"Arfa Daily" wrote in message ...

"michael adams" wrote in message
...

"John" wrote in message
...

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

"jon.in.durham" wrote in message
...
wrote:
Over the past week or so I noticed that my TV remote was less
responsive than it should be . I took the cover apart and noticed
that
the rubber pad with the buttons on and also the top of the circuit
board had some sticky substance on ...almost certainly from some
spilled sugary tea recently . I washed the upper cover and the rubber
pad and cleaned off the stickiness from the circuit board and now it
is doing what it should be doing . I wondered however ,how these
things actually work . When you press the buttons it obviously bears
down on the relevant part of the circuit board but can someone
explain
exactly what is happening when you do that to cause ,for example,the
channel to change....all that seems to be happening is that the
underside of the button is pressing on the contact on the board.

The very same thing is happening to my Sony remote for my Freeview
set-top box, but I have to keep opening it up every week to clean the
grease off the circuit board. The buttons are in some sort of
silicone-rubber pad with some black substance underneath which makes
contact with the circuit board.

Worst affected buttons are 1 and the sound and channel up/down buttons

I used to think this was only happening to me!

So this one is a good point in question as an example of when I said in
my
earlier post that "sometimes, it's just time for a new one ..."

Arfa


Some people don't realise that there is a circuit to slightly delay to
the
signal - to prevent accidental operation.

Wrong. Do you know how fast electrons travel through a conductor ?

And in any case how would any circuit be able to distinguish between
accidental and deliberate presses.


??????????? How fast electrons travel is neither here nor there. Just about
any circuit which employs input from a physical key or switch, employs a
technique called de-bouncing, which causes the remote processor IC or key
matrix interface IC or system control IC or whatever is the appropriate
input device in whatever equipment we are talking about at the time, to
ignore any change of state on any of its input lines for a pre-programmed
number of internal clocks. Once the input has ben stable for that number of
clocks i.e. the switch contacts have stopped bouncing, *then* the input
device takes whatever action is indicated by whichever button, key or switch
has been activated. The delay is short in human terms - usually only a few
mS - so it's unlikely that any operator will notice that the reaction to a
button press is anything other than instantaneous. Which does rather knock
on the head any pause to make sure that a button has been deliberately
rather than accidentally pushed. I can certainly never remember in over 35
years of repairing equipment which uses remote controls - ultrasonic,
infrared, or wireless - encountering one where there was a deliberate long
anti-accident pause. There is an additional delay introduced, allbeit
another short one, by the fact that the receiving processor will wait until
at least two complete frames of identical data have been received to ensure
that no corruption of the data has taken place in the transmission path.
Many 'digital' TV sets take an inordinately long time to respond to a
channel change remote control request, but this is a function of the way
that the TV has to find the new data stream requested, lock onto it and
process it into a change of 'channel', rather than any delay in the actual
remote control system.



They use this slight delay to
press ever harder on the button to make something happen.

Wrong. This is exactly what they need to do. Press harder. Any "delay" to
prevent accidental operation is purely mechanical and is provided by the
elasticity of the rubber keys which can absorb a certain amount of
pressure
before the pressure is transmitted to back of the key and it touches
the circuit board .

michael adams



Sorry, but this is not the case at all. The 'poor contact' problem is most
often caused by the conductive rubber

There is no such thing as "conductive rubber".

The conductivity is provide by a graphite in oil solution
which is what is used to coat the underside of the rubber
pad.

Conductivity can be improved on the pad by rubbing the contact
points on the underside with a soft graphite pencil such as a
4B or above.

Again the person who suggested cleaning the rubber pad with a pencil
eraser - and thus rubbing off all the graphite simply doesn't have a
clue what they're talking about.


contact lozenges, breaking down
chemically. Extra hard pressing of any such affected buttons, merely
exacerbates the problem, and leads to a faster complete cessation of the
functionality of the button(s) in question.


Yawn


michael adams



Arfa

...

The result is
increased wear and even broken circuit boards.

"michael adams" wrote in message ...

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message ...

"michael adams" wrote in message
...

"John" wrote in message
...

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

"jon.in.durham" wrote in message
...
wrote:
Over the past week or so I noticed that my TV remote was less
responsive than it should be . I took the cover apart and noticed
that
the rubber pad with the buttons on and also the top of the circuit
board had some sticky substance on ...almost certainly from some
spilled sugary tea recently . I washed the upper cover and the rubber
pad and cleaned off the stickiness from the circuit board and now it
is doing what it should be doing . I wondered however ,how these
things actually work . When you press the buttons it obviously bears
down on the relevant part of the circuit board but can someone
explain
exactly what is happening when you do that to cause ,for example,the
channel to change....all that seems to be happening is that the
underside of the button is pressing on the contact on the board.

