Freezing on certain clear qam channels

[dennit]

Thanks dennit.

So I went straight from the wall and found I have the same issue. I noticed outside that the coax is connected to another coax with a small adapter, and there is also a splitter that divides the cable between two units in our condo complex. Can't work around this, however due to its location :-(

Any computer/software related tweaks I might use? Or should I try a different card?

Not all splitters are the same - try swapping them. Better cables may help, too.

[donschjr]

Contact your cable company and have them check your signal strength, they can boost it if it's to low coming in your house. I have booster that I put in my house since I have 4 tv's, 4 connections to my pc with my 2 hauppauge cards, and a cable modem.

[pcostanza]

I agree with donschjr. I have 4 lines coming in plus it's split in my home office and goes to 6 tuners so I got a $100 amp but I have friends who swear by the Channel Master. You can find the info here.

[dennit]

I agree with donschjr. I have 4 lines coming in plus it's split in my home office and goes to 6 tuners so I got a $100 amp but I have friends who swear by the Channel Master. You can find the info here.

I definitely agree that you should call the cable company first and have them check the signal level. That's where I started. They said it was within specs for me and did nothing. However, others had their trouble with the HVR1600 solved by taking that simple step.

I tried 7 different amplifiers on my setup, and none helped, most hurt. I didn't have good test equipment, but it appeared that the high frequency signals were dying, while lower frequency signals were fine. I couldn't receive the high frequency channels with a splitter installed, or with any amplifier installed. I could only get them with a direct connection. Amplification may have been overdriving the inputs at the low end when I installed them and they all added noise cutting S/N.

Whatever my problem was, I considered looking for an amp that could vary the amplification by frequency - they are available - but before trying that, I went through my entire system, upgrading and replacing the wiring and splitters, testing signal levels (Hauppauge's signal monitor utility) at the high and low freq ends for each change. Ultimately, that solved it for me - good coax and the right splitters.

(I was surprised at how much variation there was with different splitters, and with the effect of placing them at different locations.)

[pcostanza]

I also paid for some very good cables with the best fittings made. I found a guy on eBay and contacted him directly and had them make me some custom size cables for my setup. When running lots of cables and splitters, the fittings can make a difference. The first time I got my cable card tuners set up and they didn't work and the cable company came out, all they did was to remove my Radio Shack quality cables and replace with theirs and I was up and working.

[jman11]

I'll check with the cable company.

Thanks for all the help!

[dennit]

I'll check with the cable company.

Thanks for all the help!

Another thought - if your signal level is almost good enough, try dvr-ms format, if you aren't already using it. It seems a bit better at handling marginal signals.

[jman11]

It's strange - like I said, only channels 78.1 to 78.12 have the problem. All other channels before and after are fine.

And for these channels, the signal will show strong for a second, and then a bunch of errors show up (I run the hauppauge signal utility) and the signal drops to zero for 10 seconds or so, and the process repeats. Doesn't seem like a sign of a weak signal, but more like interference. Of course, I'm no expert.

[dennit]

It's strange - like I said, only channels 78.1 to 78.12 have the problem. All other channels before and after are fine.

And for these channels, the signal will show strong for a second, and then a bunch of errors show up (I run the hauppauge signal utility) and the signal drops to zero for 10 seconds or so, and the process repeats. Doesn't seem like a sign of a weak signal, but more like interference. Of course, I'm no expert.

It sounds an awful lot like interference to me too. Sometimes a corroded connector, or bad cable can be the cause.

[whurlston]

Or possibly an over amped signal, which would show exactly that behaviour.