Mailing List Archive: HDHomerun tuner flaky recordings

HDHomerun tuner flaky recordings

Feb 2, 2024, 11:54 AM

Post #1 of 6 (189 views)

I have a couple of HDHomerun DVB-T network tuners. Since moving house over
a year ago I've had problems with poor recording quality.

I suspected it might be a failing power pack on the 4-tuner Quattro but
replacing it didn't help.

So I then swapped the Quattro out for a 2-tuner HDHR4-2DT thinking that
maybe there were too many tuners for the aerial and that was causing
the problem. But that hasn't made any difference either.

On both tuners the characteristic of the recordings is that they
pixellate from time to time and seem to skip frames so that little chunks
of video and audio are missing which means you can't follow dialogue
because parts of it just aren't there. They appear the same whether I play
them in MythTV, or download to VLC or in the HDHomerun Windows app.

When I look at the HDHomerun tuner status in a browser I noticed that the
signal strength stays at 100%, but the signal quality jumps around all over
the place from 34% to 100% to 77% to 19%.... I'm wondering if this could be
my problem, and if so why would the signal strength be so continuously
variable?

Re: HDHomerun tuner flaky recordings [ In reply to ]

jharbestonus at gmail

Feb 2, 2024, 12:02 PM

Post #2 of 6 (189 views)

Permalink

> On Feb 2, 2024, at 2:54?PM, Phill Edwards <philledwards@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have a couple of HDHomerun DVB-T network tuners. Since moving house over a year ago I've had problems with poor recording quality.

>
> I suspected it might be a failing power pack on the 4-tuner Quattro but replacing it didn't help.
>
> So I then swapped the Quattro out for a 2-tuner HDHR4-2DT thinking that maybe there were too many tuners for the aerial and that was causing the problem. But that hasn't made any difference either.
>
> On both tuners the characteristic of the recordings is that they pixellate from time to time and seem to skip frames so that little chunks of video and audio are missing which means you can't follow dialogue because parts of it just aren't there. They appear the same whether I play them in MythTV, or download to VLC or in the HDHomerun Windows app.

I don’t know if you have similar where you are. One other thing to check is the hdhrconfig command line utility. It lets you capture the signal, and shows you the status of the received data. This will make sure that you don’t have problems with network traffic problems. As far as antenna recomendations, your fellow TV enthusiasts in your area may be able to assist more.

Oh.. another thing that may affect signal.. is trees between you and the broadcast source.

>
> When I look at the HDHomerun tuner status in a browser I noticed that the signal strength stays at 100%, but the signal quality jumps around all over the place from 34% to 100% to 77% to 19%.... I'm wondering if this could be my problem, and if so why would the signal strength be so continuously variable?
> _

Yep, that’s the problem. Sounds like are receiving a dirty signal . In the US / Canada, we have a website rabbitears.info <http://rabbitears.info/> that helps with giving an idea of what kind of signal we can get for a given station.

Sounds like you need a better antenna if possible..

Regards

Re: HDHomerun tuner flaky recordings [ In reply to ]

philledwards at gmail

Feb 2, 2024, 12:31 PM

Post #3 of 6 (188 views)

Permalink

>
>
> I don’t know if you have similar where you are. One other thing to check
> is the hdhrconfig command line utility. It lets you capture the signal, and
> shows you the status of the received data. This will make sure that you
> don’t have problems with network traffic problems. As far as antenna
> recomendations, your fellow TV enthusiasts in your area may be able to
> assist more.
>

Yes, I've been using this and it's helped me work out that the signal
quality is low.

> Oh.. another thing that may affect signal.. is trees between you and the
> broadcast source.
>

Unfortunately that's not it as I actually have line of sight straight to
the local transmission tower.

