Manhattan T3R tuning problems

HiLuca

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Hi,

I am hoping someone may be able to help me with something I can't seem to find an answer to on Google or I just don't know what I'm looking for.

My dad had a BT youview box for quite a few years which worked perfectly before the hard drive had enough.

I searched around for a replacement and ended up ordering him a Manhatten t3r. He had no internet connection so I setup that part at my house and he tuned it in at his.

It's having a lot of problems and I don't know if it is something we are doing wrong or the box is faulty. I have tried an update during these problems which didn't fix it.

It started with him having a lot of freezing, stuttering and broken pictures on the Drama channel and some others.

He decided to retune the box but it only found 14 channels, no bbc1, 2 and no hd channels. After numerous retries the box was stuck on 14 channels. A couple of days later another try which found 60 odd channels.

Two days later the box lost most of its channels again overnight without performing any retune. This is happening randomly most of the time. Channels like bbc 1 will disappear and then come back hours later by themselves. Sometimes the channel is not there to be opened at all while other time the channel is showing but the screen is blank.

The aerial loop from the box to the tv also seems to turn on and off by itself. When he plugs the aerial directly into his tv and using its own tuner the picture is perfect, it finds all of the channels and there are no problems with picture freezing and breaking up.

I checked the freeview signal for his postcode and it shows 120 channels all good. The box shows the transmitter as being South West. His tv is a 4ish year old cheap Samsung.

Are we right in thinking the Manhattan box is faulty?

Thank You
 
I have recently got the Manhattan T2-R and think the tuners they use are a bit fussy, I had poor reception and pixelation on the HD channels, which were fine when aerial plugged straight into tv, tried a different cable from wall socket to the Manhattan and so far all ok.
 
I’d make sure that the box has the latest firmware, which is 2.04. If that’s onboard, try a full factory reset. Also make sure that aerial and HDMI connections are kept well apart. It does sound though as if the box could be duff. Perhaps the easiest approach would be to get it swapped out. If a second one behaves in the same way though, I‘d suspect something ‘local’ as the issue.
 
I have recently got the Manhattan T2-R and think the tuners they use are a bit fussy, I had poor reception and pixelation on the HD channels, which were fine when aerial plugged straight into tv, tried a different cable from wall socket to the Manhattan and so far all ok.

I had exactly the same with my T3-R, and (touch wood) solved it in exactly the same way.

Might be worth going into Settings, and then Information, and then Signal. Leave it on the page for a few minutes and see what the Signal Strength and Signal Quality values are doing. Mine were all over the place with one cable, which was causing the breakup on HD channels. Swapped for another cable last night, and they immediately stabilised. Watched BBC2 HD for about half an hour to test, and not a single breakup.
 
Thank you for your replies. I found a previous post about keeping the cables apart when searching for solutions and passed that on to my dad but it did not help.

I have asked him to do a factory reset which he is doing tonight so i'll find out how that has gone tomorrow. Failing that I think I can go back and say it is faulty. He was watching something earlier while recording another channel. When he came to watch the recording it said it had failed due to power loss which is impossible because he was watching it at the time. The final nail in the coffin I guess.

I have taken note of trying different cables and seeing what is happening to the signal strength and quality should the next box behave but need some help with any freezing.
 
I have asked him to do a factory reset which he is doing tonight so i'll find out how that has gone tomorrow. Failing that I think I can go back and say it is faulty. He was watching something earlier while recording another channel. When he came to watch the recording it said it had failed due to power loss which is impossible because he was watching it at the time. The final nail in the coffin I guess.

Any luck?
Must admit I'm finding the Manhattan T3-R quite frustrating at the moment.
Break up on HD channels seems to happen irrespective of signal strength and quality - something that never happened when I was using the built in tuner on my LG TV.
I bought mine second hand so can't return it, but I'm starting to think from the comments on this thread, and similar threads, that the tuners on the T3-R are far more picky than the tuner in my TV.

I'll give it a bit longer, but might sell it and just use the TV. Slightly more fiddly for scheduling recordings, but at least the picture is consistent!
 
No tuner pickiness on my T3-R. I do think that the unit doesn't deal too well with very low signal conditions though. My old Panasonic PVR seems a little more forgiving in that respect.
 
No tuner pickiness on my T3-R. I do think that the unit doesn't deal too well with very low signal conditions though. My old Panasonic PVR seems a little more forgiving in that respect.

Yep, I think that's a very accurate assessment!
Must admit I just assumed it would handle everything the same as the built in LG tuner, so came as a bit of a surprise when it didn't.

