Virgin Media Community

[ashscrivens1]

Hi,

Any chance someone from Virgin could check my signal levels. I’ve had broadband for nearly a year and has been solid never had issues.

I have recently added tv and in the settings it advises my signal quality is “GOOD” is this the highest?

I am finding some channels even HD ones to be a tad poor quality, Comedy Central HD for example looks like it’s struggling and looks much sharper streaming on now tv. I would expect Virgin to better or at least as good but I’m a little disappointed.

SD channels are horrific, worse than Freeview! Sky Sports mix is so bad you can’t even read onscreen graphics.

 

 

[japitts]

A few thoughts, in no particular order.

Firstly, what size screen are you watching on? If it's a 4K/UHD one, I'm not surprised SD channels are poor. You've mentioned Comedy Central HD, how about (not exhaustively) Syfy-HD, BBC News HD or 4-Seven HD?

If you have signal issues, this should manifest itself as picture breakup and/or pixellation - blurry pictures aren't generally a symptom.

Was your TV install a manned one or self-service?

[ashscrivens1]

It’s a 55” Samsung 4K TV

In terms of quality I’m comparing to Freeview and Now TV I don’t expect SD to look particularly amazing but considering how badly compressed some of Freeview is i didn’t expect see worse from virgin, a premium paid service.

It’s not picture breakup it’s just as if some channels are an extremely low bit rate. BBC News looks better however it shows up more when there’s quite a bit of movement on screen.

BBC News would look better from the Freeview signal and Comedy Central streaming on Now TV.

Some other channels I’ve noticed are quite bad are Sky News and CNBC, ITV HD isn’t great either, channel 5 on the other hand looks crisp.

I must stress the picture is not terrible it’s just looking inferior to Freeview and now tv, I’ve previously used a sky box on this TV too and not had these issues.

From looking around on this community forum I’m not the only person disappointed with the tv quality so trying to workout is it signal issues, 360 software issues or just simply Virgin using high compression.

It was a self install which is why I’m trying to find out if “good” on the signal diagnostics is the highest or is there “very good” and “excellent”

Maybe now I’ve got a splitter fitted from my broadband only set up I need my signal strength increased.

[japitts]

I don't think bitrates are the issue here, encoders possibly although I have no evidence for that beyond a bit of instinct. Also bitrate issues would affect every VM customer and I don't see any evidence of that on these boards.

I use a V6, so am shooting blind a little here, but... what's your video output from the V360 set to? And have you tried changing this?

[TonyJover]

"I use a V6, so am shooting blind a little here, but... what's your video output from the V360 set to? And have you tried changing this?"

Ditto on both counts.  I'm also V6, so have no direct experience of 360, and was wondering the exact same thing - it definitely sounds like the output is set to some low resolution.

[Ernie_C]

There is only GOOD at the top of the Diagnostics page.

If you page down the connection speed should say HIGH and that you can Watch all. 

[ashscrivens1]

My box is set to 4k, tried it in 1080p and it actually looks worse.

Netflix and OnDemand from the box looks sharp, infact Netflix looks incredible!

[Ernie_C]

@ashscrivens1 

You can get access to the signal strength by going into the settings and changing to WiFi, even if you are already connected to WiFi.

You get this page:

[ashscrivens1]

Think you got the wrong end of the stick here..

I am talking about the COAX Cable input, as in where the TV signal comes from

Originally my set up was just broadband installed by an engineer and i have self installed a splitter to add TV, my concerns are is the TV getting enough or do my levels need adjusting.

[Ashleigh_C]

Hi @ashscrivens1

Thank you so much for your post and I am so sorry to hear you are having this issue with your TV services! 

Can I ask if you have tried going to your settings menu and making sure the picture resolution is set to Automatic. Can I also ask if the box is connected directly to the Hub? Apologies if I've missed this in the thread. If so are you able to try another cable? 

Thank you