When I look at the HDHomerun tuner status in a browser I noticed that the
> signal strength stays at 100%, but the signal quality jumps around all over
> the place from 34% to 100% to 77% to 19%.... I'm wondering if this could be
> my problem, and if so why would the signal strength be so continuously
> variable?
>
>
> Yep, that’s the problem. Sounds like are receiving a dirty signal . In
> the US / Canada, we have a website rabbitears.info that helps with giving
> an idea of what kind of signal we can get for a given station.
>
> Sounds like you need a better antenna if possible..
>

Thanks. I was wondering if this might be the problem. I think the existing
antenna has probably been in place since the house was built 23 years ago
and was geared to analogue TV. So maybe I need to invest in a new antenna.

Re: HDHomerun tuner flaky recordings [ In reply to ]

gary.buhrmaster at gmail

Feb 2, 2024, 12:36 PM

Post #4 of 6 (188 views)

Permalink

On Fri, Feb 2, 2024 at 7:59?PM Phill Edwards <philledwards@gmail.com> wrote:
> I noticed that the signal strength stays at 100%, but the signal quality jumps around all over the place from 34% to 100% to 77% to 19%.... I'm wondering if this could be my problem,

Probably. A signal quality that jumps large
values is a sign of issues.

One problem with a signal of 100% is
that you don't know how much higher
it is. A signal that is too strong can
result in various issues due to overloading
the tuner. Adding a pad (attenuator)
to get the signal strength to (say)
96% sometimes fixes the issues.

Another problem that happened in
the US was the opening up the TV
frequencies to Mobile devices (LTE/5G)
resulted in a lot of new transmitters in
what was previously TV frequencies,
and the tuners would randomly get
overloaded from those sources.
In the US there are dedicated filters
to eliminate the frequencies that
are no longer in TV use. I believe
there are also such filters in (at least)
the UK.
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Re: HDHomerun tuner flaky recordings [ In reply to ]

mikep at randomtraveller

Feb 2, 2024, 3:04 PM

Post #5 of 6 (185 views)

Permalink

On 02/02/2024 20:31, Phill Edwards wrote:
>>
>>
>> Sounds like you need a better antenna if possible..
>>
>
> Thanks. I was wondering if this might be the problem. I think the existing
> antenna has probably been in place since the house was built 23 years ago
> and was geared to analogue TV. So maybe I need to invest in a new antenna.
>
Sometimes the antenna looks fine but can still cause trouble.

I had to change mine because some frequencies were updated, and when the guy got up there he found
the box where the cable is terminated was full of water. I still had the whole thing replaced, such
that the booster amp I had installed originally had to be removed because the signal is now too strong!

Oh, and I have a line of trees and a hill between me and the transmitter. Most of the time there's
no trouble but when the winds blow... I get exactly what you described. Even so, the HDHR does a
much better job of handling the interference than the original STB does.

--

Mike Perkins

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Re: HDHomerun tuner flaky recordings [ In reply to ]

iitywygms at gmail

Feb 2, 2024, 3:26 PM

Post #6 of 6 (185 views)

Permalink

I've got my antenna mounted in the Attic in the garage.
One day I switched over the garage lights to LEDs. For a few days after
that I couldn't figure out why the signal had gone to crap. The LED lights
interfered with the reception.
I've heard microwaves can screw things up too. Just something else to check.

On Fri, Feb 2, 2024, 6:07?PM Mike Perkins <mikep@randomtraveller.org.uk>
wrote:

> On 02/02/2024 20:31, Phill Edwards wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> Sounds like you need a better antenna if possible..
> >>
> >
> > Thanks. I was wondering if this might be the problem. I think the
> existing
> > antenna has probably been in place since the house was built 23 years ago
> > and was geared to analogue TV. So maybe I need to invest in a new
> antenna.
> >
> Sometimes the antenna looks fine but can still cause trouble.
>
> I had to change mine because some frequencies were updated, and when the
> guy got up there he found
> the box where the cable is terminated was full of water. I still had the
> whole thing replaced, such
> that the booster amp I had installed originally had to be removed because
> the signal is now too strong!
>
> Oh, and I have a line of trees and a hill between me and the transmitter.
> Most of the time there's
> no trouble but when the winds blow... I get exactly what you described.
> Even so, the HDHR does a
> much better job of handling the interference than the original STB does.
>
> --
>
> Mike Perkins
>
>
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