The very same thing is happening to my Sony remote for my Freeview
set-top box, but I have to keep opening it up every week to clean the
grease off the circuit board. The buttons are in some sort of
silicone-rubber pad with some black substance underneath which makes
contact with the circuit board.

Worst affected buttons are 1 and the sound and channel up/down buttons

I used to think this was only happening to me!

So this one is a good point in question as an example of when I said in
my
earlier post that "sometimes, it's just time for a new one ..."

Arfa


Some people don't realise that there is a circuit to slightly delay to
the
signal - to prevent accidental operation.

Wrong. Do you know how fast electrons travel through a conductor ?

And in any case how would any circuit be able to distinguish between
accidental and deliberate presses.


??????????? How fast electrons travel is neither here nor there. Just about
any circuit which employs input from a physical key or switch, employs a
technique called de-bouncing, which causes the remote processor IC or key
matrix interface IC or system control IC or whatever is the appropriate
input device in whatever equipment we are talking about at the time, to
ignore any change of state on any of its input lines for a pre-programmed
number of internal clocks. Once the input has ben stable for that number of
clocks i.e. the switch contacts have stopped bouncing, *then* the input
device takes whatever action is indicated by whichever button, key or switch
has been activated. The delay is short in human terms - usually only a few
mS - so it's unlikely that any operator will notice that the reaction to a
button press is anything other than instantaneous. Which does rather knock
on the head any pause to make sure that a button has been deliberately
rather than accidentally pushed. I can certainly never remember in over 35
years of repairing equipment which uses remote controls - ultrasonic,
infrared, or wireless - encountering one where there was a deliberate long
anti-accident pause. There is an additional delay introduced, allbeit
another short one, by the fact that the receiving processor will wait until
at least two complete frames of identical data have been received to ensure
that no corruption of the data has taken place in the transmission path.
Many 'digital' TV sets take an inordinately long time to respond to a
channel change remote control request, but this is a function of the way
that the TV has to find the new data stream requested, lock onto it and
process it into a change of 'channel', rather than any delay in the actual
remote control system.



They use this slight delay to
press ever harder on the button to make something happen.

Wrong. This is exactly what they need to do. Press harder. Any "delay" to
prevent accidental operation is purely mechanical and is provided by the
elasticity of the rubber keys which can absorb a certain amount of
pressure
before the pressure is transmitted to back of the key and it touches
the circuit board .

michael adams



Sorry, but this is not the case at all. The 'poor contact' problem is most
often caused by the conductive rubber

There is no such thing as "conductive rubber".

Oops!

Conductive rubber - rubber containing carbon spheres whose conductivity
increases with pressure.


michael adams

On Sat, 14 Feb 2009 13:13:01 -0000, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:


"Bartc" wrote in message
. com...

"John" wrote in message
...

wrote:
Over the past week or so I noticed that my TV remote was less
responsive than it should be . I took the cover apart and noticed that

Some people don't realise that there is a circuit to slightly delay to
the
signal - to prevent accidental operation. They use this slight delay to
press ever harder on the button to make something happen. The result is
increased wear and even broken circuit boards.

They've taken this to extremes with my V+ box and it's remote:

Either it doesn't register at all, or it registers (and a tiny LED on the
box confirms this, if you happen to be looking at it instead of the TV),
but sometimes it does nothing with it for several seconds.

Your reaction of course is to press the button once or twice more.
Whereupon
it takes these several key presses which have now queued up and executes
them rapidly one after the other, usually completely screwing up whatever
it
is you're trying to do. Sometimes, it completely ignores any key presses
for
up to maybe a minute.

Now, when you press a button and nothing happens, and you weren't looking
at
the LED, you have to make a decision as to whether to wait to see if
there's
a reaction to this press, or decide to chance a second and possibly
self-cancelling press...

And even when it clearly registers the action immediately, it likes to
take
change channel in it's own good time. A few weeks back I was using an old
17" table top TV; you pressed the buttons on the front, and the channel
changed instantly! I kept changing channels just for this novelty.

