it is NOT a hardware problem. i know this w/near-certainty cuz i have simply read too many posts where a new unit did not fix the problem and all the clues are pointing to the tivo software. for many people the prob. went from minor to major when they got 8.1.1


Be careful drawing conclusions from people pointing fingers, especially if they are not experts in the field. (BTW, no competent expert would point a finger in the first place until after the problem is completely resolved and it is confirmed with no question whatsoever the nature of the root cause.)

For myself, I continue to have drop-outs on all the digital systems, not just the series III TiVo, and in fact I have noticed an apparent decrease in the severity and frequency of the symptoms in the last 2 or 3 weeks on all the systems.

Oh, and by the way, while a poor signal level is definitely a sign of a problem, a good signal level by no means guarantees a quality signal. Noise, distortion, hum, and RF ingress all can be sources of a degraded picture, including signal drop-outs in a digital stream. In fact, generally speaking they are much more likely to be a source of signal degradation than low levels in a nominally operational CATV system, especially when dealing with wide bandwidth digital signals.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

richlove said:


> I have had audio / video dropouts since my first TIVO s3 I purchased in October 2006. I had that first unit replaced in January 2007 and the dropouts continue with that box. I have had Time Warner out here a million times (well if feels like a million times anyway). They have replaced cable cards, optimized the signal level, changed attenuation and splitters. Nothing helps.


All of that proves nothing. Indeed, although I can't really say without observing directly, but it doesn't sound to me as if they've done very much at all likely to resolve the issue. "Optimizing the signal level" means nothing whatsoever. Replacing a splitter won't help unless the splitter is in fact bad, which is moderately unlikely. In order to confirm the quality of the signal, the CATV company needs to test for specrtal flatness (also called "peak-to-valley"), various distortions (mostly different 3rd order distortions), signal to noise ratio, reflections (also called "return loss"), ingress carriers, and various other problems. These are not all terribly simple tests. The easiest are flatness and signal-to-noise. After that, a parallel test set (probably a DVR), is a good next step. If it has the same problems in roughly the same places, it proves there is a problem with the CATV system. If it does not, it doesn't NECESSARILY prove there is no problem with the plant, but it's a moderately strong indicator the problem might be with the TiVo. I've seen plenty of plant problems that were more evident on one receiver than another, yet were manifestly plant problems nonetheless.



richlove said:


> This is a TIVO probelm. I called TIVO for the millionth time today and they are going to replace the TIVO again.


'Pretty unlikely it's a TiVo hardware issue if it has already been replaced. I am extremely skeptical of the posts suggesting it is a software issue.



richlove said:


> What troubles me is that I see lots of posts on the internet about this problem but NO solutions.


To a certain extent, there isn't one. That is to say, all digital streams are subject to an occasional dropout. A good quality transport system will minimize them, but some will occasionally originate at he source. That said, I do think the frequency I see it happening on my programs is higher than it should be. It's not so bad I've had an uncontrollable urge to dig into it, however.


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## richlove (Jan 13, 2007)

Well, that is all very good information but I have a Time Warner cable box that does not have drop outs. It is on the same cable that the series three is on (yes I have switched cables between the two units and it makes no difference.)

Is there anybody out there who can honestly say that they have a series 3 that does not have audio dropouts? I have had several Time Warner boxes and even though I hate them, none of them have the audio dropouts.

I have read posts here about the problem starting with firmware 8.1
That is not true. My original TIVO from last October had 8.01 with the same problem.
You can find posts back to September 2006 from the very first series 3 with this exact symptom being reported.


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

From my discussions with the folks deeper in the support structure, it hasnt been declared a software problem (at least since last Monday). Note that I can only speak to my situation and the returned replacement Tivo. As of last Monday, they hadnt reached any conclusion of what is going on.... It could be possible that they didnt want to admit it but I dont believe that to be the case. I believe they have been honest with me so far.

I havent seen a 'smoking gun' that would definitively pin this on a definite cause. In my situation, the evidence seems to point to the Tivo and thats about as far as it goes. If I can get this blasted cablecard to work in my TV, that may provide some additional info that could help 'pin' this on something.

As to 'stream' issues... I believe that has been ruled out. Tivolunteer has multiple Tivo's and recorded the same show at the same time on multiple Tivo's. The glitches were NOT consistent between Tivo's as would be the case if the issue was the mpeg stream encoding.

