Garbled picture or no sound

[Skolink]

The last few days we've an occasional problem where a program has no sound or the picture is all garbled.
I don't know whether it is broadcast this way or if it is the TiVo's fault.
I haven't seen this mentioned in the forums before. Has anyone else had this problem?
After reboot that particular recording is still garbled.

[Skolink]

After being transferred (and transcoded) with TiVo Desktop Plus the recording plays back fine.
Have lodged a TiVo support query and replied with the system info requested...

[petestrash]

Is this the original drive?

I have seen similar issues with some non AV rated drives. When used for playback there is some corruption or cannot keep up the stream to the buffer, but when transferring the show out of the TiVo error correction kicks in and works fine (would probably play ok if transferred back also).

Peter.

[Skolink]

Yes this is the original 160Gb drive, only about 2 months old. I haven't yet made any modifications at all to our TiVoHD. My wife has just complained that it doesn't have much space. I thought 60-120 hours would be heaps since we watch and delete, and don't keep anything long term. Strangely a 1 hour HD program is reported as occupying 5% of space, so that's only about 20hours total recording! 20 hours seems more consistent with how few programs we had recorded before it started automatically deleteing things. So anyway it means that I have permission to upgrade the HDD to 1Tb.

[Lurker]

I noticed my HD filling up faster than my Series 1 - when I got the Tivo Desktop installed I found out why - even though I selected record in SD and output at 720lines (old TV) it may still record in HD as the file sizes are much larger - a 30 minute show can range form 1GB to 3GB - my old S1 was just over a GB per hour at the same "quality " settings. So the 160 GB is not a lot :-)

[CheshireCat]

We too have seen the disappearing sound issue, though rarely.

I had occasional garbled video until I added a signal booster to the aeriel line.

On (rare) occasion we have a short total loss of sound, and slight video glitches, though this only seems to affect CTV8. I had one case of an entire recording from One being soundless, I didn't try to transfer it though. I have assumed this is because the TiVo needs a very strong signal and ours (even with booster) is insufficient.

We also have an occasional problem where when we switch the TV on, it cannot detect the HDMI signal from the TiVo. A quick power cycle of the TV fixes it, though.

[Skolink]

Interesting. Was the program on One the news a few days ago?
What was your signal strength (on the TiVo-signal-o-meter) before and after the signal boster?
Ours is 73 to 74 on most channels. Cant remember which mux is slightly higher at 76 sometimes.

The response I got from TiVo support was the usual crap about checking video and audio cables.

[CheshireCat]

The program on One was a couple of months back. It was one of the kid's shows.

I'll need to check the signal strength when I get back, but IIRC the before was in the 60s and the after is in the 80s or 90s.

[Skolink]

Where is the signal booster located, since you mention reception is still bad even with such high signal level? If it is immediately before the TiVo then it's a waste of time since the signal-to-noise ratio will be the same, the weak signal will just become a strong noisy signal. Put it up in the ceiling or on the mast immediately after the antenna if possible.

[CheshireCat]

After checking, I have some more detailed figures.

Without the booster, I get a signal of between 40 (which completely fails) and 65 (for TV3, which just about works).
With the booster, I get a signal ranging from 80 up to 100 (TV3). These work fine for all of the time, bar the very rare sound-loss problem and very rare CTV8 artifacts. I think the CTV8 issue is more due to their satellite-to-Freeview link than to our freeview reception, though.

The booster is currently connected at the ariel socket, although previously it was connected to a separate socket (the splitter is in the attic) which worked just as well.

[Skolink]

I replied to the support email and mentioned that the fault could be caused by a faulty HDD. They advised we do a clear and delete all. Well that's not going to fix a faulty drive so I didn't bother, and we haven't seen this fault again at all in the last 3 weeks.

[Skolink]

Its been more than 2 months and we haven't seen this again even once. Nothing I can think of has changed, not the signal strength, not anything connected to the TiVo, not the TiVo software version.
Perhaps the TiVo automatically marks bad HDD sectors when they are detected.

[finethen]

I have joined the S3 crew with the purchase of a unused TiVo from a telecom victim (no reception, no refund).

I too am experiencing the garbled picture and sound drop outs. Its only on one tuner if they both have the same channel selected. Flicking out and back into the channel resolves the problem so I'm picking it may not be the signal? Signal strength is round the 75 mark. It looks like processing overload, would be interested to hear from anyone else or any suggestions.

[petestrash]

Sounds like it's an MPEG issue, but have not seen this myself over here.

If you rewind is it being recorded this way?

Peter.

[CheshireCat]

If the problem is in the actual recording (IE, its with the tuner) then I'd suggest putting a signal booster on the aerial, 75 may be too low. The TiVo tuners (at least, on my tivo) seem not to be so sensitive; a booster should push the signal up to over 80.

Alternatively, if the problem is on playback only then that would indicate HDD or software problems... you could test it by transferring the file to your PC via the network and seeing ifit plays OK - if not then it was garbled on reception.

Steve

[finethen]

Sounds like it's an MPEG issue, but have not seen this myself over here.

If you rewind is it being recorded this way?

Peter.

Yes its being recorded identically to the way it appears live

[finethen]

If the problem is in the actual recording (IE, its with the tuner) then I'd suggest putting a signal booster on the aerial, 75 may be too low. The TiVo tuners (at least, on my tivo) seem not to be so sensitive; a booster should push the signal up to over 80.

Alternatively, if the problem is on playback only then that would indicate HDD or software problems... you could test it by transferring the file to your PC via the network and seeing ifit plays OK - if not then it was garbled on reception.

Steve

Booster on aerial already so may be just too many buildings, thing is it goes away if I flick in and out of channel, and plays back the same way as it appears live, again tho problem not on both tuners if they are showing identical content.

[finethen]

Finally getting a response from the TiVo helpdesk,under their instructions have plugged TiVo into its own special power point, run through the install again (losing all recorded programs) and seem to have resolved the blocky picture. However machine still stopping dead and restarting, boot up seems to be 10 to 12 minutes! Appears to be usually when recording two channels or recording and watching. so something is feeling the strain.

Have sent latest report to helpdesk and await their reply.

I love switching back to the Series 1 machines, no missing Maori and Prime epg's, no bugs (apart from occasional remote freeze), no gaps in programs when the machine has taken 10 plus minutes to reboot and alot more predictable with program conflicts.

I will report back in but seems like machine may need to be replaced.

[finethen]

Still waiting a reply, we appear to have finished the diagnosing exercises with Support, the machine shuts down on average once an hour, switching off overnight may correct it for 5 or 6 hours and then its back to its old tricks. Support is veerrrry slow with a replacement. :-(

[petestrash]

Support is the Achilles heel of of TiVo Downunder.

All I can suggest is pushing them to escalate it.

Peter.

[dread]

I had a similar problem with the first S3 Tivo I got from Telecom. It would periodically go unresponsive, go grey screen and then have to be rebooted. I placed enough calls and 'suggested' this wasn't what I expected for such an expensive box. It took about 3 weeks for them to escalate it to Aus, and then arrange a replacement (which arrived very quickly after that). Never found what its problem was, but the 2nd unit has worked fine for 8 months now.

Suggest you push for a replacement unit.
David

[finethen]

Finally after 3 months I have received a replacement, crappiest support I have ever experienced! Testing the new unit now