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11. 

    grahamlthompson
    

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    DarrenHill - 18 mins ago  » 

    james_uk - 2 days ago  » 
    Do you know if anything has been improved with the signal strength as the OP mentioned?
    Is this a general issue?
    I don't have an Aura yet but considering one, this is something that worries me a little as i have seen it mentioned a few times

    I'm still having intermittent issues with mine - sometimes nice watchable signal and other times totally unwatchable (either black screen or pixelation galore, both with garbled sound). Signal strength of >90%, but quality <20% and in some cases 0%.
    What's most odd though is that the Tv (connected to the same aerial line via the feedthrough from the Aura) sees signal strength 100% and quality >90% and no issues at all, even when the Aura is heavily affected.
    Had a play with some attenuators and no improvement, so it's most likely the opposite issue and a lack of signal strength for the Aura's tuners (but not the TV's one). Time to look into (another) booster, alongside the one in the loft.

    Try a 5G filter. Extra amplification is likely to make it much worse. I would try a filter and remove the amp to see what happens.

    | Fri 16 Apr 2021 9:42:53 #11 |
12. 

    DarrenHill
    

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    There's already a filter in the loft, but I'm not sure if it's 4G or 5G (or both). Will have to check, but thanks for the suggestion. Will look into it.

    But how would that account for the signal coming and going, as I would expect 5G interference to be fairly constant?

    | Fri 16 Apr 2021 10:23:08 #12 |
13. 

    grahamlthompson
    

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    DarrenHill - 27 mins ago  » 
    There's already a filter in the loft, but I'm not sure if it's 4G or 5G (or both). Will have to check, but thanks for the suggestion. Will look into it.
    But how would that account for the signal coming and going, as I would expect 5G interference to be fairly constant?

    It likely down to harmonics generated by a 4G/ 5G carrier. If the quality of the signal is varying the UHF carrier is no longer a perfect sine wave. If it gets too much the built in error correction can't cope.

    Strange the TV can cope. How close is the router to the box ?

    | Fri 16 Apr 2021 10:54:44 #13 |
14. 

    DarrenHill
    

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    If you mean internet router, other side of the wall with ethernet cable connection through it.

    Basically the aerial has a booster and a filter (I think 4G) in the loft, then feeds two TV sets plus 2 HDHomerun boxes (fed from the same aerial sockets as the TVs, via splitters) and the Aura (with the lounge TV daisy-chained from the Aura's feedthrough output). Both TVs show good pictures, and the HDHomeruns are more or less OK although the channels that the Aura tends to lose are a little pixelated at times but much better than the Aura is.

    I'm fine to try adding a 5G filter as well in the loft, it's just weird that the TVs work fine. I've tried moving the Aura upstairs onto the other TV, and it's basically no different. The only conclusion is what the OP said, that the Aura's tuners are weaker compared to those in the other devices, or are on a wider frequency band and so being affected more by wider range interference.

    | Fri 16 Apr 2021 11:57:43 #14 |
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    Martin Liddle
    

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    DarrenHill - 1 hour ago  » 

    Basically the aerial has a booster and a filter (I think 4G) in the loft,

    Have you considered temporarily bypassing the booster to see if a lower signal level helps?

    | Fri 16 Apr 2021 13:43:45 #15 |
16. 

    DarrenHill
    

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    Martin Liddle - 56 mins ago  » 

    DarrenHill - 1 hour ago  » 
    Basically the aerial has a booster and a filter (I think 4G) in the loft,

    Have you considered temporarily bypassing the booster to see if a lower signal level helps?

    Yes, tried both that and inserting an attenuator before the Aura. When bypassing the booster, everything vanished from the Aura and the signal on the TVs was much poorer. So the boost is needed, but of course if there's interference that will get boosted too.

    I've ordered a 5G filter, should arrive at the end of next week. For a tenner it's certainly worth a try.

    Recorded a couple of things last night and they were perfect, so it's certainly something external that's coming and going, as other times I turn the thing on or record stuff and it's just pixelated junk rather than a show. Maybe atmospherics related perhaps, hence the filter is worth a shot.

    | Fri 16 Apr 2021 14:42:47 #16 |
17. 

