Specific Channels delivering poor/awful signal quality (IT IS NOT due to the boxes/splitters!)

[wtwasp]

On January 2 (2024) at around 4 AM (Mountain Time), I discovered channel 373 completely messed up. The sound was fine, but the picture was completely scrambled in a way I can only describe as looking like bamboo blinds ; horizontal lines of the intended picture, as if it was run through a shredder sideways and the stringy strips re-assembled at random.

At the time I originally drafted/posted this †, the problem has seemingly been fixed, or corrected itself (with the ending of the current program and the next program commencing), however, this problem has happened before.

I have 3 DCTs connected to the same TV, and all boxes exhibited the same issue at the same time (indicating SIGNAL problems, not my hardware or connections). Disconnecting the coax for few minutes did NOT help, and unplugging the AC power and rebooting the box did NOT help - but how/why would it, right?

A problem affecting ALL boxes would not be corrected by troubleshooting methods affecting individual boxes - but I did it anyway, since Shawgers "support" likes to make customers waste time and treat symptoms (rather than figuring out the core problem) via doing illogical troubleshooting that even small children will tell you "that won't work".  But I did it anyway just to rule it out and be able to say : "I already did that", knowing full well its ineffectiveness.

As stated, the problem seemed to be corrected with the scheduled change of programming (approximately 75 minutes later).

This may be a problem originating with the broadcaster, or a complete signal corruption/breakdown occurring somewhere along the line between point of origin and the end-point (consumer/customer), but whatever it is, it is NOT MY JOB to figure that out.

That is what I pay these huge monthly service/subscription costs for ; I feel it is Shaw/Rogers (Shawgers) responsibility to investigate this by whatever means necessary (and not just resort to the easiest, least-inconvenient methods that require minimal/no effort), and resolve/prevent the problem from recurring.  Channel 373 is one of 4 most expensive premium channels, and should not suffer such extended and bizarre outages. 

Additionally, while the channel 373 was messed up, I went through all other channels, from 2 to 374, to see if any other channels were affected similarly. None were - but I did discover that a problem with channel 66, which I previously experienced/noticed a few weeks ago (exhibiting consistent picture pixelation and distortion, sometimes getting so bad it looks like what I can only describe as "if a kaleidoscope and thermal imaging had a a baby"), is still persisting since my initial discovery of it a few weeks ago.

As I do not watch 66 too often lately, it was not a pressing issue, and at the time, the clueless support agent had no interest in taking any steps to have it escalated to the tech department and properly investigated, instead opting for the usual insulting masturbatory moot practices of wasting my time with elementary troubleshooting steps which I have already tried and KNOW will not have any effect, and ultimately saying to "wait it out". 

At the time, knowing I was not going to get the useless/clueless agent to do anything resembling work or facilitating a real solution - such as notifying the tech teams to look into it WITHOUT inconveniencing me with UNNECESSARY home visits (invasions) - I let it go, opting to "wait it out", hoping it may just be temporary and be resolved soon. 

However, in diagnosing this current issue with channel 373 (scanning the channels), I discovered channel 66 still having the same problems from a few weeks ago. Imagine my surprise, that NOTHING was done (despite my reporting the issue), or whatever lame "fixes" were applied, did not take. That is to say,  I can only assume it has persisted all this time and is not, by just sheer coincidence, suddenly/recently acting up now. 

This is NOT acceptable.  I do not care if the channels are ones I watch daily, or annually, or at all - my viewing frequency is NOT the point and NOT an excuse to ignore the issue. There is a principle matter of the simple fact that I pay for a service (as we all do), and I expect that Shawgers aims for said service to be delivered consistently in the utmost top quality AT ALL TIMES (barring any unforeseen or unanticipated disturbances/disruptions). That means : channels be broadcast and transmitted WITHOUT pixelation, blackouts, audio drops, or "bamboo blinds" picture scrambles that last HOURS, DAYS, or even WEEKS. 