The glitches 'stink' like a signal issue... However, a lot has been done to test my signal situation.... attenuation, amplification, connector replacment, distribution amp replacement, cable changes. Qualitative tests such as level, ingress, DC offset, tilt, snr all indicated nothing unusual.

The fact remains (for me) that I see glitches on both tuners of my Tivo but see nothing unusual using TWC equipment. The glitches are only an issue on encrypted digital sources. unencrypted digital sources (cable and ota) exhibit only the typical 'once in a while' glitch. The situation repeated identically with a replacement Tivo.

Note that when I say 'glitch', im not talking about the absolutely normal once in a while pixelation/audio loss. Im talking about pixelation/audio losses at a rate of up to once every 5 minutes with more typical rates of once every 10 minutes.

As to 8.1.... in my 'minds eye'... i _perceived_ that 8.1 did make it worse... however, that could be purely psychological as I and many others were led to believe that this was an mpeg decoder issue and 8.1 was going to fix it. When that hope was dashed... the sore thumb which was being 'soothed' by the hope of 8.1 suddenly got sore again.


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## richlove (Jan 13, 2007)

SCSIRAID,

My experience is exactly as you describe yours.
I just wish I could get a straight answer from TIVO. I can't help but feel that the engineers at TIVO know exactly what this problem is but cannot tell us for whatever reason.
The TIVO support person told me yesterday that the replacement unit I received last January was a refurb. He said they would make sure I got a new one this time. But I asked if he was sure it would solve the problem and he said 75% sure. That is not good odds. He said he was not aware of any upcoming firmware fix for this problem. Based on that info, I have having a hard time getting myself to return this unit for another one.

I do not have any confidence in the front line support people at TIVO. I get a different answer from each person that I talk to there.

This is all extremely frustrating for me because the series 3 is such a fantastic piece of equipment if it were not for this problem spoiling the whole experience.

Rich


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

richlove said:


> SCSIRAID,
> 
> My experience is exactly as you describe yours.
> I just wish I could get a straight answer from TIVO. I can't help but feel that the engineers at TIVO know exactly what this problem is but cannot tell us for whatever reason.
> ...


If your situation is the same as mine then I would expect the probablilty of success of a replacment unit would be close to 0...... My replacement unit path resulted in no change but it opened the door to deeper contact with Tivo support/development.

Who is your cable company? What brand of cablecards? Are you also using OTA?

Fortunately, Im not dealing with the front line folks.... I would have probably given up otherwise.


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## richlove (Jan 13, 2007)

I am on Time Warner Cable, with Scientific Atlanta cards.
Not using OTA but I have seen posts of the same problems with OTA.
My audio / video dropouts happen on premium movie channels and high def channels including network broadcasts in high def (ABC, CBS, NBC) as well as other high def channels.
One thing in common is the frequency of the channels. It seems to me that all the problem channels are in the 600,000 to 700,000 khz range.

When did you purchase your TIVO? (trying to get an idea if recently shipped units are any better).

Rich


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

richlove said:


> I am on Time Warner Cable, with Scientific Atlanta cards.
> Not using OTA but I have seen posts of the same problems with OTA.
> My audio / video dropouts happen on premium movie channels and high def channels including network broadcasts in high def (ABC, CBS, NBC) as well as other high def channels.
> One thing in common is the frequency of the channels. It seems to me that all the problem channels are in the 600,000 to 700,000 khz range.
> ...


Got my Tivo in first week of availability. Mid September. The replacement unit was brand new and had same problem and had the yellow oled instead of the orange.

So you are seeing the issue on UNencrypted content.... Im not.... HD locals on cable are not encrypted and dont show the same problem for me.

For me... Discovery HD is the worst....


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## richlove (Jan 13, 2007)

Yes, I have seen the dropouts when watching Boston Legal on network high def.


