I'm at the extreme North and my gf is at the extreme South in Calgary and neither of us have experienced the problem you are referring to.

Two weeks ago, I lost TSN HD, CBC HD, and PBS HD. Occaisionally, the receiver would tune to the station, but most of the time it would just show the "Channel will be available shortly" message. I've got both an HD PVR (DCT3400) and a straight HD Receiver (DCT6200).

Shaw came in to install an amplifier and that seemed to fix the problem. Yesterday, the problem shows up again. They're sending another tech over tomorrow to check the problem. The CSR said that these HD channels are a problem for the entire Calgary area. Has anyone else seen this problem? Has Shaw been able to fix it?

I had this problem on an intermittant basis for 18 months. Shaw finally found the source: the security system has some sort of modulator that was acting up and causing interference. He replaced the modulator and everything is fine. On really bad days, I would lose most of the HD channels and the canadian time shift digital channels.

No problems here in SE Calgary.

I had a little bit of microblocking when recording mayday on discovery HD but that happened with bell, too.

Actually DiscoveryHD has been terrible for me sinec last week. Tons of marcoblocking, pixelization and major video drops.

Well the tech just came by and did a few things. The channels appear to be working right now. Here's just a snapshot of what he told me:
- Problems have been happening on digital carrier 89 (which has channels 204, 209, and 214) since the most recent heat wave in Calgary (about two weeks ago)
- Problems are all over the city, not isolated to specific locations
- Most have been resolved by improving the signal strength. In my house he did so by swapping out some splitters, removing any surge protectors and swapping out some cables. He did mention that in some older installations, the cables running to the house or into the house had to be replaced.
- Apparently Shaw has run into problems with cables that originally shipped with the HD boxes and they are replacing them as they run into them.

I was watching the Blue Jays game on CBC HD today. From 2:35 to 3:37 there were 10 audio drops. That's 10 audio drops in 1 hour ??? I can only say that since I'm getting HD free for 8 months, I have no right to complain. But when I call up Shaw on the last day and cancel my account, they will have no right to say $hit!

Why not call Shaw and have them come out and troubleshoot? One person reported only 3 audio drops in the first hour and you see 10??? That would indicate that perhaps something more is going on at your house. SC are included for free so why not try something rather than do nothing?

well my title says it all.
I have posted in this thread a few times about my poor HD picture quality.
I have called in pixilation and I guess some call it macroblocking?
I was having this problem on almost half of my HD channels. Some stations were maybe about every 30 seconds or so.. Channel 203 fox and Channel 223 tLC were basically unwatchable with this problem ever five seconds..

Problem solved by myself.
I had my shaw HD box plugged in to the Power Bar with all my other stuff.. Xbox..DVD...VCR..
I then unplugged my Shaw Box and plugged it into a seperate outlet , all by itself.. And then like magic.. All of My HD channels are just fine now.. Even 203 and 223.... Zero pixilation/ macroblocking..
I bought the powersurge bar about six months ago at Staples and paid about $20 bucks ..Wonder if I bought the right kind..
Anyhoooooo.... Can't wait for NFL tomorrow
Happy Brian

Hi guys, new to the forum.

I have a Shaw quality issue, and was wondering if it is the norm around here. I have the basic HD programming, and have a standard home theatre setup. 42" Sony LCD with motionflow, HK receiver, Shaws HDPVR box, a Monster Reference center and a ps3. All cables are optical/hdmi, and purchased for way more than they are worth.

Long story short, asides from the HD channels, all the basic channels are nearly unwatchable with the macroblocking. My origional Nintendo puts out a smoother picture than this.

Now, I do live in an older condo building, and have considered that it could be do to the millions of splits and old wiring running through the building. I have friends who live in houses and the same channels that I can barely watch are nice and clear on larger TVs than mine.

Ideas? Im sure this has been asked on here many a times, but hey, gotta start somewhere right?

Is the cable going straight from the wall into the Shaw box?

No. When the installer came over he ran a cable from the wall to a splitter. One side of the splitter went to the HDPVR box, and the other to the Shaw Phone modem, and internet modem.

