ViP HD DVR Audio related Issues - (Post your current audio related issues Here)

[Ron Barry]

This thread is just to report audio related issues. Did L6.16 fix your audio issues or did it make them worse? Please be constructive and specific to your experiences.

When reporting back success or failure, please indicate what channels or shows you were experiencing your audio issues and the area you are reporting from. This will help with the feedback process.

Also, be sure to mention what your previous version was since we might have people going from L6.15 to L6.16 and from L6.14 to L6.16.

If you are having issues specify whether they use OTA or not. Seems to be a belief that people that are still experiencing the issues is related to having OTA connected and this will help collaborate this theory.

[kstuart]

622 is now on L616 which previously was on L615.

L615 fixed all audio problems in L614 and did not introduce any new problems in that receiver (probably because it does not use OTA and is not in St. Louis :) ).

L616 does not reintroduce audio problems of L614 on 720p channels on this 622, so it is not a rollback.

[phrelin]

I have L6.16 on my ViP722. My locals are San Francisco Bay Area.

On my box L6.15 did fix the major audio dropout problem on Fox and ABC as it stopped the dropouts from causing my A/V receiver from turning the dolby off/on. L6.15 also seemed to significantly reduce the number of dropouts on Fox and ABC. However, it left me with less frequent audio dropouts on ABC, CBS, NBC, TNT, HBO, Starz, and Sci-Fi that I know of. These L6.15 dropouts when skipped back would sometimes disappear, sometimes remain as first heard, and sometimes would change syllables. They were sometimes annoying, but not really disruptive.

Compared to last week, I have loaded up my 722 recording schedule. I have great hopes that we will hear no dropouts on any new recordings.

Keeping my fingers crossed. http://www.phrelin.com/Dish/fingcrossm.gif

[moman19]

Sadly, initial testing indicates no change with 6.16 on my 722. I am watching NCIS on the local CBS HD channel via sat. It is buffered by about 15 minutes and there are numerous audio dropouts (perhaps 2 per minute). DD5.1 pilot flashes with each dropout.

[Ron Barry]

Do you have OTA connect to this box moman19?

[dishcustomer722]

I'm going to be really ticked when I finally get L6.16 for my VIP722 box and I notice that the "audio dropout" problems have simply migrated from ABC and FOX over to CBS, NBC and other channels. :mad:

We might have to get some pitchforks and go looking for those Dish Network engineers. Maybe flog them or something until they get it fixed once and for all. :D

Squash those bugs Dish Network! Get those gremlins out of my 722 box. Soon!

[Ron Barry]

I am sorry dishcustomer722, but there will be no flogging of Dish Engineers. We are in a no bash/ No flogging zone in the support forums. We tend to try and keep to providing our experiences and as much feedback in hopes that this will lend to help identify and fix issues found.

Based on the multiple audio threads we have had here, this one is definitely a nasty one and I think we are looking at possible multiple issues so the more information we provide in terms of what we are seeing, what channels it is on, what type of hardware we have, how we have things configured, and what DMA we are in the better.

[moman19]

Do you have OTA connect to this box moman19?

Yes, I sure do. I have even recorded the events simultaneously. When I do this, the OTA versions contain absolutely no dropouts.

I can further confirm that buffered NBC local HD (via sat) events also have dropouts just like CBS. I'm viewing Law & Order SVU buffered and the drops are plentiful.

In summary, 6.14 had drops only on ABC & Fox while 6.15 and 6.16 have drops only on NBC & CBS. So it appears as if the issue has truly migrated from 720p to 1080i---at least for me, but limited to the 722. The 622 still seems dropout-free at first glance (as was the case with 6.15) but I will test further this evening as it's in the bedroom.

There must be something else, other than drive size, that distinguishes a 622 from a 722.

[P Smith]

Yes, 722 has 2xBCM7412 instead of 2xBCM7411 in 622.

BTW, the L6.16 updating L6.15 ONLY. Not a L6.14 as someone mistakenly reported.

[moman19]

OK......

What's a BCM7412 and a BCM7411?

[P Smith]

MPEG decoders - check Broadcom site for technical info.

[phrelin]

Ok, Ron, Moman19 and everyone else, I'm here to share the highs and lows of my experience with L6.16 tonight. Sigh, sigh....

