 TelcoguruPremium
join:2005-08-22
Fresh Meadows, NY | reply to nofios4u
Re: Video On Demand pixeling What type of coax do you have and did they change the ends? |
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| It's all 18 AWG cable and they did not replace the ends. I'm with you that this would be an obvious place to look if I were experiencing signal loss at the STB, but the signal is fine.
It's interesting that it's only HBO VOD, not regular digital channels. Verizon tried to explain that VOD somehow uses not only the coax coming out of the ONT but also the CAT5 to the router. Not sure if I understand that completely, does the VOD transmission actually go through the CAT5/router? |
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 JeepMattC'mon the UPremium
join:2001-12-28
Wilmington, DE
kudos:2
1 edit | No Fios-
Yes, all VOD (and guide data) comes over the internet side of things - goes through the router - then via the coax to your TV.
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"ONE team - ONE city - ONE dream!!" |
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| Hmmm .. That would support a reply I saw in another thread about this issue and someone suggested changing the Actiontec firewall setting to low. From what little info that Actiontec provides it looks like this would allow all traffic in and out. Wouldn't that basically disable the firewall and put me directly on the Net?
If Verizon actually used any logic while troubleshooting then they probably could have fixed this. Instead they just seem to randomly swap out things. They could learn a few things by reading these forums  |
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| said by nofios4u:Hmmm .. That would support a reply I saw in another thread about this issue and someone suggested changing the Actiontec firewall setting to low. From what little info that Actiontec provides it looks like this would allow all traffic in and out. Wouldn't that basically disable the firewall and put me directly on the Net? If Verizon actually used any logic while troubleshooting then they probably could have fixed this. Instead they just seem to randomly swap out things. They could learn a few things by reading these forums a vod stream on average is less than 4Mbps |
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TelcoguruPremium
join:2005-08-22
Fresh Meadows, NY | reply to nofios4u
The VOD, IPG and widgets travel on the braid in the RG6 cable. If the cable is no good you will have problems. |
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mattvk
join:2007-03-31
Mendham, NJ | I watched the very funny and highly cerebral Deuce Bigalo: European Gigolo this evening on Starz VOD. Not one problem. Could very well be something specific to HBO. |
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 KA3SGM- -... ...- -Premium
join:2006-01-17
West Chester, PA
 ·Verizon FiOS
 ·Cricket Broadband
1 edit | reply to Telcoguru
BAD | 
GOOD | 
VERIZON WIRING | 
COMCAST WIRING |
said by Telcoguru:"The VOD, IPG and widgets travel on the braid in the RG6 cable." Telco, the signal travels on the BRAID OF THE RG6 CABLE???
Thats like the water traveling on the outside of the pipe. 
The signal travels on the CENTER CONDUCTOR of the coaxial cable. The braid protects the signal from ingress, or interference from external sources getting into the cable, and prevents egress, or leakage of the signal that could cause interference to communications outside the cable.
Other than that......  |
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| reply to Telcoguru
said by Telcoguru:The VOD, IPG and widgets travel on the braid in the RG6 cable. If the cable is no good you will have problems. with moca, the data portion travels up in the 1100mhz range. everything else is in 50-860mhz portion. |
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| reply to KA3SGM
What's the deal with the RG6 attenuators that Verizon installs? They are telling me that their signal comes out of the ONT "too hot" and they actually need to drop it a bit. This is something I certainly am not used to since Comcast could never get a good enough signal and needed to amplify just to keep a decent digital picture. Should these attenuators be installed on each leg of the coax, including the one to the Actiontec router? |
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KA3SGM- -... ...- -Premium
join:2006-01-17
West Chester, PA Reviews:
·Verizon FiOS
·Cricket Broadband
| nofios, typically it is the signal from the ONT that is running too hot. Often +18 to +20db. The attenuators should be being placed on the coax coming from the ONT, into the splitter. The optimal signal for FiOS is in the -2 /+ 4 db range, so if you start with +18, add a 4 way splitter that looses 7 db, you still have +11 at each port on the splitter, so you would need to add a 9db attenuator to bring it down to +2, which is in the acceptable range.
This is as simple as I can explain it. The condition, or length of the coax runs add additional losses that have to be factored in too, but short runs of 30' or less of good quality RG6 with the proper compression fittings, should not cause any effect on signal reliability. |
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| The signal at the ONT does come in +18 - +20db, and the attenuation is generally put on the input of the splitter, db ranges VZ uses is anywhere from -6db - +5db for the digital channels, and 0db - +11 db on the analog channels. If one of the legs has problems, sometimes they will put amplifiers on the line, but generally as a last resort (replacing the line being the best option).