    DarrenHill
    

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    OK, 5G filter now arrived and installed.

    Lovely clear signal on the TV, and absolute junk on the Aura. Signal strength 91%, quality 0% and mostly a black screen with garbled audio.

    This is really starting to get irritating, as sometimes it's perfect on the Aura, most times it's ok audio and pixelated video (usually to the point of not being watchable) and in the extreme like now it's black screen and awful audio.

    Any other thoughts or suggestions to try?

    | Tue 20 Apr 2021 17:08:03 #17 |
18. 

    DarrenHill
    

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    Got it fixed

    Called an engineer in with a spectrum analyser, and turns out that the booster was the fault. Signal going in was 50dB and good quality, signal coming out was 70dB and poor quality.

    Replaced it (and the cable between the socket and Aura, which was also cheap and poor - I think maybe the one from the Aura's predecessor) and now have a quality on the Aura of 80-100%, and watchable signal with no pixelation.

    Also I think I just got the new Google TV update, so time to play again this weekend...

    | Fri 23 Apr 2021 9:02:11 #18 |
19. 

    macaronipie
    

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    After two weeks of running the latest software and updated Android to Google Play I still have some issues with the less than stellar Aura. In the past week I have noticed pressing on the Mute button on the Aura Remote does not Mute the sound when using the TV Speakers, the Mute button does work when the Audio System Speakers are selected.
    The Volume controls plus and minus worked while TV speakers were selected up until two days ago, powering down and restarting did not improve the issue, nor did disconnecting the power and reconnecting and rebooting.

    Every now and then changing the channel will result in a loss of picture and/ or sound, restarting the Aura resolves this issue.
    Sometimes when switching on the Aura there is no picture and/ or sound, restarting resolves that issue.
    Whilst watching the Aura the other night it gave out a whine and shutdown, I left it for 5 minutes after which it decided it would let me watch television again and started up.
    Last night while it was off, the hard drive was audible, it was not recording, it gave out another baleful whine and the hard drive stopped spinning. I decided to start it up, it was working ok.
    Occasionally there are times when selecting a recording to play you will see the timeline but the recording will not start,
    restarting the recalcitrant Aura will then allow me to watch my recordings.

    How frustrating, I have not tried a full factory reset for fear of losing my recordings, I know it is not supposed to but
    seeing as this PVR is a hotchpotch of software engineered by Boeing and the Marx Brothers I am not too confident.

    | Fri 30 Apr 2021 8:17:56 #19 |
20. 

    grahamlthompson
    

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    The Auras remote control can only vary the volume of SD channels. It's not a fault it's down to Audio codec used on HD channels. It's AAC audio which the box recodes to Dolby Digital. The volume is hard coded into the data stream. It can only be varied after it's decoded which could be a AVR or a TV. So you would need to use the TV or AVR remote controls unless you ask the box to recode AAC to PCM. Which will enable the box volume control for all channels.

    FVP- Settings - Audio and Video - Digital Audio set to Stereo.

    The Hard disk is supposed to spin down to put the box in ultra low power sby (less than 0.5W). It's a legal requirement it can wake up from 0.5W power to make timed recordings.

    FVP - settings Freeview PLay preferences. Scroll down

    To Auto standby which controls how long it takes to go into full sby without a remote control operation.

    Auto settings 30 minutes, 1 hour, 3 hours, 6 hrs 12 hours and Never. The option I have is never

    Deep Standby Set By Start and End times Never 30 minutes, 1 1 hour 2 hours Set By start and end time. The option I have is set by start and end time

    Deep Standby Schedule. Line is set to 12:oo AM - 06:30 AM.

    This allows me to watch the early morning news programmes on a tablet without having to physically wake the box.

    Apart from the failure to start replay of a recording all the aboce just shows you simply have not bothered to read the public beta software threads.

    Mine replays recordings without issue.

    If you do a factory reset be sure to export your user settings and schedule first and re-import after the full reset.

    If you had you would have easily found out all this information.

    | Fri 30 Apr 2021 9:05:01 #20 |

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