We began the evening by watching directly from the EHD an episode of a series from HBO recorded two months ago and moved to the EHD. The three previous episodes all had dropouts using L6.15. Then we watched "Leverage" recorded tonight from TNT. The past two episodes using L6.15 had dropouts, two dropouts and one dropout. Tonight, no dropouts on the cable channel recordings. Imagine the hope building in my mind.

Next, we turned to tonight's "NCIS" (on CBS Bay Area, satellite). One repeatable dropout in the program, but with a never-been-seen-before odd slight video stall.

So rather than switch networks, we watched tonight's recording of "The Mentalist" on CBS already 54 minutes into the show. There were a total of 4 dropouts in the show and I deliberately, with great pain, watched one batch of commercials which had a dropout. When the first dropout occurred I immediately skipped back. When it got to the dropout point again, it froze up completely. I was able to FF ahead, then back to the beginning. The dropout occurred in the same place and it also had a video stall exactly at the dropout point. Each and every one had a repeatable simultaneous audio dropout with video stall. Fortunately, whatever I did on the first one to cause the freeze didn't happen again.

Tomorrow, we will start with L&O:SVU (NBC) followed by the two episodes of Scrubs (ABC) all recorded this evening. We'll probably watch T.. ...ples Choice Awards (CBS) after that.

Just a quick historical run through.

L4.49 was reported (http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=1509141#post1509141) to have caused dropouts on 622's as early as March 2008, but if it did on my 722, I was not aware of them.
L5.12/L6.10/L6.12/L6.14 had really bad dropouts on ABC and Fox and occasional dropouts on CBS and NBC, but with no visible video effects. This was on the ViP722 I sent Echostar Engineering and on the one they replaced it with.
L6.15 made the ABC and Fox dropouts quit switching the dolby off/on and appeared to reduce the number of dropouts on those stations to nearly none. The dropouts on CBS and NBC were still there and may have increased in number. Unfortunately, I started getting very slight occasional dropouts on the cable channel recordings.
With L6.16 the cable channel recording slight dropouts seem to have disappeared. But on CBS, the dropouts now come with a short video stall.

I'm am, of course, frustrated as I am sure everyone else is. Exactly what happened between L4.48 and L4.49 (or L5.12) that altered the way the stream was handled?

And P Smith - if the 622 has a 2xBCM7411 and the 722 has a 2xBCM7412, what does the 612 use? My 612 has the dropouts, but they are much less disruptive and have never turned the dolby off/on. (So far, they haven't messed with it, thank you very much.)

[moman19]

So far, my 622 remains dropout free. Perhaps this is due to the different decoders. If that's the case, my particular pain with my 722 (along with others) must be caused by a combination of the decoder and something else unique about the St. Louis (and select other) DMA.

Whatever is going on here, we need to keep in mind that this issue was introduced by a software update. Release 4.49 worked well on both DVRs with no drops. This issue raised its ugly head about the same time that TURBO HD was introduced.

[Ron Barry]

Excellent Feedback so far . Pherlin, I assume that you did a hard reset to make sure there is nothing left behind with L6.15 that might effect L6.16.

I am sure over a weeks time we will get a better feel of where we are at in the audio stream issue some are seeing. Keep up the good work. Would have loved to have heard we have a slam dunk but given the nature of this one and the fact it is not widespread it does not surprise me some work is still needed.

[phrelin]

Here's part 2 of my report that began above (http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=1949471&highlight=Leverage#post1949471).

On NBC, "Law & Order:SVU" had two definite repeatable dropouts with no video effects that were in the same location when skipped back. Surprisingly, "Without a Trace" on CBS, the third CBS show recorded Tuesday night, had no dropouts unlike the other two. And as expected "Scrubs" on ABC was dropout free. We even sat through some commercials during "Scrubs" just to make sure.

As for the portion of tonights "The Peoples Choice Awards" on CBS, like all live taped shows there were no dropouts. And since we don't get FX in HD yet (hint hint Dish), "Damages" was irrelevant though good.

