Words to describe video problems

[Crash2009]

Prior to the amp, Channel 300, HBO, was -11.8 dbmv, SNR 35.4, 411 CTRL D reported 29 fps most of the time with an occasional 59. Visually I could see skipped frames, (jerky motions) and a lot of small pixelation, with the occasional whole screen wiped out.

Now 300 is -0.3 dbmv, SNR 36.4, 411 reports a solid 59 fps. The picture is perfect.

A few days ago, prior to the new amp, I was playing around with the Ceton tuner frequency settings, within the webpage. I wrote down some notes so I could go back to them later. My notes look like an overclocker looking for the "sweet spot" I adjusted the frequency up until the channel wouldn't play, then adjusted the frequency down until it wouldn't play. What I noticed, was, that if I decreased the frequency from 717000 to 716900 this increased the signal from -12.3 to -12.1. 716900 also improved the visual part of things, (it appeared to skip less frames)

This little experiment has led me to beleive that 0 dbmv (or closer to 0) can be acheived by adjusting the frequency.

Any truth to this?

[crawfish]

Prior to the amp, Channel 300, HBO, was -11.8 dbmv, SNR 35.4, 411 CTRL D reported 29 fps most of the time with an occasional 59. Visually I could see skipped frames, (jerky motions) and a lot of small pixelation, with the occasional whole screen wiped out.

Now 300 is -0.3 dbmv, SNR 36.4, 411 reports a solid 59 fps. The picture is perfect.

Signal strength and 29/59 are unrelated. You're just watching a show that didn't exhibit 29/59 at the moment you checked. Now the amp probably does account for the other improvements you noted.

[barnabas1969]

Prior to the amp, Channel 300, HBO, was -11.8 dbmv, SNR 35.4, 411 CTRL D reported 29 fps most of the time with an occasional 59. Visually I could see skipped frames, (jerky motions) and a lot of small pixelation, with the occasional whole screen wiped out.

Now 300 is -0.3 dbmv, SNR 36.4, 411 reports a solid 59 fps. The picture is perfect.

A few days ago, prior to the new amp, I was playing around with the Ceton tuner frequency settings, within the webpage. I wrote down some notes so I could go back to them later. My notes look like an overclocker looking for the "sweet spot" I adjusted the frequency up until the channel wouldn't play, then adjusted the frequency down until it wouldn't play. What I noticed, was, that if I decreased the frequency from 717000 to 716900 this increased the signal from -12.3 to -12.1. 716900 also improved the visual part of things, (it appeared to skip less frames)

This little experiment has led me to beleive that 0 dbmv (or closer to 0) can be acheived by adjusting the frequency.

Any truth to this?

No. You should not mess with the frequency. The frequency shown should be the center frequency for the channel. The channel is 6MHz wide (714000-720000, or 714MHz-720MHz in your example), including some padding on both sides to account for a tuner's selectivity.

You can see more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Amer ... requencies

[Crash2009]

So its been a couple months with the BDA-S4 installed. The Samsung is hooked up to a STB (DCX3400) gets a slight bit of pixelation once in a while. The Ceton has been running great. I finally had time to actually watch one of my recordings the other day and 1:29:00 in to the movie, captured this little blip.

Is this pixelation again?

So, anyway, I call up Comcast, and tell them about all the money I spent getting ready to receive and record their service, and all the money I am about to spend on streaming their recordings around the building, and wham, first movie I watch has this kind of crap right in the middle of the movie. So their best idea was that I make an appointment with a line tech. Yeah, the tech with the 10,000 toy.

The tech shows up on time, seems like a pretty good guy, comes in and says "What's the problem?" so I take him over to the DCX3400 and tell him I got a bit of pixelation on the Samsung. He removes the coax from the DCX3400 and hooks it up to his machine, and says "Holy S___, this one is smokin" I gathered that the signal strength was a tad high when he said "Where is the amp?" I take him over to the amp and he tests the line in, and reports that the signal is "within range". I gather that means tolerable but not perfect.

I explained to him that his co-workers originally installed this place with four 2-way splitters, and because of that, the Ceton was getting -11 dbmV on some channels, and, because of that, my whole WMC/Ceton experience was not very good. His explaination was that the amp is smoking the DCX3400, and if the Ceton needs better than -11, maybe I should amp the Ceton. He proceeded to uninstall the amp and replace it with a 4-way splitter. Well of course everything else worked except for the Ceton. So I tore his S___ up and installed it the way I had it.

Six hours later, I finally got it back together again. It was a calamity of errors. He unplugged the Ceton during a pre-programmed recording, the signal strength (or lack of it) caused a couple more errors, somehow my computer time lost an hour, the time screwed the guide, and in the end-6 hours later I decided to re-boot and there was Adobe trying to update. Adobe updated and everything was fine after that.

Sorry to vent, I just wanted to document the unpleasant experience with the $10,000 toy.

I just remembered one more thing. He says I don't have a signal problem. He says the problem is with the source of the movie. In other words Comcast has delivered what it received and passed it on to me. So if Cinemax is the source, and the source copy is no good, I should get the same blip in the same spot, if I record it again. Right?