H0w to reduce noise on NTL cable tv?

ando

Hallo

I have recently got a Tv card for the pc but there is a lot of noise coming from my Ntl analog cable tv connection. My TV's are fine but the noise appears on the PC so I was looking for some sort of device that can reduce signal noise on coax... any ideas?

SantaHoe

I'd imagine there's a cable you could get with more shielding if that really is the problem... generally they say keeping the cable away from power cables (or crossing them at a 90-degree angle) etc can help against signal noise, but I'm not sure how this applies to coax since it should already have some decent shielding.
Might try buying a new Y-splitter aswell if that's what you're using, they get broken solder contacts very easily.

Also, for troubleshooting purposes, could you bring a small TV to where your PC is, to use the same line of coax... might help you determine if the problem is somewhere on the cable or the card itself.

Could it be possible the card is recieving some interference from an adjacent card in the next slot?

Slightly OT, but what'd you think of the TV card? Aside from the bad reception at the moment, what's the quality like? does fullscreen mode look like a proper TV or better? are you happy with it?
It's something I've always stopped to look at in the shops, but never bothered with.

hostyle

Originally posted by SantaHoe
Could it be possible the card is recieving some interference from an adjacent card in the next slot?

Very possible. Keep it as far away from all other PCI cards as you can. Wireless of any kind can also interfere. Have a look at the capturing forum on doom9 aswell. That gets asked a lot there. Try not have other cables touching the TV cable (coax or not I find it makes a difference).

They also mention TBCs a lot on doom9 which apparently reduce interference from other sources a lot, but I dont know much about them or where you'd get one.

Slightly OT, but what'd you think of the TV card? Aside from the bad reception at the moment, what's the quality like? does fullscreen mode look like a proper TV or better?

Tv "resolution" is far lower than PC monitor resolutons, so if you have bad quality reception (antenna) or only average cable quality, its going to look worse when "blown up". There are realtime filters that you can apply using Descaler and other apps though, that can improve this.

<edit>Then again, when you're watching TV you're generally sitting a good distance back from the screen, as opposed to a monitor where you're almost nose to nose with it. If you sit back as far from it as you do with teh TV, you probably won't notice.</edit>

ando

Thanks lads for the tips, the Tv card is at the bottom of the pc, about an inch from the ground. There are a few power cables lying near the coax so I'll try rearrange them, also I should try move the Tv card up a bit cause its rubbing against another pci card. I've tried plugging in a 14" tv and the reception was perfect!

Answering you question about what I think about the card, I love it. Luckly at the moment its only Utv and the BBC channels that have interferance. I usually use the tv picture minimized and 'always on top':



When using fullscreen its just like a normal tv if there is no interferance

SantaHoe

Cool, which one did you get out of interest?

ando

http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=VID00425&productID=79335

Redshift

We used to have that exact problem on all TVs Ntl came out and installed a 15db signal attenuator screwed onto the master socket this device reduces the signal a bit as in our case it was too strong and it's been perfect ever since, maybe the signal level is too high for the PC card. and for such a cheap part it may be worth a try to put one on the back of the pc card

The one we have is like This

Michael Collins

The interference could also be caused by a ground loop which to me seems quite likely, especially due to the nature of the interference (it's very regular from looking at your photo). Do you have a stereo plugged into your sound cards line out? Or do you have anything which requires an external power source plugged into your PC? You should try plugging everything external out, you can leave the mouse and keyboard provided they're not fancy ones that need external power. A stereo would be the main culpret.

Let us know how it turns out

MrVestek

Ok this is gonna sound completely obvious but with my tv card i found that it wasnt anything interfering with it at all, rather the fine tuning. When ya get the program to automatically tune in, it doesn't always do a good job. Go to the options and manually fine tune the channels you're having trouble with and see if that helps. I know it's probably nothing to do with that, but ya never know.