Over the next two weeks our "locals" recording schedule will start to fill up. Fox really won't kick in for a week, but by the end of the month we should have a pretty good test of L6.16 on our 722. But it's clear that on our box recording Bay Area DMA locals off the satellite, CBS and NBC will still have infrequent dropouts. Whether I or anyone else will see the associated video stall on CBS again is likely to be clear by next Monday night. That may have been an unrelated problem. Who knows?

Oh, and I did do a hard reboot after discovering the new software.

[Ron Barry]

Figured you did the reboot Phrelin, but wanted to make sure we had a clean slate here.

[phrelin]

This is part 3 of the reports here (http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=1950950#post1950950) and here (http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=1949471#post1949471) above:

As with previous reports, the show we watched on NBC last night had two dropouts. They were skip back repeatable in the same location and did cause the dolby to switch off/on. We watched 2½ hours of ABC programming and there was one dropout, repeatable, same location, but instantaneous and did not affect the dolby.

[RASCAL01]

Received update yesterday. Went from 6.14 to 6.16 on my 622. Never had drop outs on locals but I receive my locals OTA.

Still do not have fold option for the EHDD.

[Ron Barry]

Do you have folders turned on for your Internal recording? If you do you should see them on the EHD. Need to have the same show on the EHD to see them.

[phrelin]

I received an email from the Dish/Echostar folks this morning requesting feedback on the new software. The following is my reply:
Happy New Year everyone.

I don't know that you all really want to hear from me. But the following is a summary of what I regularly have been posting about at DBSTalk's ViP622/ViP722 - L6.16 Audio Related Issues Discussions thread:

Based on L6.15 and L6.16 on our ViP722 you're moving the audio dropout problem around between sources, and altering it's impact on our A/V receiver dolby. It does appear you have almost completely eliminated the problem on ABC and Fox where it originally appeared after either L4.49 or L5.12.

Because of the holiday schedules, we haven't recorded as much as usual. We have played back directly off the EHD some episodes of shows and we have played back from the internal hard drive some episodes of shows recorded under both L6.15 and L6.16.

L6.16 has resulted in the dropouts on cable channels to cease. These had been worse under L6.15 than any other version.

L6.16 has continued the reduction of dropouts on ABC to an average of less than one per hour and minimized the effect to the point the dolby does not turn off.on.

L6.15 increased the average dropout average frequency per hour on NBC to approximately two and L6.16 has resulted in those dropouts causing the dolby to switch off/on.

L6.15 increased the average dropout average frequency per hour on CBS to approximately two and L6.16 resulted in video stalls on those.

We have not watched anything from Fox since L6.16. L6.15 seemed to have fixed the problem on Fox completely.

It appears the dropouts do not move syllables as they did in the past.

Over the next two weeks, the network programming schedules are filling with returning and new shows. We will be able to gather more information for a report by the end of the month.

Since you haven't released any new versions for our ViP612, I would encourage you not to until the problem is completely fixed on the ViP622/722 software. As noted previously, dropouts on the ViP612 do not affect the dolby thereby resulting in a less annoying dropout.

Two final observations. Reports at DBSTalk indicate that, at least for some, the dropouts have disappeared on the ViP622. There have been no reports of the audio dropout occurring with the ViP211 external hard drive DVR option.

Sincerely,

(ME)

If anyone else in the San Francisco Bay Area DMA has some new experiences with L6.16, I'm sure it would be helpful to Dish to see reports posted here.

[Henry]

So is it safe to assume that if you don't have a Dolby system (I don't), you won't experience audio dropouts (I haven't)?

Presently I have one 622 on L6.14.

[olguy]

So is it safe to assume that if you don't have a Dolby system (I don't), you won't experience audio dropouts (I haven't)?

Presently I have one 622 on L6.14.If you haven't had them maybe you won't have them with the new software. But the dropouts on my 622 occur even when I'm not using the A/V receiver. It's just more annoying when using it and they cause the Dolby to cut out and in and out and....

[plasmacat]

Finally had something to record and watch on ABC - Gray's Anatomy - and there were no dropouts or any problems. Also no problems on buffered Fox or recorded Numb3rs on CBS. I have L6.16 on a 622.

[jb240z]

Phrelin wrote:

Since you haven't released any new versions for our ViP612, I would encourage you not to until the problem is completely fixed on the ViP622/722 software. As noted previously, dropouts on the ViP612 do not affect the dolby thereby resulting in a less annoying dropout.


