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Hi, I’m new to this forum. I have briefly browsed for any topics that might be relevant to my problem, including using the tags, but didn’t find anything. Apologies if I’ve missed one.
Apologies, also, for a rather rambling first post but I need to give a reasonably clear idea of my setup in case it has a bearing on the problem. Here goes:
I have UHF and VHF antennas feeding into a booster via a combiner. The output of the booster then goes to a splitter to feed the Hi-Fi and TV setup. The latter consists of a Panasonic HDTV and Panasonic DVD/HD recorder plus the Humax 2000T.
Because the Humax doesn’t have signal feed-through I have been obliged to split the signal to it so that I can still watch TV and record on the other machine when the Humax is in standby. Initially I used a passive splitter but the Humax seemed to have problems with the signal so I’ve now used another booster with multiple outputs.
The Panasonic TV and recorder have been working perfectly on this set-up but the Humax still suffers from picture and sound break-up. When I look at Signal Detection it shows the following:
Channel Strength Quality
21 100% 100%
24 100% 100%
27 100% 100%
32 100% 100%
48 95% 100%
51 94% 100%
52 93% 100%
I presume from this that the error rate on all channels is vanishingly small so can’t understand why it has the problem
I think I did this test with the original passive splitter and decided that some of the channels were close to or below the recommended 30% strength but I can’t be totally sure.
Immediately after installing the second booster the 2000T worked fine for quite a while albeit with an occasional report of a record failure with just a minor blip in the recording but I get the distinct impression that this problem is rapidly getting much worse. One recent recording was so bad that I couldn’t continue watching it. This seems to be independant of weather conditions and in any case the TV and other recorder are still rock-solid so I have to conclude that the problem must lie in the Humax.
Is it possible this is being caused by too high a signal level (bearing in mind I had the problem with the passive splitter)? Alternatively is it possible that the problem lies in the hard drive?
One thing I haven’t done so far is watch a broadcast programme through the 2000T tuner. Maybe this would identify which of the above is the more likely.
Any thoughts on this would be gratefully received.
Regards,
Mike.
I would initially try taking both boosters out of the circuit and replace with a single 4 way passive splitter. Loop through in sby is enabled by the latest software update. 100% sounds as if you have way too much amplification.
Welcome to our forum.
Hi Graham, thanks for the response.
The upstairs booster is there to split the signal to several outlets around the house so I don’t really want to take that out if I can avoid it and I obviously don’t want to do anything that will upset the stability of the TV and Pana recorder. I will try playing around with the downstairs set-up though. If the latest software update enables feed-through that would obviate the need for the second booster. It may take a while but I’ll let you know how I get on.
Regards,
Mike.
gallopinhairpin – 22 minutes ago »
If the latest software update enables feed-through that would obviate the need for the second booster.
The fix to enable feed-through was done at version 1.01.06 about one year ago. The trick is that you must turn off power saving in standby. If the signal strength is 30% without the second booster and 100% with it then that is the culprit. If you can do without it the that is good otherwise if it has variable amplification turn it down, otherwise replace it with something with less amplification.
gallopinhairpin – 25 minutes ago »
Hi Graham, thanks for the response.
The upstairs booster is there to split the signal to several outlets around the house so I don’t really want to take that out if I can avoid it and I obviously don’t want to do anything that will upset the stability of the TV and Pana recorder. I will try playing around with the downstairs set-up though. If the latest software update enables feed-through that would obviate the need for the second booster. It may take a while but I’ll let you know how I get on.
Regards,
Mike.
What readings do you get from the pvr with a passive splitter in the circuit ?
You could try a variable attenuator in the pvr input.
Martin, I was aware of the need to turn off power saving in standby but I tried it when I first set up the unit and it didn’t work so I assume the unit had an earlier version of the firmware.
Graham, Although I think I did look at the Signal Detection originally with the passive splitter I didn’t note down any readings. I have considered trying an attenuator and I must admit I didn’t know it was possible to get variable types. However if I can get the loop-through working I’ll dispense with the second booster and take a set of readings in that configuration and see how it goes.
Thanks for your input guys.
Just a quick update: I checked the version of the firmware and it’s 1.01.13. A search showed it’s up-to-date. Power saving in standby was on, as was auto power-off. I think I remember setting these back to the defaults after I found loop-through didn’t work but I’m going to try again. Can’t do anything until Sunday at the earliest then will report back.
Ok, at last I’ve found time to progress this a bit further. Firstly the loop-through in standby does work. I don’t know why it didn’t when I first installed as I haven’t updated the firmware and I’m sure I tried turning off power saving in standby, but never mind it’s ok now.
Before removing the second booster I took signal readings from the Pana TV and DVD/HD recorder for comparison. They were both at max for strength and quality on all channels. I then removed the booster and looped the signal through the 2000T and repeated all the tests. The Pana devices still gave the maximum 10 everywhere although the strength on the higher channel numbers was below max on the bar but not low enough to drop to 9 on the numerical value. On the 2000T the quality was still 100% on all channels with the strength at a minimum of 79% on the highest-numbered channels and a maximum of 90% on the others.
This looks ok so now I’ll wait to see how it performs under this new regime. Thanks to everyone who has responded.
gallopinhairpin – 19 minutes ago »
On the 2000T the quality was still 100% on all channels with the strength at a minimum of 79% on the highest-numbered channels and a maximum of 90% on the others.
90% may be a bit high. A recent experience, which I will write up when I get a minute, showed picture pauses until the signal strength was reduced below 80%.
Simple-mindedly one would expect that the tuner would not be overloaded as long as the signal is below 100%, certainly if it’s 10% below, but I suppose that doesn’t take into account possible peaks. I’ll give it a reasonable length of time to see how it copes now and if there are still problems I’ll try bringing it down a bit with a variable attenuator.
gallopinhairpin – 6 hours ago »
Simple-mindedly one would expect that the tuner would not be overloaded as long as the signal is below 100%
I agree but I can only tell you what I found experimentally.
Still early days but I think it’s better. One “feature” I’ve noticed, though, is that when I take it out of standby the signal to the TV is lost for a few seconds (maybe ten or so, I haven’t timed it).
This may be annoying enough for me to revert to feeding the signal separately.
I think a quick update is in order after all this time.
I’ve had no further problems with signal break-up or notifications of recording failure due to signal problems, so I can say with some confidence that the tuner unit works reliably with a 90% signal level.
However the issue I mentioned earlier regarding occasional loss of signal on the TV when I switch the unit out of standby still persists. When this happens it typically takes around 20 seconds to recover which is clearly unacceptable. I have even had instances of signal loss whilst the unit is on, suggesting there is some unreliability in the loop-through. I haven’t done anything about this yet but I’m minded to reinstate the booster to split the signal using variable attenuators to optimise the levels to both the Humax and the TV.
A final update: The occasional loss of signal whilst using the loop-through has impelled me to revert back to splitting the signal. I bought a couple of variable attenuators as suggested by grahamlthompson and reinstated the second booster. With this arrangement, though, I found I could not reduce the signal below 100% with either attenuator so I tried a simple ‘Y’ splitter instead of the booster and hey presto found a good range of adjustment available. There was clearly a lot more signal available than I thought. I’ve now set the strength of the most powerful multiplex to 80% so hopefully all should now be well.
In addition to the signal being lost when coming out of standby it has sporadically been lost whilst the unit is in standby so splitting the signal seems to be the only recourse.
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