TheSlavik: Issue could be signal related. Perhaps a call to Shaw would be needed. Also you may be able to get converted to an all digital map which may bring in the analogue channels a bit clearer for you. Give Shaw a call and worst case they book a SC at no charge to have someone come out and fix it. :)

I know that this is not HD, but last night when watching NBC (america's toughest job), i noticed that sometimes there was macroblocking, and also ocasionally the sound also cut out. This is starndard def without a cable box, so it could just be the feed that is the issue.

i'm trying to get to the bottom of an issue i noticed yesterday, with the shaw csr's. i'm loath to take a service call as in lethbridge anyway, they won't nail it down narrower than "a day" so i have to take a whole vacation day for what in the past 2 visits has been literally a 5 minute service call (once to change a splitter) next time was actually due to a wet terminal in the same area of town from flooding and they basically showed up to say "it's fixed as of 10 minutes ago". anyway, the current issue is all channels are fine including hd channels, except for the hd movie central channels (light to heavy pixelation and audio dropout) i've said to both csr's there MUST be a problem with the signal strength being out at the plant or whatever for those channels..can you get someone to look into it. am i likely guessing correctly? i also can confirm looking at diagnostics that the mc channels are getting a "poor" signal. all other digital channels are getting a "fair". i'm guess shaw doesn't ever put out enough signal strength to get a "good" or "very good" as it likely costs too much money!

thoughts?

tenax,

Have you asked Shaw if they can come on your days off?

If you haven't changed any of your connections then yes, you have a signal to your home issue. Did you tell the Shaw CSR about the signal levels?

I agree that taking a vacation day for a 5 minute fix is totally unacceptable and I would ask Shaw to credit you the same amount that you earn in a day. See what they say to that.

i have asked shaw that..they are non-commital in the lethbridge area to coming on weekends.i'm assuming each city has it's own local hours. yep, i've told both csr's and the 2 techies that have been out about my observation on the signal strength. i even showed the last techie..he didn't seem to care..or maybe he didn't understand it..to compensate me for a day of work would be the equivalent of buying a shaw hd pvr..i could try it, but i doubt it they'll go there:)

WOW!

I had assumed you would have done all of that but had to ask just to be sure. That is absolutely despicable customer service for a city the size of Lethbridge. When I get the call from the Shaw manager this week, I will pass along your experience and ask if there is anything that can be done.

I guess I should be thankful that I live in Shawland's home town and service calls actually seem to happen in a somewhat timely fashion and can be scheduled at my convenience, within reason.

If your picture quality is suffering and they will not commit to showing up when you are available then you should be asking for compensation in the same amount that you are losing for sitting around all day. No one is paying for less than perfect delivery of the television signals.

I think that too much discussion in this forum focuses on minutia. While some problems may be caused by local network issues, most are likely all sourced to the issue of bandwidth limitations and Shaw's desire to milk the maximum revenue from their bandwidth limitations.

I scrolled all the channels on Shaw Vancouver today to see of TSN2 was hiding somewhere (didn't find it, but the EPG on Bell shows it to be a three hour timeshift for about 95% of the TSN programming - what a waste!).

To my surprise I saw that there were now 10 HD PPV channels available plus a large number of HD sports channels. I time scrolled the HD PPV movie channels for about a week and observed that there were very few discrete movies, just a very large number of repeats. Again, what a waste of bandwidth.

Nothing in the EPG described what was going to go on these HD sports channels. Maybe NFL. Maybe NHL.

So, having seen the Forest, I would assume that most observable dropouts, audio problems, macroblocking, etc. are linked to Shaw's quest to maximize the revenue from their limited bandwidth. Too many trees (channels).

And, speaking as a customer, I think in 4 years of Shaw availability with an HD PVR, I have watched less than 10 hours of SD programming. An HD-only program package, like is now available in the U.S., would be something I desire. Why should I have to pay a subscription fee for all those SD channels that I never watch?

and i do not exaggerate, jet..i honestly thought the service call issue was "the way it was with shaw"..i was none too happy to find out they'll do a call on a saturday in airdrie..they were not only specific (3:30pm) but showed up at 3:25pm.