Video breakup on Joey caused by OTA adapter?

[larryk]

OK, I have a strange one…

I have a Hopper 3, and two Joey’s that have worked perfectly since installation a few years ago. I just took advantage of a free antenna and OTA adapter from Dish due to the Scripps local station saga. The OTA adapter and antenna were installed on 9/1/20 and things seemed fine. Two nights ago I was told that the reception from one of the bedrooms with a Joey was “breaking up”,(by breaking up I mean macro blocking, and a ton of digital artifacts, and pauses) not local stations (OTA) but everything else. Last night I was watching in the other bedroom with the other Joey, and everything was breaking up except the OTA stations…I played back a recording of the news that was still recording and (of course) the recording was breaking up. I reset the Joey, no change, I went to the Hopper and everything was perfectly normal, all stations were fine. I then went and checked both Joey’s and the breaking up continued on them (Hopper still normal). I unplugged the OTA adapter and everything returned to normal, no break up on either Joey, or that recording of the news that I had attempted to watch was also normal.
HUH???

 

[TheKrell]

Join the club! Joey pixelation

 

[HipKat]

Hopper 3 Joey pixelation is apparently widespread and not limited to OTA Adapters

 

[tobsandmags]

Same problem here. I was wondering if my Hopper was going bad.


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[CyberSpock]

Join the club! Joey pixelation

I'm leaving the club shortly

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[PortlandChris]

This does happen, and my solutions are this: (1) unplug the OTA adapter, and (2) restarting the Joey from time to time. Not optimal. but seems to solve it f for a bit. I do not know why.

I have noticed that the OTA adapter gets very hot.

 

[CyberSpock]

This does happen, and my solutions are this: (1) unplug the OTA adapter, and (2) restarting the Joey from time to time. Not optimal. but seems to solve it f for a bit. I do not know why.

I have noticed that the OTA adapter gets very hot.

For what it's worth, I used nylocks to strap a computer fan to my OTA adapter and it works better. It takes a USB plug power source. I got that suggestion from the forum and who ever that is, thank you.

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[larryk]

As an experiment, I disconnected the power to the antenna, and ran it in passive mode, and it made no difference, however, in checking the guide I see that our local Scripps station, #13, is back...

 

[pattykay]

It was the huge uptick in Dish subscribers using OTA antennas and then complaining about the Joey pixilation issue that finally got Dish to blink, and bring back the Scripps stations.

 

[DJ Lon]

It was the huge uptick in Dish subscribers using OTA antennas and then complaining about the Joey pixilation issue that finally got Dish to blink, and bring back the Scripps stations.

What makes you think Dish caved?

 

[pattykay]

What makes you think Dish caved?

The channels are back. Both sides blinked. I provided just as compelling of a reason for why Scripps blinked, in one of the many other Scripps threads.

 

[vipul128]

I've had this same exact issue you describe and it is directly related to the OTA adapter. From my basic troubleshooting, I found that this happens when you have added an OTA channel with a weak/low signal. While the OTA signal strength for that particular channel or channels may seem fine or acceptable at certain times of the day, depending on the conditions it might deteriorate to the point where it keeps trying to lock a good signal on the OTA channel and somehow affects regular programming (read: bad coding).

I would start by removing any weak signal OTA channels from your scanned list and then try the OTA adapter again.

 

[pattykay]

I've had this same exact issue you describe and it is directly related to the OTA adapter. From my basic troubleshooting, I found that this happens when you have added an OTA channel with a weak/low signal. While the OTA signal strength for that particular channel or channels may seem fine or acceptable at certain times of the day, depending on the conditions it might deteriorate to the point where it keeps trying to lock a good signal on the OTA channel and somehow affects regular programming (read: bad coding).

I would start by removing any weak signal OTA channels from your scanned list and then try the OTA adapter again.

As you said, this is bad coding, and it needs to be fixed. Where I live, most of my OTA channels have weak signal at least part of the day. This does not mean that I do not want to watch them or have access to them in the guide whenever they do happen to be available. It is hard enough to get all of the OTA stations scanned into the list with a single scan. (There is no "add channels" option for individual stations, either.) Since these are the stations with the weakest signal, they are the ones that are the hardest to add back to the list. So, removing them from the list is not an option for me, since I never know when I will be able to get them back. Also, I really do not want to go through all of the hassle of trying to add them back to the list. Unfortunately, removing the OTA adapter itself seems to be the best solution. This removes all OTA channels from the guide while it is disconnected, but at least it leaves the entire list of saved OTA channels intact so that they will be added back to the guide as soon as the OTA adapter is reconnected. Even this is a hassle, though. It also requires waiting for the receiver to take a fresh guide download after reconnecting the adapter, in order to have guide information for the few OTA channels that have guide information in the first place. So, there really needs to be a better solution for this issue, and that means new software.

 

[rharkins]

I've had this problem for months. I've found that tuning to a couple of different OTA channels before going back to what I was watching will almost always clear up the pixelization.

I have one of the DISH dual OTA tuners.

 

[ekilgus]

I wrote about this a while ago. The issue isn't limited to the H3 because it happens on my Joey 2 and wireless Joey/HWS as well.
I discovered two ways to clear up this pixelization.
Tune through a number of channels and especially OTA channels and the problem will resolve itself.
A red button reset has always resolved the problem.
This began a couple of years ago and I believe was the result of a software upgrade. I don't believe the OTA tuner is responsible.

 

[larryk]

Thanks for the replies and suggestions, I think that at the moment the best solution is to keep the OTA adapter unplugged, and maybe just plug the antenna into my TV in case the sat goes down so that I have something to watch ...Well I guess that it is still worth the price that Dish charged - "0".

 

[CubsWin]

For what it's worth, I used nylocks to strap a computer fan to my OTA adapter and it works better.

Has this been proven to work? Is it really a heat issue?

 

[CubsWin]

I would start by removing any weak signal OTA channels from your scanned list and then try the OTA adapter again.

That is interesting insight, but unfortunately not anything that I can act on. All my added OTA channels have relatively strong signals, but they aren't immune to the occasional blip. I'm almost to the point where I'm just going to unplug the OTA adapter and learn to live without it.

 

[CyberSpock]

Has this been proven to work? Is it really a heat issue?

I didn't like that it got so hot I didn't want to touch it. Did it work any better without it? I can't say because I never ran it hot from day one. Note that if you don't have a heat issue this might not matter in your case.

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[DJ Lon]

Is it really a heat issue?

I really don't think so. My OTA adapter doesn't get any warmer than my Roku streaming stick