My cable provider converted to digital last year, so I now have cable boxes on three primary TVs: family room, master bedroom and my home office. All was well up until maybe 3-4 months ago, when I noticed that the TV in the den would periodically have episodes of pixilation, which gradually worsened. Only that TV had the problem; the other two sets performed just fine when set to the same channel. My first thought was that the cable box was failing (I had earlier replaced one that failed), so I called the cable company. Their (remote) diagnostics showed no problem, and the rep on the phone suggested that maybe some on-going work on their lines in the neighborhood might be causing interference. OK...
In the following days, the problem continued and I paid closer attention. I realized that it seemed to begin at about the same time each day (10 AM) and last for 3-4 hours, and that one channel in particular was most effected (although not exclusively). I decided to swap cable boxes between TVs. That had no effect -- problem persisted.
I decided that maybe the problem was internal to that TV, so I swapped TVs around. No effect -- problem persisted at that location.
Maybe bad cables? I replaced both the HDMI cable from the box to the TV, and the coax input to the box with new cables. No effect -- problem persisted.
By this time, I was really perplexed. The TV in question sits in an entertainment center, and the only other electrical device within 12' is a 7-yr old Magnavox Blu-ray player (model #NB500MG1F), a power strip (typical 6-outlet surge protector) and house wiring. The player was turned off and had been disconnected from the TV when I swapped TVs around and not reconnected, so I had dismissed it as a possible problem source; however, it was still plugged in to the power strip. A couple of mornings ago when the TV started to act up, I decided to just pull everything out. For some reason, the first thing I did was unplug the Blu-ray player. The TV image immediately cleared up! After maybe 15 minutes I plugged the player back into the power strip -- the TV image started to degrade within seconds. Unplug the player and the image clears!
I left the TV on since then, and it has (so far, after more than 24-hrs on) shown none of the pixilation problems, so I’m becoming fairly sure the player was the source of the problem – but how? The problem only occurred within a limited time frame (~10AM -- 2 PM), and primarily (though not exclusively) affected one channel. I had the player manual in my files and there is no programmable playback or similar function that might involve timed activity. Any ideas?
In the following days, the problem continued and I paid closer attention. I realized that it seemed to begin at about the same time each day (10 AM) and last for 3-4 hours, and that one channel in particular was most effected (although not exclusively). I decided to swap cable boxes between TVs. That had no effect -- problem persisted.
I decided that maybe the problem was internal to that TV, so I swapped TVs around. No effect -- problem persisted at that location.
Maybe bad cables? I replaced both the HDMI cable from the box to the TV, and the coax input to the box with new cables. No effect -- problem persisted.
By this time, I was really perplexed. The TV in question sits in an entertainment center, and the only other electrical device within 12' is a 7-yr old Magnavox Blu-ray player (model #NB500MG1F), a power strip (typical 6-outlet surge protector) and house wiring. The player was turned off and had been disconnected from the TV when I swapped TVs around and not reconnected, so I had dismissed it as a possible problem source; however, it was still plugged in to the power strip. A couple of mornings ago when the TV started to act up, I decided to just pull everything out. For some reason, the first thing I did was unplug the Blu-ray player. The TV image immediately cleared up! After maybe 15 minutes I plugged the player back into the power strip -- the TV image started to degrade within seconds. Unplug the player and the image clears!
I left the TV on since then, and it has (so far, after more than 24-hrs on) shown none of the pixilation problems, so I’m becoming fairly sure the player was the source of the problem – but how? The problem only occurred within a limited time frame (~10AM -- 2 PM), and primarily (though not exclusively) affected one channel. I had the player manual in my files and there is no programmable playback or similar function that might involve timed activity. Any ideas?
