T3 Pixalated Replay of Recordings

[cinquina]

I have a T3 purchased about 3 years ago
Tag underneath says T3 07-2014-00175
The issue we have now is that some od the recordings when played back are pixalated and corrupted and not viewable. Seems to be across multiple channels and varipous times
I am guessing the issue is either with the tuners or the hard drive.
If anyone has had similar issues, I would appreciate and solutions
Thanks
Nick Cinquina

[MrQuade]

The first thing that springs to mind is that one of your higher numbered tuners is getting a bad signal, or itself going bad.

For normal viewing, you'd normally be using Tuner A, but if you are recording while watching live, any recordings could use Tuner B, C or D depending on how many simultaneous recordings there are.

You can manually tell the T3 to use Tuner B, C, or D for live viewing via the Tuner menu in Setup. Set the T3 to tuner B and check your reception across a few channels, then do the same for Tuners C and D. Compare the values for signal strength and signal quality that you see on each.
If any of the tuners is performing worse than the others, then it is likely that your recordings were made on that tuner.

[Grumpy_Geoff]

If you're running firmware 20190207 in the 17.5-series (or later), then the tuner ID used for that recording is written to the recording timer's log entries. So if the completed timer is still present in the list, press INFO on the timer.

The same tuner info is also present as a tag "Tuner-{x}" in the recording's meta file. You can use File Commander (MENU>>Sources / Files) to view it.

You can also use the media selection list "tag" function to choose to only display recordings made with each specific tuner (e.g. only those recorded using Tuner-C for example). Press HELP in the media selection list to identify the button to use.

If you're doing the tuner test as suggested above by MrQuade, ensure you change live TV to a different broadcaster after setting the preferred tuner, as this will force a retune and the use of the preferred tuner.

[Paul_oz53]

I have a T3 purchased about 3 years ago
Tag underneath says T3 07-2014-00175
The issue we have now is that some od the recordings when played back are pixalated and corrupted and not viewable. Seems to be across multiple channels and varipous times
I am guessing the issue is either with the tuners or the hard drive.
If anyone has had similar issues, I would appreciate and solutions
Thanks
Nick Cinquina

Apart from checking whether it is a tuner fault (it could be that), there is a wide range of other factors to also consider. How is the reception watching live TV? Is the effect on one channel or many? Is the TV ok when connected directly via the aerial but reception worse if via the T3? Solutions depend on diagnosing the problem but sometimes it will be simple things like a dodgy connector so always worth checking and reseating the aerial cables as a start.

Look at the aerial for any obvious sign of damage (broken elements) or tree growth in the reception path. Pixellation can be due to a wide range of aerial, lead-in, splitter (if used) and tuner faults but will normally affect live TV and recordings. Trees, rain, cloud and time of day and time of year can have an effect too if signal is weak.

Has your T3 had its power supply rebuilt? A lot of T3 hardware problems relate to capacitors failing in the PSU.

It may also be due to harddrive issues, which you can check at Menu>Setup>Storage>File system check. IIRC, you must disable timeshift and must not be recording to run the check. If the drive check fails, the PSU is also a suspect in the crime. You may replace the HDD and not fix the issue. If so, you may need a PSU repair to make progress. Warkus (aka Mark) at Decisive Computer Solutions is extremely highly recommended for T3 repairs.

We'll need more detail to be of real help so try the basics, report back what you tried and what the results were and be prepared for more detailed questions.

[peteru]

Almost certainly a failing power supply. Now that it's getting warmer again, capacitors will start failing at a greater rate.

Get the power supply on the T3 repaired before it causes more damage to the rest of the unit.

[Grumpy_Geoff]

I'm assuming the power supply was repaired by Doctor Warkus 2.5 years ago - viewtopic.php?f=53&t=11024&p=150311#p150311
Nick lives in Perth. It'd be unusual for it to fail again, right?

[peteru]

Nope. That's about right. If you have a capacitor rated at 10,000 hours and the T3 is on 24/7 in a warm environment, then 2.5 years is over 20,000 hours service life. Not at all unlikely that a hard working cap would go out of spec.