Q:Random pixellation & sound cut-out???

Mark_AR

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Supporting Founder
Nov 17, 2003
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North Arkansas
522 & 921 Both exibit this:

Recently I have noticed more picture pixellation/screen freeze (those little annoying decompression squares and screen freeze just like you see during bad weather) and at the same time the sound cuts out.

I have checked my signal for long periods of time and get a consistent 105-108 on sat 119 and 94-99 on sat 110 on BOTH receivers. RIght now it is sunny out without a cloud in the sky and it will still do the above randomly from every few minutes to every few hours. It is not channel dependent, but I do notice it more on the HD channels(Maybe bcuz I watch HD more on my 921 than I do SD)

I have a quad LNB that is less than 90 days old.

Is anyone else noticing this problem too,or is it just me???

If it is just me, then do I have 2 bad or failing LNB's? Receivers?

Any insight will be appreciated.
 
Just for the record, I'm using the 522 and have never seen this with LiveTV. However, I have had an ocassional dropout/video glitch during playback of recorded material from the DVR (usually when I have recorded two programs at once while watching something on the DVR too).

Travis

Mark_AR said:
522 & 921 Both exibit this:

Recently I have noticed more picture pixellation/screen freeze (those little annoying decompression squares and screen freeze just like you see during bad weather) and at the same time the sound cuts out.

I have checked my signal for long periods of time and get a consistent 105-108 on sat 119 and 94-99 on sat 110 on BOTH receivers. RIght now it is sunny out without a cloud in the sky and it will still do the above randomly from every few minutes to every few hours. It is not channel dependent, but I do notice it more on the HD channels(Maybe bcuz I watch HD more on my 921 than I do SD)

I have a quad LNB that is less than 90 days old.

Is anyone else noticing this problem too,or is it just me???

If it is just me, then do I have 2 bad or failing LNB's? Receivers?

Any insight will be appreciated.
 
If this is happening while watching live (not just playback).
First, I would check your all your RG6 connectors for possible corrosion(verify they are clean and tight)
It doesn't take much loss to cause a drop out and may be too brief to show up in the signal reading.
 
I have a 3 month old 522 and have noticed the same thing, particularly lately. With the exception of clearly weather related pixelation and that from a specific local channel, it seems to be with recorded programs (notice I'm getting better at not saying programs I've "taped"?). I don't often record from the same tuners at the same time, so most of what I've seen are from cases where a program was the only program being recorded and the other tuner was not in use.
 
I meant to add - this problem seems to have gotten worse recently. I've wondered it there has been a software upgrade recently that may have this as a side effect.
 
Well its gone from bad to worse.

Now it is all the time. 30 seconds to 1 minute of viewable TV and up to 2 minutes of frozen screen. It happens on all LIVE channels.

My signal is still in the 100-105 range.

Hard reset doesn't help a bit either.

An E* advanced tech seems to think I have a bad LNB in my quad. I hope that is all it is. I would hate to lose my movies and DIY shows that I recorded for reference. *sigh*

I'll let you know what happens.
 
Its official. My 522 is dead.

My 50+ hours of recorded content is going bye-bye.

E* is 2nd Day Air'ing me another one though.

So keep an eye on your screen. If you notice more and more pixellation during live TV, you may want to transfer any content you have recorded to VHS while you still can.

I may take the next few days and transfer some programs to VHS, but it is almost more trouble than it is worth.

On a technical note. The advanced tech said you don't need to have the 522 hooked to an LNB for it to work. So you can record movies or other content and unplug it and go to your friends house and show whatever you have on your hard drive.

Just a thought.
 
Replacement 522 came Saturday and swapped it out with dead one.

Had it out of the box and activated in less than 20 minutes.

It did take 2 days for it to load my local program guides though. Lets see how long before I can toast this one.:dev

I still hate the idea of losing all of my recorded movies/DIY shows. I thought about swapping out the hard drive, but..... I didn't. -sigh-
 
Mark_AR said:
Replacement 522 came Saturday and swapped it out with dead one.

I still hate the idea of losing all of my recorded movies/DIY shows. I thought about swapping out the hard drive, but..... I didn't. -sigh-
Probably not a good idea anyway as it, the hard drive, might have been the problem..........
 
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