And if/when these things happen, they be PROPERLY investigated (beyond minimal troubleshooting, especially if the customer has already ruled those suspects out) and corrected ASAP once it's been brought to their attention (if they have not caught it themselves sooner). 

What I find puzzling is why NOTHING seems to be done in the way of the services being more closely monitored 24/7, and an automatic alert being sent to the tech teams when the slightest problem or drop in quality (at ANY point between from point of origin to the customer end-point) occurs?

WHY must the paying customers have to endure the hassle and inconvenience and aggravation of calling in (to inform you of what you should already be aware of), sitting on hold, waiting for automated callbacks that either never come at all or come too soon and still leave you on hold for an hour, effectively having to do half of Shawgers' job(s) for them? 

You can seemingly get all this technology to do all the thinking for every human involved, yet somehow, cannot get the same technology to vigilantly monitor for consistent video/audio signal quality, and issue alerts directly to the tech teams when even the smallest problem (deviation from delivery of quality service) occurs? 

What are we paying for? Where is the "worry-free" customer service and service provider responsibility, that once upon a time (the 90s and 00s) I came to know and trust in association with Shaw?

Things have to improve, immediately if not sooner. 

This post is partly on behalf of other customers like myself who experience similar problems and contend with the same asinine aggravation of having to hound support to do their jobs more effectively (or even at all), but is primarily to inform Shawgers of the issues, and INSIST that they take stronger initiative to investigate accordingly, to prevent further disruptions, and/or correct existing ones - whatever the case.  

Make "customer service" mean something again, by respecting the former (especially their time and investment), and unfailingly providing the latter. 

~ W  

PLEASE, DO NOT REPLY with any blaming of my (older) boxes or splitters or any other hardware/equipment. Everything has been replaced a dozen times over and is performing exceptionally well, WHEN ALLOWED TO. 

This post is NOT to solicit "suggestions". As I said in closing, it is more of a "FYI" which will hopefully reach the eyes and ears of upper-level positions and departments who can investigate and go deeper than the front-line techs ever could (or bother to), and for other customers like myself experiencing the same thing, to chime in with their own similar stories and testimonies and essentially say, "Me too!"

My fellow customers of "Shawgers", this thread is for you and your shared experiences. NOT the moderators and anyone else jonesing to show off their "knowledge base" and provide masturbatory (completely useless and producing nothing, but makes them feel good) recommendations and "help". 

This is NOT a solicitation for "help" or solutions - because these issues are beyond the usual trope of troubleshooting, and require more in-depth attention. 

This thread is for other customers experiencing the same thing (or similar issues) to chime in, and let the powers that be know this signal problem is NOT just me and my "old equipment". 


† This is a re-post, as the original thread was getting saturated with more know-it-alls who know-****-all, because they do not listen, read, nor think before replying (or even contemplate if it's logically worth replying at all), and end up saying insipid half-baked things that aggravate me. 

[rstra]

@wtwasp  What are the names of those channels that are affected, I want to check them out on my cable box? Your 3200s are scheduled for retirement, so maybe the Ignite boxes will work better for you when they get swapped. In the meantime, you may want to call Shaw again and book a service call, make them work that money.

[rstra]

@wtwasp I will check out Family, those channels can be on the same frequency, which could be part of the problem. Adult channels were on higher frequencies, and there typically more signal loss on those.

[wtwasp · Accepted solution]

Yeah, I recall something about the AP channels being on a very particular frequency unlike any of the other channels, but they've been very stable for the past year or so (whenever it was the major signal issues I was having were finally addressed and resolved) - save for the recent glitch the other day, and any of the few-and-far-between extreme instances that may have occurred in that time, of course.  

Unlike Family (66) for some reason...? No idea why that one is such an outlier. 

I doubt it's the entire frequency, otherwise the other channels that share it with Family would be affected as well (wouldn't it?), and I've seen no sign of that.  

