Lately we have been experiencing severe pixelation and sound breakup especially between 8:00 and 10:00 pm, on on both PVRs, for both live broadcast and recordings made during that time period.  Shaw instructions suggest it could be a problem with the PVR, but one is new from Shaw (i.e., rebuilt) and the other is a couple of years old.  Both show the same problems at the same time, so it is not the PVRs. Second suggestion on the Shaw site is that it could be the signal splitter.  There is a simple splitter in the "OpenHouse" box in the garage which is the terminus for the smart cabling that connects to the media centre and to the office and receives the signal from the Shaw modem(?) at the end of the infeed cable.  I assume there is also a splitter built into the terminal connector of the smart cable for the two cable connections and the two "Phone-jack" type connectors.  Some of this hardware could be issues, but that would not explain why the signal is so bad at peak viewing hours and Ok during the day.  That leads me to suspect a problem with the signal being received from Shaw.  I have not tried running 40' of cable to connect the PVR directly to the feed from the modem (or whatever it is) in the garage, and wonder if I should.

Is there something going on with the Shaw system in the southeast corner of Vancouver (V5S area code)?  Perhaps too much drain on the signal at that time of night? - Tonight is not too bad, but last night the entire picture would break up if the the image was changing much and the sound would break up with it.  It took a week for Shaw to manage to connect the new PVR as it could not get an IP connection, and with these signal issues, perhaps it is time to look at alternative carriers.