Without explaining all the testing I’ve done (don’t worry, I was very thorough) I’m wondering if one of my TV’s tuners is starting to fail. It’s a 10+ year old Vizio LED lit LCD TV. When you tune in a channel (about 75% of the 54 channels I get) start out all blocky then slowly clear up if they clear up at all. It’s like there is a weak signal. Like in summer when the trees have leaves and/or the atmosphere is toying with signals. But like I said I’ve tested everything for several hours and do not have signal problems at any of the other 4 TVs as well as Tablo. We’ve resorted to using Roku/Tablo on this TV for live TV and all the channels display fine. It’s been going on for a few weeks now.
Has anyone experienced something like this before with any of their OTA TV tuners.
Yes. Sad, it’s been a wonderful TV. Has a built in channel guide that actually works great. When new sub channels started showing up they just magically appeared. No re-scanning required. Picture quality is excellent. We’ll keep it and start using Tablo for live TV if necessary.
I do sympathize with you. You’ll unlikely find a “new” TV you’ll enjoy as much as your current one… you’ll not know of the OTA “features” until you get a chance to try them out usually.
Update. First of all “knock on wood”. After searching the interwebs for any advice on my TV and finding nothing helpful, other than unplugging it any holding down the power button, I dug out the manual and started to play with the TV’s menus. I found 4 different places where there were selections that included the word reset. So I first reset the sound settings then video, then what looked like all settings. The 4th is a memory reset that deleted everything and set it all back to original factory specs. Well since then the TV has been working fine again. After 3 days of no blockyness after changing channels I hope it’s fixed.
In the help menu there is a TV status that includes “Signal Quality”. All channels are at least 85% and most are 100%.
Isn’t that screwy? But hey, one of the easier fixes - well once you “figured it out” GREAT!
My LG TVs have a signal strength and signal quality. Virtually every channel has 100% signal quality while signal strength can be as low as ~75% to the mid 80%.
It’s odd, these setting are for the “tuner” vs setting for HDMI inputs - as the devices appeared to work with the TV.
Whether the TV is at the end with 30' coax or at +50' coax run. Adding coax may impead some loss, but if you have the right antenna, and an amp splitter long cable runs aren't an enemy.
Resetting Tablo to factory specs is often the last resort advice. I had an old analog cell phone where the sound would get all distorted. Resetting to factory specs always fixed it. Yeah it’s screwy. I guess anything electronic that processes signals can get data corruption.