Any way to clean up a cable TV signal? Update.

[Jeff7]

I'm guessing that the cable out here just plain sucks; THIS is what Futurama looks like on Cartoon Network. It seems to happen mainly on bright areas. A few other stations here have ghosting.
Is this something I can fix, or should I just live with it for now. (this is a rural area, so I think we are as important to the cable company as bird crap is to a car.)

Update, Thursday 1-16-02. Cable guy was here yesterday, saw the distortion, said he'd do something about it back at the main office, and left. Today, the distortion is still there, and now the Internet connection is dying about once an hour, requiring the modem to be rebooted. I REALLY wish there were other good options for TV and broadband Internet. We're way too rural for DSL - no plans to add the capability to this area in the next year. Satellite with a phone line uplink isn't an option - expensive, and part of the reason we got cable internet was to free up the phone line.
I'll give it till tomorrow I guess; I have no idea what's required to eliminate distortion like that; could be simple, could be really difficult, don't know. We'll see.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Nothing you can do. You got signal. Bad signal. The cable co is going to have to fix it, but just in case make sure your connections from where the cable enters the house are good, and that the cable is not near a strong source of RF signals.

 

[Jeff7]

I don't see anything that might cause RF interference; there are some flourescent lights around, but they are a few feet away, and off. The distortion varies; on lower channels, there's ghosting, on channels in the 30-40's, the picture's pretty good; in the 50's and up, it varies. Now there's a different show on Cartoon Network, and there's white lines all over the place; the next channel up has diagonal interference lines.

A thought occurs - the cable coming in for the cable modem is new - comes directly from the box outside. Would it be ok to run that to the TV card in the computer, just to see if its something as simple as old cable causing the bad signal? I'm guessing it's the same signal type, but I want to be sure.

 

[Reel]

My cable for the cable modem is the same line as the tv, just split. Give it a shot.

Also, I remember my uncle had a billion splits in his house for cable and so he bought powered signal amplifiers at radio shack for the long runs to improve the signal quality. When his tv in the kitchen's amp went out, it was a noticeable improvement from no amp to amp.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Does this happen on EVERY TV in the house? Try another receiver and see if it has something to do with fine tuning. Cable TV works much in the same way as the radio signals in the air....there are many frequencies that go over the coax and it's often that a tuner will drift....or the cable provider's signal transmitters will drift and cause the signal to look like that for everyone.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

You can try it. Also if you are friendly with a neighbor, ask them how their picture is. Might help to localize things. I understand that most often the problem lies between the pole and your set. Not to hard for the cable guys to fix. You are paying them, why not have them come out? My father in law lives in the back of beyond, and they were out the same day as the call when he had a problem

 

[Zim Hosein]

Jeff7, I had an issue like you posted and after calling the cable co., they sent a guy out to check all the connections and it turned out the the cause was a poor RF modulator for my Sega Genesis! He unplugged it and every connection after that improved. Hope this helps

 

[Heisenberg]

Try it with the new cable. If your cable modem works okay, the TV signal should be okay as well. The data side of the cable signal is far less tolerant to noise than the TV side.

 

[Jeff7]

Ok, here's the setup I have: Cable comes in the house, goes to an amplifier, then a signal filter, then a small surge suppressor, then a splitter. The signal was bad through all that. So, I just bypassed it all and went directly to the tuner. The signal is the same.
Then I tried it with the new cable that the cable modem uses - same distortion. I guess I'll have to try to get some service out of the cable company.

 

[Heisenberg]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
Ok, here's the setup I have: Cable comes in the house, goes to an amplifier, then a signal filter, then a small surge suppressor, then a splitter. The signal was bad through all that. So, I just bypassed it all and went directly to the tuner. The signal is the same.
Then I tried it with the new cable that the cable modem uses - same distortion. I guess I'll have to try to get some service out of the cable company.

Yep, complain until they fix it.

 

[Jeff7]

They probably have a picture of me there with "666" on it - I had complained a lot about the Internet service out here too - it constantly would die, or else at times it would make a 56k modem feel speedy. At least it's finally working, most of the time; it does cut out at least once a day for a few seconds; I guess that's tolerable - better than it was.