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## r11roadster (Oct 24, 2006)

I used to have one channel that exhibited pixilation and audio dropouts every 20-30 seconds. never bothered calling the cable co (Charter) as I figured they would just push it off on the tivo. Well last week or so is just cleared up. dunno if I got an update. I never got a message to that effect. Just hope it holds out  I still get an occasional blip on other channels but nothing really annoying especially after seeing the glitchy crap a friend puts up with from the cable co box.

running 8.1.1-01.2.648 FWIW


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## cconnell (Nov 15, 2006)

A week ago it became unwatchable. I tried rebooting to no effect. On advice from another thread I pulled the power cord and waited 10 seconds. It fixed all my problems. Don't know why but it is worth a try.


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## smileLP (Mar 26, 2003)

i'm glad the power cord pull fixed your probs. i myself am wary of this move because doing so once turned a perfectly operational S3 into one of those that kept getting stuck in an interminable start-up loop. just seems like pulling the power is more "jarring" to the unit than turning it on off and on again via "restart." but i cant argue w/your results

but back to the central topic here: is there a clue w/the fact that my S2 never pixilattes, while the S3 does; both come from a digital T-W feed

also, i know some of you are suggesting not to listen to hearsay and finger pointing, but my personal experience is that my pixillation has gotten a lot more frequent the last month or two, and that SEEMS to point to the new software, since nothing else changed

just my 2 cents worth...

(think i'll take my chances and pull the power cord out...... may god have mercy on my rebooting cycles....)


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## retired_guy (Aug 27, 2004)

I tried the power plug pulling a few times and it didn't do a thing for my pixelization. For me, the problem was minor up to around the time of the new software. But I also changed the disk at that time, so maybe that had something to do with it. The problem was minor for me prior to the software release; now, some channels are unwatchable while others are perfectly OK. It's a weird problem in that it comes and goes and varies widely by channel, with the HD channels being the worse. None of my Series2 boxes have significant video or sound dropout problems, although of course they don't get the HD channels. I've swapped the cable feeds between boxes with no impact.


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## evillines (Jan 21, 2007)

I have a series 3 and at this point only using OTA to get my shows. I show good signal strength on the meter (understand this isn't the gospel) and get drop out, pixelization and lost audio pretty frequently on all major networks. I am using an outdoor antenna attached to my satellite which is powered off the LNB. But reading all these post, it seems that this is an issue with both cable and OTA -- although the issue with digital vs. old analog is that it's either on or off so if cable is getting their data from satellite and getting drop, then they are passing that drop to us through all HD digital distribution channels, right? Funny, I was telling my wife we have to get cable even though I'll lose my duel tuner function with Time Warner (old a/b cable system) to fix this -- but it seems like this is an issue everyone has. I am in Dallas, TX by the way! This and the loss of Tivotogo is killing me!!!


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

evillines said:


> I have a series 3 and at this point only using OTA to get my shows. I show good signal strength on the meter (understand this isn't the gospel) and get drop out, pixelization and lost audio pretty frequently on all major networks. I am using an outdoor antenna attached to my satellite which is powered off the LNB. But reading all these post, it seems that this is an issue with both cable and OTA -- although the issue with digital vs. old analog is that it's either on or off so if cable is getting their data from satellite and getting drop, then they are passing that drop to us through all HD digital distribution channels, right? Funny, I was telling my wife we have to get cable even though I'll lose my duel tuner function with Time Warner (old a/b cable system) to fix this -- but it seems like this is an issue everyone has. I am in Dallas, TX by the way! This and the loss of Tivotogo is killing me!!!


Define 'pretty frequently'.


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## retired_guy (Aug 27, 2004)

SCSIRAID said:


> Define 'pretty frequently'.


For me, on some channels, the problem is constant. That is, in a bad case, such as today, on some channel it's always there; I get a good screen maybe once every ten seconds. And the sound drops every few seconds. In a minor case, the problem occurs every minute or so, and I can live with that, but don't like it. When it occurs less than every ten minutes, I think of that as being a good channel.


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## evillines (Jan 21, 2007)

By frequently, I mean every couple of minutes.


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## CosmoGeek (Feb 26, 2007)

retired_guy said:


> For me, on some channels, the problem is constant. That is, in a bad case, such as today, on some channel it's always there; I get a good screen maybe once every ten seconds. And the sound drops every few seconds. In a minor case, the problem occurs every minute or so, and I can live with that, but don't like it. When it occurs less than every ten minutes, I think of that as being a good channel.


