Hello. I have been using HDHomerun + Channels since I cut the cord early last year. I moved into a new home about 8 months ago & had a professional install a new antenna & make sure the normal channels worked. They did beautifully. For some reason I can't get NBC to play for a few minutes straight. Pixellation + freezing sometimes for upwards to a minute. This happens on the TV (with AppleTV) next to the wifi router as well as any ipad devices further away. This totally blows because NBC is pretty much the only channel I watch. I decided to try Hulu live for a month. Everything worked flawlessly for the entire month. So what gives? Am I going to have to abandon Channels? Why is there a drastic difference in service?
To be more clear, It is in Channels the problems with pixellation + freezing occur on all devices.
Is the problem seen in other apps? InstaTV on the AppleTVs? What about when using the web UI? The official HDHomeRun app on other platforms?
Have you tried moving the tuner? There are known interference issues when placed near certain equipment, especially your router or access points.
You can open my.hdhomerun.com and click into Tuner Status while watching to see what it says for Signal Quality and Signal Strength
When I use Hulu Live - no issues whatsoever. Enormous difference. When I had the antenna guy install the new antenna & checked and verified the channels were working through HDHomerun on my laptop. I don't see the issues through HDHomerun or they don't appear as often. The problems are with the tv next to the WIFI router, with the ipad (that I mainly use to watch morning news) on the floor directly above the wifi router, and with the TV's the floor below also have the same issues. The TV's on the bottom floor (one is with FireStick and one with AppleTV)
Checked HDHomerun on the ipad again this morning = no issues. Laptop my.hdhomerun.com:
Virtual Channel: 2.1 KPRC-HD
Frequency: 599.000 MHz
Program Number: 3
Modulation Lock: 8vsb
Signal Strength: 100%
Signal Quality: 100%
Symbol Quality: 100%
Streaming Rate: 14.076 Mbps
Speedtests on the ipad = 100-110 Mbps download
Speedtests on the laptop = 60 Mbps download
I don't use the laptop to watch but that is where we conducted the my.hdhomerun.com tuner status check.
I wonder if the Channels app has issues when the different devices pickup the wifi extenders signals. My ipad will auto select the first and best signal and sometimes that comes from the wifi extender. My Channels app has been configured to see tuners off the extender as well (both 2.4GHz and 5Ghz).
This is the part that might help explain it, too. Your signal may be too strong and overloading the HDHR tuners. The tuners do not tell you how much over full signal you are, but an attenuator may help in your situation.
(HDHR tuners are much more sensitive to too weak or too strong antenna signals than TVs or other tuners.)
When I upgraded from an indoor antenna to a professionally installed attic antenna I had an issues with pixellation and freezing pictures from my HDHomerun tuners.
My television when connected directly to the new antenna didn't have the problem. It was only when I was using the HDHomerun. My Tivo also had the issue.
After a few months of trying different solutions, I came across an article that led me to installing an LTE filter. Once I installed the LTE filter (sometimes called 3G/4G filter) it fixed the issue for me.
Interesting.
Hmmm. I never thought of too strong of a signal. I will def give the LTE filter a try first - then maybe the attenuator. I would like to avoid paying extra monthly fees for a service I don't need. Thanks for the ideas.
What extra fees? Are you referring to the Hulu subscription, or the filter and/or attenuator?
The former I can understand, but it may offer additional channels via TVE that cannot receive with an antenna, so may still offer a value if you use those channels.
The latter are hardware items placed inline to your antenna feed, and are one-time purchases.
I am talking about the Hulu live subscription. I like the option of getting it for certain sports seasons but I really don't watch much television outside of the basic channels - mainly NBC which is the one channel I am having issues with. I am totally game with picking up one time cost devices that would fix this issue.
Should the LTE device connect direct to the back of HDHomerun or should it be connected directly to the incoming antenna cable then the splitter? I currently have antenna line to splitter. Splitter runs to TV next to wifi router and to HDHomerun.
The LTE filter should be installed prior to any splitting of the signal. Mine is installed on the main coax cable from the antenna just before the splitter.
The splitter could also possibly be the issue here. Have you tried bypassing that to see if it cleared things up?
No I haven't tried that. I'll give that a shot as well. Thanks.
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Hi! Yes. I actually was about to return to say I am pleasantly surprised. I received the LTE filter a little over a week ago (delayed shipping) and I haven't had any issues at all since installing it. I wanted to give it a few days to make sure that the pixellation and freezing wouldn't come back and nada. I am so thankful for the suggestion and the feedback. I am a super happy camper. Thanks guys!
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Well Iām kinda at a loss here. It worked perfectly for a solid month and now all devices are displaying bad pixelation and freezing issues again. Not sure why it I went from no problems after installing the LTE filter back to the same issues after a month.