What causes the picture to freeze or audio to abruptly stop sometimes?
This freeze up is a direct result of the loss of a sufficient number of bits in our digital satellite data stream to cause the receivers at Cable Headends, or our transmitters to lock up. This lock up is first noted as small green squares, or a momentary freezing of the picture. It could also affect the audio causing it to just stop mid sentence and then resume. Ours is not the only signal affected, you will see this on other cable channels frequently. Actually, NTV has increased the amount of forward error correction on our digital signal in an effort to minimize the effect of this compared to other channels. But nothing is perfect and you will see and hear this from time to time. It affects both NTV and OZ-FM since the Oz signal is also carried on this digital system. You might note that since OZ is carried in the NTV digital signal, it is also available to every cable operator who is taking the satellite NTV signal. Although, extra equipment is required by the cable operator, you mi
