Pixelation on my ceton infinitv4

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icepick

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Pixelation on my ceton infinitv4

#1

Post by icepick » Thu Apr 06, 2017 3:47 am

I've been having varying degrees of pixelation and occasional signal loss to the point of no signal being detected. It has gotten worse recently and I'm trying to figure out a solution. I tried a bidirectional drop amplifier with passive return and signal levels are coming through just fine. Previously signal levels were in the -3 to -7 range and are now 0 to +6. SNR is between 33 and 38 db. Comcast has been at the pole looking for noise unrelated to my complains apparently. I asked the lineman what he was doing. He said there was noise in the low end frequencies but it shouldn't be affecting catv. He was out there again the next day...IDK

I read on the forums here about a holland sub band filter. Also about moca filters and I'm also wondering if any of these will help correct this issue.

This is the amp i got https://www.amazon.com/Bi-Directional-A ... +amplifier.

This is the sub band filter I read about here http://www.ebay.com/itm/Holland-Electro ... 1375791254

Moca filters I was looking at https://www.amazon.com/Holland-MPOE-TM- ... and+filter

Am I barking up the wrong tree here? I've had great reception for 7 years now and in the past 4 months or so it's gone to pot. Especially on the channels watch the most.... Figures.


I watch HD on Comcast in Reading PA 19611. Using a infinitv4 pcie w/ win media center on win 7 home premium.

Thanks

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#2

Post by icepick » Thu Apr 06, 2017 4:01 am


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#3

Post by icepick » Sat Apr 08, 2017 6:59 pm

My hopes were risen, then dashed again. After receiving a call from the Comcast advanced technical support team last night I tried my cable and alas, everything was working well. Then today I decided to swap the amp I had put in back out for the regular splitter because some of my signal levels were over 10db. Comcast had said -8 - +8 was normal so I thought maybe I shouldn't use the amp... I put comcast's splitter back in and it seemed as though i started having problems immediately. So I put things back the way they were with the amp instead of the splitter, and the problems remained :(

It could be coincidence, I was not paying a lot of attention, but I think i checked the troublesome channels before swapping the splitter for amp, but now the problem is back for sure and I can't figure out if it is a result of me swapping components around or not. I should have done more extensive diagnostic testing before swapping things around... Curses....

I shut down the pc's and unplugged the modem before I removed the amp and installed the antronix splitter. After the modem reconnected I booted up and the problem was again obvious. Interestingly the signal levels are now reduced by about 7db on average from last night - and the problem is less evident on some channels but the same or worse on others.

When I spoke to the techs last night they said there was a "meter outtage" which was causing my issue.

I'm so frustrated... :wtf:

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#4

Post by icepick » Sat Apr 08, 2017 9:20 pm

I know now after some checking, it is without question traffic on the modem causing the problem. I tried new coax from the drop to the splitter then to the tuner and the modem. Booted modem and opened WMC. Reception was fine, great even. Then I noticed no internet. All lights on modem were green but no internet. Then the modem rebooted, this time after boot cycle light show the upstream light was orange and the tv signal immediately began failing. Yanked the power from the modem, signal restored. Replicated the problemby using speedtest to saturate the bandwidth, horrible pixelation, yanked the coax this time, signal restored... on my way to the service center to swap this pos out.... I hope this is the last bit of troubleshooting I'll need to do! Hope shines again!!

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#5

Post by icepick » Wed Apr 12, 2017 2:21 am

What an interesting chain of events and confluence of interference.

I'm exhausted so I'm going to cheat a bit and just copy/paste from my thread at EOCF.

Bare in mind that what I discovered is that there were no less than three specific problems which effected the signal at different times, this is why it was so difficult to diagnose, every time I thought I had it figured out another source of noise would pop up, it was brutal.

Post 1
Me starting the thread -

I'm not sure exactly what the problem is, but my main rig is causing my cable tv which goes to my htpc ceton tuner, to lose signal. It's flooding the the coax with noise which is causing demodulation as per the ceton email you can see below.

I can cause the problem by moving the coax closer to the pc. Sometimes the problem is worse than other times, the inference can travel through my body which if I stand between the computers I can cause the signal loss and it gets better when I move away....

I feel like I'm losing my mind..

Today I plugged the rig into a different circuit with no other connections and it was a bit better unless I stood between it and the htpc. Then I moved the htpc even farther away and reconnected it, and it was actually worse regardless of where I was standing. For whatever reason this is actually happening....