Since my 722 is still at 6.14 and is not hooked to a Dolby system, I can't say anything about 6.16. But, in regards to the quote above, I wish they would do something for the 612. The audio drop is alive and well and DOES affect the Dolby. While watching the BCS championship (Go Gators!), on Fox, the dropout was infrequent during the first half, maybe 5 or 6 times an hour. But as soon as the broadcast switched to the halftime show, the audio dropout became severe, so bad I had to mute the AVR and use the TV speakers. The Dolby was switching every 10-15 seconds, and continued like that for the rest of the game. I could even detect the dropouts on the TV speakers, but it was more of a click or pop.

I am going to move the 722 to the TV with the AVR, and hope it get's the update soon. The 612 is going to the bedroom, hope the wife doesn't mind a little audio drop!

[phrelin]

Phrelin wrote:

Since you haven't released any new versions for our ViP612, I would encourage you not to until the problem is completely fixed on the ViP622/722 software. As noted previously, dropouts on the ViP612 do not affect the dolby thereby resulting in a less annoying dropout.

Since my 722 is still at 6.14 and is not hooked to a Dolby system, I can't say anything about 6.16. But, in regards to the quote above, I wish they would do something for the 612. The audio drop is alive and well and DOES affect the Dolby. While watching the BCS championship (Go Gators!), on Fox, the dropout was infrequent during the first half, maybe 5 or 6 times an hour. But as soon as the broadcast switched to the halftime show, the audio dropout became severe, so bad I had to mute the AVR and use the TV speakers. The Dolby was switching every 10-15 seconds, and continued like that for the rest of the game. I could even detect the dropouts on the TV speakers, but it was more of a click or pop.

I am going to move the 722 to the TV with the AVR, and hope it get's the update soon. The 612 is going to the bedroom, hope the wife doesn't mind a little audio drop!
Well, OK. Apparently your 612 in the Sacramento DMA is causing the dolby to dropout. I'm sure Dish/Echostar will see your post, but I'll followup on it.

I'd would like to get rid of it on my 612 as it looks like I'll be using it for Bay Area CBS and NBC which still dropout on my 722 after two upgrades.

[PuxicoRG]

I have a question (sorry if it's covered in an FAQ or something.)

Where can I find which software version my box is running? (I have a 722 DVR).

I'm in the St. Louis area. My audio dropout problems have been getting progressively worse. 24 on Fox (though my DVR) last night was a complete joke. Not only was the sound dropping out, but the picture was doing funny things. (Pixelation). What's worse - this was through an antenna? Is that even possible?

I sent Dish an email on October 1st complaining, they said they were working on it. I called Dish on Saturday to complain (about a Numb3rs recording, which was horrible.) They told me my problem was my 722, so they're sending a new one. Which I'm not happy about, since I don't think it's a hardware problem in the first place, based on what I've read....

Anyways - any help on the software version location would be appreciated.

[lujan]

I have a question (sorry if it's covered in an FAQ or something.)

Where can I find which software version my box is running? (I have a 722 DVR).

I'm in the St. Louis area. My audio dropout problems have been getting progressively worse. 24 on Fox (though my DVR) last night was a complete joke. Not only was the sound dropping out, but the picture was doing funny things. (Pixelation). What's worse - this was through an antenna? Is that even possible?

I sent Dish an email on October 1st complaining, they said they were working on it. I called Dish on Saturday to complain (about a Numb3rs recording, which was horrible.) They told me my problem was my 722, so they're sending a new one. Which I'm not happy about, since I don't think it's a hardware problem in the first place, based on what I've read....

Anyways - any help on the software version location would be appreciated.

Just press the "menu" button twice and it will show a window containing information, one of which is the software version.

[moman19]

I have a question (sorry if it's covered in an FAQ or something.)

Where can I find which software version my box is running? (I have a 722 DVR).

I'm in the St. Louis area. My audio dropout problems have been getting progressively worse. 24 on Fox (though my DVR) last night was a complete joke. Not only was the sound dropping out, but the picture was doing funny things. (Pixelation). What's worse - this was through an antenna? Is that even possible?

