OK, I think I have pinned down one of my problems with my home setup, so I need to find a solution. I recently moved home, and have been setting up my home cinema again. My new addition is a Plasma screen for the living room, and I think that may be giving me problems.

My setup is: Cinema room with a projector and a cabinet containing all my AV equipment; and the plasma screen in the living room which takes a feed from it, together with a remote extender. Now, I'm sure you all know my problem. The Plasma seems to be interfering with my remote extender, causing particular grief with my Sky Digibox and my Somfy electric screen. When the plasma is on in the lounge, the screen goes up and down at will in the cinema, and Sky changes channels, flips through the EPG, and jumps to the Service pages at random. (BTW, the remote extender is actually a wireless AV sender but is only used as a remote extender because my WAP causes interference on all channels).

I think that netX would solve my problem, but if I understand correctly, I'd need to buy 2 of them, as the iPronto seems to send either IR or RF, but not both. Can anyone confirm if this is correct? If it is, it is getting pricey to solve such a minor problem, especially since the only kit in the lounge is the Plasma, and I'd never want to control that unless I am sat in front of it. Also, can anyone confirm if netX is immune to Plasma problems?

Or, even better, does anyone know of a wireless extender which is less prone to these problems? I heard that Powermid is better for this, but suspect it wouldn't solve the problem. It would need to be wireless, as I am not in a position to start running cat5 cables or anything similar around the house.

Any help/feedback would be greatly appreciated.

PS: An extra problem I am having is that since moving, my Tivo cannot change channels properly. Everything is on the same shelves in the same cabinet as we had in the old house, but since moving, Tivo seems to be sending 2 of each digit to the Digibox. For example, trying to change to Sky One (Channel 106), a common occurence is for the Sky box to detect the codes for channel 11006, meaning it goes to UK Gold (Channel 110) and sits with "-06" on the screen for a minute or so until it clears. Every once in a while it gets it right, but probably 8 times out of 10 it switches to the wrong channel, which it never did before! Could this be Plasma related? It seems unlikely to me, but I just wondered if anyone else had come across this one.

You can set "IR" or "RF" on a device by device basis ... so you could use a NetXtender to do the kit in the cupboard and IR to control the plasma...

Phil

Ah! Thanks Phil. I hadn't realised that one. I thought it was like the hard buttons, and everything had to be either all IR or all RF. That's good news. Do you know if they are immune to Plasma interference by any chance?

Plasmas interfere with IR because they themselves give out huge amounts of IR (as do LCDs) so they swamp other IR transmissions and also IR extenders see the IR as a valid signal to be sending and also amplify it which is why you see the emitters permanently lit.

Plasmas do not interfere with 2.4GHz RF and so your plasma won't interfere with the signal between the iPronto and the NetXtender.

Phil

On Sky I also get double characters received from single characters sent, e.g. "1" gets received as "11". Changing delay times seems to affect matters but is unpredictable.

Ahh but the problem is from *TiVo* - not from a pronto. (Or as far as I can gather from the message that's the problem.) The Sky box seems to be getting repeated codes from TiVo when TiVo wants it to change channels.

First place I'd start is try a different speed setting for the IR codes that TiVo is using - I had a similar problem with my old Pace OnDigital receiver when I moved my AV kit from a position where it was in direct sunlight to a shaded position. I had to change from "slow" codes to "medium" codes otherwise I had duplicated commands being received. It may be a similar problem that you're having.

Phil

I can't pin this one down at all Phil. I tried all speeds, but it keeps happening. The unit is in a cabinet (both Tivo and Sky box) but it's the same cabinet as before we moved, so it shouldn't have altered its behaviour. But it has! Grrrrrr. Tried to record the Rugby last week and got 2 hours of "What a Carry On"! I am starting to wonder if it is a heat issue. The cabinet's the same, but the house is modern and much warmer than our old stone cottage. I have ordered a fan and heatsink for the Digibox and a set of fans for the cabinet to see if that helps. Seems like a long shot, but it's all I can think of.

I still need a NetX, but I think the double digit thing is a separate issue from the Plasma interference. It's a Pansonic digibox, and I'm told heat can be a problem with them. I opened it up, and there isn't even a heatsink on the CPU, never mind a fan!

Hmmm ... maybe it's just me but I'd have to say I'd probably prefer the "What a Carry On" to a load of hefty blokes with odd shaped balls. ;-)


Does seem a long shot - I don't have Sky myself so I tend not to follow the problems too closely however I believe that heat is a major issue with the Sky+ boxes but I don't know about the standard Sky boxes - I thought they were Ok.


Yup - I think the plasma is completely unrelated to that problem.

Phil

Hmmmm. I think I shall call you Phil-istine from now on! (I like Carry On too, for the record)

Plenty already do! :-D

Phil

*Laughing*

OK, I ordered one. Fingers crossed! Still not sure about how to resolve the Sky problem, but Here's hopingthe heatsink and fan solve that one. With any luck, everything will arrive tomorrow....

Hi guys,
I have a TiVo connected to a std old panasonic sky box, I am using Grundig "one leading zero" 20006. Its pretty much OK but......

I have one of these between my Sky box and TiVo :

[Link: pacelink.co.uk]

lots of other nice things there :-)

Wow! I like the look of that. gets rid of the random "where exactly to position the ir blaster" element. Thanks for that Andrew!

its very good, get one, but not a total solution, fixes maybe 99% of double digit / missed channel change issues for me.

Try changing to the Grundig codes anyway, some people say it helps with this problem. Good forum here for TiVo :

[Link: tivocommunity.com]

NetX has solved my problem with Plasma interference anyway... So that's one thing ticked off the list! Amazing how easy it was to set up as well. I also have had a minor success with the double digit problem. I just took the Sky box out of the cabinet, and that seemed to fix it. Meaning it can only be down to one of two things in my mind. Either it is due to heat buildup, which will hopefully be solved by the heatsink and fans I have ordered (the company I ordered from are not quite as efficient as Letsautomate!) or it is down to the IR signals bouncing around inside the cabinet (although it was never a problem before in the same cabinet), which should be solved by the rf2 link I have ordered (Thanks for that Andrew!). Either way, I am hoping to get that ugly Sky box back in its cabinet soon. The Cinema is finally starting to become a pleasure rather than a chore again. Phew!