--
Bartc


You are merely seeing the difference between an analogue channel change,
where all that happened was that the frequency of the tuner's local
oscillator was shifted as a result of sending it a single data byte, and
changing data stream in a digital multiplex, which is a complex operation,
requiring the processor to drop the existing data stream, look for and
identify the requested new one, lock onto it, frame it, wait for a new
'whole' picture to be transmitted, process it, write it to memory, read it
back out and display it ...

Arfa


FFS...What have I started here? ..LOL

contact lozenges, breaking down
chemically. Extra hard pressing of any such affected buttons, merely
exacerbates the problem, and leads to a faster complete cessation of the
functionality of the button(s) in question.


Yawn


michael adams



Arfa

...

The result is
increased wear and even broken circuit boards.




Yawn all you like, pal. I care not ...

Your contention that the undersides of the contact lozenges are coated with
some kind of graphite-loaded oil, is imaginative nonsense.

Arfa

John wrote:
Some people don't realise that there is a circuit to slightly delay to the
signal - to prevent accidental operation. They use this slight delay to
press ever harder on the button to make something happen. The result is
increased wear and even broken circuit boards.


I'd say that's more of a symptom of the *receiver* not doing what it's
being told. Some IR systems at the equipment end can take a small while
to process commands, and also may discriminate from random presses using
a similar delay to your description. And then some remotes are not so
directional, some have faulty caps and dodgy battery contacts, and some
hammer life out of rapidly dying or inappropiate batteries.

Hammering excessively on buttons is the equivalent of the misses
overtightening the bathroom tap.

--
Adrian C

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

"Bartc" wrote in message
om...

"John" wrote in message
...

wrote:
Over the past week or so I noticed that my TV remote was less
responsive than it should be . I took the cover apart and noticed
that

Some people don't realise that there is a circuit to slightly delay to
the
signal - to prevent accidental operation. They use this slight delay to
press ever harder on the button to make something happen. The result is
increased wear and even broken circuit boards.

They've taken this to extremes with my V+ box and it's remote:

Either it doesn't register at all, or it registers (and a tiny LED on the
box confirms this, if you happen to be looking at it instead of the TV),
but sometimes it does nothing with it for several seconds.

A few weeks back I was using an old
17" table top TV; you pressed the buttons on the front, and the channel
changed instantly! I kept changing channels just for this novelty.

You are merely seeing the difference between an analogue channel change,
where all that happened was that the frequency of the tuner's local
oscillator was shifted as a result of sending it a single data byte, and
changing data stream in a digital multiplex, which is a complex operation,
requiring the processor to drop the existing data stream, look for and
identify the requested new one, lock onto it, frame it, wait for a new
'whole' picture to be transmitted, process it, write it to memory, read it
back out and display it ...

Yes there might be a delay in synchronising to the data stream of a new
digital channel (as it waits for a new i-frame in mpeg compression for
example).

But the delays I've seen on Freeview and digital satellite have been small
and only mildly annoying. Nothing like the V+ box used with digital cable,
which can be impossible at times. It is the unresponsive of the remote
controller and the box which is the main culprit.

--
Bartc

On Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:10:19 -0000, "John"
wrote:

snip

Of course there is always the six shooter approach where the remote is
flicked with a wrist action towards the set. Many people find that this
helps!!!!

Behold The Megatron:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bitrot/2472646119/.

Jerry Brown
--
A cat may look at a king
(but probably won't bother)

http://www.jwbrown.co.uk

"Bartc" wrote in message
m...
"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

"Bartc" wrote in message
om...

"John" wrote in message
...

wrote:
Over the past week or so I noticed that my TV remote was less
responsive than it should be . I took the cover apart and noticed
that

Some people don't realise that there is a circuit to slightly delay to
the
signal - to prevent accidental operation. They use this slight delay to
press ever harder on the button to make something happen. The result is
increased wear and even broken circuit boards.

They've taken this to extremes with my V+ box and it's remote:

Either it doesn't register at all, or it registers (and a tiny LED on
the
box confirms this, if you happen to be looking at it instead of the TV),
but sometimes it does nothing with it for several seconds.

A few weeks back I was using an old
17" table top TV; you pressed the buttons on the front, and the channel
changed instantly! I kept changing channels just for this novelty.

You are merely seeing the difference between an analogue channel change,
where all that happened was that the frequency of the tuner's local
oscillator was shifted as a result of sending it a single data byte, and
changing data stream in a digital multiplex, which is a complex
operation, requiring the processor to drop the existing data stream, look
for and identify the requested new one, lock onto it, frame it, wait for
a new 'whole' picture to be transmitted, process it, write it to memory,
read it back out and display it ...