I'll do some testing at the weekend and switch between both.
 
My T3-R has been rock solid in terms of signal. I've never had picture break-up on any SD or HD channels and never had a failed recording. I loop the signal through to my Panasonic TV too and it maintains the signal strength.
Check that your aerial cables are shielded and not getting interference from power cables. Sometimes you can get interference simply from a poor quality aerial cable lying against a poor quality power cable from another device.
Also check the coax aerial outlet on the wall. If you have an old socket then it might be worth replacing it.
 
I've had a couple of recordings fail due to a 'power issue' of some sort. It's to do with the time taken to spin the HDD up at the start of a recording apparently, and is a known issue. I've just installed firmware version 2.04(14) at the company's request, which contains a fix that Manhattan will hope sort the problem out.
 
My T3-R has been rock solid in terms of signal. I've never had picture break-up on any SD or HD channels and never had a failed recording. I loop the signal through to my Panasonic TV too and it maintains the signal strength.
Check that your aerial cables are shielded and not getting interference from power cables. Sometimes you can get interference simply from a poor quality aerial cable lying against a poor quality power cable from another device.
Also check the coax aerial outlet on the wall. If you have an old socket then it might be worth replacing it.

Decided last night I'm going to sell mine.
HD channels were breaking up as soon as I turned it on; switched the aerial cable to the TV tuner and had no such issues.
You could well be right about the cables, but I don't understand why the same cables would work flawlessly direct to the TV. Life's too short to be switching loads of things out to try and find the cause, so I've accepted the T3-R just isn't for me.
 
I'd be inclined to talk to Manhattan first, even if your box is s/h. With any luck, the original owner may have registered for the 2 year guarantee. If it is duff though, isn't trying to sell it a bit 'naughty'? Could you try the unit on another setup, perhaps, to see what happens? An alternative might be to go back to the seller, because if he/she/they knowingly sold something as duff there might be some scope for redress.
 
I'd be inclined to talk to Manhattan first, even if your box is s/h. With any luck, the original owner may have registered for the 2 year guarantee. If it is duff though, isn't trying to sell it a bit 'naughty'? Could you try the unit on another setup, perhaps, to see what happens? An alternative might be to go back to the seller, because if he/she/they knowingly sold something as duff there might be some scope for redress.

Yep, all valid points. Original seller claimed it had been opened but never used, so unlikely to get any joy there unfortunately.
I can’t easily take it to another house to try it at the moment, but that might be a possibility at some point.
I suspect it’s more my cabling that it doesn’t like, but I really don’t want to spend money trying to prove this.
I’ll give it some thought over the weekend.
 
Managed to take it to another house this morning, bit of a faff, but wanted to be 100% sure the box is OK.
And it is - no break up at all on HD channels.
I’ll sell it now with a clear conscience - I could probably get to the bottom of the cause but not without paying for someone to come out and check aerial, wall port etc.
 
But if the T3-R had issues it’s possible that another box would too. I’d be inclined to swap out any aerial flyleads and HDMI cables. Reinstall them keeping them and any power leads well apart.
 
But if the T3-R had issues it’s possible that another box would too. I’d be inclined to swap out any aerial flyleads and HDMI cables. Reinstall them keeping them and any power leads well apart.

Done all that, several times over…
Won’t be replacing the box with another box. I’ll just use the built in Freeview Play on the TV with a HDD attached for any occasional recordings.
If anything it’s just pushed me even more towards catch up services for terrestrial viewing.

Thanks for all the help and advice though, definitely helped me confirm a few things.
 
Happy to help. The big problem that I have with the UK catch-up services is the appalling quality compared to the likes of Netflix, ATV, etc. The streamers are mired, by and large, with a 720p picture resolution and stereo audio, and most are infested with non-skippable ad. breaks. Sure, some iPlayer stuff is 4K HLG, but it’s still 2-channel. I’d readily junk all my PVRs and would happily pay extra to avoid the ads. if the quality was better.
 
Hi,

I thought I would update on what happened for future users.

My dad tried the factory reset but had no joy. We thought it had to be faulty so contacted Richer sounds. Because I decided to try and fix the issue instead of going straight to them we ended up outside of the 30 day window to swap which meant a possible repair. However after the customer service guy passing on what was happening to the service manager they said we could swap it.

The new box found something like 104 channels on its first set up. The maximum the original found was in the 60 odd. There is no picture freezing and breakup, no loss of channels or recordings or power failures. He has now had it just over a week and so far he says its just like his old BT youview box. It is still early days but its looking like the original box was just faulty.
 

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