Picture breakup, sound mute

Freeview (and Freeview HD) signal strength is ideal at 75% and quality should be 100% for trouble free viewing.
Possible picture pixilation and sound outages may be due to bad connections in your setup, poor quality coax and possibly water in the down lead. A faulty distribution box is rare but a possibility too. Digital signals ideally should not be amplified, a quality aerial is all that should be necessary as amplification increases noise. If you are using a distribution box, and most houses do these days, use the pass through (full output) for your main viewing to give you direct connection to your aerial.
Fluctuations in signal quality point to connection problems.
 
There was a huge disturbance in a recording I watched last night; it went on for about 20 seconds, going between freeze frame, back to normal for a fraction of a second, and break up. Original channel was BBC 1 HD, "The Lady Vanishes". Most of my recordings are on BBC, but I think the problem has only been on the BBC HD channels.
 
I recorded that particular programme (Winter Hill transmitter) too and it replayed perfectly.
I gather when you replay the scene the same disturbance occurs which points to the original transmission as the problem as the hard disc records exactly what is sent to it.
Make sure you have the latest firmware, check your settings and if your signal strength and quality are OK do a factory reset to retune.
You should get at least 71 channels with none residing in the 800 area. If you have it means you are tuning from two transmitters and unfortunately the T1000 does not (as yet) offer a manual tuning option.
With regards to settings in particular look for the pass-through from the RF-out port option. if you don't need it turn it off.
This site - ukfree.tv - offers some good information and may be of help.

Fred
 
If you registered it with Humax there's a two year guarantee on the T1000.
I would be heading back to your place of purchase as your problem indicates an inherent fault which entitles you to a new one if it's under six months old as it's up to the seller to prove it wasn't faulty when you bought it. Don't be fobbed off with a repair. After six months it's down to you to prove it and you may have to accept a repair. Any problems quote the (2003) Sale And Supply of Goods To Consumers Regulations, noting that the contract is with them, the seller, not the manufacturer therefore making them accountable.

Fred
 
The problem is that I have many hours of recordings, so I would prefer to find out what is the cause of this problem. One thing I have noticed: the fault has never shown up early in a recording, but this could be a coincidence.
 
In case you haven't tried it try recording a programme while watching it at the same time.
It will confirm that you have playback (only) problems if nothing occurs during the transmission.
It may be a component breaking down (getting hot under load) or a sign of hard disc failure in which case a new disc is the only solution.
As you have updated the firmware, re-tuned and checked your settings and have no transmission problems the only option looks to be a replacement or repair.
Some of the early T1000s did have 'new build' issues and your unit may be one of them.
If you opt for repair insist that they transfer your recordings to the new disc for you as a goodwill gesture, especially considering the fault has been an issue since you bought it. Technically there is no reason they could not do this.

Fred
 
If it corrupts on all your individual recordings then I would suggest that whatever is causing the fault is not going to repair itself. Once electrical components start to fail they inevitable do fail.
Three months old with a persistent fault from day one is grounds for 'goods not fit for purpose.' Watch all your corrupted recordings then exchange it asap for a new unit.
The seller has a legal obligation to replace inherently faulty goods within a reasonable period, which is regarded as six months.

Fred
 
If you opt for repair insist that they transfer your recordings to the new disc for you as a goodwill gesture, especially considering the fault has been an issue since you bought it.
Has anyone experience of this actually being done? What if it's not the disk that's faulty?
 
If they are able to do that then that would indicate they have tools to bypass the DRM mechanism which I assume includes relying on the signature of the physical hard disk.
 
Even if a unit is without fault picture playback and recording can be affected by interference from nearby electrical sources such as fridges switching on and off, mains spikes etc. However an intermittent 20 second period of freezing and pixilation followed by normal playback on all recordings is very difficult to diagnose accurately.
Diagnostic software would rule out bad sectors on the hard disk and if the disk is OK it would be cheaper to replace the whole board and power supply rather than take the time to test for problematic components. Or, more likely and the cheapest option would be to replace the unit.

DRM lets you make a single copy for personal use and will prevent the production of copies from the initial copy thus preventing mass duplication of copyright material. The only technical restriction prevents sharing Freeview HDrecordings via the internet. There are no restrictions on SD (standard definition) recordings and
it is not illegal (yet) to make copies of CDs or DVDs for personal use.

All new Freeview HD boxes have Content Management Technology built-in to decrypt DRM material so there would be no reason why it would not be possible to copy recorded content from one disk to another and replayed through another CMT enabled unit. Hard disks do fail and are replaced in PVRs and are not designated to operate in one unit only.

If you send it for repair and they diagnose the problem as the hard drive you can ask for it to be returned without repair to watch your recordings. Then buy a new drive, (you would of course invalidate your guarantee) remove the HD, then hook it up to a PC and copy the content to a new disk using disk cloning software which is widely available on the web.

Fred
 
I think this is getting fanciful. Nobody in a repair shop is going to stop in the middle of work to check whether the customer actually wants it back without being repaired, and the warranty covers the unit as supplied and not any material that may have been recorded on it. It may be possible to clone the drive, but if the file system is faulty you will clone the faults too. We also have no idea how the drive is formatted, it could be completely custom.

When things get this complicated, remember this: it's only telly, loss of recordings might be considered an inconvenience at the time but would soon be forgotten.
 
To be honest, this picture break-up and loss of sound is exactly what happens when the signal is corrupted by impulse noise. For instance, my recordings do exactly what the OP describes every time my central heating pump switches off! I think the relay contacts inside the boiler are sparking, causing the interference.

I'm convinced there is nothing wrong with the Humax - it's an interference problem.
 
A quick update on this. I did a factory reset in maintenance mode as advised by Humax (see attached for instructions on getting into maintenance mode). Note that this kept my recordings, but wiped the Schedule!

It may have fixed the problem for the recordings since that date. Fingers crossed ...
 

Attachments

  • DTR-T1000 MMS Recovery.pdf
    245.7 KB · Views: 7
It has been illegal in the UK since forever to duplicate copyright material without permission of the rights-older.

It is legal to duplicate CDs, BDs and DVDs now. There is just one problem. It is illegal to remove the TPM.

So, effectively, you can copy your CDs, but not BDs and DVDs.

Also, the TPM removal in customized firmware on your Hummy is equally illegal. So, that applies to removal of TPM on all your HDR Fox T2 content and TPM HD content on your Foxsat HDR.

We are all going to jail!
 
I have only had this problem since the last upgrade! I am also having the problem that the box sometimes freezes when I start playing a recording.

Is this a general problem and/or what will I have to do to resolve this problem?
 
Back
Top