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For a few months now we have been experiencing broadcast issues with our Humax PVR (FVP-5000T).
At random times and on most Freeview channels we get a momentarily frozen picture with stuttering sound, the picture and sound recover and then within a second freeze again for less time, there is then a long pause before it happens again. This pause can be minutes or tens of minutes; there is no real pattern. It always does two interruptions, one very quickly after the other with the first being longer than the second. It’s not confined to any particular channel.
Our external aerial is in the same orientation as it always has been and there are no new obstructions (that we know about) between here and our transmitter.
We have checked the signal strength of the channels on which it happens and these are showing 100% signal strength. The PVR has over 75% left on its internal hard drive.
The external aerial is connected to a signal booster in the loft and the cable from that is connected to our PVR and then looped out to the aerial socket on the TV. The TV is a Philips 55OLED806 and is a recent purchase.
In order to narrow down the problem, I have disconnected the PVR from the external aerial and reconnected this directly to the socket on the TV. Although this has meant some missed recordings, the problem does not reappear when the PVR is not part of the aerial chain.
Has anyone come across this issue before and can you suggest a solution to this annoying problem?
I’m not clear about the problem you describe.
Are you, with the aerial connected to the Humax then the TV, trying to watch live TV using the TV tuner or the Humax tuner. That is, is it the TV tuner that’s stuttering or the Humax one?
If it’s the TV tuner, do the problems occur when the Humax goes in or out of standby (recordings?)? Some Humaxes, I can’t remember which, seem to disturb the through connection on the aerial when moving in/out standby even when the settings might suggest otherwise. Assuming you had a similar setup with a previous TV and the Humax and no problems this would seem unlikely – but not impossible.
Suggestions: Make sure your TV is tuned to the correct transmitter, split the aerial so that the signal doesn’t pass through the Humax, leave the Humax switched on whilst you watch TV. No idea whether any of them will make a difference.
chickenlegs – 16 mins ago »
We have checked the signal strength of the channels on which it happens and these are showing 100% signal strength.
The external aerial is connected to a signal booster in the loft and the cable from that is connected to our PVR and then looped out to the aerial socket on the TV. The TV is a Philips 55OLED806 and is a recent purchase.
100% signal strength is, in my experience, too high. If the signal booster has variable amplification try turning down the amplification; if it doesn’t then either try disconnecting it or using a variable attenuator in the aerial feed to the PVR eg Link to eBay. Aim for a signal strength between 80% and 90%.
Sorry for not being clear enough. The issue seems to appear when we are watching live TV via the TV tuner. At this time the Humax is in standby mode. Interestingly, the stutter is never picked up on any recordings, it only appears when we are watching live TV via the TV. I would need to experiment watching TV through the Humax to see if the stutter happens with this setup. We very rarely watch TV via the Humax tuner so I can’t be sure if it would or wouldn’t, but my guess is that it probably wouldn’t. I would also need to experiment with watching TV via the TV tuner and the Humax switched on.
Perhaps this is a different issue, but I don’t understand why the Humax uses channel 802 for BBC 1 and the TV uses 101 for the same channel. Could the two bits of equipment be tuned to different transmitters and could this be the source of the problem?
I cannot vary the amplification of the booster; we inherited the box when we moved here. I will try disconnecting it and see if we receive channels at the TV. Who would have thought that 100% was too good! I am obviously relying on a tiny graphic on the TV to tell me what the signal strength is. Without employing someone to test each channel, I can’t be 100% sure.
chickenlegs – 4 hours ago »
Perhaps this is a different issue, but I don’t understand why the Humax uses channel 802 for BBC 1 and the TV uses 101 for the same channel. Could the two bits of equipment be tuned to different transmitters and could this be the source of the problem?
You are correct that the Humax using channel 802 is likely to be a source of problems. You need to do an automatic retune with the Smart option turned off.
I cannot vary the amplification of the booster; we inherited the box when we moved here. I will try disconnecting it and see if we receive channels at the TV. Who would have thought that 100% was too good! I am obviously relying on a tiny graphic on the TV to tell me what the signal strength is. Without employing someone to test each channel, I can’t be 100% sure.
You can get signal strength from the Humax vis the Signal Test option in the channel settings. My previous comment on signal strength was based on the assumption that you were quoting data from the Humax.
Thank you all for your helpful suggestions.
I experimented last night and, although the test probably needs to be more comprehensive, I found:
1. the TV picture stutters when watching live TV through the TV tuner with the Humax in standby mode
2. the TV picture stutters when watching live TV through the TV tuner with the Humax switched on
3. the TV picture does not stutter when watching live TV through the Humax tuner
I think it might be a good idea to try an aerial splitter so that the TV has a direct connection to the roof aerial. Can I ask, should I get a simple two-way coax splitter or an F-Type splitter? I am not really sure what the latter does that the simple one doesn’t!
I have a response from Humax who suggest doing a factory reset on the box. I could do this, but would rather try a retune and splitter first.
Maybe worth checking that your TV and Humax are tuned to the same transmitter. Automatic tuning on different devices can behave differently. What resetting the Humax is going to do with the signal passed to the TV I don’t know!
I don’t know about the types of splitter. I do use a simple two way splitter to stop one Humax interfering with another. That mostly works if I have enough signal to start with.
chickenlegs – 27 mins ago »
Thank you all for your helpful suggestions.