I sent Dish an email on October 1st complaining, they said they were working on it. I called Dish on Saturday to complain (about a Numb3rs recording, which was horrible.) They told me my problem was my 722, so they're sending a new one. Which I'm not happy about, since I don't think it's a hardware problem in the first place, based on what I've read....

Anyways - any help on the software version location would be appreciated.

This was an issue that was the fault of the network or the local affiliate. This was not an E* issue. The HD channels were horrible via sat as well as OTA. D* users report similar issues.

[CopyChief]

If you haven't had them maybe you won't have them with the new software. But the dropouts on my 622 occur even when I'm not using the A/V receiver. It's just more annoying when using it and they cause the Dolby to cut out and in and out and....

An update from St. Louis:
616 is still causing problems on my 722. The dropouts are worse than ever on NBC and CBS, but thankfully don't seem to be a problem on ABC or FOX anymore. Last week's recording of 30Rock (NBC) was borderline unwatchable.

I watched the same recording on TV2, connected via coax, and the dropouts were still there, in the same general places -- not as bad as they were on the TV1 optical setup, but still evident and still disruptive.

[PuxicoRG]

This was an issue that was the fault of the network or the local affiliate. This was not an E* issue. The HD channels were horrible via sat as well as OTA. D* users report similar issues.

Thank you - I have been trying to figure that out all day!

[moman19]

An update from St. Louis:
616 is still causing problems on my 722. The dropouts are worse than ever on NBC and CBS, but thankfully don't seem to be a problem on ABC or FOX anymore. Last week's recording of 30Rock (NBC) was borderline unwatchable.


Thank you for confirming my findings. I too, am located in St. Louis and this is exactly what I have experienced and reported.

[jb240z]

Well, OK. Apparently your 612 in the Sacramento DMA is causing the dolby to dropout. I'm sure Dish/Echostar will see your post, but I'll followup on it.

I'd would like to get rid of it on my 612 as it looks like I'll be using it for Bay Area CBS and NBC which still dropout on my 722 after two upgrades.
Thanks Phrelin, I for one appreciate all the work you've done with Dish on this issue, it seems like they are listening at least. Let's hope they can figure this one out soon.

[CopyChief]

Thank you for confirming my findings. I too, am located in St. Louis and this is exactly what I have experienced and reported.

Have you contacted Dish about the ongoing problems? I wrote to the DishQuality e-mail address back in October about this issue and received a cordial reply that they were looking at a fix but it was taking some digging by the software engineers.

I have not written back in a while -- but will now just to ensure the problem is logged.

[moman19]

Have you contacted Dish about the ongoing problems? I wrote to the DishQuality e-mail address back in October about this issue and received a cordial reply that they were looking at a fix but it was taking some digging by the software engineers.

I have not written back in a while -- but will now just to ensure the problem is logged.

I think I did this quite a while back. Frankly, the current audio dropout issue is a much more severe issue IMHO, so I've decided to chose my battles and place CC on the back burner.

[HDaugherty]

I got the 722 a few months back and costantly have the audio drop outs to a point where I'm disgusted so checked and found tons of the same problems. I do not know my version, but will start tonight to see where my box is and try an upgrade as well if I'm not at the latest. We have the audio dropouts to a standard TV and our HDMI TV that both run from this box on everything recorded in HD on regular networks. Don't notice the problems on HBO and MAX.

[Todd Nicholson]

I just got upgraded from 6.14 to 6.16, but unfortunately we no longer have ABC which had the worst dropouts. Will have to record some Simpsons on Fox and check for dropouts. The Simpsons was usually pretty bad, too.

[Henry]

I just reported on the other L6.16 thread that I was upgraded this morning to L6.16. I'm going through the motions to see what happens. EHD sleep timer defeat is not functioning as advertized by E*. All else seems ok for now.

Model: ViP622DVR
Previous SW: L6.14
DMA: Denver

[NTIMID8]

Dear Dishnet

Thank you!

Its only been 7 months, but BAM!

Watching Fox this evening, I was 5 minutes behind and didn't even know it. Yes, that's right! Something as simple as a program delay for the last 7 months has been brutal for audio drops. Not anymore with L616! I was about to give up too as I have been sitting on 614 waiting and waiting :).