Please help me before I check into the asylum....

Additional Comment:

Hi Nicholas,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble. There are serious demodulation errors on your coax line, this will cause serious Pixelization and tuner drop off. These reading directly off the line before the signal moves through the InfiniTV

Possible causes:

1. Bad splitters
2. Bad coax cable somewhere in your topography
3. The use of MoCA adapters / Bad MoCA adapter
4. Cap your exposed coax outlet plugs. They sell little caps for them (The exposed coax outlets act as little annetas picking up interference, the caps close them off)
5. External interference from something outside
6. Cable company Issue, it can and will happen from time to time.
7. Bad Cable Modem (They can flood the line with noise)
8. Bad signal amplifier
9. Damage to the InfiniTV PCIe dongle. (It should be snug with no wiggle room; Applying light pressure should not effect the signal in anyway if you see the picture change when applying light pressure to the dongle, there is an issue.)
10. Tuning Adapter issues. Start with resetting the tuning adapter > InfiniTV > PC. If the tuning adapter is not tuning channels or has outdated information then you will get high demod errors for the specific channel.

Any device attached to your coax topography can cause noise on the line. With this much noise this indicates something is attached to the line is malfunctioning

Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do but point you in the right direction. We do not see anything wrong with your InfiniTV and this is a very specific issue. Hopefully it's just a bad splitter, which it is most of the time.

Additional Comment:

In not the 1080 ti. I know that now for sure because I'm running the rig on the hd 3000 without the ti in the rig and it's still happening. I think it's the psu or mobo.

Additional Comment:

I can't imagine that it would be a hard drive. I took out the sound card, gpu, case lighting, and disconnected everything but the power and monitor. Still causing i nterference... It's either the psu, most likely, or the mobo. I'm at wits end.

Post 2
Hickeydog replying -

It's probably the output caps on the power supply have gone bad. Does the signal clear up if your rig is turned off?

Post 3
My reply -

I think it's either a huge efm or the signal is bleeding into the ground or neutral and back into the coax shielding with enough amplitude to pass into the conductor.

Additional Comment:

Yes!
Thank you hickey!

Additional Comment:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hickeydog
It's probably the output caps on the power supply have gone bad. Does the signal clear up if your rig is turned off?


So the psu is almost six years old, time flies. Going to replace it before using that computer more at this point. Any chance this could be / could have damaged other components in some way? Brand new 1080 ti in there for the past few days. Less than 20 hours on it I bet. **** is cray.

Post 4

Slizzo offering advise -

If the computer wasn't unstable at all then you're OK.

Post 5

kwiksilver replying -

Is your cable line properly grounded?

Post 6

My reply -

Yeah, good grounding rod outside with a #10 solid copper wire tightly clamped.

It turns out the interference was from multiple sources which is why it was so difficult to diagnose.

1.) The drop was old and had been chewed by a squirrel allowing water to get in and pass rf into the conductor (we live blocks from a hospital with medicopter service, a fire station, and a police station, all which use radio equipment that could cause intrusion to a damaged coax.)

2.) The drop was loose at the pole so the signal levels fluctuated out of spec with some regularity.

3.) The new modem I got from the service center was Moca and didn't have a Moca/POE filter which Ceton needs to function properly. The Moca devices apparently flood the coax with noise if there is no filter installed between the modem and splitter.

4.) The OCZ psu I was running realized it was 6 months out of warranty and decided it was time to die. I will test it after removing it but without proper equipment I don't know if its at the point of delivering unstable or dirty power yet. I do know that the magnetic field it was generating must have been huge and extended at least 4 feet if not more.

All the issues are corrected now except for the psu so I should know by Saturday afternoon if that was definitely a source of noise, the tech said that it was likely to be one of the sources of noise.

For now I'm just relieved to be nearing the end of this experience. It was a tremendous time suck and had been nagging at me for too long.

I am glad to have extended my knowledge on these topics though, I've learned a lot over the past week and a half.

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Crash2009

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#6

Post by Crash2009 » Wed Apr 12, 2017 2:50 am

You need 2 POE filters.

http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... 949#p88949

Search POE, DECA, or MOCA for more info

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Crash2009

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#7

Post by Crash2009 » Wed Apr 12, 2017 3:01 am

You might want to get rid of that Comcast Router, unless you have time or are able to get under the hood. Chances are Comcast has the hood welded on so you cant even get in.