Yes there might be a delay in synchronising to the data stream of a new
digital channel (as it waits for a new i-frame in mpeg compression for
example).

But the delays I've seen on Freeview and digital satellite have been small
and only mildly annoying. Nothing like the V+ box used with digital cable,
which can be impossible at times. It is the unresponsive of the remote
controller and the box which is the main culprit.

--
Bartc

The LCD TV that I have in my kitchen when working on its FreeView tuner,
takes fully five seconds to 'respond' to a remote channel change request, in
terms of putting up the new picture. When it is in analogue mode, channel
changing is near-instantaneous. OTOH, the digital sat box is as quick at
changing channel as an analogue TV. Just as a matter of interest, how slow
is the V+ box at changing channel ? I'll ask my mate who works for them on
field service, if he has come across this a lot, and whether it is
considered to be an 'issue' by them.

Arfa

On Sat, 14 Feb 2009 23:54:22 +0000, Arfa Daily wrote:
Just as a matter of
interest, how slow is the V+ box at changing channel ? I'll ask my mate
who works for them on field service, if he has come across this a lot,
and whether it is considered to be an 'issue' by them.

It's crap. I was really disappointed with it.

There are two aspects:

- it takes a while to respond to the remote (sometimes several seconds,
usually just 'a bit longer than expected'. It then queues up button
presses so when it does respond it whips through doing things you didn't
want it to do. This is especially noticeable when usaing the EPG, which
uses such huge fonts you get page after page after page to scroll through
but scrolling each takes too long.

- channel changing actually takes a while to sync up and change. Much
longer than Sky+ or a cheap'n'cheerful freeview box.


I like the recording aspect of V+, but overall it's not that nice to use.
I've designed and programmed a few user interfaces for work and the V+
interface responsiveness would have got me told to 'do it again,
properly'...

On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 08:47:22 +0000, Tascam Holiday wrote:

On Sat, 14 Feb 2009, michael adams wrote:

Some people don't realise that there is a circuit to slightly delay to
the signal - to prevent accidental operation.

Wrong. Do you know how fast electrons travel through a conductor ?

About 1mm/sec. But I think maybe you're confusing electrons and current.
;-)

0.02mm or less per second. But I think he's talking about switch debounce
circuits, not electrons OR current...

There's also a thing in most IR setups where the control bitstream has to
be received at least twice corrcetly before anything is done. Since the
bitstream for a standard remote setup like RC5 takes 25ms to send and
there's an 89ms gap between resends that means you've got *at least*
159ms before it even starts to respond to the signal. That's getting well
into the perceivable delay range.

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

"Bartc" wrote in message

But the delays I've seen on Freeview and digital satellite have been
small and only mildly annoying. Nothing like the V+ box used with digital
cable, which can be impossible at times. It is the unresponsive of the
remote controller and the box which is the main culprit.

The LCD TV that I have in my kitchen when working on its FreeView tuner,
takes fully five seconds to 'respond' to a remote channel change request,
in terms of putting up the new picture. When it is in analogue mode,
channel changing is near-instantaneous. OTOH, the digital sat box is as
quick at changing channel as an analogue TV. Just as a matter of interest,
how slow is the V+ box at changing channel ? I'll ask my mate who works
for them on field service, if he has come across this a lot, and whether
it is considered to be an 'issue' by them.

When it's behaving itself, and the remote is right in front of the box,
channel change is 3-4 seconds. Which is OK.

The problem is presses that don't register, combined with sometimes
inexplicable delays in responding, compounded by sometimes pressing a key a
second time not knowing whether the first press simply didn't register or
it's just thinking about it.

Sometimes the box seems 'busy', like a PC that's just booted up: the icons
are there, the cursor moves, but clicking anything takes ages because it
seems to have other things on it's mind.

And many operations seem to require some sort of dialog with the cable
company.

They could make things much better by having an audible beep for a keypress,
and not stacking up commands until the first one has executed,

(And the scary thing about V+ is that the cable company could easily find
out exactly what programs you've recorded, watched, and paused on!)

--
Bartc

"Bartc" wrote in message
m...

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

"Bartc" wrote in message

But the delays I've seen on Freeview and digital satellite have been
small and only mildly annoying. Nothing like the V+ box used with
digital cable, which can be impossible at times. It is the unresponsive
of the remote controller and the box which is the main culprit.