Phil

Detroit DMA BTW

[kstuart]

I received an email from the Dish/Echostar folks this morning requesting feedback on the new software. The following is my reply:


If anyone else in the San Francisco Bay Area DMA has some new experiences with L6.16, I'm sure it would be helpful to Dish to see reports posted here.

phrelin - did you ever have your 722 replaced ? A receiver that has a hardware audio problem, would also have all the software ones, and would explain why you had the ABC/FOX problem and resolved it with L615, but have other ones that have not gone away.

Since L615, I have not experienced any dropouts and watching most of the same channels as you.

Some additional data:

- I don't ever remember ever having a glitch in HBO, either audio or video, in several years of watching various shows and movies, whether SD or HD, and the same for Cinemax.

- No problem with any of the episodes of Leverage. or any NBA on TNT.

[Frodo301]

Just got 6.16 on my 622 and audio drop outs continue. Oddly enough I used to have it most severe on the EHD with movie channels Starz & HBO. Rarely noticed it on the DVR itself. Now on DVR or EHD dropouts are worse then ever. Never noticed it on Discovery before and now it exists. Have not had time to check any other recorded shows. HD locals not available and too far for OTA so only SD from dish. Have followed this issue for months via this and the other threads was hoping for fix. :(

[Henry]

Has anyone seen any release notes for 6.15 or 6.16? I can't find any ... well, actually, I wouldn't know where to go to find them. It's a bit hard to evaluate a new software version when you don't even know what's been incorporated. They might have promised something way back during the last CC, but they could have changed it since --- and we're no wiser.

[P Smith]

No release notes.

[Sunnyatthebeach]

I have a different sort of audio problem on my 722 with L6.16. It's been there since at least since 6.14.

Every day I record Special Report on FNC 205 at 3 p.m. PST using the 722's TV2 tuner. Whenever I watch it live on TV1, the audio and video sync up perfectly, i.e. the anchor man's lip movements match perfectly the sound that I hear. However, if I watch the recording later on TV1, the audio is slightly ahead of the video, by a fraction of a second and enough to make the experience annoying when watching.

I don't know if the audio and video are recorded in sync and they go out of sync on playback, or if they are recorded out of sync.

My 722 is connected via HDMI to my Sharp 42D64U. Changing the audio sync setting under
Menu/System Setup/Installation/TV1 Audio Sync
does not improve or solve the problem.

I have not yet tried viewing the playback on the second television set, or recording the program using the 722's TV1 tuner instead of the TV2 tuner.

Anyone else seen this problem?

[NTIMID8]

Interesting phenomenon with 622 on Fox and ABC locals (Detroit DMA) via dishnet on 118 sat.

While watching live TV I get a occasional "shallow" audio drop with L616, this seems to occur 5-6 times per hour. Now the weird part, you skip back to verify it and its not there.


I don't want to detract at how great L616 is compared previous releases, just making some observations.

Phil

[Kent Taylor]

Received L6.16 overnight (1/15). Previously had L6.14. Lots of audio dropouts on local channel WGCL 46-00 in Atlanta. Program was Criminal Minds recorded 1/14. Receiver is ViP722. I only checked one program before I figured the evening was in the dumper.

[HobbyTalk]

It appears that 6.16 that I got last night solved my dropout problems. While watching the Pres. speech on FOX via Sat. the audio dropped real low. I switched over to the FOX channel OTA and it was that way there too so I think it must have been a broadcast problem. It went back to normal after a minute or so.

[pawnslinger]

I just noticed that my 622 was upgraded to 6.16 tonight. I don't know when the update took place. But sometime during the last couple of days. While watching a recording of CSI tomight, I noticed many audio dropouts that seemed to affect the music track only. Perhaps it was glitching the voice track too, I couldn't tell. The recording was made earlier in the evening, we were commercial skipping and recording other shows in the background while we watched CSI. We get the local channels off the sat -- we get nothing OTA. I have noticed some audio glitches before, but since I am unsure when the software update came thru... I can't say for sure which was in the receiver at the time. Our receiver jumped directly from 6.14 to 6.16. The last time I checked the release level was about 3 days ago.

Question: since a cold boot seems necessary when a software upgrade is obtained, why doesn't the unit put up some notice that it is needed? Apparantly, I went several days not knowing.

