Virgin Media Community

[stevebedwards]

Hi,

My Samsung TV which is linked to my V6 box has started to drop out to a black screen on a regular basis - changed all the HDMI leads etc however no joy. Also noticed a significant drop in picture quality.

Think I need an engineer ?

Many thanks

Steve

[DavFB]

Hi Steve

Sorry to say the best thing you can do now is to ask Virgin to take the V6 box back and replace it with a Tivo.

The Tivo box was the predecessor of the wretched V6 box and does in fact work with Samsung TVs. I know this because that is what I had to do to stop the black screen cropping up throughout programmes on my new Samsung HD TV.

You lose some function going back, such as access to 4K TV but hopefully Virgin will have brought out a functioning box by the time that 4K is mainstream.

David

[Iwantspeed150]

hi

I upgrade  to a V6 around 4 weeks ago and have the same problem as you on my Sony kd55a1.

I have to turn off the v6 with the main button on the back then turn box back on and it works fine until next time.  Its done it 3 times up to now.

[jbrennand]

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@stevebedwards wrote:

Hi,

My Samsung TV which is linked to my V6 box has started to drop out to a black screen on a regular basis

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When I had my "sound cut out" problem on my new Samsung TV (not a 4K) in the summer, my first thought was to VM to get the V6 fixed.  Which didn't fix anything - so I went onto the Samsung forums (UK & US) where there are literally dozens of posts from people experiencing all sorts of sound and picture issues with their new TV's connecting to their favourite cable TV "box".  Long story short...  I contacted Samsung UK support who said “one of our representatives can remotely access your TV to perform the HDMI EDID rewriting before establishing the connection with the V6 box and the other HDMI-supported external devices".  Problem solved. 

So take a look in their forums and see if anyone has had the same issue and solved it.

[WhitakerM]

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@jlobban wrote:

OK i seemed to have fixed this. My Virgin box automatically selects the highest standard video output at 2160p for my Samsung 4K TV. But Virgin struggles to maintain the output at that level and frequently drops the picture. If you also select the 1080p video output format in settings it seems to act as a backstop and solves the intermittent drop out. 

I am staggered that this is not more widely publicised by Virgin nor their technical staff. I have literally wasted days of my life trying to find this simple solution. 

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You sir are a genius! I've just tried this while the picture was dropping out, and it fixed it immediately. I can't thank you enough!

This answer should be added to a knowledge base so that it can be easily found. I've been googling this issue, off and on for months, trying to fix it.

Again many thanks for sharing your solution!

[WhitakerM]

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@jlobban wrote:

OK i seemed to have fixed this. My Virgin box automatically selects the highest standard video output at 2160p for my Samsung 4K TV. But Virgin struggles to maintain the output at that level and frequently drops the picture. If you also select the 1080p video output format in settings it seems to act as a backstop and solves the intermittent drop out. 

I am staggered that this is not more widely publicised by Virgin nor their technical staff. I have literally wasted days of my life trying to find this simple solution. 

---

You sir are a genius! I've just tried this while the picture was dropping out, and it fixed it immediately. I can't thank you enough!

This answer should be added to a knowledge base so that it can be easily found. I've been googling this issue, off and on for months, trying to fix it.

Again many thanks for sharing your solution!

[MATTWTORQUAY]

I recently had Virgin Cable installed and have a Samsung 4K uhd tv. I was experiencing intermittent black screen lasting a few seconds then returning to normal. This was happening regularly and sometimes in quick succession.

I have my hdmi cable chased in the  wall but not a huge cable run so at first I thought the cable might be damaged but after reading posts here I saw it was a common issue with TiVo and Samsung new TVs. 

I thought a hdmi repeater might be the answer as it essentially decodes and rebuilds the signal and it seems to have fixed it totally and my tv actually thinks it’s facing a Sky system. It’s been a week now with not a single flicker or picture drop.

the active hdmi repeater I bought on Amazon was the Neoteck 2.0 hdmi repeater costing 15.99. You will need a short length hdmi cable also.

hope this helps

[Tbeal004]

Have just tried this, and blackouts seem to have stopped - but they're so intermittent/irregular it's hard to tell.

Will it still be outputting at 2160 as a priority, and then drop down to 1080p as a backup? Or might it just be outputting at 1080p as standard now I've selected it?

Picture still seems very good, so how would I tell?

For the record, I have LG 4K TV and was having very short (1 or 2 seconds) dropouts of sound and picture, which then comes back without me having to do anything.