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Martin Liddle – 56 mins ago »
DarrenHill – 1 hour ago »
Basically the aerial has a booster and a filter (I think 4G) in the loft,
Have you considered temporarily bypassing the booster to see if a lower signal level helps?
Yes, tried both that and inserting an attenuator before the Aura. When bypassing the booster, everything vanished from the Aura and the signal on the TVs was much poorer. So the boost is needed, but of course if there’s interference that will get boosted too.
I’ve ordered a 5G filter, should arrive at the end of next week. For a tenner it’s certainly worth a try.
Recorded a couple of things last night and they were perfect, so it’s certainly something external that’s coming and going, as other times I turn the thing on or record stuff and it’s just pixelated junk rather than a show. Maybe atmospherics related perhaps, hence the filter is worth a shot.
OK, 5G filter now arrived and installed.
Lovely clear signal on the TV, and absolute junk on the Aura. Signal strength 91%, quality 0% and mostly a black screen with garbled audio.
This is really starting to get irritating, as sometimes it’s perfect on the Aura, most times it’s ok audio and pixelated video (usually to the point of not being watchable) and in the extreme like now it’s black screen and awful audio.
Any other thoughts or suggestions to try?
Got it fixed
Called an engineer in with a spectrum analyser, and turns out that the booster was the fault. Signal going in was 50dB and good quality, signal coming out was 70dB and poor quality.
Replaced it (and the cable between the socket and Aura, which was also cheap and poor – I think maybe the one from the Aura’s predecessor) and now have a quality on the Aura of 80-100%, and watchable signal with no pixelation.
Also I think I just got the new Google TV update, so time to play again this weekend…
After two weeks of running the latest software and updated Android to Google Play I still have some issues with the less than stellar Aura. In the past week I have noticed pressing on the Mute button on the Aura Remote does not Mute the sound when using the TV Speakers, the Mute button does work when the Audio System Speakers are selected.
The Volume controls plus and minus worked while TV speakers were selected up until two days ago, powering down and restarting did not improve the issue, nor did disconnecting the power and reconnecting and rebooting.
Every now and then changing the channel will result in a loss of picture and/ or sound, restarting the Aura resolves this issue.
Sometimes when switching on the Aura there is no picture and/ or sound, restarting resolves that issue.
Whilst watching the Aura the other night it gave out a whine and shutdown, I left it for 5 minutes after which it decided it would let me watch television again and started up.
Last night while it was off, the hard drive was audible, it was not recording, it gave out another baleful whine and the hard drive stopped spinning. I decided to start it up, it was working ok.
Occasionally there are times when selecting a recording to play you will see the timeline but the recording will not start,
restarting the recalcitrant Aura will then allow me to watch my recordings.
How frustrating, I have not tried a full factory reset for fear of losing my recordings, I know it is not supposed to but
seeing as this PVR is a hotchpotch of software engineered by Boeing and the Marx Brothers I am not too confident.
The Auras remote control can only vary the volume of SD channels. It’s not a fault it’s down to Audio codec used on HD channels. It’s AAC audio which the box recodes to Dolby Digital. The volume is hard coded into the data stream. It can only be varied after it’s decoded which could be a AVR or a TV. So you would need to use the TV or AVR remote controls unless you ask the box to recode AAC to PCM. Which will enable the box volume control for all channels.
FVP- Settings – Audio and Video – Digital Audio set to Stereo.
The Hard disk is supposed to spin down to put the box in ultra low power sby (less than 0.5W). It’s a legal requirement it can wake up from 0.5W power to make timed recordings.
FVP – settings Freeview PLay preferences. Scroll down
To Auto standby which controls how long it takes to go into full sby without a remote control operation.
Auto settings 30 minutes, 1 hour, 3 hours, 6 hrs 12 hours and Never. The option I have is never
Deep Standby Set By Start and End times Never 30 minutes, 1 1 hour 2 hours Set By start and end time. The option I have is set by start and end time
Deep Standby Schedule. Line is set to 12:oo AM – 06:30 AM.
This allows me to watch the early morning news programmes on a tablet without having to physically wake the box.
Apart from the failure to start replay of a recording all the aboce just shows you simply have not bothered to read the public beta software threads.
Mine replays recordings without issue.
If you do a factory reset be sure to export your user settings and schedule first and re-import after the full reset.
If you had you would have easily found out all this information.
Previously the Aura remote could be used to alter the volume on both HD and SD channels
and mute the sound on both.
As I explained recently the function was lost firstly with Mute and then with the Volume control.
However after powering down and letting it sit for 30 minutes today the function has now
resumed on both HD and SD channels and whether it is set as Stereo or Surround.
So you are wrong there.
Auto Standby is set for 6 hours, it never gets the chance to.
Deep Standby Schedule is set for Never.
To quote “just shows you simply have not bothered to read the public beta software threads”, well how do you know that and that it is quite an insulting statement.
Quite often I read your answers to questions or inputs to threads I often think your answers give the wrong information, as in the volume control on the remote you gave is incorrect in my case, and very often your replies go off topic and give answers to questions that are not asked. I have noticed this on other forums you take part in.
Telling me yours replays recordings without issue is hardly relevant to the fact that mine on occasion doesn’t, I am well aware others may not or do not suffer the same problems I have. I posted to see if any valuable information may be imparted, but to reply, well mine doesn’t is rather juvenile.
