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Tivo upgrade and exterior wiring questions

rocco1504
On our wavelength

I've been a customer for over 15 years now.

Recently, I think our Tivo box has been playing up, it keeps juddering, cutting out intermittently and the screen pixelates a lot, which is very frustrating and I think it's about to pack up completely. .

When we had the system installed, no exterior wiring was replaced as the previous tenant had, had the NTL world service, as I believe Virgin was back then, so the engineer never renewed the exterior wiring to the property, so the wiring could be over 20 years old.

Recently the exterior wiring has become exposed from under the "Shared" drive way and I think it needs replacing as it may well be being damaged by vehicles.

Also, our Tivo box is the old style and I think it's at the end of its life and we've never been offered an upgrade even though I have changed packages and so on.

I have been paying over £80 pounds a month for a very long time now and find it a bit of a bad service that we've never been offered any upgrades of our hardware.

1. Would I be expected to have to pay for replacing the existing wiring and tivo box.

2 would I be expected to take a new package to get an upgrade to our hardware.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Kind regards

Paul 

23 REPLIES 23

japitts
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

@rocco1504 wrote:
but it would be great if I can get virgin to let me have a V6 box to use, because my old Tivo box really is on its last legs

Reporting your service fault - i.e. any picture breakup and/or pixellation is the best place to start. At the very least you'll likely get the TiVo replaced (depending where the fault is), and if you ask nicely, you never know your luck.

If that fails, you'll need to go the package route and be willing to recommit for 18months. Expect to get a sales pitch for 360 if you go this way.

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rocco1504
On our wavelength

OK, just a quick update, I bought a new 4k HDMI cable and I have to say the pictures look a lot better and everything was going great, and I said to the missus "I can't believe it was just down to this cable" and literally within a minute of me saying it, a great big green line zips across the screen.

I honestly thought it was solved but there's obviously still something wrong.

It seems to happen mainly on the Channel 4, Film 4 channels, in fact I can't remember seeing it on any other channels but it may have, but as I said, the pictures really are a lot better than they were, quality wise.

I did read that it can happen when the signal that's being broadcast is weak and that channels are broadcast in groups on a particular frequency and it can affect all the channels in that group.

Anyway I'll see how it is over the next few days and then I'll call VM and see if they will let me replace the Tivo box for a V6 box, and try to avoid the hard sell on the 360 setup.

Thanks for everyone's input and advice.

Regards Paul 

japitts
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

@rocco1504 wrote:

I did read that it can happen when the signal that's being broadcast is weak and that channels are broadcast in groups on a particular frequency and it can affect all the channels in that group.


You're thinking of pixellation & picture breakup, which is often caused by signal issues.

Digital TV platforms carry channels in small groups (multiplexes) that don't always bear any resemblance to their EPG positions. Multiplexes carry either HD or SD groups, but don't mix the two.

A signal fault will generally affect all the channels carried on whatever frequency is affected.

I wouldn't normally associate tinted pictures that you've described, with a signal fault although it's possible. HDMI issues are more likely.

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@japitts wrote:

@rocco1504 wrote:

I did read that it can happen when the signal that's being broadcast is weak and that channels are broadcast in groups on a particular frequency and it can affect all the channels in that group.


You're thinking of pixellation & picture breakup, which is often caused by signal issues.

Digital TV platforms carry channels in small groups (multiplexes) that don't always bear any resemblance to their EPG positions. Multiplexes carry either HD or SD groups, but don't mix the two.


I believe that most of VM's muxes carry both HD and SD channels.

--
Hub 5, TP-Link TL-SG108S 8-port gigabit switch, 360
My Broadband Ping - Roger's VM hub 5 broadband connection

nodrogd
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

@Roger_Gooner wrote:

@japitts wrote:

@rocco1504 wrote:

I did read that it can happen when the signal that's being broadcast is weak and that channels are broadcast in groups on a particular frequency and it can affect all the channels in that group.


You're thinking of pixellation & picture breakup, which is often caused by signal issues.

Digital TV platforms carry channels in small groups (multiplexes) that don't always bear any resemblance to their EPG positions. Multiplexes carry either HD or SD groups, but don't mix the two.


I believe that most of VM's muxes carry both HD and SD channels.


Yep. They are mixed, & this has always been possible, although never used in practice before VM moved to MPEG4 compression due to the amount of channel bandwidth used. The only platform with this separation is Freeview, & this is more to do with people having legacy equipment than anything else.

VM 350BB 2xV6 & Landline. Freeview/Freesat HD, ASDA/Tesco PAYG Mobile. Cable customer since 1993

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japitts
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

Every time I've pored over DBR data, VM seem to have either SD-mux or HD-mux, but not the two combined.

I'll have to have another look sometime.

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nodrogd
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

@japitts wrote:

Every time I've pored over DBR data, VM seem to have either SD-mux or HD-mux, but not the two combined.

I'll have to have another look sometime.


There are a few. Mostly the PSB related ones.

https://www.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?lang=en&liste=1&live=209&mux=C057&nav=mux 

https://www.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?lang=en&liste=1&live=209&mux=C060&nav=mux 

 

VM 350BB 2xV6 & Landline. Freeview/Freesat HD, ASDA/Tesco PAYG Mobile. Cable customer since 1993

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Thanks for taking the time to post on our forums and I'm glad there has been an improvement with your picture quality @rocco1504.

 

How is your picture looking at the moment on those channels?

 

Does the same thing happen if you watch any on-demand programmes from Channel 4?

 

Regards,

Steven_L

 

 

OK so another update.

I received a text from Virgin saying they have finished the work they were doing in our area, but all of this has made no difference to the pictures, I'm still getting a lot of pixelation and the green serpent on screen, it seems to always be on Film 4 and always after the system has been running for a couple of hours seems fine to begin with, although not great but then gets steadily worse as time goes on.

I've been very busy, but I'll get back on to VM tomorrow and see if I can get the new V6 box, I'll report how that goes as soon as I can.

Thanks again everyone. 

Paulina_Z
Forum Team (Retired)
Forum Team (Retired)

Hi @rocco1504,

Thank you for coming back to us. I'm sorry to hear that your issue is still ongoing. I understand that this must have been very frustrating.

Have you been in touch with our team about this issue, or do you need us to look into this further?

Please let us know, as we'd be more than happy to assist. Let us know if there's anything we can do to help.

Thanks! 🙂

Paulina_Z
Forum Team

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