The LCD TV that I have in my kitchen when working on its FreeView tuner,
takes fully five seconds to 'respond' to a remote channel change request,
in terms of putting up the new picture. When it is in analogue mode,
channel changing is near-instantaneous. OTOH, the digital sat box is as
quick at changing channel as an analogue TV. Just as a matter of
interest, how slow is the V+ box at changing channel ? I'll ask my mate
who works for them on field service, if he has come across this a lot,
and whether it is considered to be an 'issue' by them.

When it's behaving itself, and the remote is right in front of the box,
channel change is 3-4 seconds. Which is OK.

The problem is presses that don't register, combined with sometimes
inexplicable delays in responding, compounded by sometimes pressing a key
a second time not knowing whether the first press simply didn't register
or it's just thinking about it.

Sometimes the box seems 'busy', like a PC that's just booted up: the icons
are there, the cursor moves, but clicking anything takes ages because it
seems to have other things on it's mind.

And many operations seem to require some sort of dialog with the cable
company.

They could make things much better by having an audible beep for a
keypress, and not stacking up commands until the first one has executed,

(And the scary thing about V+ is that the cable company could easily find
out exactly what programs you've recorded, watched, and paused on!)

--
Bartc

Well, that's absolutely standard these days. It's the reason that part of
the Sky contract stipulates that the box must remain connected to a phone
line. If you do dis it, they send you a letter threatening to cut your legs
off at the knees ...

Arfa

On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 12:01:55 UTC, "Bartc" wrote:

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

"Bartc" wrote in message

But the delays I've seen on Freeview and digital satellite have been
small and only mildly annoying. Nothing like the V+ box used with digital
cable, which can be impossible at times. It is the unresponsive of the
remote controller and the box which is the main culprit.

The LCD TV that I have in my kitchen when working on its FreeView tuner,
takes fully five seconds to 'respond' to a remote channel change request,
in terms of putting up the new picture. When it is in analogue mode,
channel changing is near-instantaneous. OTOH, the digital sat box is as
quick at changing channel as an analogue TV. Just as a matter of interest,
how slow is the V+ box at changing channel ? I'll ask my mate who works
for them on field service, if he has come across this a lot, and whether
it is considered to be an 'issue' by them.

When it's behaving itself, and the remote is right in front of the box,
channel change is 3-4 seconds. Which is OK.

The problem is presses that don't register, combined with sometimes
inexplicable delays in responding, compounded by sometimes pressing a key a
second time not knowing whether the first press simply didn't register or
it's just thinking about it.

Sometimes the box seems 'busy', like a PC that's just booted up: the icons
are there, the cursor moves, but clicking anything takes ages because it
seems to have other things on it's mind.

I suppose you have changed the batteries? Seriously, those symptoms (or
some of them) can be traced to failing batteries.

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

"Bartc" wrote in message
m...

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

"Bartc" wrote in message

But the delays I've seen on Freeview and digital satellite have been
small and only mildly annoying. Nothing like the V+ box used with
digital cable, which can be impossible at times. It is the unresponsive
of the remote controller and the box which is the main culprit.

The LCD TV that I have in my kitchen when working on its FreeView tuner,
takes fully five seconds to 'respond' to a remote channel change request,
in terms of putting up the new picture. When it is in analogue mode,
channel changing is near-instantaneous. OTOH, the digital sat box is as
quick at changing channel as an analogue TV. Just as a matter of
interest, how slow is the V+ box at changing channel ? I'll ask my mate
who works for them on field service, if he has come across this a lot,
and whether it is considered to be an 'issue' by them.

When it's behaving itself, and the remote is right in front of the box,
channel change is 3-4 seconds. Which is OK.

The problem is presses that don't register, combined with sometimes
inexplicable delays in responding, compounded by sometimes pressing a key
a second time not knowing whether the first press simply didn't register
or it's just thinking about it.

Sometimes the box seems 'busy', like a PC that's just booted up: the icons
are there, the cursor moves, but clicking anything takes ages because it
seems to have other things on it's mind.

And many operations seem to require some sort of dialog with the cable
company.

They could make things much better by having an audible beep for a
keypress, and not stacking up commands until the first one has executed,

(And the scary thing about V+ is that the cable company could easily find
out exactly what programs you've recorded, watched, and paused on!)

--
Bartc

OK. I've asked my oppo on Virgin field service about this, and he says that
it is a well known problem, and that he gets calls about it all the time.
There is nothing wrong with the box or the cable system or the remote
control circuitry per se. It's just the way it is, so I guess that's
basically 'wrong by design', and at this time, there is no fix for it. Not
much use to you, I know, but at least it tells you that no matter how much
you scream at them, it ain't gonna get any better ...

