OK, I reinstalled R5 in order to try and clean things ups. Since doing that I have a problem with channels 2,3,4,5, and 6 on both my PVR-250 tuners. They have about 3 or 4 horizontal bands of noice going across them (scrolling up on channel 2). Granted, my cable quality isn't the greatest, but I checked the channels on the TV directly (not going through the myth box) and those bands were not there. The other channels are fine.

The wierd thing is no hardware was changed or moved (no cables, the box was not opened, nothing), all I did was wipe the disk and load everything from scratch.

Any ideas on how to fix this? I tried "fine tunning" under channel setup but it had no effect (other than possibly making it worse).

I think it is your cable. Channels 2-6 are on the same frequency band. There is probably enough electrical noise from your computer to cause interference in these channels when you are watching through the computer versus when you are connected directly to the TV.

To clean this up you should make sure you are using high quality cable (RG6) in your house and that your splitters are of high quality. If that does not help, you can try a good quality cable amplifier. Search for "Electroline" on eBay.

Generally problems on 2-6 are an indication of an open(bad connection) this can be caused by poor shielding or a bad connector. If you are using push on type patch cords throw them away! Also although rg6 cable is of good quality it is not recommended to use it right into the back of devices (video cards/tv's/vcr's) the problem with it is that the center conductor is larger than rg59 and over time can spread the spring steel contacts in the female side of the connection causing an open (what you likely have). Definately buy good splitters, if you have one bypass it to see if that fixes things. I recommend against an amplifier unless you know your signal is below about -5dbvmv (you would need a meter) as amplifiying a signal that has noise would just cause a strong crappy signal, over amplifiying could also cause beats on some channels. Poor signal as more likely to show up on the upper channels a poor connector would show up on the lower channels.

Craig (cable Guy)

Well this is scaring me now. The next day I went to shut down the system in order to modify the wiring as suggested. Before doing that I checked channles 2-6 and they were fine! All day yesterday I checked and they were fine. Somehow the problem corrected itself (and no there were no other appliances running either time)

Thats great! I reread your post it sounds like you have humbars, if they come back check your grounding.

Craig

Hi,

I have 2 cards- one pvr 150 retail and one hauppauge bt878.

On card 2, the bt878, i also have some problems on just a few of the channels. Channels 2, 4, and 16 have a fuzzy pictures and no sound. Channels 3, 6 have fuzzy pictures with sound.

By fuzzy picture, I should specify, it's not really fuzzy, more like bars of the screen that seem a different brightness maybe? if you stare at them they travel down the screen.

On my card #1, everything looks beautiful on every channel. For the other channels on card #2, everything looks fine.

I checked the cables and replaced the cable with a really nice one and still have the problem. I assume the source itself has to be fine if card #1 is picking up everything fine.

Any ideas?

I also have a Hauppauge PVR150 retail. I had a somewhat fuzzy picture with some ghostlike wavy lines on channel 3. I moved the card into the pci slot furthest away from the video card, and it eliminated the problem.

I'm having a single-channel reception problem myself, and am hoping craig the cable guy (or anyone else for that matter) might have some suggestions on how I could resolve it.

I have a dual tuner system with a pvr-250 and a 350, and am using the 350's tv-out. All channels come in fine except channel 9, which just happens to be NBC. I can't live without scrubs, so I'd like to get this resolved. If I can do that, i can cancel my tivo service and move over to mythtv permanently!

Channel 9 is getting some "rainbow" colored interference that spans the range from annoying to uwatchable. Here's a pic of the problem. It happens all over the screen, although my photo only captured part of it in that instant.



here's what I know already:
- signal strength from the cable line in to my apartment is very strong
- Tivo and my TV do not exhibit the problem
- both tuners (250 and 350) exhibit the problem
- both tuners are the same type (type 2)

here's what I've tried already, with no luck:
- replace all splitters, cables
- run direct line from primary cable drop to a single pvr tuner input
- upgrade mythtv
- upgrade ivtv driver
- fine-tune reception from setup
- run extra ground lines from mythbox to various places
- isolate mythbox chassis ground (i know i know, its dangerous)

here are my system specs:
Athlon XP 2200+
Soyo K7VME
512 megs RAM
200 Gb Seagate baracude IV 7200 RPM
PVR-250, PVR-350
250-watt microATX seasonic power supply
Fresh install of R5A22

Anyone have any ideas? I can usually figure these things out, but I'm stumped on this one... thanks.