Terrestrial Freeview Reception Varies with Pano TV and PlayTv

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nammacdac

22 posts

Geek

#87238 23-Jul-2011 11:58

Hi

Late year I purchased a Panasonic V20 TV and also a Sony PlayTV and use them with terrestrial aerial. I live in Hamilton on a hill which is on the sheltered side from the Freeview signal

The Freeview reception has always been good through the V20 and reasonable with the PlayTV until winter arrived. Reception has deteriorated and so I had a professional come and he installed a hi gain UHF aerial and a signal amplifier. This improves the picture some of the time, but still has poor picture most of the time with PlayTV and still OK with the V20. The weather is mostly changeable and wet

My poor reception looks like vertical stripes of colour and no audio

I have checked the signal strength during poor picture with the V20 and all channels are 100% for both strength and quality. I am not sure how accurate this is.

My questions;

1. How good would you expect the receiver to perform in the PlayTV compared to the Panasonic V30?

2 Is there away to improve the reception performance of the PlayTV?

Thanks

B1GGLZ

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#497074 23-Jul-2011 12:48

How are you connecting your PlayTV to the antenna. Presumably via a splitter?
If you get 100 + 100 on the TV then the PlayTv should be the same (and you didn't need the amp?).
Try swapping leads and check signal. Try removing splitter and connect antenn direct to each in turn to compare.
Sounds like a splitter problem?
If all that fails then I suggest the PlayTV has a fault.

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nammacdac

22 posts

Geek

#497080 23-Jul-2011 13:01

Thanks for the reply

THe aerial is connected to the PlayTV with coax and comes out with HDMI, this is the option on PlayTV, it then goes to my home theatre and out with HDMI to the TV. I have tried HDMI out of the PlayTV and into the TV. All with the same result.

I had though it may be the PlayTV so my borther has one and he tried the box on his PS3 and the result was OK. He has better recetion than I do. So this is what lead me to think it maybe the reciver in the PlayTV is worse than the TV

THanks

Brunzy

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#497097 23-Jul-2011 14:07

nammacdac: Thanks for the reply

THe aerial is connected to the PlayTV with coax and comes out with HDMI, this is the option on PlayTV, it then goes to my home theatre and out with HDMI to the TV. I have tried HDMI out of the PlayTV and into the TV. All with the same result.

I had though it may be the PlayTV so my borther has one and he tried the box on his PS3 and the result was OK. He has better recetion than I do. So this is what lead me to think it maybe the reciver in the PlayTV is worse than the TV

THanks

I'd say youve hit the nail on the head.
There should be a post in another thread where I have mentioned this.
You could ask your installer if he took a log of your readings , specifically ask him what the pre BER is

nammacdac

22 posts

Geek

#497124 23-Jul-2011 16:08

OK

I have read your previous thread and will contact my installer, I did not see hime record and readings..........

B1GGLZ

1961 posts

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#497140 23-Jul-2011 17:11

nammacdac: Thanks for the reply

THe aerial is connected to the PlayTV with coax and comes out with HDMI, this is the option on PlayTV, it then goes to my home theatre and out with HDMI to the TV.

Yes but how does your aerial co-ax connect to the PlayTV AND the TV?

nammacdac

22 posts

Geek

#497145 23-Jul-2011 17:17

B1GGLZ:
nammacdac: Thanks for the reply

THe aerial is connected to the PlayTV with coax and comes out with HDMI, this is the option on PlayTV, it then goes to my home theatre and out with HDMI to the TV.

Yes but how does your aerial co-ax connect to the PlayTV AND the TV?

The coax goes into PlayTV and comes out with HDMI, in my case this then goes into Bose HT and then out again with HDMI to TV, so every thing is HDMI except the coax into Play TV

vinnieg

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#497154 23-Jul-2011 17:44

nammacdac:
The coax goes into PlayTV and comes out with HDMI, in my case this then goes into Bose HT and then out again with HDMI to TV, so every thing is HDMI except the coax into Play TV

I think what the previous poster wanted to know was how do you split the coax? Do you split it at the wall?

SInce HDMI doesn't do coax pass through through the PlayTV and it only has an input

I have moved across the ditch. Now residing in Melbourne as a VOIP/Video Technical Trainer/Engineer.

nammacdac

22 posts

Geek

#497166 23-Jul-2011 18:16

vinnieg:
nammacdac:
The coax goes into PlayTV and comes out with HDMI, in my case this then goes into Bose HT and then out again with HDMI to TV, so every thing is HDMI except the coax into Play TV

I think what the previous poster wanted to know was how do you split the coax? Do you split it at the wall?