With that level of problem, I would get Comcast out to your house. If they want to prove it is not their problem, tell them to bring one of their HD DVR's and see if it can do better.


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

evillines said:


> By frequently, I mean every couple of minutes.


At that frequency on OTA I would suspect an issue with your antenna. Multipath is your enemy with digital TV. What external antenna are you using? How far from the 'antenna farm'? If you are close to tall objects you may be getting reflections. Have you tried going to less antenna such as an indoor silver sensor and see how that effects it.


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## evillines (Jan 21, 2007)

I am using an antenna that attaches and is powered off my sattelite. I tried the basic ole antenna in the house and couldn't get ABC and really bad CBS. Just FOX, NBC and PBS, etc. This antenna really helped, although yesterday it just stopped working! I was thinking about getting one of those old fashioned, ugly antennas and putting to the side of my porch (I live in a condo).


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## retired_guy (Aug 27, 2004)

CosmoGeek said:


> With that level of problem, I would get Comcast out to your house. If they want to prove it is not their problem, tell them to bring one of their HD DVR's and see if it can do better.


I'm making some progress on the problem by doing something I should have done long ago. My cable runs through a Channel Master Model 3044 four way powered splitter. I've done this ever since I got the Series3 seven months ago with essentially no problems the first five months. 50-900 MHz Amp. range, 22dB amplification. The outputs go to two Series2s and the Series3. The Series2s have no problems, including one of which is attached via a Comcast Motorola STB. I tried running the cable from the wall directly to the Series3 and the pixelization problem went away, at least for the brief time I tried it. I hooked back up through the splitter and the problems were back. I tried a SD digital channel which pixelates on the Series3 on the 57H which connects through the STB, and saw no problem on the 57H. So the Motorola STB can apparently handle digital signals too weak for the Series3. (about 78 now by the Series3's measure--it used to measure in the 90s for the same connections--why that has changed I don't know) I've never had any analog channel problems on any box.

I'm thinking I need to replace the splitter; any thoughts about the best device(s) which result in at least a three way split?


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

retired_guy said:


> I'm making some progress on the problem by doing something I should have done long ago. My cable runs through a Channel Master Model 3044 four way powered splitter. I've done this ever since I got the Series3 seven months ago with essentially no problems the first five months. 50-900 MHz Amp. range, 22dB amplification. The outputs go to two Series2s and the Series3. The Series2s have no problems, including one of which is attached via a Comcast Motorola STB. I tried running the cable from the wall directly to the Series3 and the pixelization problem went away, at least for the brief time I tried it. I hooked back up through the splitter and the problems were back. I tried a SD digital channel which pixelates on the Series3 on the 57H which connects through the STB, and saw no problem on the 57H. So the Motorola STB can apparently handle digital signals too weak for the Series3. (about 78 now by the Series3's measure--it used to measure in the 90s for the same connections--why that has changed I don't know) I've never had any analog channel problems on any box.
> 
> I'm thinking I need to replace the splitter; any thoughts about the best device(s) which result in at least a three way split?


The specs on that amp dont make sense.. With +8 on each output, total gain should be +15, not +22.... It also isnt all that 'quiet' with a noise filter of 3.5db... so its probably not the best match. Can you describe you cable wiring from where it enters the house... that would help. If the amp is being drive directly from your house input, it may be too much gain and could be overloading your tuner. You could safely add a 6db attenuator on the amp output to the Tivo and get it back into line.

I use the 8 port version of this amp with reasonabally good results.

http://cgi.ebay.com/VIEWSONICS-VSA-...6994916QQihZ008QQcategoryZ39803QQcmdZViewItem


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## retired_guy (Aug 27, 2004)

The Comcast guy tested my channel and said that the signal strength was too high. I've been using the splitter for years, but apparently Comcast, to improve picture quality, has upgraded signal strength in parts of Saratoga. As a result, my amplified splitter was generating too strong a signal. We replaced the splitter with a simple non-powered splitter and the pixelization problems have gone away. I'm a happy TiVo user again.


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

SCSIRAID said:


> Yup... deja vu.. all over again...
> 
> Tivo is still working on my returned S3 with recordings with pixelations.... No feedback yet.
> 
> One thing I am trying to do is get a cablecard working in my Samsung DLP to see if the same issue exists with it. However... no joy with that effort... It stops at 2 EMM's and I dont get any more or any digital channels... bummer....


