PVR or signal?

onejontwo

buglawton wrote: »

I swapped an old Sagem Freeview box for a Humax. The old box had frequent breakup which I put down to signal difficulties. The new box never breaks up on any channel.

So it seems as an earlier post mentioned that you get what you pay for and a Humax seems the way to go.
The only thing that troubles me is if I purchase a Humax and find the fault is still there , which then points to a signal/aeriel/cable fault. Because otherwise I am more than satisfied with the Digihome, and wouldn't like to fork out £100+ just to check.

Woby_Tide

albertross wrote: »

I'd check the cabling and try an amp first, they are cheaper (£10 ish) than a new pvr. It could also be the aerial alignment/type/gain, or electrical interference.

If you have 100% signal strength and issues with picture breakup etc. then an amp is likely to actually make the breakup worse by amplifying the problem even more. If the signal strength was low then boosting it may help

Woby_Tide

onejontwo wrote: »

So it seems as an earlier post mentioned that you get what you pay for and a Humax seems the way to go.
The only thing that troubles me is if I purchase a Humax and find the fault is still there , which then points to a signal/aeriel/cable fault. Because otherwise I am more than satisfied with the Digihome, and wouldn't like to fork out £100+ just to check.

not that it's much cheaper but a decent aerial installer should be able to check and diagnose the issue, but that could be money down the drain if they just identify one of the issues potentially raised here. Any chance youcould borrow a different make of freeview box of a friend/neighbour to try for a night(or maybe even a friendly local supermarket with a reasonable return policy on goods you've decided 'weren't quite right')

buglawton

If you read the reviews of many Freeview tuners and PVRs, picture freezing is a very common thing even in reasonable signal areas. So the "borrow a decent box" suggestion is a good one.

albertross_2

Woby_Tide wrote: »

If you have 100% signal strength and issues with picture breakup etc. then an amp is likely to actually make the breakup worse by amplifying the problem even more. If the signal strength was low then boosting it may help

The alternatives suggested are in excess of £150, I know which I would try first. Amps often make the difference between sporadic breakup, and no breakup.

hobo28

Are the freeview boxes covered by Argos's 30 day guarantee? If so then you can try before you buy.

Also try a signal booster as near to the aerial as you can get it.

espresso

albertross wrote: »

The alternatives suggested are in excess of £150, I know which I would try first. Amps often make the difference between sporadic breakup, and no breakup.

If signal strength is marginal, but the OP states that signal is 100% so all that an amplifier will do is raise the noise floor. Boxes do have varying sensitivity but a poor noisy signal will give bad results regardless of make. Some users do need an aerial upgrade or new downlead.

onejontwo

albertross wrote: »

The question is what is the signal strength and quality when the picture breaks up. It may be 100% most of the time, but is it when it breaks up. When faced with the following sort of costs, where would you start? Buying a new PVR would be the last thing to try imo (if it turns out to be the fridge or the central heating pump, a new pvr is money down the drain).

Checking /re-routing(away from noise sources) cabling/connectors £0
Attenuator £5
Variable amp £10 (borrowed £0)
New double screened coax cabling/better shielded scarts - £10-20
New wideband aerial - self installed - £20-30

Aerial installer - £150+
New PVR £150-200

Onejon, where is your existing aerial? Roof or loft? Do you have any masthead or distribution amps in the system currently? Do you have a wideband aerial? How far away from the transmitter are you? Do you live in a dip/valley? How often does the breakup occur, is there any pattern in the times?

Right let me read this slowly,
roof aeriel-loft
no amps in system
wideband aeriel-unsure
20 miles from transmitter
live in manchester on a flat area
break up- the other night it was every 5 mins. or so, recently only 3or4 times per night, one night not at all.
Could this possibly be down to the transmitter in poor weather conditions?
I could borrow a signal booster
before this I had a cheap £30 Matsui set top box (which is now in another room and seems ok) which was faultless.
As I previously asked does the signal go through the hard drive as apposed to the non recordable set top boxes, and could this be where the fault lies?

buglawton

If you still have the Matsui and it works fine in other room, could you not swap it with the Digihome PVR and see what does and does not work without freezing of picture? Swapping the boxes may help to answer the question is it the signal/aerial lead or is it the box.

onejontwo

buglawton wrote: »

If you still have the Matsui and it works fine in other room, could you not swap it with the Digihome PVR and see what does and does not work without freezing of picture? Swapping the boxes may help top answer the question is it the signal/aerial lead or is it the box.

I originally had the Matsui box where the PVR is for about 2 years without any problem, the jumping only appeared when I got the Digihome PVR, which is why I returned it for the set I now have, but I would be reluctant to return it yet again for the same fault as this could go on for quite some time (if they would allow me to keep swapping, which I don't think they would!)