Edit: Ok, just e-mailed them with a description of the problem, and the link to the picture. There's at least one thing they are good about, and that's making phone calls. Hopefully this will be resolved.
Other times there's been distortion and they've tried to fix it (I've never called about it before though) the distortion would just move - if it was on channel 13, it would just move to channel 14.

 

[LeStEr]

Happens to me too so I switched to directv. Looks 10x better but then again my cable sucks.

 

[HannibalX]

i got digital cable... picture looks like regular cable - signal boosters will fuvk your internet though, mine slowed to a crawl on boost!

 

[BDawg]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
I'm guessing that the cable out here just plain sucks; THIS is what Futurama looks like on Cartoon Network. It seems to happen mainly on bright areas. A few other stations here have ghosting.
Is this something I can fix, or should I just live with it for now. (this is a rural area, so I think we are as important to the cable company as bird crap is to a car.)

Yes, getting a satellite dish will fix that signal up real quick!

 

[Yzzim]

One of the local stations here said that any ghosting may be due to snow or ice on the tower at their station.

I've noticed that the quality of the picture degrades in the winter quite a bit, so it makes sense.

 

[tarheelmm]

May want to try a signal repeater also.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: tarheelmm
May want to try a signal repeater also.

One of my posts says:
"Ok, here's the setup I have: Cable comes in the house, goes to an amplifier, then a signal filter, then a small surge suppressor, then a splitter."


The amplifier is powered, and rated at 10dB boost.

 

[Jeff7]

Have an update, unfortunately, it's not a good one; it's in the original posting up top.

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

Well, it's probably something out at the poll (the "tap" looks like an eight-way splitter, or as I like to call it, an octopus), or in routing somewhere. He should have started at the house and checked every connection, working backwards, to the poll, then work backwards toward the office. Don't worry, he'll find it.

 

[AmigaMan]

You don't need a phone line to be connected all the time to use satellite. I had Dish Network for a year last year and only hooked it up to the phone line when I ordered PPV and when I was originally setting it up. Other than those times, I had it disconnected from the phone line. Worked just fine.
The only bad thing I didn't like about it was the tuner paused when I changed channels, unlike cable which is instantaneous. I hear they've fixed that problem with the newer satellite receivers though. Picture quality was outstanding, and only once did it start fading due to a rainstorm. And it was a big heavy shower too I might add.

 

[NutBucket]

The current satellite internet setup, DirectWay, is two way, up and down. The only downside to this service is lantency/ping is a lot higher then w/ DSL or Cable. Its mainly an issue if you're gaming.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: ffmcobalt
Well, it's probably something out at the poll (the "tap" looks like an eight-way splitter, or as I like to call it, an octopus), or in routing somewhere. He should have started at the house and checked every connection, working backwards, to the poll, then work backwards toward the office. Don't worry, he'll find it.

They were out here already about a week or two ago because the Internet kept dying; he replaced stuff in the box on the side of the house, and on the pole.
I wonder if the connection is dying because they are actually checking connections elsewhere?

 

[everman]

When I had my cable modem installed about 2 years ago I had to have 3 guys come out to try to fix it, it usually lost the signal if it ever did get connected. After a couple visits they sent someone that knew what they were doing and he adjusted the amplifier on the telephone pole and I"ve never ever had a problem since. Althouth picture quality isn't always that great, I get about 3mb/s connection.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: everman
When I had my cable modem installed about 2 years ago I had to have 3 guys come out to try to fix it, it usually lost the signal if it ever did get connected. After a couple visits they sent someone that knew what they were doing and he adjusted the amplifier on the telephone pole and I"ve never ever had a problem since. Althouth picture quality isn't always that great, I get about 3mb/s connection.

3Mb/s? Is that bits or bytes? We're capped at 800kbps - 100kilobytes/sec!

 

[cjchaps]

Get Sat TV service of some sort, the phone line usage is low and at night like some one else said. The picture is better than cable is right now, and the channel selection is greater.