Glitching On Free Virgin Channels

StuBFrost

Newbie
Hi,

I currently have Virgin 200mb broadband only with the cable box on the front of the house and a cable going to a back bedroom for the router.

I tried to see if I could get any TV channels so I put a splitter on the broadband cable and sent another cable back round to the front of the house where the TV is. I tuned a few hundred channels but the "free" ones I can watch are all glitching. They are almost watchable but the picture just breaks up.

I tried to rule out the splitter by connecting my new cable directly to the broadband one but it made no difference.

So is my line not suitable for TV without a tweak by Virgin or could it be due to the cable runs or quality of the cable ?

I am tempted to tap into the box on the front of the house as the TV would be about 4 meters away but I'm wary of tampering with the box.

Thanks for any pointers.

Stuart
 
5 - 1000 MHz is the recommended. But it's possible your signal is strong and you may need an attenuator?


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Are using an rf connector placing the cable into box? and entering your correct net ID?

Didn't see your post properly. The TV (Sony) has a connector which is for DVB-T or DVB-C so it a standard aerial connector.

I have a VuPlus Ultimo and was going to buy a tuner card for it but wanted to see if I could get it working on my TV first since I already had that. Could it be the TV tuner is not good enough ?

When I searched I used the net id for Bolton as that is where I am nearest. Would the wrong NET ID give any channels at all ?
 
Oh I see yes it's possible the TV tuner isn't good enough, the software, firmware, drivers etc might not be comparable. People normally ask these sort of things with E2 type boxes. Maybe someone else has the answer?


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Throwing my two pence in here:

1) Try connecting on an F-type to Coax adapter onto your wire currently going into your cable box and then into your TV to rule out your TVs tuner

2) If it still is breaking up;
Open up the brown (or grey, if it's old) box at the front of your house, it should easily just come apart and even easier to put it back on.
Once open, check if there's anything connected between the cable feed for the one going directly into your cable box
If there's a small metal sorta box in between that's an attenuator, make a note of its capacity.
You'll need to order one, as your signal without one will be too strong for TV on the other wire

3) If there's no attenuator, most likely is due to a low quality wire.
The wire that is recommend should be of WF100 spec
Aerial (coax) cables tend to be really shitty, so stay away from them and use an F-type to Coax adapter with a WF100
 
Throwing my two pence in here:

1) Try connecting on an F-type to Coax adapter onto your wire currently going into your cable box and then into your TV to rule out your TVs tuner

2) If it still is breaking up;
Open up the brown (or grey, if it's old) box at the front of your house, it should easily just come apart and even easier to put it back on.
Once open, check if there's anything connected between the cable feed for the one going directly into your cable box
If there's a small metal sorta box in between that's an attenuator, make a note of its capacity.
You'll need to order one, as your signal without one will be too strong for TV on the other wire

3) If there's no attenuator, most likely is due to a low quality wire.
The wire that is recommend should be of WF100 spec
Aerial (coax) cables tend to be really shitty, so stay away from them and use an F-type to Coax adapter with a WF100

1. Tried that but no difference.

2. The box at the front of the house just has an ftype coupler to the cable that comes from the front of the garden and the cable that runs to the back of the house. Where the cable enters the back of the house, it goes into a white oblong box where the another cable comes out and goes into my superhub.

3. It could be the wire as it was cheap off Amazon. I believe it is RG6 cable. I don't mind buying WF100 wire but is it likely that it will work or could it be due to never having had TV before so the levels are wrong ?
 
Last edited:
1. Tried that but no difference.

2. The box at the front of the house just has an ftype coupler to the cable that comes from the front of the garden and the cable that runs to the back of the house. Where the cable enters the back of the house, it goes into a white oblong box where the another cable comes out and goes into my superhub.

3. It could be the wire as it was cheap off Amazon. I believe it is RG6 cable. I don't mind buying WF100 wire but is it likely that it will work or could it be due to never having had TV before so the levels are wrong ?

Apologies, I read your first post as if you already had a cable box hooked up to your tv at the front of your house.

Only a VM engineer can determine if and what type of attenuator you need with their equipment.
Unless if you have a friendly neighbour on VM as the attenuators (if any) will be the exact same

BTW have you tried hooking up the VuPlus Ultimo box and checking for FTA channels?
Is borrowing a cable box off someone out of the picture? to check if its just a bad TV tuner

It would cost around 15 odd quid to try with a WF100 cable but IMHO a RG6 cable should've been alright

Another alternative would be to take out a minimal basic TV subscription with VM for a month or two and cancel it?
Give them a call, as an existing customer they should be able to cut you a deal.
They have 30day rolling contracts now so you probably could get it for a month and have them set everything up, once it's over cancel it.
You could even put your VuPlus Ultimo box on straight after they've hooked up their VM box and left.
 
Apologies, I read your first post as if you already had a cable box hooked up to your tv at the front of your house.

Only a VM engineer can determine if and what type of attenuator you need with their equipment.
Unless if you have a friendly neighbour on VM as the attenuators (if any) will be the exact same

BTW have you tried hooking up the VuPlus Ultimo box and checking for FTA channels?
Is borrowing a cable box off someone out of the picture? to check if its just a bad TV tuner

It would cost around 15 odd quid to try with a WF100 cable but IMHO a RG6 cable should've been alright

Another alternative would be to take out a minimal basic TV subscription with VM for a month or two and cancel it?
Give them a call, as an existing customer they should be able to cut you a deal.
They have 30day rolling contracts now so you probably could get it for a month and have them set everything up, once it's over cancel it.
You could even put your VuPlus Ultimo box on straight after they've hooked up their VM box and left.

So it could be that I don't need an attenuator just for broadband but for adding TV I could ?

I don't have cable capability for the Ultimo at the moment but I think I will buy a tuner card for it in any case since even if I don't end up using it with cable I can still use it for Freeview so it wouldn't be a total waste.
 
Maybe a daft question but do sat cable and cable used for Virgin differ in any way, apart from the end connector of course.
Coax is coax no?
When i switched from Sky to Virgin i just used my existing sat cable to hook up my cable box
 
"Coax is coax no?"
No

but ...
Domestic satellite spec cable should perform just the same for a VM feed
In most single cable runs, it'll be 75Ω twin shielded (foil and braid) 7mm O/D cable.

The 'shotgun' twin cable is the same spec but has a relatively high attenuation (signal loss) and best avoided if possible IMO
 
Well I bought a new tuner for my Ultimo and everything is now working fine with no glitches so the cable I bought was fine. The tv tuner was at fault.

Thanks for everybody's help.


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