It seems to be something that affects either the Family broadcast, and/or the channel 66 specifically. For what it's worth, the other Family channel I get on 39 seems to be transmitting just fine. As far as I can tell, it's all the same content, same schedule, just with a timeshift. Perhaps that is the problem? Wherever the 66 transmission is coming from, may be corrupt some way some how? Or, as I mentioned, maybe the channel 66 itself is failing somehow? I wish I better understood how "channels" and all that kind of delegation of content worked - it'd be easier to sort out. 

I wonder if Shaw has the ability to reassign broadcasts to other channels? Maybe move the content currently coming in on 66 to some unused channel, just to test, and see what happens? Likewise, move something else to 66 and see if it acts up as Family has been? I don't know how complicated that would be, or if it's even possible - again, I wish I understood it better and knew more. But if such a test were possible, it would sure make a few things certain one way or another. The only caveat of that is potentially moving something that doesn't have a parallel/duplicate broadcast (to have as alternatives for viewers) into a bad channel during that little test - if you can only see soemthing on that particular broadcast, it could be getting moved into a bad channel or frequency. 

I'm rambling my crazy ideas now. It's not like anybody will consider them anyway, so I'll cease and desist on that. 

Suffice it to say, the only thing that makes sense to me right now, given what little information I have, and barring any problems with the buried lines or other conduits, is : Shaw is receiving the broadcast that way (compromised/corrupted) from whomever is providing it to Shaw.

Odd that Shaw is not noticing this? You'd think they'd make sure they are receiving a good transmission before sending it back out to paying customers? But if it's coming in fine from wherever it is originating, then it falls to Shaw to figure out why it's breaking down after they send it out to customers - can't keep passing the buck and blaming other players (like the content owners/braodcasters, or customers' hardware). 

This is what I was getting at on the other thread about the broadcasts being monitored on multiple tiers 24/7 ; verify the quality coming in to Shaw from the networks, etc, and verify it again going out, and then have a final means of verifying the signal quality at the final end-point (customer) or right before that point. The more towers or nodes it has to go through increases the odds of one of them crapping out, so they need to be monitored closely at all times, so when a problem crops up, it's easy to track it down with certainty rather than all this random speculation. 

Ugh, I'm rambling again.  

I'll just concede, that for now, things are fine. All channels are doing fine (with only occasional hiccups that are no big deal), save for 66 which is persistently unstable - and if I really need to watch that content - like if I need a Degrassi fix, lol - I'll try to catch it on 39 instead. 

Though I do wish it would be looked into without a bunch of excuses and blame-game speculations on end-user equipment, especially when THIS end-user has ruled that possibility out, ad nauseum. 

Cheers.  

[wtwasp · Accepted solution]

I wonder if Shaw has the ability to reassign broadcasts to other channels? Maybe move the content currently coming in on 66 to some unused channel, just to test, and see what happens?

---

For example, I know channel 40 (formerly WTBS/WPCH "Peachtree") and a few others (BET, Paramount+, et al) are probably still empty, since Shaw keeps cutting/losing those broadcasts... 

Yet no reductions in the price... go figure. 
Prices go up, but quality (and quantity) of service goes down... 

[mdk]

@wtwasp wrote: As far as I can tell, it's all the same content, same schedule, just with a timeshift.

On the non-BlueCurve TV boxes, channel 39 is "Family (West)" and Channel 66 is "Family (East)".

It is possible that Shaw's satellite on-ground satellite-dishes point to two different satellites, to receive the two channels. So, it could be a seasonal collinear alignment of Shaw-stationary-satellite-radiation-from-the-Sun that causes interference. Moving the feed onto a different TV channel is unlikely to improve anything.

>> Shaw keeps cutting/losing those broadcasts... 

Paramount is moving to become a "premium" over-the-top channel.

See: https://www.digitalhome.ca/threads/what-happened-to-bet-channel.294551/

The Canadian companies (Eastlink, Bell, Shaw, Rogers) had an issue with "carriage fees", in December 2022.

If you want BET, you can pay to stream "BET+" on your Smart-TV.

P.S. House prices, grocery prices, and municipal taxes all are going up -- not just Shaw. The CRTC cannot regulate house nor grocery prices.