Weird high tech problem

[TASP]

Bought a new 75" Sony 1080P TV. Everything was fine till I got in the setup menu and got it to download a software update, which it did just fine.

Then, next day (did software update at bedtime, didn;t want to lose any valuable TV watching time on a new TV) no internet. Didn't really think too much about it, I'm in a remote, trackless waste, and a call to the internet guy, who suggested unplugging the router, and all was well again.

For an hour, then no internet.

Reset again, internet for 10 minutes.

Oh, getting worse !!

Anyhow, spent all weekend unplugging the damn router and then having internet for random lengths of time, seconds to an hour or so. For some reason, decided the new TV and software download preceded the problem rather suspiciously, so I went in the TV menu and turned off the bluetooth setting.

Internet has been fine all day!

Not that big a deal I suppose, every 4 months or so I'll update software on TV, rest of the time leave it off. Don't like internet features on TV anyhow.

Just thought I'd post this, might be an issue for others, and it occurs to me, if someone in an apartment building or not a rural area like here, it might be an issue if the neighbors bought a new TV and messed up someone elses internet.

Not sure what the 'actual' problem is, interference, of TV sucking up all the bytes, or what, and it doesn't really matter to me. Just annoying as anything till I figured it out.

[Don Shepherd]

Fortunately, I've never owned a TV that needed a "software update." My TV's have always been like can openers; you just plug it in and it works (with an antenna or cable connection).

My TV sits right next to my keypunch and IBM Selectric typewriter!

[Garth Wilson]

My wife just got a new flat-screen one (against my wishes, as I'd rather not have a TV in the house), and the new one's receiver's sensitivity is very poor compared to the old CRT one's. I guess they figure everyone has cable so there's no need to operate off an antenna. The new one only gets one-fifth as many channels as the old one did. The resolution is ridiculous though. I really don't want to see people's nose hair, ear hair, their pores, or the stray threads hanging off their clothes.

Since you mention it though, I think we did have wireless router trouble right after setting up the TV, so I'll look into it.

[ElectroDuende]

When my old trusty '92 Sony Trinitron started "smoking" about a couple of years ago, we got a fancy Samsung LCD with all the bells and whistles. I've found the Smart TV feature quite interesting, anyways.

Since then, several "obscure" (no changelog provided) updates have been released, and I've found that, about half of them, do some kind of "harm" (usually in the way of preventing certain "apps" to run or connect to server). One of them, even made the "OFF" function to be retarded about 10 seconds fom the moment you press the button. The other half either repair the "harm" or just "remove" services that were originally available and had been "deactivated" by samsung (just to move them to newer TV models).

So I decided to deactivate the "auto update" option and carefully review the user forums before applying any update. After all I got the TV, not for all the added "services", but as a display for my mediaplayer (I don't have cable or paid TV, just a local "netflix substitute").

I feel that manufacturers are trying to drive the TV model into the computer or smartphone way, "forcing" the customer to "need" to change the TV each 3 or 4 years... the will have a hard time with me...

[TASP]

TV tuner characteristics do vary. I recall a possibly defective tuner in an OTA capable TIVO unit that might have been a blessing somewhere above the arctic circle, but 35 miles from the antenna farm, it was so ridiculously super sensitive as to be unusable.

And there are many 'dogs' out there too. In the OTA world it's important to be sensitive to the weak signals but not overload on the strong ones.

Additionally, when we had NTSC VHF signals, they tended to overcome some obstacles way better than the (mostly) UHF signals ATSC uses now. In our new digital realm, you're much more line of sight.

One thing I really like about ATSC though, multiple receiving antennas can be combined for reception in different directions without a rotator now.

Not widely appreciated however, when combining antennas, a regular splitter with 1 GHz bandwidth like Radio Shack used to sell for $5 doesn't work all that well as the incoming signal on one leg tends to shoot out the other leg and not appear on the combined tap. Using a 2.4 GHz splitters yields better results as the port to port isolation is better and more of the incoming signals make it to your TV.

[Dave Frederickson]

(01-12-2016 12:45 AM)TASP Wrote:  ... so I went in the TV menu and turned off the bluetooth setting.

How is the TV connected to the router, cable or WiFi? What's the Bluetooth for?

Dave

[Mark]

(01-12-2016 10:20 AM)Garth Wilson Wrote:  My wife just got a new flat-screen one (against my wishes, as I'd rather not have a TV in the house), and the new one's receiver's sensitivity is very poor compared to the old CRT one's. I guess the figure everyone has cable so there's no need to operate off an antenna. The new one only gets one-fifth as many channels as the old one did. The resolution is ridiculous though. I really don't want to see people's nose hair, ear hair, their pores, or the stray threads hanging off their clothes.

Since you mention it though, I think we did have wireless router trouble right after setting up the TV, so I'll look into it.

It seems I'm not the only one saying that when something changes, it's not always for the good (technically speaking) : last year I switched from a Philips CRT to a Sony LCD, and each time I power it up, I cannot help cursing it for being so slow ("Please wait") to get ready to react to the remote controller, not to mention channel-switching.

