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One bad tuner on TiVo HD?

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  • #1

    One bad tuner on TiVo HD?

    I hooked up my new TiVo HD a couple of days ago and I have been problems with one of my tuners. On one tuner all channels come in crystal clear without a problem. On the second tuner I experience severe pixelation problems on every channel I have tried and sometimes I just get a grey screen. When I restart my TiVo both tuners are tuned to the same channel and I get a perfect picture on the first tuner but poor or no picture on the second.

    As for the system information: I have a multi-stream cable card installed. The coax-cable runs directly into the TiVo HD without any splitter or amplifier.

    As an example, here is the diagnostics info shortly after rebooting my box:

    Tuner 0:
    tuned: Success
    Channel: 4
    Frequency: 741000KHz
    Connection Type: RF2
    Signal Source: Cable
    Channel Bits:30746
    Signal Strength: 87
    Signal Lock: Yes
    Program Lock: Yes
    Search Complete: Yes
    SNR: 35 dB
    RS Uncorrected: ~100.000
    RS Corrected: ~10.000.000
    RC state: available
    Tune State: in progress

    Tuner 1:
    tuned: Success
    Channel: 4
    Frequency: 741000KHz
    Connection Type: RF2
    Signal Source: Cable
    Channel Bits:30746
    Signal Strength: 93
    Signal Lock: Yes
    Program Lock: Yes
    Search Complete: Yes
    SNR: 35 dB
    RS Uncorrected: 0
    RS Corrected: 0
    RC state: available
    Tune State: in progress

    Does this information allow me to conclude that one of my tuners is busted and I that I need a replacement unit or are other there other potential causes of fixes for this specific problem? I have the impression that my problem is different from a lot of other reported pixelation problems since it appears to be directly tied to a single tuner and occurs on all channels. The only potential indication that it's not the tuner would be that the signal strength on tuner 0 is lower than on tuner 1, but I don't understand how that would be due to the signal coming from the cable (since the cable is the same for both tuners).

    Thanks for any help.
    Tags: None
  • #2
    That is pretty unusual, and I can't say we've seen exactly that. It's pretty rare that a tuner is bad on these units at all - and for one to be bad and not the other is even more strange.

    Have you tried moving the CableCARD to the other slot? Have you tried using two cards, each as a single stream?

    Finally, since the signal strength is really great on both tuners, could there be a problem with the cable company having authorized the card for one stream only?
    Been here a long time . . .

    Comment

    • #3
      Thanks for your response, Michael.

      I have not tried playing around with the cable card at all-- primarily because on the TiVo trouble shooting instructions I am told not to remove the cable card. As far as I understand, moving the multistream card to Slot 2 should not work, since TiVo wants multistream cards to be in Slot 1. I have also not tried using two singlestream cards, since I don't have any available to me.

      I am pretty certain though that the 'second ' cable card (second half of the multistream) is activated, since I do receive all channels on that tuner as well, just with a little (or a lot) of pixelation/macro-blocking.

      To me that leaves open possibilities: Either one half of the cable card is not functioning properly or tuner 0 on my TiVo is not functioning properly. In the end, I guess I am just trying to figure out who is the more likely culprit: the TiVo or the cablecards. Either is of course inconvenient: for one I have to have the cable guy come out again and for the other I have to send back my TiVo unit.

      Has anybody else observed 'half' of a multistream cable card not functioning properly?

      Comment

      • #4
        Right - the M cards won't do two channels in slot #2.

        We've never seen this be the TiVo before, and we've seen lots and lots of problems with CableCARDs - far more than the TiVos themselves. So we'd recommend getting a CableCARD swap first. But this does sound like it could very possibly be a TiVo issue also. Sorry it's not more clear.
        Been here a long time . . .

        Comment

        • #5
          One more question: Could I test the functionality of the tuners by just using an antenna input? Or could I test the tuners by simply removing the cable card and checking the non-encoded channels from my basic cable? Either option should by-pass any error coming from the cable card.

          I do not know, however, if using non-encrypted cable or the antenna input engages the tuners in the same way that using the cable card does.

          Finally, even though in the TiVo troubleshooting guide it says to not remove the cablecards, can I nevertheless remove it (for testing) and put it back in without having the cable company have to come in to reactivate the cards?

          Thanks again for your help.

          Comment

          • #6
            You can certainly try running the unit without cards to see if you have any problems.

            Comment

            • #7
              Sorry if I'm being dense here.

              Do I have to re-activate the cable cards once I remove them from my TiVo or can I remove them, test the antenna connection and then reinsert them without having to contact my cable company?

              Comment

              • #8
                Originally posted by hrun0815 View Post
                Sorry if I'm being dense here.

                Do I have to re-activate the cable cards once I remove them from my TiVo or can I remove them, test the antenna connection and then reinsert them without having to contact my cable company?
                You should be able to do that part without any contact with the cable company.
                Been here a long time . . .

                Comment

                • #9
                  So I have a little more information. I tried my TiVo without the cable card using just the basic cable (not OTA/antenna) that I can receive without decoding. With those my TiVo works fine on both channels. But, when I check the diagnostics of the tuner, I get a lot of N/A for most of the benchmarks.

                  So, I would guess that without the cable card and without the need for decoding the signal gets routed differently within the TiVo box. So it is still a toss-up on whether TiVo or the cable card/cable signal is to blame.

                  Comment

                  • #10
                    Definitely a lot of internal circuitry used is different for OTA tuning and cable tuning, so some n/a info seems appropriate.

                    I'm still inclined, frankly, to blame these issues on the CableCARDs.
                    Been here a long time . . .

                    Comment

                    • #11
                      So I just got off the phone with TiVo tech support. It kinda went like I expected. They blamed the cable card and I'm supposed to get RCN to come out and replace the cable card. Nothing much else to do than to follow their advice.

                      One thing was strange though: I gave the guy at tech support the information that the RS values were rising on Tuner 0 but not on Tuner 1. He said he had no idea what these values were for or what the rise in RS values indicated. He suggested to mention this to the RCN tech support.

                      So I'm a little confused. Shouldn't the TiVo guy know what the RS values mean? Does it make sense to get to a higher level RCN tech support and let them know about the rising RS values?

                      Thanks for you help.

                      Comment

                      • #12
                        I think any way you slice it, you're going to end up trying new a new CableCARD first, so you might as well not spend any more time with them beforehand.
                        Been here a long time . . .

                        Comment

                        • #13
                          So today I had a visit from my cable guy to test the CableCards. In the past few days the performance of tuner 0 went from bad (pixelation) to worse (grey screen). We popped in a new CableCard, initialized it, re-ran the guided set up and had exactly the same problem.

                          So, it seems that tuner 0 on my TiVo HD is just busted. I called TiVo support and within 30 minutes a had a replacement on its way.

                          Hopefully, I will be able to re-initialize my CableCard over the phone without having to have the cable guy come back out again once my new TiVo is here.

                          Comment

                          • #14
                            OK - report back what happens with the new unit. Hopefully that does the trick.
                            Been here a long time . . .

                            Comment

                            • #15
                              All's well that ends well, I guess.

                              I hooked up my replacement TV and both tuners work just fine. I didn't have any problems with the new setup. I just plugged it in, popped in the CableCard from the broken TiVo and everything works like a charm. I even ended up putting my signal splitter back in so I can also record on my VCR and watch cable directly through the TV. The signal is still fine and so far the RS values on both tuners are holding steady.

                              Thanks for all your help.

                              Comment

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