Well... I was finally able to get the cablecard working in the Samsung DLP. I watched several shows on the TV while also recording them on the S3. Not one glitch on the DLP/Cablecard..... S3 recordings DID show the glitches....

Also tried bypassing the cable distribution amp and driving the Tivo direct from the house input from the pedistal. I split the house input once with one output driving the Tivo and the other output of the splitter driving the amp. No difference. S3 still glitched.

All tests still seem to point directly at the Tivo being the 'problem'.....


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## fusednova (Oct 7, 2006)

I have 2 S3s and they have the same problem. One had a failure and the replacement also drops. I'm inclined to believe its the Scientific Atlanta cards which also require a reboot EVERY NIGHT to ensure they work. Comcast checked my signal and they were surprised at how strong it is. I'll be testing a booster anyway. 

As much as it pains me to say this, if I can't get this fixed, I may go back to the horrible Comcast DVR. I'm sick of missing those very important moments in shows.


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## gwsat (Sep 14, 2006)

I have had what I assume is the same problem with my S3 from time to time in which the sound will drop out and the video will pixelize for a few seconds. The most recent example occurred last night when I was watching NBCs back-to-back reruns of three Heroes episodes. Oddly, I watched OTA so I cant blame the CableCARDs for the problem this time. It doesnt happen very often but it was very annoying last night.


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## NonnaDonna (Apr 24, 2007)

I hooked up my S3 in late Jan 07. I have had severe tiling and pixelation problems ever since. Mostly on the HD local channels, especially ch 311 (CBS). But also on other digital channels, not on any analog ch that I have noticed. It happens when I watch live tv or when I record shows. Sometimes I can watch the first 20 minutes of a 1 hour show with the rest of the show unwatchable, because of tiling and no sound. Other times I can watch a whole 1hr show without tiling. It comes and goes unexplainably. I have TWC Houston and have had technicians out 3 different times. They check the problem and say that the signal is fine and they can't find a problem. My husband has my old series 2 and has no problems. The TWC techs just suggest changing out cable cards (which I have now done 3 times with no change.) Finally tivo changed out my Tivo box for a refurbished one that had exactly the same problem. I sent it back. I have my original S3 hooked up again. Today my husband decided to do his own troubleshooting. He took a very long cable and hooked it up to the cable box outside and brought it in directly to my S3. The tiling continued unabated. He hooked that cable up to his cable box and it played perfectly. So, here we are, once again, with no solution and none in sight that I can see. It's very distressing, because when it does work...the HD picture is fantastic. I don't want to lose my Tivo S3. I do hope they find something that corrects the problem. By they, I mean Tivo or Time Warner or whomever!!!!!! Just as long as I can watch my Tivo!


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## andrewb (Jun 25, 2002)

I'm having intermittent drop-outs and pixelation with my new S3 as well. There are two seemingly different problems going on.

One is audio only, and seems to only happen when I'm watching a live signal. I get a gap in audio every 10 seconds or so. If I rewind a few seconds and resume playback the problem disappears. Perhaps there's some kind of buffering going on?

The other problem is more like what I've seen described here. OTA works GREAT! But cable HD channels, NESN HD in particular, drops occasionally. The signal meter shows 96 out of 100, so that doesn't seem too low. I just replaced a Motorola DVR that never had this problem. The drop-out is followed by pixelation and the obvious loss of a key frame in the MPEG2 stream -- movement deltas are applied to the previous frame state before the key frame. Within a second or so a new key frame resyncs -- or so it seems. This can happen every 5 minutes, or only once or twice in a whole baseball game.

I haven't had a ton of time to play with this. It seems better on ESPN HD (hardly any drops) than on NESN HD (sometimes unwatchable). Why would that be?

The way I used to have it hooked up was to have a splitter at the TV that split the signal between a Motorola DCT 6416 (dual tuner) and an S2 Tivo. With that setup I never saw this problem, even though the signal should have been weaker with the additional split. (I have now gotten rid of the Motorola box and the splitter.)
Should I try an amplifier?