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Crash2009

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#8

Post by Crash2009 » Wed Apr 12, 2017 3:20 am

I had a lot of trouble with my InfiniTV4 and Comcast when I first got the tuner.

They used a bunch of splitters, and by the time the coax got to my tuner, I was -12 dbmv. The video was melting every once in a while. Fine if you are on hallucinogenics but I gave that up in the 70's.

You can isolate that MoCa and take advantage of it if you choose. Is yours GIG over Coax? or more?

Draw us a diagram (doesnt have to be fancy) (simple paper and pencil snapshot with your phone), click Upload attachment (bottom left of the page)

icepick

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#9

Post by icepick » Sat Apr 15, 2017 5:28 pm

Thanks for the reply Crash. I've been too busy to get back to this topic until today.

So the PSU was one of the sources of noise. It was going bad and throwing out a strong emf. It's been replaced by an EVGA unit with a 10 yr warranty now so it seems as if that problem has been solved.

The drop was chewed by a squirrel and had water in it so that was a problem, it got replaced.

The drop was also loose at the pole junction, it is now wrench tight and a new compression fitting, as are all the fittings at this point.

The connection is 120Mbps.

The router is a dual band 2.4 / 5ghz Technicolor XB3.


With regard to my wiring it goes like the attachment.

/-----> Ceton Infinitv4 PCIE
Drop -> Splitter {
\-----> POE/Moca filter ----->Modem

Seems great so far. I also got a sub band filter from the tech to put before the ceton's MCX connector though I haven't installed it. It blocks internet freq's. I got it in case i needed it and it was no additional cost so why not?

I thought about a 2nd POE/Moca at the grounding block to prevent intrusion from other people's equipment, but haven't made any moves on that either at this point.

Thoughts?

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Crash2009

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#10

Post by Crash2009 » Sat Apr 15, 2017 7:20 pm

I think we covered the POE fairly well in the link I gave you (see Post #6). There is also a collection of links inside that post. Whenever I run into a MoCa leak, I use that post as my reference book.

The idea for two is.. poe-1 prevents your MoCa from getting out, and also prevents your neighbors from getting in. poe-2 prevents your MoCa from getting in to your tuner.

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#11

Post by icepick » Sat Apr 15, 2017 9:57 pm

Yeah that formatting didn't work, its like this, ignore the white text.

Drop -> Splitter { /-----> Ceton Infinitv4 PCIE
Drop -> Splitter {
Drop -> Splitter { \-----> POE/Moca filter ----->Modem

Thanks again.

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Crash2009

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#12

Post by Crash2009 » Sun Apr 16, 2017 3:21 am

I see....you isolated the modem. That works too.

Did you realize that a Moca Modem will give you an internet connection anywhere you have coax?

If you ever decide to get what you are paying for.....

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r300307 ... -Gateway-2
Last edited by Crash2009 on Sun Apr 16, 2017 4:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

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#13

Post by icepick » Sun Apr 16, 2017 4:05 am

Okay now the whole thing makes sense. This is my first experience with Moca and I actually did not know that the internet was sent back out through the coax, but now i get it. So the Moca adapters take a coax in and provide internet through a ethernet port... Interesting technology, great for homes that have in wall coax throughout but no ethernet wiring in wall.

So I don't really have a need for a Moca network then, but one day I'm sure this knowledge will come in handy.

It's funny, I was looking at Moca adapters online and thinking to myself... "Why would you need that if you have a router?" Lol...

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#14

Post by Crash2009 » Sun Apr 16, 2017 4:32 am

Yeah the internet goes to any coax in the building. The PC's ethernet cable plugs into the MoCa adapter. I heard some of the newer MoCa routers will connect at GiG and do nearly 300 mbps throughput. Nice streaming from the HTPC server to wherever. Or even just use it for Wireless Access Points (WAP). Coax is pretty tough. Bury it in the yard or staple it to the fence.

Gettin some idea's now?

I was playing around with this a couple years ago, didnt go for it because I couldn't get the GIG MoCa Router. Everything else I have is GIG, the old MoCa would have been a downgrade for me.

In the 2nd picture down, somebody told me that the ECB2500 had a built in POE. Normally I would use a POE upstream of the splitter to the ETH6/TA combination.
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TuningAdapter004.jpg
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