General Forum

Re: Avant Decoder input

deaddruid — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 11:36:17 GMT

Peter - I can certainly work out which board is faulty. What I wondered was whether I'd have to fix the board, or exchange it. The former I can do, but it could take up a lot of time. Therefore, the latter may be desirable - it looks like it's almost certainly PCB2 which is the problem.

Having had a look at the schematic, I see that VTAPE and AV each have Composite and RGB inputs, whilst DECODER has only Composite. Surely it would be more sensible to use the DECODER SCART for the internal tape drive, leaving the two RGB sockets free for external devices! Unfortunately, the Avant manual does not include the schematics for the tape drive, so I can't check whether it uses RGB.

Mark

Re: Avant Decoder input

Peter — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 08:40:49 GMT

The problem we have here is the Avant is not the most portable of devices!

Tim Jarman in Fanborough, Hampshire, would I am sure, be able to deal with this but clearly is not about to do house calls in Malvern! The problem with most dealers will be that they will replace modules and this can become expensive. I would be tempted to find an independent repairer and ask for a quote.

Re: Avant Decoder input

deaddruid — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:52:00 GMT

Malvern, Worcestershire.

Re: Avant Decoder input

Peter — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:46:42 GMT

You will need to either get an engineer out or find someone who can get parts - where are you based?

Re: Avant Decoder input

deaddruid — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 06:52:55 GMT

I tried a very good SCART cable, but the problem remained. Looking critically at the off-air picture, it also has the problem, whereas the RGB to the AV socket does not. It certainly appears to be a problem with the composite signal processing or decoding. Do B&O offer exchange boards "direct to the public", or do I have to call someone out? I should be able to work out which board is the problem.

Mark

Re: Avant Decoder input

Peter — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:06:14 GMT

What is the picture from the STB like through the Decoder socket? You should be able to set that to composite.

Re: Avant Decoder input

deaddruid — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:58:42 GMT

Thank you for your suggestion Peter. I did try the SCART cable from the DTV box, and found it just as bad. However, I can borrow a very high quality cable, so I'll give that a try.

Mark

Re: Avant Decoder input

Peter — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:52:32 GMT

The problem here could be that the Decoder socket does not accept RGB signals, just composite, which is going to give a worse picture. None the less, my Avant, which is a slightly more modern one, still has an acceptable picture on the decoder socket. Try another SCART lead first - always look for the cheapest solution first!!

Avant Decoder input

deaddruid — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:30:27 GMT

I've tried setting up my mum's Avant so that the AV input connects to her digital terrestrial decoder, and the Decoder input connects to her DVD player. However, when I view a DVD through the Decoder input, there is a faint flickering of colours, mainly red and green. This is only noticeable against pastel backgrounds, and doesn't happen when the AV input is used. The DVD player offers two output formats, which it calls SCART and CVBS (or something like that). Each of these displays the same problem via the Decoder input.

For now, I've had to daisy-chain both devices to the AV port, but I'd rather that when mum presses the DVD button on the Beo4, the DVD input is selected.

Any ideas?

If it helps:

Avant 32", Model 84/23,

SW(AP) 3.2,

SW(FEP) 2.1,

SW(STB-C) 2.1,

TABLE(STB-C) 1.1.

Also, as an aside, I'm aware that the system software is rather old. Is it worth upgrading? I know that an STB-C upgrade would allow use of STBs less than 10 years old, but what would an upgrade of system firmware do?

As always, thank you in advance,

Mark