What causes TV picture problems? My cable box? Time to switch to Bell Fibe?

[ottawacan]

My Rogers TV had been showing tearing, pixelation and stuttering intermittently for the past few weeks.

Now the picture and the sound are totally unintelligible for most of the evening, every night.

I scheduled a Rogers technician to visit. But, before the tech came, I got a call from another tech who said to me:

"I'm in your building looking at the Rogers box (?) because we got calls from other tenants in your building. What channels are you having problems with?"

A second Rogers tech came into my apt as scheduled, noted nothing wrong, and left.

As Murphy's law would have it, the channels I want to watch are unwatchable again. So I call Rogers again.

And, again, I have to endure the rigamarole: 

"Is the cable box connected directly to the cable outlet?"
"Would you power it off then on? Would you check that cables are screwed in tight?"

"I see that the signal from your box is weak... We'll have to schedule a visit by a technician..."

"We don't see any problems with the box or wiring in your building... we have to schedule a visit to your apartment..."

Is the problem caused by my cable box (the good old digital box)?

Could a defect in the box cause problems with only certain channels (high numbered channels)?

Could a wiring defect within my apartment unit cause problems with only certain channels?

Could defects in the box or the wiring in my apartment cause problems only in the evenings?

My suspicion is that a technician coming into my apartment again would be totally useless and pointless (need I mention the wasted hours waiting for the tech?)

Has anyone out there experienced these problems being resolved by having the cable box replaced?

As an aside (or maybe not), Bell has recently been holding demos of their Bell Fibe TV in my apartment building's common room, trying to lure us over.

I'm thinking: Bell would use the same coax cables in the building to supply Fibe TV, would they not? Hmmm...

***Edited labels***

[Gdkitty]

Could it be the box? Possibly.
If you are renting the box, worth just swaping it, at least to eliminate that.

Can bad cables limit/have issues with channels? yes.
The channels sent across the cable, are on different frequency ranges.. if the cable is breaking down, one towards one side of the frequency could be ok, while others, not.

So yes, COULD be the wiring in the building itself.. (which, as far as my understanding, yes, internaly inside the building, fibe would use the same coax lines.. so COULD be effected if this is the case).

Now... that it sayd that there are OTHER tennants with the same issue.. .i beleive it may be more of a signal issue in the FEED to the building.
The timing on these issue.. happen generaly around certain times of the day? Or randomly.
Sometimes, these things wont crop up till there is a havy load on the line.. so might not happen till there is enough people watching to put that load on.. then it crops up.

[success4now]

The pixel problems are that rogers probably not have upgraded their cable ssytem. We had the same problem and now they have laid new cables down the street. The problem is that lot of places probably your area too has analog cables and the broadcasting is in digital.

[Gdkitty]

Yeah. While any cables should carry digital, the age and quality can make a difference as well

Internally at my house have replaced all the basement and to main floor cables, but bedroom one is through the walls.
Signal at the splitter was fine. But upstair was too weak for proper digital signals on some channels. Rogers had to install a hosted to get it strong enough up there.

Basic principal is the same for the street infrastructure.

[ottawacan]

I left the TV turned on most of the day during the past few days. The picture/sound deterioration seems to occur during "busy" hours - evenings on weekdays, and all day on weekends.

After calling Rogers tech support 3 times, I learned that Rogers has a "policy" that dictates that any repairman "must" enter my apartment even if the problem is not in the apartment unit itself - according to the "supervisor" I spoke to.

Also learned that I cannot "escalate" to a manager unless I call in the day time.

Rogers was good enough to give me credit for 3 days. By the time a repairman comes around again, this problem will have lasted more than a week.

I'm ditching everything from Rogers and switching to Bell.