[Henry]

Question: since a cold boot seems necessary when a software upgrade is obtained, why doesn't the unit put up some notice that it is needed? Apparantly, I went several days not knowing.

pawn;

The "cold boot" recommendation came from the good folks here at DBSTalk, not E*. They (E*) don't require or ask you to do so... hence problems for some.

The recommendation is indeed prudent ... and that's pretty good enough for me. :grin:

[Dr. Cool]

ViP622 here. Got 6.16 a few days ago. Now I'm having dropouts with HDNet (I didn't have them before with this channel). Watched six episodes of Star Trek Enterprise, and all of them had random dropouts that are not reproducible by rewinding. I had about five audio dropouts per episode (one every eight minutes).
I have never had dropouts with this show or HDNet until now. Based on this initial very bad experience, I'm willing to bet that 6.16 made the dropout problem worse in my case.

[shortspark]

I have audio drops on NBC local (OTA), not Dish subscription local. Antenna is plugged in my 622 and the locals appear as Digital Programming, rather than having a description of the show and times playing. This, I understand, is how it works and you only get the local program guide if you subscribe to Dish locals. But back to the audio, my local NBC channel has always had audio drops, no matter what software version I have and the current 6.16 is no different. In fact, I have noticed nothing different in any way whatsoever between how my receiver behaves before or after updates for the last six or seven of them.

[fwampler]

Going from l6.14 to l6.16 fixed audio issues on Fox for my vip622. Tnx.

[w5pny]

This past Tuesday my 622 got the 616 firmware. It looked good until
I got to the Smithsonian Channel. That channel now suffers audio
dropouts that last about a tenth of a second three or four times
a tenth of a second apart and this repeats every two or three seconds
continuously. It makes the audio stuttery or gurgly to listen to
and basically makes the Smithsonian Channel unwatchable. Previous
to 616 I've had no particular problem with audio drop outs.

I tried a powerdown reset and that didn't change anything. I can
record the channel and the recording exhibits the dropouts too.

I briefly checked most other HD channels and they seem ok for
audio drop outs, but I didn't spend a long time on each channel.
The Smithsonian Channel suffers this every few seconds.

[w5pny]

When I posted about this problem, it had been going on
continuously for at least a day or so (ever since the
first time I watched the Smithsonian Channel
since Monday before the L616 firmware upgrade). At
the same time I posted the problem here, I sent the
same info to dishquality -- that was about 9am MST. Now,
about 11:30am -- the problem seems fixed. Do you
suppose there is a connection? Hopefully this was
just something in the uplink of that channel.
If the problem returns for any length of time, I'll
post again.

[Ron Barry]

When i read your initial post w5pny that is exactly what I was thinking. Definitely report if you see it happening again.

[dishcustomer722]

I live in the Wake Forest/Raleigh, NC area. I got the L6.16 software update. I have to admit, I'm a happy camper so far. The audio dropouts are apparently fixed on my local channels. It's fixed when I playback from DVR recordings and when I pause/resume a channel I'm watching.

However ... I'll have to spend another month or so before I declare 100% satisfaction on this audio dropout issue though. As other people have said, OTHER channels sometimes start having the audio dropout problems once they fix it for the main channels that people have been complaining about. In my case it was ABC and FOX that were the worst before I got the L6.16 software. Hopefully, NBC and CBS will work fine with no audio dropouts.

THANK YOU DISH NETWORK ENGINEERS FOR FIXING THIS PROBLEM WITH AUDIO DROPOUTS !!!!!!!! IT'S BEEN DRIVING US NUTS FOR A FEW MONTHS !!!!

PLEASE KEEP WORKING ON ALL THESE TYPES OF ISSUES ON ALL OF THE CHANNELS ... AUDIO DROPOUTS AND OTHER VIDEO BLIPS, ETC. KEEP ON TESTING ALL YOUR SOFTWARE ALL THE TIME IN REAL WORLD SITUATIONS. LISTEN TO US END USERS ON FORUMS LIKE THIS ONE.

[shortspark]

I still get audio drop outs on my NBC local channel. It has been this way for many months and no update has fixed it. Or, the CC problems, mostly on HD HBO.

