Our new digital LCD tv occasionally suffers from picture breaking up and even total loss of signal, after some time, 5 to 15 minutes the signal is restored. Fiddling with the aerial run and connections has no effect, any ideas please?

main board faulty check tuner poss dry joints

it must be some transistor that is failing.. i recomend you to give it to someone who can fix it for you, because tvs, even if they are unplugged, they can give you a strong electrical charge tat can even kill you..

Probably not. Freeview signals are hundreds of times weaker than the old analogue signals, so will show up every single problem on a badly maintained, badly installed old external tv aerial.

In most areas, a tv set-top aerial is a waste of time and even a loft aerial may have problems. Any aerial system which is not direct from the external aerial to the tv can also suffer problems, as each Y-splitter and joint wastes an awful lot of signal.

Your fix is to get a proper modern aerial system fitted. If it's well designed and installed with the proper parts and cabling (does not necessarily mean most expensive) then it should last for another 30 or so years and ideally won't need signal amplifiers.

Note that although your neighbour gets reception, he probably suffers regular picture break-up, freezing and /or pixellation especially in poor weather unless the aerial was in top condition beforehand and was relatively modern.

That sounds like you have an aerial/signal issue.
I would check the aerial to the TV.

Is it just the cable? Do you have a DVD player or game system connected? If so, how do they look? Ofter a momentary power loss can cause cableboxes to loss picture, loss sound, and even cause the picture to be distorted. Try unpluggind the AC power from the cablebox and TV. Wait about 5 minutes and reconnect both. Leave the cablebox alone for about another 5 minute after you reconnect it so that it can fully boot up. Then see if you still have the problem.

You are suffering from a poor signal. Digital TVs will display 'blocking' (partial freezing of the picture in square or rectangular blocks) or total freezing of the picture, when the signal is too weak.

You don't say if this is a recent problem on a set that has been working correctly - that info. would be helpful. However, things to check include:

Has the aerial moved (wind?)
Are you using a new extension coax cable? If so try another one, as connections may be faulty.
If this a new TV, and you have not used digital previously, your aerial may not be high enough gain for a digital signal, but that is unlikely unless it's a nery old aerial.

According to my Satellite provider tech support. More and more channels are being encoded so that recording equipment cannot capture the signals to prevent piracy. I know the premium channels use this technique now. I would call and ask tech support if there is any copy restrictions in place that would affect your VCR recording before doing any further trouble shooting on the VCR. If you can play pack a prerecorded movie fine with your VCR then it should also record fine. Also try watching the channel through the VCR tuner and I bet you will see the same pattern. The VCR can only record the signal it is given.

Hope this helps you,
Ron

I wish I had a solution--My DVD picture and sound is fine, but it takes about 30-40 minutes to get any kind of picture but it is broken--not clear at all - and the sound is all garbled, totally stops for seconds to minutes a a time. It is only a little over a yr old. I finally isconnectexd today and am going back to my cheap-o but dependable tv.

picture break up on all digital chanels

wow. mostly all new set from the last few years have a dual tuners
NTSC and ATSC and that would depend if or which set will get the better signal. Also remember that off air is analog and the sets are now design for digital.