One Aerial - Multiple TV Tuners - Worse Signal? (1 Viewer)

[revs]

I have noticed recently that my TV Recordings have had a pretty bad picture - jumps every now and then, breaks up etc - although if i watch live TV, this is fine.

I am assuming this is due to the fact I recently bought a new dual tuner card, so have one aerial, a splitter, then a wire going to a single DVB-T card and a wire going to the dual DVB-T card?

I am guessing the signal is not good enough for 3 cards at once? and so any recordings that are going on while another card is in use are being affected as the signal is not strong enough?

Can anyone confirm?

I will try unplugging the single DVB-T card and using just the dual tuner. See if thats any better.

I have the smallest possible cables between the wall and card, and have also tried an amplifier (made the signal worse).

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Have 6 aerial connections, 3 dvb-t pc tuners + 3 settop boxes, have internal booster, but all works fine, pc signal shows 50% signal 100% quality.

I would suspect Area signal being low or atennae\cabling bad.

 

[revs]

I live in apartments, so nothing I can do about the signal before it reaches the wall point

I guess theres not much im doing wrong. 2 < 1m good quality cables, good quality splitter and 2 cards. so i have no really long cables, or bad connections. Maybe the cards are overheating? there are three (2xTV 1x graphics) next to each other, all with passive cooling.

But recordings havent been great - will have to do more tests tonight (as ive changed the cabling a bit), but if i still get problems ill just remove the single DVB card and see how that goes.

I may also try splitting the signal at the dual card, instead of splitting it at the wall point - not sure if that would make any difference though?!

i.e. currently

WALL POINT
      |
     /\
    /  \
   |    |
  |     |
 C1   C2

and i could try

WALL POINT
      |
     /
    /  
   |    
  | ___ 
  |/      \
  C1     C2

(love the ASCII art )

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Has any of your dvb-t cards got passthrough, ie aerial out, that should work better linking the cards, because no signal degrading.

 

[revs]

Nope - both cards have a single input.

I am assuming the Dual-DVB-T card is best to be the "main" card, as it has one input and must split the signal internally (ans i assume it does an ok job).

Its a pity that MP doesnt handle video errors a bit nicer though - as when i tested the recordings with VLC thay are a lot smoother, you just get garbled squares on screen, whereas MP just freezes and misses complete frames

I'll change my cables around tonight and see if i can improve matters.

 

[Avigrace]

Buy a cheap signal booster from argos, splitting the signal degrades the quality. A 2 signal booster will cost about £10-£20.

 

[revs]

I tried that (and it was even from argos ). Returned the amplifier yesterday as it ended up making the signal worse! I guess its amplifying the noise as well as the signal!

I may just remove a card and use the Dual DVB-T card.

I have a DVB-S card also - so three tuners should be enough (single seat install)