no tv signal - apparently

[Lao Pan]

I smell a rat...

A couple of weeks ago I noticed all my recordings were failing - I didn't spot it straight away as mostly they were just re-runs I'd seen 10x over. The feed to my npvr box is from a loft aerial via a powered splitter / amplifier to my 4x DVB-T cards.

Can't help feeling somebody somewhere has been screwing with something.

On or about the 10th December? That was when the new HD mux's started - they seem to be squeezing them in with more chance of Co-channel interference.
But hey it doesn't matter people only watch TV on a 4" screen now-a-days. Sky are complaining that there isn't enough terrestrial frequencies being released for mobile communications - bet they would change their tune if forced to provide free satellite for everyone. - end of rant

Also weather conditions the last couple of weeks have been conducive for interference.

[JohnyMedia]

oh, thanks for that!

I'm getting so confused with this, I think I'll wait to see what the aerial man has to say on Monday and take it from there. Hopefully he finds a definite problem, if not and he gives the aerial the ok, I'll get my head back into the software.

[Lao Pan]

There appears to be more to this than I first thought - it is so bad tonight that we finally switched to the TV internal tuner which is running off the same aerial amplifier and perfect picture results.
I am beginning to wonder if it was something in the patch Tuesday updates - the amd catalyst beta update or some other software update I did around then.

[bgowland]

On or about the 10th December? That was when the new HD mux's started - they seem to be squeezing them in with more chance of Co-channel interference.

No, it was late November the first failures happened and the new HD stuff shouldn't apply here as they haven't rolled that out yet.

I've done about half a dozen scans today and had full results each time - I'm really not sure what the issue was (which makes it all the more frustrating). Still...at least I don't have to crawl into the loft to check out the aerial so I suppose that's a bonus.

Cheers,
Brian

[JohnyMedia]

The aerial guy came today. He said the signal from the areial is rather low and noisy, yet did not think that it was indicative of a fault - just the general reception conditions here. The booster in the attic was working ok, but he turned its gain down a bit as it was too high. And the distributor at the tv was ok too. So, really nothing conclusive I'm afraid, but none of the aerial setup is actually faulty. Well, the tv has been working fine (as is usually the case) and most channels coming through on nextpvr - though not all. I'm stumped.
I'm thinking of changing the tv tuner cards for sattelite, and getting a twin lnb dish setup, or just trying a seperate freeview recording box.
I tried Argus tv over the weekend - but it was so difficult to set up that I couldn't get it to install succesfully

[JohnyMedia]

Just to report - things seem to be working (via xbmc). I'm still getting one or two channels where the guide just shows the same program all day in one big unbroken line, though resetting the pvr database seems to have sorted most of those. Made a couple of recordings succesfully - though watching moviemix, half way through it just jumped out of tv mode and went back to the main menu.
I think it is mostly reception issues for me here, clouded by the odd software gremlin (which could be xp, xbmc or next pvr based). I guess this will be as good as it gets for me. If I find anything else will post the info.

thanks for help.

[sub]

Yes, sounding very much like reception problems.

I'm thinking of changing the tv tuner cards for sattelite, and getting a twin lnb dish setup

That's sounds like your best solution, if the cost/hassle isn't prohibitive.