Failed recordings « My Humax Forum

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Failed recordings

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Stephenesque

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giverny - 9 hours ago »
You are not alone with this problem according to my own experience and other postings I've seen on the net. I am on my second 4000T Nero and still getting the problem for 3 months now. I am running my old Humax 9300T in parallel with the 4000T off the same aerial feed with signal strength around 80% and quality 100%.
The picture on my TV is fine and all recordings on the 9300T are perfect (as they were on my older 9200T), but the 4000T consistently creates failed recordings/pixilated and noted that recordings start usually around 5 minutes late (but on time on the 9300T).
Humax are still trying to come up with an explanation.
I have been monitoring for some time but no explanation as to why it works OK sometimes and not others and nothing to show it is when 3 timers working either.

I had this problem myself when I first got my Nero model, but I put it down to user-error, as instead of connecting the aerial directly to the Humax and looping through to the TV I used a splitter to feed the signal directly to both.

I haven't had any failed recordings since I rectified my mistake and I regularly record four programmes at once.

| Sun 20 Mar 2016 12:29:49 #11 |
Faust

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Stephenesque - 1 hour ago »

giverny - 9 hours ago »
You are not alone with this problem according to my own experience and other postings I've seen on the net. I am on my second 4000T Nero and still getting the problem for 3 months now. I am running my old Humax 9300T in parallel with the 4000T off the same aerial feed with signal strength around 80% and quality 100%.
The picture on my TV is fine and all recordings on the 9300T are perfect (as they were on my older 9200T), but the 4000T consistently creates failed recordings/pixilated and noted that recordings start usually around 5 minutes late (but on time on the 9300T).
Humax are still trying to come up with an explanation.
I have been monitoring for some time but no explanation as to why it works OK sometimes and not others and nothing to show it is when 3 timers working either.

I had this problem myself when I first got my Nero model, but I put it down to user-error, as instead of connecting the aerial directly to the Humax and looping through to the TV I used a splitter to feed the signal directly to both.
I haven't had any failed recordings since I rectified my mistake and I regularly record four programmes at once.

A splitter should have given you a better result than loop-thru so that deepens the mystery. I use a passive splitter on my 2000T with excellent results.

| Sun 20 Mar 2016 13:57:29 #12 |
giverny

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I originally ran an aerial direct to a Humax 9300T looped through to a Humax 9200T which looped through to the TV which all worked fine.
When I bought the 4000T I ran my aerial direct to the 4000T with loop through to the TV and endless problems of failed recordings.

For now, I've reinstated the 9300T so I can still record stuff.
Current configuration is aerial to 4000T, loop through to 9300T and further loop through to TV. In this scenario the 4000T still keeps getting the failed recordings whilst the 9300T works perfectly. Humax so far unable to explain, still waiting on them.

Why should a splitter give a better result than direct feed ?

| Sun 20 Mar 2016 14:35:52 #13 |
Stephenesque

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A splitter should have given you a better result than loop-thru so that deepens the mystery. I use a passive splitter on my 2000T with excellent results.

With the splitter I had signal strengths of 1-70%; 2-67%; and 3 was only 48%.

After I connected my 4000T directly, my signal strengths increased to 1-84%; 2-85% and 3-78%

| Sun 20 Mar 2016 16:04:09 #14 |
grahamlthompson

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Stephenesque - 4 hours ago »

A splitter should have given you a better result than loop-thru so that deepens the mystery. I use a passive splitter on my 2000T with excellent results.

With the splitter I had signal strengths of 1-70%; 2-67%; and 3 was only 48%.
After I connected my 4000T directly, my signal strengths increased to 1-84%; 2-85% and 3-78%

Signal strength has no effect on the picture when digital modulation is involved, unless it falls so low the built in error correction cannot cope. The effect in this case is obvious (the picture breaks up into a pixellated mess, and the signal quality varies dramatically) . The signal quality is the important number. A quality of 100% means that none of the built in error correction is required to produce a perfect picture.

The general accepted figure for the ideal signal strength (metering varies with individual box models) is reckoned to be about 60%. This avoids problems with sensitive tuners not bein able to cope with high signal levels, where clipping the peaks of the analogue carrier can produce distortion of the output signal. In this case high levels of signal actually look low, down to the distortion produced by the signal clipping.

| Sun 20 Mar 2016 21:03:31 #15 |
viccot

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If the signal was too strong it should show at 100% but I get between 72 and 84%. I will give attenuator and splitter a try. I have both in my spares box.

Transmitter is considered a main but actually acts as a relay. No faults are reported according to the web site.

| Sun 20 Mar 2016 22:09:56 #16 |
Martin Liddle

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viccot - 44 minutes ago »
If the signal was too strong it should show at 100% but I get between 72 and 84%.

No sorry that is not correct; if the tuner is receiving a very strong signal then it can report a signal strength well below 100%.

| Sun 20 Mar 2016 22:56:20 #17 |
giverny

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So, based on above discussion, which is more important signal strength or signal quality and how would either of these cause the 4000T to consistently start recordings 4 to 5 minutes late for the majority of recordings as I am experiencing as well as the pixelation , even though my 9300T starts all recordings on time and no pixelation on the same aerial feed ?
Any thoughts greatfully received.

| Mon 21 Mar 2016 1:26:28 #18 |
grahamlthompson

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giverny - 7 hours ago »
So, based on above discussion, which is more important signal strength or signal quality and how would either of these cause the 4000T to consistently start recordings 4 to 5 minutes late for the majority of recordings as I am experiencing as well as the pixelation , even though my 9300T starts all recordings on time and no pixelation on the same aerial feed ?
Any thoughts greatfully received.

Signal quality is by far the most important measurement.

The most common cause of this is that when you auto tuned the box it tuned into more than one transmitter. This would have given you channels with a lcn of 800 and over. Note depending on the uhf channels that your multiple transmitters use for their mux, the ones over 800 could be the ones you should be using. In this case it's not going to help just deleting these, as you may be left with mux from different transmitters. This creates issues with the accurate recording signalling used by broadcasters.

The solution is very simple.

Identify your local transmitter by entering your details here.

http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/industry/About_DTT/The_postcode_coverage_checker

The most likely transmitter will be top of the list. The grey numbers are the UHF channel numbers you want. Make a note of these and note which are HD.

Next you need to select and delete all your existing Radio and TV channels and delete them.

Now tune each of the above MUX in turn using manaual tune (DVB-T for SD, DVB-T2 for HD) and save each scan.

I don't have the actual box but the actual steps should be fairly obvious. Hopefully someone with the actual box will assist further.

| Mon 21 Mar 2016 9:34:42 #19 |
giverny

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Sadly manual tune was the first thing Humax got me to try and it made no difference. My box only auto tunes to one transmitter in any event.

| Mon 21 Mar 2016 11:36:54 #20 |