I experimented last night and, although the test probably needs to be more comprehensive, I found:
1. the TV picture stutters when watching live TV through the TV tuner with the Humax in standby mode
2. the TV picture stutters when watching live TV through the TV tuner with the Humax switched on
3. the TV picture does not stutter when watching live TV through the Humax tuner
I think it might be a good idea to try an aerial splitter so that the TV has a direct connection to the roof aerial. Can I ask, should I get a simple two-way coax splitter or an F-Type splitter? I am not really sure what the latter does that the simple one doesn’t!
I have a response from Humax who suggest doing a factory reset on the box. I could do this, but would rather try a retune and splitter first.
Have you considered that it may be a HDMI issue and not RF? Maybe try repeating your test with the Humax on but it’s HDMI disconnected.
How do I check that the TV and Humax are using the same transmitter?
I decided to do a factory reset and went through the channel installation process with the ‘Smart’ option deselected and I now have channel 101 for BBC 1 HD with no sign of channel 802.
However, even though this seems to have sorted the channel list, when I turn on the TV with the Humax in standby, the TV now tells me that ‘no channels are installed’ even though they appear in EPG. The only way to get the TV to view channels is to switch the Humax on. Could this be an HDMI issue?
chickenlegs – 1 hour ago »
However, even though this seems to have sorted the channel list, when I turn on the TV with the Humax in standby, the TV now tells me that ‘no channels are installed’ even though they appear in EPG. The only way to get the TV to view channels is to switch the Humax on. Could this be an HDMI issue?
In System Settings > Power Management check whether you have power saving set to on; if you have set it to off to enable signal pass through.
Thank you Martin. This seems to have solved one issue and created another! I have set the power management option to OFF which allows the pass through of the TV signal to the TV. However, after the factory reset, I now don’t get sound to pass through the HDMI route from TV to my Sonos system. My set up is: HDMI from Humax is plugged into one HDMIARC socket on my TV, the HDMI cable from my Sonos Beam is plugged into another HDMIARC socket. This set up worked perfectly before the factory reset and the TV’s audio output switched from TV speakers to the Sonos without any issues. Now what happens is, if the Humax is in standby mode, I get live TV to the TV but only sound via the TV speakers. I used to get a message pop up saying that the sound system was switching over, but this message does not now appear. If I go to the sound settings on the TV and choose the HDMI output, I get a message ‘Cannot change output, TV speakers are active’. If I then switch the Humax on, the Sonos will then receive sound from the TV and presumably any played recordings.
Can anyone suggest why this has changed from a working state and is the only solution to switch the Humax on every time we want to watch the TV?
chickenlegs – 1 day ago »
Now what happens is, if the Humax is in standby mode, I get live TV to the TV but only sound via the TV speakers. I used to get a message pop up saying that the sound system was switching over, but this message does not now appear. If I go to the sound settings on the TV and choose the HDMI output, I get a message ‘Cannot change output, TV speakers are active’. If I then switch the Humax on, the Sonos will then receive sound from the TV and presumably any played recordings.
Can anyone suggest why this has changed from a working state and is the only solution to switch the Humax on every time we want to watch the TV?
I would have a look at the Audio Settings in General Settings on the Humax to see if there is anything relevant.
Thank you Martin. I must have looked at the audio settings in the Humax and TV a hundred times! I have also investigated and tried different variations of the HDMI-CEC settings in both the Humax and TV (called EasyLink on the TV) to see if I could set the TV to automatically switch the Humax on and off from the TV remote in order that we get sound directed to our Sonos Beam. No joy. It would appear that not every piece of AV equipment is compatible with another under HDMI-CEC. I have reverted to HDMI-CEC being off on both TV and Humax.
In addition, I have also done a bit of research into things called CEC-Less adapters that apparently stop rogue HDMI signals. I have sent an email to Humax and if the answer is less than helpful, I might invest in one of these to see if it solves the issue.
Again, the most frustrating thing is that the sound transfer and switching was never an issue prior to the factory reset and the cables and connection points are the same too. I wonder if the firmware/ software that came with the reinstall is newer than the version we had been using as I can’t understand why this new issue has arisen.
I’m not sure that the stuttering picture has gone away entirely yet as I seem to have spent most of my time trying to sort out the HDMI problem.
chickenlegs – 52 mins ago »
Again, the most frustrating thing is that the sound transfer and switching was never an issue prior to the factory reset and the cables and connection points are the same too. I wonder if the firmware/ software that came with the reinstall is newer than the version we had been using as I can’t understand why this new issue has arisen.
The factory reset will have defaulted all the settings but as I don’t use a soundbar I can’t tell you which setting is likely to be the culprit.
chickenlegs – 1 hour ago I have also investigated and tried different variations of the HDMI-CEC settings in both the Humax and TV (called EasyLink on the TV) to see if I could set the TV to automatically switch the Humax on and off from the TV remote in order that we get sound directed to our Sonos Beam. No joy. It would appear that not every piece of AV equipment is compatible with another under HDMI-CEC.
This is why I previously suggested it may be a HDMI and not a RF issue. I use an AV amp and it worked fine with my old TV but when I replaced it with a Samsung no matter what I tried I could not get sound through HDMI from my TV to Amp to my 7.1 speakers. The only solution was to use an inferior optical cable for TV audio. I use my Aura for all TV viewing so it was not a big issue.
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