I fully expect TiVo to blame the cable company (RCN) and RCN to blame TiVo. I don't really have time to deal with this -- it took long enough to get RCN to deliver and install CableCards at all!!! -- so I'm inclined to just return it all, especially after reading this thread which makes me realize this is likely not to be fixed in a simple and quick way.

Ugh.


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## wrh30 (Sep 4, 2006)

NonnaDonna said:


> I hooked up my S3 in late Jan 07. I have had severe tiling and pixelation problems ever since. Mostly on the HD local channels, especially ch 311 (CBS). But also on other digital channels, not on any analog ch that I have noticed. It happens when I watch live tv or when I record shows. Sometimes I can watch the first 20 minutes of a 1 hour show with the rest of the show unwatchable, because of tiling and no sound. Other times I can watch a whole 1hr show without tiling. It comes and goes unexplainably. I have TWC Houston and have had technicians out 3 different times. They check the problem and say that the signal is fine and they can't find a problem. My husband has my old series 2 and has no problems. The TWC techs just suggest changing out cable cards (which I have now done 3 times with no change.) Finally tivo changed out my Tivo box for a refurbished one that had exactly the same problem. I sent it back. I have my original S3 hooked up again. Today my husband decided to do his own troubleshooting. He took a very long cable and hooked it up to the cable box outside and brought it in directly to my S3. The tiling continued unabated. He hooked that cable up to his cable box and it played perfectly. So, here we are, once again, with no solution and none in sight that I can see. It's very distressing, because when it does work...the HD picture is fantastic. I don't want to lose my Tivo S3. I do hope they find something that corrects the problem. By they, I mean Tivo or Time Warner or whomever!!!!!! Just as long as I can watch my Tivo!


Ok just checking back in here to see if there has been any fixes for this.By reading these posts it seems not I am glad I returned my S3. If enough people demand Tivo fix this something might happen. There are to many on here defending tivo saying its a cable problem or a splitter problem or a multipath problem. I have herd all the excuses.. Wake up people! The S3 is flawed


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## andrewb (Jun 25, 2002)

TiVo support told me to put the TiVo in native display mode instead of forced 1080i, but I don't think that's fixed it. I still got one pixelated moment in 20 minutes of viewing NESN HD, which is 1080i anyway I believe. I guess the theory is that somehow the TiVo is causing pixelation on the resolution conversion? Seems doubtful. It looks like MPEG2 decompression errors to me.

Today, though, I'm feeling like it's not that bad and perhaps I can live with it. Except for one baseball game last week, it's been pretty rare.


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## jrock (Aug 27, 2002)

So get this... This week all of a sudden my S3 stopped getting the pixelization problem all together. None of the HD channels pixelize at all now (Knock on wood). BUT!! There where 2 programs with 0 length recordings. That hasn't happened since November. What's going on! This box is crazy.

-Joe


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## Ian (Mar 7, 2000)

Hi all-

Brand new S3 with two tuners, just got HD cable (TWCNYC) hooked up last Saturday.

For the first few days, I had just a few dropouts - maybe one about 10 seconds after switching channels, not bad at all. I didn't even realize it was a common problem until I start looking at the boards again.

OK, fine, I don't mind a glitch every now and then.

The past two days, however, I've been noticing dropouts and pixelization every 5-10 minutes, both SD and HD channels...

...which I've got to say, is amazingly disappointing - this continual problem just rips me right out of whatever show I'm watching.

I've just pulled the plug and restarted the box - hopefully this will help.

What are other people's dropout frequency?

Thanks-

-Ian


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## oldnacl (Mar 23, 2007)

I'm a TiVo newbie - went to it to get away from the SA8300HD which drove me crazy with it's Model A user interface. Comcast (nee Adelphia) has been out numerous times in the past 5 years with pronouncements that the signal is too high, too low, just right, trouble inside, trouble outside, needs an amp added, needs an amp removed, splitters are set incorrectly (want low db drop to the TV - no - to the cable modem - and back and forth). Never see the same tech and every tech says what the last tech did was all wrong. Bottom line is that I get the occasional audio dropouts that everyone is describing and occasional pixelation ("tiling" is what they call it here). My uneducated but experienced guess is it's the cable feed and I have no way to solve the issue - and, apparently, neither does Comcast. So, I miss a few seconds of dialog and I'm about to just say "that's life" - I wish it weren't, but it seems to be. Maybe Netflix is the answer.


