horizontal pale white lines moving up screen when watching cable

what is this? is this a problem with my cable? i do not notice it when
I play my video games, only when watching cable. i just got a Polaroid
26 inch LCD tv last night and was really disapointed when i got home.
on all the cable channels there are these pale transparent bars moving
up the image. some channels its worse than others. how can i fix this?
new cable cord? or is it something wrong with the tv?

thanks

wrote:
what is this? is this a problem with my cable? i do not notice it when
I play my video games, only when watching cable. i just got a Polaroid
26 inch LCD tv last night and was really disapointed when i got home.
on all the cable channels there are these pale transparent bars moving
up the image. some channels its worse than others. how can i fix this?
new cable cord? or is it something wrong with the tv?

Shaded horizontal bands rolling up or down the screen is a classic
symptom of a ground loop problem. Either your TV, your cable box or A/V
receiver, or most likely your cable line is not grounded to same ground
as the rest of the electronics gear. By far, the most common reason for
this is a poorly grounded or floating ground cable line. I had this same
problem myself 2 years ago when I connected my new Panasonic plasma to a
Comcast cable system in the condo I was living in at the time. This
problem comes up frequently comes up on avsforum.com.

There are 3 possible general solutions. 1) If you have a surge
protector for your TV and STBs with RF co-axial connectors on it, run
the cable line through the RF connectors. This may ground the cable line
to same ground as the TV and fix the problem, but this is depends on how
the surge protector is designed. This was the interim fix that I used 2
years ago which did the trick.

2) Call your cable company and ask for a service call to fix the ground.
If you don't want to explain proper grounding to a CSR or the tech,
live in a house and have access to a cable box, you could open the
outside cable box and look for a loose ground wire.

3) Pricey: you could buy an isolation transformer for the RF coaxial
line. The Jensen VRD-1FF Cable TV Ground Loop Isolator is commonly
recommended as the way to fix this problem for sure. Available on-line
for around $60.

Alan F

okay, thanks!
so its not a problem with my tv really. i figured it wasnt because when
i was playing my new Wii last night, the problem was not there. ill get
a surge thing with cable hookups. see if that works.
i was so scared my tv was broken. the dude at circuit city tried to
push the extended service plan on me so hard, that when i declined, i
was like "now watch something will be broken with my tv." hopefully its
fine and its just that grounding thing. thanks a bunch!
john

Alan F wrote:
wrote:
what is this? is this a problem with my cable? i do not notice it when
I play my video games, only when watching cable. i just got a Polaroid
26 inch LCD tv last night and was really disapointed when i got home.
on all the cable channels there are these pale transparent bars moving
up the image. some channels its worse than others. how can i fix this?
new cable cord? or is it something wrong with the tv?

Shaded horizontal bands rolling up or down the screen is a classic
symptom of a ground loop problem. Either your TV, your cable box or A/V
receiver, or most likely your cable line is not grounded to same ground
as the rest of the electronics gear. By far, the most common reason for
this is a poorly grounded or floating ground cable line. I had this same
problem myself 2 years ago when I connected my new Panasonic plasma to a
Comcast cable system in the condo I was living in at the time. This
problem comes up frequently comes up on avsforum.com.

There are 3 possible general solutions. 1) If you have a surge
protector for your TV and STBs with RF co-axial connectors on it, run
the cable line through the RF connectors. This may ground the cable line
to same ground as the TV and fix the problem, but this is depends on how
the surge protector is designed. This was the interim fix that I used 2
years ago which did the trick.

2) Call your cable company and ask for a service call to fix the ground.
If you don't want to explain proper grounding to a CSR or the tech,
live in a house and have access to a cable box, you could open the
outside cable box and look for a loose ground wire.

3) Pricey: you could buy an isolation transformer for the RF coaxial
line. The Jensen VRD-1FF Cable TV Ground Loop Isolator is commonly
recommended as the way to fix this problem for sure. Available on-line
for around $60.

Alan F

wrote:
okay, thanks!
so its not a problem with my tv really. i figured it wasnt because
when
i was playing my new Wii last night, the problem was not there. ill
get
a surge thing with cable hookups. see if that works.
i was so scared my tv was broken. the dude at circuit city tried to
push the extended service plan on me so hard, that when i declined,
i
was like "now watch something will be broken with my tv." hopefully
its
fine and its just that grounding thing. thanks a bunch!
john

snip

There is also the possibility that analog cable has the hum/noise on
their end and are sending it that way to everyone. You would see
similar noise on different sets but it would be on specific channels,
not all as a group.

I have a ground loop issue at my house when the antenna is connected to
both HTPCs. The hum shows up in the audio rather than the video. I
believe the hum in mine is loop current in the neutral since the 2
computers are on different power distribution boxes. I will be using an
isolation system on the antenna feed for that.

GG

Unfortunately some ground loop problems seem unsolveable by mere mortals.
The isolation transformers are much more effective for audio ground loop
problems (hum) than video. If you buy one make sure you can return it if it
does not solve your problem.

wrote:
what is this? is this a problem with my cable? i do not notice it when
I play my video games, only when watching cable. i just got a Polaroid
26 inch LCD tv last night and was really disapointed when i got home.
on all the cable channels there are these pale transparent bars moving
up the image. some channels its worse than others. how can i fix this?
new cable cord? or is it something wrong with the tv?

thanks

Try a simple ground lifter on the various equipment to track down the
source.

wrote in message
oups.com...
what is this? is this a problem with my cable? i do not notice it when
I play my video games, only when watching cable. i just got a Polaroid
26 inch LCD tv last night and was really disapointed when i got home.
on all the cable channels there are these pale transparent bars moving
up the image. some channels its worse than others. how can i fix this?
new cable cord? or is it something wrong with the tv?

thanks


Had a ground loop problem that got really bad. Turned out the neutral for
my house power was loose. This allowed the house ground to be at 20 volts.
Caused the cable company problems too.