Picture Pixelation

[Bob_Jankers]

Hi.

Our TV picture breaks up on a daily basis and appears pixilated.  Sometimes it briefly displays "Channel Failed" before resuming.  It happens on any TV channel at any time, day or night.  Not sure if this is normal as we've only recently joined VM. We use the 360 box with 100Mb/s broadband.

I don't think it's related to signal strength as switching to a standard aerial through my TV works without any problems.

Do we need to book an engineer already?

Thanks

[roy247]

I know you would lose any recordings but after this amount of time it would be nice to have the box swapped to rule it out.

You are a very patient man Bob.

[John_GS]

Thanks for coming back to us.

Is the box turned off as I've attempted to do further checks but our system cannot make contact with it?

Best,

[Bob_Jankers]

Hi @japitts

Thanks for your reply.  We usually just watch the Freeview HD channels, 101 - 105, and these all seem to be intermittently affected, day or night.  The only two SD channels we have watched is channel 1 for our local news, and the BBC red button channel.  I think I've seen these also break-up, if I remember correctly.

Not noticed any of this random distortion or pixelation with any of the streaming services such as iPlayer or ITV hub.

Thanks

[Bob_Jankers]

Hi @John_GS

Normally we're out at work during weekdays, but the box is usually on from 6pm each evening if you want to do any additional remote testing for us then.

Thanks so much

[japitts]

The streaming services use the internet, not the TV signals, so they wouldn't be affected in the same way.

Trying to narrow this down a little more, you've mentioned the FTA terrestrial channels as being primarily affected - can you try...

C4-SD, C4+1 SD & ITV+1 SD. All these 3 channels are on the same broadcast frequency as ITV-HD & C4-HD.

To compare with C5-HD, they're not as easy examples, but co-TX'd are S4C-HD & Film-4-HD if you get either of those.

If these channels are also affected, it would be good evidence of signal issues IMO. Edit: I've re-read the thread history and from what I can tell, you've had a single tech visit where the cabling was checked and a few connectors may have been changed - is that right? I'm not expecting you to know all the gory details of what the tech did (by the way)... just trying to get the "potted history" aka headlines, correct.

[roy247]

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@Bob_Jankers wrote:

Hi @japitts

Thanks for your reply.  We usually just watch the Freeview HD channels, 101 - 105, and these all seem to be intermittently affected, day or night.  The only two SD channels we have watched is channel 1 for our local news, and the BBC red button channel.  I think I've seen these also break-up, if I remember correctly.

Not noticed any of this random distortion or pixelation with any of the streaming services such as iPlayer or ITV hub.

Thanks

---

Hi Bob,

I assume you are just mixing up your Freeview and Virgin channel numbers, on Freeview channels 101 - 105 are all HD and 1 is BBC 1 local.

On Virgin 101 where I live BBC 1 is local in SD and 104 is 4 SD, 102, 103 and 105 are HD. BBC 1 HD is 108 and 4HD is 141.

If you have setup a profile this could be different.

Anyway getting back to the problem you have had 2 engineer visits and they said the levels were OK, both Tom and Kath have checked their diagnostics and said everything is OK, unless they can do remote monitoring of your signal levels over a period of time possibly it could be time to try a box swap, got to be easier than looking for an area problem, It's only going to be refurbished and put back into the loop after all.

Just a thought, customer satisfaction springs to mind.

[japitts]

On the "it could be time to try a box swap, got to be easier than looking for an area problem, It's only going to be refurbished" (quotes are getting messy) I'm not sure I completely agree although at some stage it's certainly got to be considered for sure.

A box-swap will mean losing the recordings which may or may not be a problem. And I'd like to think the previous tech will have ruled that out. The staff may have access to the tech notes to check.

I'm not sure what a refurbished box has to do with it, there's nothing inherently bad about refurbs.

Edited to @Bob_Jankers  Check the 3rd & 4th paragraphs of my previous post on the SD/HD piece.

[roy247]

If Bob does watch mainly Freeview and not much on Virgin it should be easier to narrow down which channels he is watching, didn't recognise either of the programmes in the videos one was clearly BBC3 which is unless I am wrong only available on iPlayer so that would rule out any signal on the coax. But then he had the CS2004 error on the first video.

If watching iPlayer was through the smart TV and not the 360 box then might possibly mean a broadband problem.

Sorry I didn't mean to imply there was anything wrong with refurbished boxes just meant it would be recycled back into the system and not a landfill.

[japitts]

You're correct to say that BBC3 is mainly an OnDemand channel, but the OP in this thread has said several times that streaming is ok - and some BBC3-branded stuff is shown on BBC1 so I'm happy that's a red-herring.

Issues with broadband speed should manifest themselves as buffering/stuttering pictures in the vast majority of cases.

NP re the refurbished box comment - if @Bob_Jankers can check the channels I mentioned a couple of posts previously, that would certainly help. You're absolutely correct to say the OP is being very patient here - and I'm minded to agree this problem is going on too long - but the clearer we can make the pertinent facts, the more effective any "magic wand" that might get waved, is likely to be.

[Paulina_Z]

Hi @Bob_Jankers,

Thank you for getting back to us about this issue. 

Would you be able to confirm if you're experiencing this issue on both SD and HD channels, or is this an SD/ HD channels specific?

Have you tried to go into your Settings menu to change your picture resolution to 'Automatic' to see if this helps with your pixiation issue?

Please let us know when you can. 

Thanks,