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## Ian (Mar 7, 2000)

My friends tell me that similar dropouts happen with TWC NYC HD DVRs, but I can't imagine that they're getting dropouts every five minutes like me.

What do people suggest I do? Call the cable company or ask for a replacement TiVo?

Anything work for people in the past?

Thanks!

-Ian


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## JSFord (Dec 28, 2001)

You know sometimes I just want something that just fn works.

No bs, no troubleshooting. Just plug the sob in and it works.

Apparently that aint possible most of the time


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

Ian said:


> My friends tell me that similar dropouts happen with TWC NYC HD DVRs, but I can't imagine that they're getting dropouts every five minutes like me.
> 
> What do people suggest I do? Call the cable company or ask for a replacement TiVo?
> 
> ...


I have both the Comcast DVR and the Series 3. I have done fairly extensive testing to see if the dropouts on the Series 3 are also present at the same time on the Comcast Motorola box. Guess what? I couldn't find a single instance where the dropouts weren't on BOTH boxes in exactly the same way. I am sure that the vast majority of droputs and pixelization problems are the fault of the Head End system here, not either of the boxes.

Therefore my advice would be to call Comcast. I have yet to see any reports of a new TiVo box solving this problem. I am quite sure that at least in my case the problem is coming in from the outside.


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## gwsat (Sep 14, 2006)

JSFord said:


> You know sometimes I just want something that just fn works.
> 
> No bs, no troubleshooting. Just plug the sob in and it works.
> 
> Apparently that aint possible most of the time


Alas, easy CableCARD installations are not in the cards (pardon the pun) these days. CableCARD technology and implementation have a lot of problems, so many that trouble free installations seem to be the exception rather than the rule. The silver lining in the black CableCARD cloud is that most of us who have S3s have been able to eventually get them to work  but it often wasnt easy.


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## dmodde (Mar 28, 2007)

I had all of this horror myself, and ended up calling Tivo. After eliminating all of the nonsense that has been covered in-depth on this thread, she asked me what the unit was sitting on. In my case, it was sitting on top of a PureAV rack-mounted power unit. Per her advice, I moved the S3 up to the top of my rack (approx 1.5ft) from both my Onkyo AV receiver and the PureAV. I haven't had an issue since on any normal or HD channel (my service is with Charter). I still can't believe this solved it, but kudos to that Tivo tech - she saved my sanity.


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## s2kdave (Jan 28, 2005)

dmodde said:


> I had all of this horror myself, and ended up calling Tivo. After eliminating all of the nonsense that has been covered in-depth on this thread, she asked me what the unit was sitting on. In my case, it was sitting on top of a PureAV rack-mounted power unit. Per her advice, I moved the S3 up to the top of my rack (approx 1.5ft) from both my Onkyo AV receiver and the PureAV. I haven't had an issue since on any normal or HD channel (my service is with Charter). I still can't believe this solved it, but kudos to that Tivo tech - she saved my sanity.


I have my s3 sitting on a shelf alone. The closest electronic component is a few feet away and I still get stream dropouts frequently.


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## Ian (Mar 7, 2000)

Hi all-

OK, now I'm getting frustrated and can use a bit of advice.

New S3 and new HD Cable Installation (TWC NYC). Ever since I got this installed, I've had stream dropouts ranging from once an hour to once every 5 minutes.

I had TWC come back, and showed the tech the problem on recorded shows - he said it was a signal problem, tested my signal coming into my apt, and said - it's fine, but the higher frequencies are a bit low - but within range.

He recut the cable and the splices, re-hooked me up and left. Still getting the droupouts.

Today, I even added an inline amplifier from radio shack, just prior to the signal entering my TiVo.

Signal strength for most HD channels hovers at 97-100 percent, never less... and yet I'm still getting dropouts, every 2-5 minutes . Even when the meter is reading 98% or greater.


Still think it's the signal, or could it be the TiVo?

How have the rest of you gotten your dropouts to go away... or have you given up?

Please advise if you can - thanks!

-Ian


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

I had the same problem early on with my S3 TiVo and it's all but disappeared. I almost never see any dropouts and the one's I've been seeing (maybe once or twice in a day) are for a millisecond and the sound is fine during those. Weird. I guess Comcast must've fixed whatever was wrong on their end. The S3 was apparently not the cause.  

