Flickering Lines on TV

[megapixels83]

Hi All

back from a week away and switch the tv on (40inch Sony LCD HD approx 5 years old) and all of a sudden I get white / grey flickering, horizontal lines on the tv that come ad hoc and last for different periods of time. This is why watching Sky.

I have tried a different HDMI cable on the sky box and the lines are there, different HDMI ports on the tv with the sky box and the lines are there, however when using my pc via HDMI on the tv there are no flickering lines and when testing the sky box with our other tv via HDMI there are no lines on that.

I guess the tv is finished but I cannot work out why the lines appear when viewing sky and not the PC for example. Any one got any ideas on why that is?

[megaphone]

How is it with an aerial, on Freeview?

[megapixels83]

it doesn't have freeview built in so we don't use it for that but the bedroom tv gets sky through an ariel cable with magic eye and that is fine.

I would have suspected it was the sky box but cannot understand why the sky works fine with a different tv but my pc, xbox and xbox one all work fine on the tv in question.

[OldSkoolRS]

The Sky box will output at 50Hz (1080/50i if it's a HD box) but your other sources are likely to be 60Hz. Perhaps there is some issue with the video processor in the TV that has a fault with 50Hz signals?

Maybe the XBox outputs progressive (ie 1080/60p) so it could be to do with the deinterlacing in the TV's video processor. You might be able to change the output of the Sky box to 720/50p just to test if it solves the issue. While this will reduce the resolution shown on the TV, at least it might be a work round for the time being.

[megapixels83]

thank you will try that now.

One other thing to note this seems to only effect "Sky" channels such as Sky One but not say BBC. But again Sky One is fine on my tv from the bedroom that i have tested it all on.

At least I have a valid excuse for a new tv

[megapixels83]

interestingly I have just changed the sky from 1080i to 720p (it did not stat 50 or 60) but that has solved it. Thanks

[OldSkoolRS]

At least it's a work round, there may still be something wrong that could cause it to return again even at 720p (not 100% certain it is the TV though).