Alternating Static and Normal!

[ant_in_wales]

Hello
I have a very strange fault, which almost seems deliberate!
My beloved and aged HD suddenly started alternating 2 seconds of static with about half a second of normal vision.
Cables all seemed fine - it's connected to a Yamaha AV receiver and then to the TV and I can see the Yamaha icons when selected.
Aerial fine.
I assumed my box had died, and unable to find anything that does what I need better (and seeing the mixed reviews for newer Humaxes) I bought a second hand HD off eBay.

It does exactly the same thing!

It shows a few seconds of static, and then a fraction of a second of normal vision.
Which implies it's happening deliberately!
Could it be a DRM issue? The TV? The amp?
At least if I fix this I've a spare HD!

All suggestions very gratefully received.

(And as a note on other issues people are having, a few weeks ago the unit would say it couldn't see the HDD, but after 2 minutes it would be fine.)

 

[everthewatcher]

That's odd as 'static' suggests an analogue TV source - could the display be being switched between an analog TV tuner [and] the HD-Fox?

 

[prpr]

Have you tried changing the HDMI cable(s)?
My HD is sharing with a PC to a monitor via HDMI switcher and sometimes it gives HDMI shash due to lack of lock when switching, which is what I presume you mean by static.

 

[ant_in_wales]

Thanks for the replies, but I've tested with a different HDMI and it's the same.
I wonder if the problem is the AV Receiver not being happy with the Humax output somehow.

 

[prpr]

It only leaves the AV Receiver or the TV. As a test, can you bypass the receiver and go straight to the TV?
Is there another input you can try on it?

 

[Black Hole]

I think it's a TV/AMP issue, but strange that is should just happen spontaneously. Could either have updated their firmware without you knowing? Suggest testing with a different make of TV if possible.

 

[ant_in_wales]

Thank you all for your help
It seems this was a "hand-shaking" problem - somewhere along the path the HDMI signal was getting confused.
So I turned everything off at the socket for half an hour, powered back on Tv - AV Receiver - Humax.
Everything works fine.
Well, sorta. I made the mistake of installing the latest firmware during troubleshooting, so it's now afflicted by the lazy channel changing and massive lip-sync problems on HD.
I've degraded to 1.03.02, and people's mouths now fit their words.
My only issue is that my old USB HDD from my initial device can be seen and my old recordings viewed, but they won't play and it won't record.
Can a USB only play on the device it was recorded on?

 

[Black Hole]

I've degraded to 1.03.02, and people's mouths now fit their words.

As of 29th September 2020, BBC iPlayer on the TV Portal stopped working due to expired certificates (HDR-FOX and HD-FOX). The YouTube app on the TV Portal has not been working for some time, due to YouTube's increasing demands on the client (see here for technical details https://hummy.tv/forum/threads/iplayer-stopped-working.9882/post-153888).

1.03.13 (HDR) / 1.03.03 (HD) restore iPlayer functionality, and were made available for download from the Humax website as of 20/03/2021. These firmwares update 1.03.12/1.03.02 with new certificates. It is no secret I regard this as remarkable, considering the length of time these models have been out of warranty. Humax first made a version of 1.03.12 available privately, with updated certificates, and this seemed to be satisfactory, but release of 1.03.13/1.03.03 has been accompanied by a new build of the executable which has proven unsatisfactory for HD-FOX: there are issues with the time it takes to change channel, and significant loss of synchronisation between sound and vision for many minutes (it catches up in the end)*. This does not appear to affect the HDR-FOX build 1.03.13.

You can restore iPlayer functionality by installing custom firmware and the iplfix package. If you don't need iPlayer functionality, there's no need to bother.

Can a USB only play on the device it was recorded on?

Yes (as standard). See Things Every... (click) section 5.

However, it is possible to decrypt the recordings using a utility on a Windows or Linux PC, or by installing custom firmware on the HD-FOX. See Decryption Guide (click). CF also makes it possible to alter the encryption key, so you could (say) make HD-FOX2 play recordings from HD-FOX1 even without them being decrypted.

 

[ant_in_wales]

Thank you for your help @Black Hole and for your ongoing support on this invaluable forum.
I don't need iPlayer (I've got a Raspberry Pi too) but will have a look at decrypt