Just had it installed, the box is Humax and there is nothing wrong with the TV. Quite often the picture sticks or the sound makes a screeching noise. The picture does not break up into pixels it's more like a stutter for a second or so. No idea what it is and nor does the mechanic who put it in, anyone an idea or is it just another thing that does not work properly here?

Sounds like a loss of the data stream to the mpeg decoder.

Check your signal strength. You might also have some terrestrial interference going on.

Does the problem occur randomly or is it regular? Living near some radar, radio (ham, police or military) or TV antennas?

Sounds like a loss of the data stream to the mpeg decoder.

Check your signal strength. You might also have some terrestrial interference going on.

Does the problem occur randomly or is it regular? Living near some radar, radio (ham, police or military) or TV antennas?

Also check your signal quality, that's just as important.

Also be aware we are currently having one of the larges solar flares in years so disruptions of communications is to be expected. Normally a held picture is last good frame grab (digital signal should not fad in and out like analog - you have it or it holds last frame until you do. If just installed they may need to get antenna on sat a bit better but as said this is a very difficult time for communications.

Usually this is caused by a glitch in the data stream flow caused by a temporary interruption of signal or low signal quality. I've had such issues on various settop boxes on C and KU-bands, to include the boxes provided by TrueVisions for their DSTV (satellite) or CATV (cable) service. On a few channels the problem seems to occur much more than others...to me that saying it a ground station uplink problem from whatever part of the world that uplink may be coming from versus a satellite downlink problem. The wife watches a C band station called TV Pool (about Thai celebrities) and we see brief pauses/freezes quite often although the signal strength and quality are excellent....and on TrueVisions BBC seems to have an issue with brief pauses/freezes. There are some other C-Band channels that are kinda flaky from a freeze/pause standpoint also even with good signal and quality. The freezes/pauses are infrequent and brief but it does seem certain channels are worst than others.

To determine if it's just a "your box" problem or just a reception/data stream problem affecting everyone you almost need to be able to see if a neighbor's is having the same problem.

Now if the freeze is frequent, long, on numerous channels, and you need to reset your subscription card frequently then you probably have a box/card problem. And let's just say certain boxes/cards procured through alternate channels (not to imply anything) are notorious for these kinds of problems.

Thank you all for the excellent info, on some channels more than others (on some it stops for a long time) Will probably send it back as luckily only on a trial basis.

Personnally I have not noticed any problems but there has been a very big solar flare

in the last 48 hours that might be the cause of the problem.

Also have the installer check the alignment of your dish.

Personnally I have not noticed any problems but there has been a very big solar flare

in the last 48 hours that might be the cause of the problem.

Happening almost daily was we reach the spring equinox and solar outage season.

Space Weather Message Code: SUMPX2

Serial Number: 30

Issue Time: 2012 Mar 14 1442 UTC

SUMMARY: Proton Event 10MeV Integral Flux exceeded 100pfu

Begin Time: 2012 Mar 13 1810 UTC

Maximum Time: 2012 Mar 13 2045 UTC

End Time: 2012 Mar 14 0955 UTC

Maximum 10MeV Flux: 469 pfu

NOAA Scale: S2 - Moderate

NOAA Space Weather Scale descriptions can be found at

www.swpc.noaa.gov/NOAAscales