DVR went insane

Did anyomne else have their OpenBand DVR go kinda nuts long about Alton Brown part II tonight? As in scanning all "hex" addresses it could find?

3F2????

 

mine did the exact same thing last night. We were watching american idol recorded and I had another show recording and the HD DVR just shut down and went into a random number letter sequence on the LCD. I called Openband and they told me to reboot the device which I did. The only thing this accomplished was change the pattern from random to a letter as the first digit and then it sequentially counted up from 0 to 1000 and it continued to do this until this morning.

I packaged up the DVR and took it over to the landsdowne office this afternoon and told the girl there what happened. She hooked it up to their system and it received whatever update it had been trying to download and updated and now it's fine.

She said the only thing that could cause it to do what it was doing in my house is a poor signal and she said I could tell by seeing pixelation on my HD content which I do all the time. Openband has flat out told me they won't help me anymore unless I pay them so I'm kinda SOL on this one. The box could not get the update here at my house but could at their station. Not sure what to do anymore. Not so friendly again.

 

My DVR did the same thing about 10 pm last night. It scrolled through all these funky codes but got stuck mid-way (later figured out it was mid-way but didn't know it at the time). And then had to do it all over again. Then it was fine.

 

L0stS0oul... did you ever get them to give you details about what constitutes a weak signal? What measurement device do they use and what range or measurements are considered within "normal"? I still want them to check my signal, but I have not pushed the issue yet. I am trying to be more prepared just in case. But I did not see anything like this with my HD DVR.

 

Each time they have come out to the house they have a device that measures the signal. DBmv is the standard unit of measure, and the target is around -10 to 0 at the set for a good picture. (Found on one of the digital forums) but I think they target between -5 and 5 if I remember correctly from the last time they were at the house.

My DVR tried for at least 12 hours to get the update and still could not. Only way to get it out of that state was to take it to the landsdowne office. There is a combination of buttons on the device you can hit to go to the diagnostics page and see what the signal level is. I don't remember what it is off the top of my head. Will have to research that.

Sounds like we all had it around the same time. It was around 10 that mine did that as well.

 

Wait - nothing is broken, you're getting bad service and THEY want YOU to pay for it???? :scaredeyes:

 

They told me that if a tech comes out to my house for this issue again I'll have to pay for it. So yup.

 

ok so I got interested and learned some great stuff.

"A signal level meter device measures the dBmV (decibel-millivolt) and dB (decibel) references. The dBmV is a voltage measurement while dB describes the difference between two voltage values." The dBmV is a voltage value relative to a reference – in this case 0 dBmV. Voltage values above and below the reference of 0 dBmV are incremented in decibels or “dB.” Therefore, the difference between 6 dBmV and 2 dBmV is 4 dB. Often the short-hand way of speaking about the dBmV scale confuses people. For example, the output of an amplifier may be 44 dBmV but is incorrectly stated as “44 decibels” when in fact it should be said as “44 decibel-millivolts.

Digital television tuners operate with a lower minimum requited voltage or about -12 dBmV. You will note this is 12 dB below the reference level of 0 dBmV for analog TV. Also, digital signal measurements made by newer signal level meters are the result of a sequential set of small measurements, combined and averaged to produce an “average digital power” measurement. Despite the measurement process, the result is reported as a dBmV value.

Confused? Don’t be. Just remember that for the new digital television tuners, you need a signal level between -12 dBmV and 16 dBmV.

 

Eiyee...you maketh mine brain expodeth

 

The wiring in the house has been checked several times to make sure that it's ok. They have even replaced all of the outlet to component wires with their wires. Any time I call about the video quality now I get the same response that the techs say if they come out to the house I get charged. They never tell me how much I'll get charged.

The signal quality up on Highview Trail has always been quite poor. We went through a lot of grief about the analog channels and in the end apparently my 32 inch tv connected to the standard def is a large screen and horrible analog quality is to be expected. That's what they told me.

Now that I have the HD I'm seeing constant pixelation and corruption. Some of that could be due to the really bad Scientific Atlanta 8300 DVR which gets really bad marks for video quality. Even going coax directly into the TV the HD is pretty crappy. An HD antenna in the attic or on the roof is night and day better for local channels.

I did notice that without the DVR the other day I plugged the TV directly in and the number of unscrambled HD channels has dropped considerably from what it was a year and a half ago.

 

Lost et all,

If you PM me your information, I will bring up your issue and request a formal response from Openband. As your Loudoun County Cable and OVS Commissioner this is part of my duty, additionally the business tactic & lack of MTTR is covered in Openband's franchise agreement with the County.


-Erika Cotti
Dulles District Cable & OVS Commissioner
Term 2008-2011

 

Do NOT anger ThePea!!!!