Sporadic TV signal loss and digital pixelation problem

[mdcashion]

There are a number of TV channels that tend to randomly exhibit a problem where the signal is lost and the screen goes black and/or the picture is pixelated. At its worst, the problem occurs every 10 seconds and the picture goes black for up to 5 seconds. So in a period of 1 minute, the signal is good enough to view every 5 seconds. This makes it impossible to view the content. The problem occurs on all of our TVs and set top boxes. Verizon should either contact the owners of these channels and have the problem corrected, or discontinue offering the channels. The channels for which I have seen this occur are Channel 119 (AccuWeather), Channel 127 (H2), Channel 239 (Hallmark Movies and Mysteries),

[CRobGauth]

May be a problem at your location.

Have you checked to amke sure the coax is tight starting at the ONT and up to the first splitter?

[mdcashion]

All coax connections are tight. Today channel 119 is working perfectly, channels 127 and 239 are working better than yesterday but still suffer signal loss on average once per hour. I'm sure that the problem is not within my local equipment.

[CRobGauth]

Where are you located?

Haven't seen or heard anyone else reporting issues.

[mdcashion]

I am in Annandale, VA.

[cmrm1]

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@CRobGauth wrote:

May be a problem at your location.

Have you checked to amke sure the coax is tight starting at the ONT and up to the first splitter?

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This problem is not only in this contributor's area of VA but in mine as well, In Massachusetts.  It is also not peculiar to FIOS as the Comcast Boards have reported  the same problems with no resolution.

FiOS agents tell you  that they will look into it and come back with a response like, "There is an outage and technicians are aware of it."  If you try to explain that it is not an outage but a broadcast quality issue, they put you on hold again and return with the same answer.

I agree that FIOS (and Comcast for that matter) should insure the vedor is aware that customers are paying a premium for this channel and deserve better broadcaast quality that is current. And why do you suppose it is that this problem does not occur during commercials?

[mdcashion]

Thanks for the response! You hit the nail on the head regarding no pixelation during "local" advertisements. Verizon should refuse to offer channels that don't meet certain signal standards. I can't wait until December when I tell them that I am going back to Direct TV.

[CRobGauth]

If it is affecting multiple providers, why would you think it couldn't affect DirecTv?

[KenNewell]

So, Verizon won't take responisibility for their poor service?

I have the same problem with local (Boston) HD channel 505. EVERY OTHER CHANNEL is working fine, so don't tell me it's a problem with my equipment. Yes, I've already gone through their diagnostlcs, to no avail. Also, Comcast doesn't have any problem with this channel, so it's not the provider, per se, but Verizon's reception of the signal.

Unfortunately, Verizon has no way of letting their customers inform anyone who would be able to check into the problem. It's always the customers fault (or their equipment).

[tns2]

Note Could be the channel itself, i.e. supplying a bad feed to Verizon and sometimes all others.

You certainly can contact Verizon and the local station to complain.  Remember these are peer to peer forums.