[mythtv-users] Where is the CHEAPEST PVR-500 out there

[Greg Woods]

On Wed, 2005-09-28 at 11:06 -0400, Folashade Adeyosoye wrote:

> 
>       * Am able to bring up liveTV, BUT (the other 5%) is its coming
>         up as snow, not totally black and white snow, but colored.

Are you splitting the cable signal at any point? Even outside the house?
If so, you might want to check for signal strength issues by removing
(at least temporarily) any splitters from the line. If that improves
things, you probably have a signal strength issue, in which case a
signal amplifier might help. There are also other threads on signal
strength issues involving how to use crimped connections instead of
screw-on to improve signal strength; if you are handy with tools (I'm
not), this could also help. If you use a signal amp, put it as far
"upstream" as possible, before any splitters, although it's not
realistic to have one outside, so you may not be able to have it before
EVERY splitter. I've got a three-way splitter outside the house, and
inside, my computer is at the end of a 25-ft cable run (I have no cable
outlet in the computer room so I had to run a cable through the wall
from the living room). A signal amplifier helped get my PVR-500 to work
well, but I was never able to put a splitter at the end of that 25-ft
run without serious signal degradation. The HD-3000 with V4L drivers was
much more sensitive to this than the PVR-500 was, which is why I suggest
this as a possibility. In particular in my case, the low numbered
channels looked much worse than higher numbered channels. But both cards
worked reasonably well with the signal amplifier when I removed the
splitter and connected only one of them, but without the splitter, I
couldn't use both cards, so I too have removed my HD-3000 to use another
day for OTA HD when I actually have an HD capable TV. I too bought mine
because I feared they would soon be banned.

--Greg