I have a feeling most of the dropout problems are the fault of the Cable Companies. Comcast in the SFO Bay Area is having a load of problems getting the Cable Card serial numbers to match up to the correct pairing information on the correct slot on the correct box... I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't issues such as this in other areas on other systems. My problems did seem to disappear once they had my cable card numbers all sorted out. You might try making sure the head end has the correct info for your cable cards and ask for them to "re-hit" your cable cards and see if that helps.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

retired_guy said:


> My cable runs through a Channel Master Model 3044 four way powered splitter. I've done this ever since I got the Series3 seven months ago with essentially no problems the first five months. 50-900 MHz Amp. range, 22dB amplification.


Unless you have very long wall drops, that is *WAY* too much amplification. The cable company should be delivering a signal to the eve of your house which will produce a signal on the analog channels no lower than 0dBmV at the back of a single TV. Most companies design for a minimum of +4 dBmV or better so that two sets can be served with optimum signals. At the upper band, the loss on a 4 way splitter is about 8 dB, and the attenuation per 100 feet is about 6 dB, as I recall. If your drops are no more than 100 feet, then at most your amplifier should have a gain of 11 or 12 dB. If it requires more than that to obtain a good level behind the set, then your CATV system has a problem, and you need to call the CATV company to fix it. Not only will a 22dB amplifier produce levels far, far too high for the inputs of your devices, it will be producing a great deal of 3rd order distortion, and possibly even 2nd order distortion if it is not a hybrid amp. It's a common mistake among laymen, but more signal is most emphatically *NOT* better. A house amplifier (sometimes called a post-amp) should only just make up for additional loses from long drop cables and house splitters. Each 2-way split drops the signal roughly 4dB, and each 100 feet drops the high end about 6dB. If your drops are more than 200 feet, then you probably need an equalizer, but in any case you'll only need a 22dB amp with 200 foot drops and an 8-way splitter.



retired_guy said:


> I'm thinking I need to replace the splitter; any thoughts about the best device(s) which result in at least a three way split?


Any good 1GHz splitter should work just fine. If it's a 4-way, be sure to terminate the fourth port with a 75 ohm terminator. If it's a 3-way, be sure to tie the longest drop to the hot leg.


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## ehardman (Feb 18, 2004)

My pixalation and dropout probems had gone away several months ago. But now 8.3 has brought them back big time. Strangely, the problems are now on different channels. Audio drops out entirely, even though the video is at times watchable.


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## hddude55 (Jan 5, 2007)

ehardman said:


> My pixalation and dropout probems had gone away several months ago. But now 8.3 has brought them back big time. Strangely, the problems are now on different channels. Audio drops out entirely, even though the video is watchable.


 I had no problems until 8.3 and then suddenly lots of lengthy pixelation and dropouts. I have a new, replacement Series3 now and it's working fine ... on 8.1. It will be interesting to see what happens when 8.3 is rolled to this new machine. Has anyone ever determined if there is a possible explanation why 8.3 would be causing these problems?


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

bareyb said:


> I had the same problem early on with my S3 TiVo and it's all but disappeared. I almost never see any dropouts and the one's I've been seeing (maybe once or twice in a day) are for a millisecond and the sound is fine during those. Weird. I guess Comcast must've fixed whatever was wrong on their end. The S3 was apparently not the cause.


Well they're baaaaaackkkk! Ever since 8.3 the glitches are back again. Not sure if this is comcast or the update. Bummer. I'm lucky if I can get an entire episode of Sopranos to record. Last week I had to use a non HD HBO in order to get the episode in it entirety. Planet Earth series, same thing. I'm reluctant to call Comcast, because they will of course want to do a truck roll. I just hope whoever is responsible can figure this out. I'm really sick of all the problems. I wish TiVo and DirecTV would partner up again. Tivo and Comcast sucks...


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## ehardman (Feb 18, 2004)

bareyb said:


> Well they're baaaaaackkkk! Ever since 8.3 the glitches are back again. Not sure if this is comcast or the update.


In my opinion, I don't believe this problem has anything to do with your cable provider. Based on my experience with this issue going back to the Series 3 intro, this is a software problem with Tivo.


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