Pixelation with infinitv4 tuner and WMC 8.1

[sonnumbertwo]

Hi,
I am having trouble viewing live TV while using a infinitv4 PCI and WMC on a win 8.1 64 bit HTPC. When tuned to one of many specific channels, my picture becomes heavily pixelated. Some of the time I am able to relieve the picture and sound loss (pixelation) by tuning to another channel briefly and then turning back to the original channel. Some times it take several channel changes to get the live picture back. It also records this pixelation on the rewind live function and records it to the DVR when time shift recording. This happens on SPECIFIC channels, eg, fox news, comedy central and all HBO channels (among others) WILL experience this pixelation at non regular, short, intervals (some times it takes a few minutes or even seconds to return). This pixelation is mirrored on my xbox 360 extender.

Here is a video that illustrates that problem
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=od4890JJxqM

[cwinfield]

I would suggest looking into your tuner signal levels and SNR. If you are using a tuning adapter it is quite likely the affected channels are running at the same frequency and experiencing the same signal degradation. There is a very useful program for diagnosing this called AllCetonSignals which helps identify these problems. Beyond that I suggest checking all your connections being wrench tight, contacting ceton support and the last resort having your cable company diagnose your signal. As always YMMV and macroblocking/pixilation can be a lot of different things some of which may not be anything you can easily fix such as heavy compression by cable company. Also which FW and HW versions are you running? I highly suggest updating to the beta versions as they are much newer and reliable than the public releases.

[Ladislaus]

@sonnumbertwo: I had a similar problem a while ago. It turned out that some outdoor critter(s) (squirrels, most likely) chewed on the coax cable line between the house and the telephone pole. As a result, water got inside the coax cable causing interference; some channels were more pixelated than others based (I'm assuming) on their transmission frequency. Once the cable tv tech replaced the damaged cable, the pixelation was (immediately) gone. There's no guarantee that this is what you are seeing, but it may be something to consider. Good luck! (I feel your pain, since I spent many, many hours on that one.)

[feeshta]

Former Comcast tech here. Pixelation or "tiling" as it is commonly referred to, is nearly always down to a cabling issue, either inside the home or out. I would recommend checking all of your cable ends for tightness first, then verify that the splitter being used is not larger than needed. For example, an 8 way splitter yields one 1/8th the signal on each output leg no matter what is plugged in or not and should only be used if you need 8 cable outlets active.

The fact that you have some stations coming in and some not is down to which frequncies they operate on as Ladislaus thought. damage to cable lines results in reflected signal, and that signal's interaction with incoming signal often creates a comb filtering effect which affects some channels and not others.

I would look for simply things yourself, then call the cable company if you get no luck.