Arfa

On 17 Feb, 10:09, wrote:
In uk.d-i-y Jeff Lawrence wrote:

On 13 Feb, 16:10, wrote:
And if you're unlucky it might do something with another appliance.
I had a remote control for a TV once that starting running the bath
upstairs whenever I tried
to change the contrast and flushed the toilet if I wanted to view
teletext. Weird!

You're not taking this seriously, are you? * *:-)

Of course! I always take not taking things seriously seriously.
Cheers
Jeff

On Feb 14, 11:10*am, "John" wrote:
"michael adams" wrote in message

...





"John" wrote in message
...

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

"jon.in.durham" wrote in message
...
wrote:
Over the past week or so I noticed that my TV remote was less
responsive than it should be . I took the cover apart and noticed
that
the rubber pad with the buttons on and also the top of the circuit
board had some sticky substance on ...almost certainly from some
spilled sugary tea recently . I washed the upper cover and the rubber
pad and cleaned off the stickiness from the circuit board and now it
is doing what it should be doing . *I wondered however ,how these
things actually work . When you press the buttons it obviously *bears
down on the relevant part of the circuit board but can someone
explain
exactly what is happening when you do that to cause *,for example,the
channel to change....all that seems to be happening is that the
underside of the button is pressing on the contact on the board.

The very same thing is happening to my Sony remote for my Freeview
set-top box, but I have to keep opening it up every week to clean the
grease off the circuit board. The buttons are in some sort of
silicone-rubber pad with some black substance underneath which makes
contact with the circuit board.

Worst affected buttons are 1 and the sound and channel up/down buttons

I used to think this was only happening to me!

So this one is a good point in question as an example of when I said in
my
earlier post that "sometimes, it's just time for a new one ..."

Arfa

Some people don't realise that there is a circuit to slightly delay to
the
signal - to prevent accidental operation.

Wrong. Do you know how fast electrons travel through a conductor ?

And in any case how would any circuit be able to distinguish between
accidental and deliberate presses.

They use this slight delay to
press ever harder on the button to make something happen.

Wrong. This is exactly what they need to do. Press harder. Any "delay" to
prevent accidental operation is purely mechanical and is provided by the
elasticity of the rubber keys which can absorb a certain amount of
pressure
before the pressure is transmitted to back of the key and it touches
the circuit board .

michael adams

...

The result is
increased wear and even broken circuit boards.

I remember - the term is "Anti Bounce" - The circuitry expects to see a
deliberate input for (say) 50 milliseconds.

In human terms that's as good as instantaneous. It has nothing to do
with any delay in changing channel.

Debouncing doesn't have to introduce a delay in any case.

MBQ

On Feb 14, 3:47*pm, "Bartc" wrote:
"Arfa Daily" wrote in message

...





"Bartc" wrote in message
. com...

"John" wrote in message
...

wrote:
Over the past week or so I noticed that my TV remote was less
responsive than it should be . I took the cover apart and noticed
that

Some people don't realise that there is a circuit to slightly delay to
the
signal - to prevent accidental operation. They use this slight delay to
press ever harder on the button to make something happen. The result is
increased wear and even broken circuit boards.

They've taken this to extremes with my V+ box and it's remote:

Either it doesn't register at all, or it registers (and a tiny LED on the
box confirms this, if you happen to be looking at it instead of the TV),
but sometimes it does nothing with it for several seconds.
A few weeks back I was using an old
17" table top TV; you pressed the buttons on the front, and the channel
changed instantly! I kept changing channels just for this novelty.
You are merely seeing the difference between an analogue channel change,
where all that happened was that the frequency of the tuner's local
oscillator was shifted as a result of sending it a single data byte, and
changing data stream in a digital multiplex, which is a complex operation,
requiring the processor to drop the existing data stream, look for and
identify the requested new one, lock onto it, frame it, wait for a new
'whole' picture to be transmitted, process it, write it to memory, read it
back out and display it ...

Yes there might be a delay in synchronising to the data stream of a new
digital channel (as it waits for a new i-frame in mpeg compression for
example).

But the delays I've seen on Freeview and digital satellite have been small
and only mildly annoying. Nothing like the V+ box used with digital cable,
which can be impossible at times. It is the unresponsive of the remote
controller and the box which is the main culprit.

It's the box, not the controller. I have a similar issue with a
"Cello" DTV that takes ages to do anything. It's more likely the
embedded processor is not really up to the job.

MBQ