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I am now on my second Aura in a week. Both units suffer from intermittent but severe pixelation on COM7. All other multiplexes are OK.
The Aura is connected to an Antiference distribution amplifier. Four other televisions of different makes and vintages, including the one connected to the Aura “TV out”, do not show the same problem. Indeed the Humax HDR FOX T2 I wanted to replace also does not suffer the same problem.
My location is in the NW corner of Staffordshire receiving the Winter Hill transmissions. The Aura when not pixelating on COM7 shows a signal level of about 80 and a quality of 100%. When severe pixelation occurs these both rapidly fluctuate and jump about anywhere between 0 and 100, especially the quality.
Initially I thought the first unit had a tuner fault but clearly it is a tuner performance issue. Of course COM7 is an SFN and I suspect that the tuner cannot handle the simultaneous transmission on channel 55 from Winter Hill, Sutton Coldfield and perhaps Fenton. Winter Hill and Sutton Coldfield are virtually equi-distant. Fenton is much closer but with a much weaker signal. The area is where TV regions/transmitters overlap and the signals from each are all quite strong relative to each other. The severity of the pixelation and the frequency of happening presumably depend upon the atmospheric conditions at the time. Signal attenuators appear to provide no improvement.
The aura is clearly not fit for purpose, at least in an area where there is relatively small difference between the signal strengths of different transmitters within SFN’s. Looks like it will have to be a Manhattan!
Is it something that can be fixed with software or is it a hardware issue i.e. the tuners they are using?
AceGrace – 55 mins ago »
Is it something that can be fixed with software or is it a hardware issue i.e. the tuners they are using?
COM7 multiplex has its own set of problems that might relate to it being broadcast on a single frequency (channel 55) across the whole country. It isn’t relevant to your case as you appear to have no access to COM7 (neither do I).
I too experienced problems with signal and sound breakup on SD channels with my Aura. There is a comment above about a method of being able to reproduce the problem which I think is likely correct. I am unable to do the test as the Aura was sent back as faulty. So this is a vague recollection – but when I had it I did notice that it was possible to get 100% signal strength and 100% quality when the Aura was switched on on a SD channel and excelelnt quality vision/sound – but that dropped immediately to strength 100% quality 50-70% when changing to another channel and then back to the SD one. On HD channels it was always 100% strength 100% signal quality and 100% brilliant picture.
I tried an attenuator from Amazon as was suggested and that was a 100% waste of money – it made no difference.
Support from Humax was terrible for reasons I mentioned elsewhere – but I finally rang them and was told that the problem was caused by my aerial and I needed to replace the complete installation. This is despite the fact that my old HDR Fox T2 gave excellent picture/sound and so did every other TV type device I plugged into the aerial.
I felt I was getting nowhere with Humax and asked for a refund – which they kindly supplied. Its a pity as I really had high hopes of the Aura and am now not sure how to proceed for the future for replaceing the Fox T3.
Quote:I felt I was getting nowhere with Humax and asked for a refund – which they kindly supplied. Its a pity as I really had high hopes of the Aura and am now not sure how to proceed for the future for replaceing the Fox T3.I bought both of the Aura’s from Amazon because I knew that it would be so easy to return. The Manhattan T3-R hopefully arrives tomorrow – I hope that performs better. But at least they appear to have a far better reputation for support than Humax. – which is probably not difficult!
The T3-R will replace an old HDR Fox T3 which suffers from the “green screen” problem when feeding a new TV.
Clearly the tuners in the Aura are a poor design and give all sorts of problems. It is interesting that Manhattan say they do not add 4 tuners is because of the cost – perhaps Humax are making a false economy.
I will report how the T3-R performs – it is just about as close as you can get to a modern HDR Fox T2 equivalent.
It was the Auras 4 tuners and high capacity that attracted me. So how many tuners does the Manhatten have? I found that to be the major limitation of the HDR Fox T2.
Humax can simply sort all their problems out by the old maxim of business: “LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS …”
The Manhattan T3-R has only two – so it is just like the Fox T2 in that respect.
But I now find with Freeview Play that 2 tuners is not such a significant limitation, especially for BBC programs. A small number of them are even in UHD!
The Manhattan will be delivered today, so within a few days I will post an initial report.
Yes its all very disappointing will try to change mine after the Xmas period has calmed down. Tried everything under the sun par installing a new log periodic aerial and amplifier. “Havenview” in another thread put his finger on the problem when he found if you rebooted on a SD channel which was breaking up ,it wood come good with 100% quality and then if you changed channel it would break up again.
I ignored all the bad reviews thinking they would have sorted it by now buying a £50 off one from Humax Direct.
All my other kit works fine!
BJ321 – 2 hours ago »
It was the Auras 4 tuners and high capacity that attracted me. So how many tuners does the Manhatten have? I found that to be the major limitation of the HDR Fox T2.
Humax can simply sort all their problems out by the old maxim of business: “LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS …”
The aura has 3 tuners, and the Manhattan T3-R has 2 tuners.
Yes I realised there are only 3 tuners in the Aura – so to clarify what I meant: You can record 3 channels and watch a 4th if the multiplexes allow it.
BJ321 – 6 mins ago »
Yes I realised there are only 3 tuners in the Aura – so to clarify what I meant: You can record 3 channels and watch a 4th if the multiplexes allow it.
You can actually record 4 channels, and watch a 5th if the multiplexes allow it.
Well my aura is going back to John Lewis for exchange
pixelation problems terrible volume dropouts when watching live and recorded tv,
Have done all the usual things cable changes endless factory resets,
will report about new box in due course
Yes I would urge anyone having problems get the box changed via retailer or Humax as I did. Do not waste any more time trying to get it right!
https://myhumax.org/forum/topic/fragmented-picturelack-of-signal
bobspark – 1 hour ago »
Yes I would urge anyone having problems get the box changed via retailer or Humax as I did. Do not waste any more time trying to get it right!
https://myhumax.org/forum/topic/fragmented-picturelack-of-signal
I think that advice is a bit extreme. The symptoms can also be caused by incorrect tuning or cable/amplifier faults. If they have been ruled out then I agree that the supplier should be contacted.
I don’t know if this will help anyone, but this is my experience.
I bought an Aura from Humax, connected it into my existing system Auto tuned and got pixelation and drop outs on all channels. Signal strength varied from 0 to 100% and quality was all over the place. Manual tuning gave no improvement
Refitting the T2, I got a rock steady 50 to 65% signal and 199% quality with perfect picture.
Before repacking the Aura for return. I increased the aerial signal (via my aerial distributor) such that the T2 registered 85 to 95% signal, then replaced the Aura. Rock steady picture on all channels, both the signal strength and quality 100% across the board.
Conclusion: Aura’s tuners are significantly less sensitive than the T2, but the reported signal strength is higher.
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