V+ - Loss of picture and sound

[Orac]

Hi,
Newbie on the block – been viewing the forums for some time and found them to be very interesting and informative – Thank You.
I have a problem with my V+ box.
My installation package –
Located in Bournemouth area,
Phone,
BB – 4MB…..soon to be 10MB!
And TV –
1 x NTL Silver Samsung STB support an old ‘big box’ tv,
2 x VM V+ support HD LCD Panel, the V+ is connected via HDMI cable.
Without warning the sound and vision just go… the loss of picture and audio can last from a few minutes to over 24 hours. Frequent power re-cycles; resets etc do not seem to have any effect.
Had a similar problem about a year ago, but after a couple of weeks the problem went away.
Throughout the outage on the V+ box, the NTL Samsung box is working normally!
I have not, as yet, raised this with customer services as I don’t particularly want to deal with an offshore call centre where language/accents are difficult and very frustrating, especially when I am paying for a service I am not getting.
Any ideas?
Thanks

[spiderplant]

Welcome!

Try reversing the HDMI cable. Often this fixes bad connections.

Does the screen go completely black? If not, what do you get displayed? When it loses the picture, can you still get the V+ menus displayed if you press 'home'? Can you get the TV to display a picture from some other source such as the aerial or a DVD?

I'm told most calls don't go offshore, by the way.

[Orac]

Thanks for you prompt reply,
the picture goes black, no visible response on the screen to any remote activity. However, if the channel is changed on the remote, the the V+ box does display the keyed channel number.
I will try the HDMI cable reversal next time it fails, also thank for the good words on customer services.

regards

---------- Post added at 15:26 ---------- Previous post was at 15:23 ----------

Spiderplant, further to your post, the tv does display terrest/freeview digital channels and DVD input correctly when selected. The only loss of signal is from the V+. Also tried to see if the dvd recorder could still see the V+ output - but nothing - this may be due to the fact that its set for HDMI and signal is disabled via the scart - unless I 'copy to dvd' etc.
Regards

[Orac]

Spiderplant, further to post -- V+ re-output picture and audio sometime during the afternoon. But at 18:00, almost on the dot, both picture and audio lost. Changed to freeview channle and TV functioning correctly. Disconnected and reconnected HDMI cable at V+ and TV - no change.
Regards,

[spiderplant]

As an experiment, try switching to component connection if you can, or failing that SCART. But I'm running a bit short of ideas, and you might need to get VM to swap the V+.

[Orac]

Thanks again Spiderplant, unfortunately when I have loss of service none of the controls on the remote do anything to the V+ box, therefore I cannot change the output mode.
Oh well I guess its on the phone to VM....

thanks for your help

Regards,