If you have anything interesting or correct to say then be my guest otherwise don’t bother responding.
Are you saying if you set the box audio output to surround you can control the TV volume using the Aura remote volume control with it set to control the Aura not the TV when tuned to a HD channel ?
I certainly cannot. In my case I have to use the AVR remote. The TV volume is muted.
This is the same on all HD capable Humax boxes starting with the Foxsat-HDR, HDR-1000S, FVP-5000T etc.
I have a led connected to one of the Aura rear ports powered by it’s 5V output.
The ports are also powered off when the box enters full low power sby. It’s a foolproof way to see if the HDD is shut down. Incidentally the box powers off unused tuners to save energy.
So I am not wrong.
The HDD is supposed to turn off. It uses more than 0.5W alone making it impossible to conform to energy saving regs for all pvrs.
The older boxes had a slightly higher limit of 0.75W which includes the Foxsat-HDR.
https://myhumax.org/forum/topic/power-saving-in-standby-is-it-worth-it
grahamlthompson – 13 mins ago »
Are you saying if you set the box audio output to surround you can control the TV volume using the Aura remote volume control with it set to control the Aura not the TV when tuned to a HD channel ?
I certainly cannot. In my case I have to use the AVR remote. The TV volume is muted.
This is the same on all HD capable Humax boxes starting with the Foxsat-HDR, HDR-1000S, FVP-5000T etc.
So I am not wrong.
Graham, when my aura is set to output Surround, I am still able to control the aura volume using the remote, this works with HD, and SD channels.
The same also works for me with my HD/HDR-Fox T2 boxes. I think that it all depends on how the TV handles HDMI audio.
If I check the AVR audio out when the Kitchen TV is connected to Zone 2 out on my AVR.
The AVR switches to PCM stereo despite a setting of Surround. If I turn off Zone 2 out it reverts to DD 2.0 or 5.1 according to channel content. ITV-HD is always 2.0.
As the Aura remote also controls the volume it must be outputting PCM audio not Dolby Digital.
I can get output from all the connected speakers from a 2.0 input by using the AVR DTS-Neural X encoder.
Suspect what is happening is the handshake from feeding two TV’s one of which cannot use Dolby Digital is forcing the box to output PCM stereo. So of course the volume control works.
When I can turn off the Kitchen TV. I will replay a recording with known 5.1 audio with only the lounge TV connected. I reckon the AVR info will say 5.1 DD with the 5.1 speakers all having outputs. And the Aura box volume control will not work.
Battlestar Galactica has 5.1 Audio – Not sure if its DD 5.1 or DD+ 5.1.
Brian does your TV have a way of showing what audio it is receiving ? I don’t need this because all the audio is handled by a AVR that tells you what the audio input actually is. The TV Audio is not used.
grahamlthompson – 7 mins ago »
Brian does your TV have a way of showing what audio it is receiving ? I don’t need this because all the audio is handled by a AVR that tells you what the audio input actually is. The TV Audio is not used.
I haven’t been able to find anything.
I will have a play later. I reckon the HDCP handshake is ignoring the surround setting and forcing the Aura to output PCM stereo because the TV reports no support for Dolby Digital. The AVR will tell me what the Aura is actually doing.
Found a movie with Dolby Digital + 5.1 audio.
The amp info shows the incoming volume from the Aura and using the box volume control the shown volume level does not move though the volume level does.
Next changed to channel 5-HD live. Aura outputs PCM 2.0 stereo. Looks as if the Aura only outputs Dolby Digital if surround sound is present. I wonder if the Aura switches to multichannel PCM for output with more than two audio channels thus retaining volume control. This is what happens if you try and play back Surround Sound to an older AVR that lacks the decoder required for the codec. Eg My Sons older Denon AVR does this on bluerays that have lossless HD audio codecs.
Guessing if you could actually see what audio codec the TV is using it would be 2.0 or 5.1 Multi Channel PCM.
Just changed the live channel from the Jumanji recording to BBC1-HD and the amp immediately switched to PCM audio,
DarrenHill – 2 weeks ago »
james_uk – 2 days ago »
Do you know if anything has been improved with the signal strength as the OP mentioned?
Is this a general issue?
I don’t have an Aura yet but considering one, this is something that worries me a little as i have seen it mentioned a few times
I’m still having intermittent issues with mine – sometimes nice watchable signal and other times totally unwatchable (either black screen or pixelation galore, both with garbled sound). Signal strength of >90%, but quality <20% and in some cases 0%.
What’s most odd though is that the Tv (connected to the same aerial line via the feedthrough from the Aura) sees signal strength 100% and quality >90% and no issues at all, even when the Aura is heavily affected.
Had a play with some attenuators and no improvement, so it’s most likely the opposite issue and a lack of signal strength for the Aura’s tuners (but not the TV’s one). Time to look into (another) booster, alongside the one in the loft.
Any other WiFi kit close to the box especially your router ? How close are your box HDMI outputs to the box RF inputs. Are your coax RF interconnects made from quality double screened cable like WF100 satellite grade cable using F connectors with f to Belling Lee converters where needed. .
HDMI cables can emit RF in the UHF band. Crap coax interconnects can easily knock out Freeview reception.
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