The problem in this post seems to be on the internet side of things which is still transmitted to the STB via the Coax only at a higher frequency on MOCA. This doesn't seem to be the issue either, ON demand anything is only as good as the copy that the provider has at their end, ie if they have a bad spot in their copy, obviously no matter what you do on your end, you won't be able to get rid of that bad spot on your end. Try to rewind to the bad spot and play that again, and if it is still there, it is the content being delivered from HBO. |
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| reply to nofios4u
If I had done your install, I would have used a larger splitter with a higher db drop rather than use those attenuators at every leg. I've recently gone on a few trouble calls and have found those attenuators to be the cause of the problem, more so when they are placed outside. As far as the router, there SHOULD NOT be an attenuator on that. There is an M&P about it that all techs should have read by now. We are not using those as much anymore because our newer ont's only put out about +13 on avg.
Now about the pixelation, I haven't encountered that yet. However I have gone out on trouble calls for the movie pkg channels having pixelation, and believe it or not, simply cleaning the fiber at the ont fixed this issue every time. Maybe this would fix it, who knows....ask the next fiber tech to check your 1550 signal at the ont and clean it up. It doesn't hurt to try. |
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nh5
join:2006-01-21
Old Bethpage, NY | I had a tech here last week when I had VOD Issues he confirmed there is a pixelation issue with HBO On Demand more so than with the other on demand services |
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| I've talked to tech support three times on this HBO-demand-white pixel issue. they dont have any answers. When I rewind, there is no pixel again, which makes me think it is a bandwidth issue.
Any thought to it being some sort of copy protection? |
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nh5
join:2006-01-21
Old Bethpage, NY | That is what the tech told me certain tvs when hooked up with hdmi or component he told me have issues with hbo on demand. It has to be a copy protection issue. |
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TelcoguruPremium
join:2005-08-22
Fresh Meadows, NY | reply to KA3SGM
The signal travels on the center stinger. The VOD, IPG and widgets travel on the braid. Thanks. |
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KA3SGM- -... ...- -Premium
join:2006-01-17
West Chester, PA Reviews:
·Verizon FiOS
·Cricket Broadband
| said by Telcoguru:The signal travels on the center stinger. The VOD, IPG and widgets travel on the braid. Thanks. Telco, where are you getting this information. There is a thing called "skin effect" where the higher the frequency of the signal, the closer to the edge of the conductor it travels. The RF travels on the center conductor, or stinger as you call it. The frequency is the only diference, 54-862MHz for video, and 1000MHz(1GHz)+ for the MoCA, all on the center conductor. Because they are all on different frequencies, they do not interfere with each other.
The braid(s) and foil(s) serve as a shield for the signal on the center conductor. Hence dual shield, tri-shield, quad shield. If it was meant to be in the RF path, then why do they call it a shield?
The center conductor can carry information, from DC - to whatever frequency of RF you connect to it. 5GHz is probably a practical upper limit for conventional RG6, due to the loss incurred, even over short cable runs, and the fact that once the wavelength of the signal reaches the distance between the braid and center conductor, the coax impedance becomes mis-matched, and the signal loss goes through the roof. This is where you typically move from coax to a hollow waveguide. I have been involved in ham radio for more than 20 years(FCC license since 87'), and have worked with everything from single strand wires, to twinlead, to coax, to waveguides.
Often with quite a bit of power(>1200watts) being transmitted through it too. I have seen FM broadcast transmitters using 3 1/2 inch corrugated coax with nearly 20,000 watts applied to it, and touching the shield does not cause a problem, but touching the center conductor of the coax, where the signal is traveling, would likely cost you your hand, or arm, if not your life !
The TV coax connector on the ONT is connected to the same internal bus as the ground wire at the ONT, so if the braid/foil of the coax is grounded, and you connect a signal source to the braid, where does the signal go? It goes to ground ! The braid may have stray RF currents and static electricity on it, but that is why it gets connected to ground, to eliminate that from happening.
Like I said before, signal on the braid is like water flowing on the outside of the pipe, like the light on fiber traveling on the outside of the cable jacket. Go wiki coaxial cable, and re-read the principles of how it works.
I have more than 5000' of various size coax on spools, and I use it for custom cables that I build myself. I pre-wired my home for FiOS TV, compression connectors and all. The Verizon installers only needed to connect the set top boxes. They were even making comments about how I had better materials, and tools, than they did.
ALL of the FiOS TV RF signals travel on the center conductor, trust me, I have many years of experience on what I am talking about !
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TelcoguruPremium
join:2005-08-22
Fresh Meadows, NY | Try using RG6 with no braid and plug it into a set top box and see what happens. You will be surprised. |
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| reply to nh5
Did they ever fix the white pixeling on HBO VOD for anyone? I had a tech out here today about it and he has no idea what it is. He's supposed to come back but i'm not sure that his co-worker will find anything here that he didn't. Any fix for this???? |
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