Speaking about sensitivity : digital TV is inherently far less tolerant to the slightest signal strength loss than analog -to me it's one more regression. Everyone around me says I demand too much... they keep asking why I don't watch TV via internet "antenna ? what antenna ??" ... am I some kind of dinosaur ? :-)

Marc
(calculi on 6502.org)

[Jeff O.]

(01-12-2016 04:01 PM)TASP Wrote:  One thing I really like about ATSC though, multiple receiving antennas can be combined for reception in different directions without a rotator now.

Not widely appreciated however, when combining antennas, a regular splitter with 1 GHz bandwidth like Radio Shack used to sell for $5 doesn't work all that well as the incoming signal on one leg tends to shoot out the other leg and not appear on the combined tap. Using a 2.4 GHz splitters yields better results as the port to port isolation is better and more of the incoming signals make it to your TV.

When digital TV was rolled out in my location, I decided to see if I could get an adjacent market’s stations in addition to my local market. All of the adjacent market transmitters were clustered within 0.5 degrees azimuth about 37 miles from my home. All of the adjacent market transmitters were UHF, so I got a 4-bay bow-tie antenna and pointed it in the right direction. I installed a low-ish gain amplifier at the antenna. Local transmitters varied in distance from 3 to 9 miles, with an azimuth spread of nearly 30 degrees. All channels but one used a UHF channel for their transitional simulcast station, but due to the one channel that used VHF, I had to get a combo UHF-VHF antenna, which I pointed in the middle of the azimuth spread. (I did not think up this antenna plan on my own, I remember calling an antenna company and talking to an engineer who recommended the plan.) I have always gotten perfect reception on the adjacent market channels, but several of the local ones were inconsistent, dropping out and blocking, which I always blamed on that combo antenna required by the one VHF broadcaster. I don't recall if I asked the engineer about combining the antennas, or what, but I ended up just running the leads into an A/B switch, and switched back and forth depending on which market I wanted to watch. After several years, I finally got HDTV via cable, so the OTA reception was relegated to minimal use, like if the cable went out or a local channel preempted something that I could get OTA from the adjacent market. By the way, when the local channels finally transitioned to all digital after the initial simulcast period, the local channel that first picked a VHF channel moved to a UHF channel. That kind of cheesed me off, I felt like they owed me a new antenna. (Actually I was not so miffed about the cost for the antenna itself - I paid someone to install them in the first place because I am reluctant (read terrified) to climb a ladder to the top of my chimney, so I'll have to pay again to replace it.)

Fast forward to now, and of course my cable company has kept relentlessly raising my rates, so I’m considering cutting the cord. But I have become addicted to DVR service, I cannot do without that. I know that OTA DVRs are now available, but I wondered how I would handle the antenna switching for programmed recording. So, long story short, all I need is a 2.4 GHz splitter to combine my two antenna leads? Any worry about one of those leads going through a little adapter that sends power up the cable to the amplifier on the UHF antenna? If I do cut the cord, I’ll probably replace that stupid combo antenna with a 4-bay bow-tie UHF antenna to hopefully eliminate the inconsistent reception on some of the local channels.

Any help, comments, or advice would be appreciated, from TASP or any other knowledgeable forum members.

Thanks,
Jeff

[BobVA]

I'm using a little OTA DVR that records to a (user-supplied) USB storage device. It was pretty cheap ($35 on Amazon), so perhaps just get two of them and wire each to the appropriate antenna set up? Bonus: Two channel simultaneous recording capability :-)

The one I'm using is currently being marketed under the "Homeworx" brand.

I'm actually using two indoor antennas for multi-path cancellation (ATSC is exceptionally poor at coping with multi-path and I live in a high-rise.) Unfortunately it's a different setup for several channels, so I have to remember to position the "cancellation" antenna appropriately before recording. Ugh. But it beats the $1000/yr I was getting soaked for cable.

[Jeff O.]

(01-12-2016 11:49 PM)BobVA Wrote:  I'm using a little OTA DVR that records to a (user-supplied) USB storage device. It was pretty cheap ($35 on Amazon), so perhaps just get two of them and wire each to the appropriate antenna set up? Bonus: Two channel simultaneous recording capability :-)

The one I'm using is currently being marketed under the "Homeworx" brand.

Thanks for the tip - For $35, I may have to buy one of those homeworx DVRs just to play around with it.

[eried]

Some modern routers (or hacked ones) can implement "Bluetooth Coexistence Mode", this is from DDWRT router firmware help:

Quote:How it works:
An 802.11 device and Bluetooth can interfere with each other when the 802.11 device operates on the 2.4 GHz band. All Bluetooth devices operate at the 2.4 GHz band. If you experience wireless disconnects, decreased range or speed, and other connectivity issues when you turn on some of your Bluetooth devices, try to change this option to "Enable" (this will make the router and Bluetooth device to take turns in using the spectrum for communication) or "Preemption" (the router will inform the Bluetooth device about the channel it is operating on, and the Bluetooth device can preemptively disable communication on the respective Bluetooth channels). Please note that this option requires your Bluetooth device to "cooperate". If the Bluetooth device doesn't implement the coexistence techniques, using this option will have no effect.
-I have had problems with bluetooth transfers (big big transfers), with this enabled, the problem has been solved.