SInce HDMI doesn't do coax pass through through the PlayTV and it only has an input

Yes I am not understanding about the split. Once it comes out of the wall socket, it does not split. The coax goes straight to the PlayTV and if the reception is bad enough I unplug the coax and plug it straight into the TV, so guess that I am avoiding a split as I know that I am in a poor reception area

vinnieg

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#497207 23-Jul-2011 21:08

nammacdac:

Yes I am not understanding about the split. Once it comes out of the wall socket, it does not split. The coax goes straight to the PlayTV and if the reception is bad enough I unplug the coax and plug it straight into the TV, so guess that I am avoiding a split as I know that I am in a poor reception area

Oh that's cool, that makes sense, yeah it's mostly like the PlayTV tuner, are you using the aerial cable that came with the TV? You could try buying a thicker cable and see if that improves it, I know with mine the PlayTV was getting round 88% signal while the TV was at 95, a thicker cable seemed to improve it, although mine is split 4 ways

I have moved across the ditch. Now residing in Melbourne as a VOIP/Video Technical Trainer/Engineer.

nammacdac

22 posts

Geek

#497209 23-Jul-2011 21:27

vinnieg:
nammacdac:

Yes I am not understanding about the split. Once it comes out of the wall socket, it does not split. The coax goes straight to the PlayTV and if the reception is bad enough I unplug the coax and plug it straight into the TV, so guess that I am avoiding a split as I know that I am in a poor reception area

Oh that's cool, that makes sense, yeah it's mostly like the PlayTV tuner, are you using the aerial cable that came with the TV? You could try buying a thicker cable and see if that improves it, I know with mine the PlayTV was getting round 88% signal while the TV was at 95, a thicker cable seemed to improve it, although mine is split 4 ways

From memory the PlayTV did not come with a coax, I think that I cut a piece of the existing cable in the roof cavity and made the cable to length

B1GGLZ

1961 posts

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#497219 23-Jul-2011 23:00

From memory the PlayTV did not come with a coax, I think that I cut a piece of the existing cable in the roof cavity and made the cable to length

Does this mean that you cut a piece out of the co-ax and then joined the cut ends together?
It is essential to have one unbroken piece of co-ax from the aerial to the wall socket. Any join will degrade the signal. It's also essential to have good quality co-ax from the wall to the PlayTV or TV socket. I have collected quite a few leads with moulded on plugs over the years and the quality varies considerably. Most give a very good picture but some have been of very poor quality resulting in much signal attenuation, some even being open circuit.
However, if you get a good signal on the TV tuner but poor signal on the PlayTV then it seems the tuner in the PlayTV is probably suspect and lacking in sensitivity.

nammacdac

22 posts

Geek

#497283 24-Jul-2011 09:17

B1GGLZ:

From memory the PlayTV did not come with a coax, I think that I cut a piece of the existing cable in the roof cavity and made the cable to length

Does this mean that you cut a piece out of the co-ax and then joined the cut ends together?
It is essential to have one unbroken piece of co-ax from the aerial to the wall socket. Any join will degrade the signal. It's also essential to have good quality co-ax from the wall to the PlayTV or TV socket. I have collected quite a few leads with moulded on plugs over the years and the quality varies considerably. Most give a very good picture but some have been of very poor quality resulting in much signal attenuation, some even being open circuit.
However, if you get a good signal on the TV tuner but poor signal on the PlayTV then it seems the tuner in the PlayTV is probably suspect and lacking in sensitivity.

Hi

No I guess I did not make it clear that I cut the end of the coax that runs through the roof cavity ie I made changes to the internal connection to the wall plate as I totally reconfigured the plate location because I mounted the PlayTV on the wall behind the V20 TV so that no cables are visible including the coax. I cut the cable when I did this

I have came to the same conclusion about the signal strength so my orginal two questions were aimed at this issue

Thanks

B1GGLZ

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#497319 24-Jul-2011 11:35

No I guess I did not make it clear that I cut the end of the coax that runs through the roof cavity ie I made changes to the internal connection to the wall plate as I totally reconfigured the plate location because I mounted the PlayTV on the wall behind the V20 TV so that no cables are visible including the coax. I cut the cable when I did this

I have came to the same conclusion about the signal strength so my orginal two questions were aimed at this issue

Thanks

OK, that makes sense so looks like the PlayTV is just lacking in sensitivity compared to the TV.

Jaxson

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#497515 25-Jul-2011 10:36

What you describe has been pretty common with some devices that have tuning issues. The inbuilt TV tuners seem to be exceptionally solid, capable and reliable. Some other boxes end up with distortion/pixilation etc from the very same signal.

Simply put the TV has a better setup than the PlayTV box.

Out of curiosity, does your PlayTV pixelate all the time, or just when you are recording something?

nammacdac

22 posts

Geek

#497698 25-Jul-2011 17:32

Jaxson: What you describe has been pretty common with some devices that have tuning issues. The inbuilt TV tuners seem to be exceptionally solid, capable and reliable. Some other boxes end up with distortion/pixilation etc from the very same signal.

Simply put the TV has a better setup than the PlayTV box.

Out of curiosity, does your PlayTV pixelate all the time, or just when you are recording something?

This is an extract from my first post

The Freeview reception has always been good through the V20 and reasonable with the PlayTV until winter arrived. Reception has deteriorated and so I had a professional come and he installed a hi gain UHF aerial and a signal amplifier. This improves the picture some of the time, but still has poor picture most of the time with PlayTV and still OK with the V20. The weather is mostly changeable and wet

The picture quality does not chage if it is recoding.

I was hoping that someone has the same experience with PlaYTV as I have and then I would be more confidence knowing that it was the tuner in PlayTV that was the problem, as if I can not fix the problem I will sell it and purchase a Panasonic HHD recoder, I would need to know that it has a better reciever and will solve the problem