[CopyChief]

I'm laughing right now. Really I am. But I can't seem to understand this strange message I just received from the Dish Quality e-mail box. Please note this is a box whose name, assigned by Dish, is "Audio-Video Quality"

I wrote to Dish Quality a week or so ago about L616 and how it did not solve audio drop problems on NBC and CBS in the St. Louis DMA. This is the response I received:

The dishquality email box is managed by the Quality Assurance department; we only handle picture quality issues. We have forwarded your concerns to the appropriate department.

Um, really? Then why didn't the four or five other folks who I've corresponded with since early October tell me I'm writing to the wrong e-mail or dealing with the wrong people?

[lukin4u]

i live in st louis and just upgrade from 622 to 722
and i am getting these dropouts alot now
speed, hbo, nbc,cbs, and others
when playing back on dvr
also had complete freeze on 'worst week' twice last night
had to press >> button and it would snap out of it

i thought higher numbers meant better equip. and less problems

nope

[CopyChief]

I have also had the picture freeze issue that requires a rewind to fix. Taken alone, this problem would not be as bad, but since it only happens on programs that exhibit the worst audio drops, it's only adding fuel to the fire.

It probably goes without saying (and I think I've said it before), but these problems make the pending rate increase particularly hard to swallow.

[Ron Barry]

i live in st louis and just upgrade from 622 to 722
and i am getting these dropouts alot now
speed, hbo, nbc,cbs, and others
when playing back on dvr
also had complete freeze on 'worst week' twice last night
had to press >> button and it would snap out of it

i thought higher numbers meant better equip. and less problems

nope

If you are getting these a lot on national channels and you just swapped receivers, I would suspect you have a installation problem since there are not more widespread reports of these issues.

[lukin4u]

If you are getting these a lot on national channels and you just swapped receivers, I would suspect you have a installation problem since there are not more widespread reports of these issues.

could you elaborate on what type of installation problem might cause audio and video problems

lots of people from st louis here

[Ron Barry]

Some of them can be heat related, signal related, possible a bad 722. Those are some of the issues that quickly come to mind.

The reports from the people in St Louis that I have read have been centered around local channels. What you are reporting in National channels: HBO and speed. That is why I mentioned it and suggested looking deeper into it.

As for the local issues, those are obviously more widespread so really not much I can offer in terms of that issue except to say... Keep details flowing. What I would suggest on the national issues you are seeing is to be specific in your experiences as to frequency, Is it program specific, type of hardware involved etc. More details the better.

[tpflum]

Several months ago, Dish upgraded my DVR/receiver from the 942 (which never had a problem) to the 722. The good news is I get more HD content. The bad news is I lost HD movies, although I was told that I would keep everything I had plus get the additional HD content. I was using the OTA tuner in the 722 to record local channels while I watched a different local channel using the TV HD tuner. Although I didn't have TV Guide for the local HD channels because I could see no reason to pay for SD local from Dish since I have a great antenna and pick up all the Dayton Ohio and some Cincinnati stations in both HD and SD. Life was great and I had no problems with the 722.

Since analog broadcasting is going to cease soon and I still have several analog only TV's I decided to add the local channel Dish package. They have a new offer that allowed the addition of local channels (SD only) and MAX for only $0.01 more than I was paying. Life was even better.

Now I find lots of problems with the 722. I get HD drop outs on local channels that last for up to a second. When playing back DVR recorded shows, I am experiencing lockups that last a second or two or even three.

I can't tell you exactly when these problems started, only that they seem to be getting worse. I can't tie it to the local channel upgrade but it could be. Originally I thought it was antenna/amplifier problem. Then I started to think I was having a HDD failure but now believe it is software in the 722. I checked the software version and it is 616. I checked the HDD temp and it has been 131 max with an average of 120, which I don't believe to be excessive.

I got so frustrated last evening that I searched and found this blog. Since I am now convinced that it is the 722 and not my antenna/amplifier, I will start collecting data to get a better feeling as to what is happening and when.

[CopyChief]

I noticed something the other night, watching a recording of Sunday's night broadcast of The Mentalist, which is a CBS program. It's on KMOV/Channel 4 here in St. Louis, and this station has been one of the worst for dropouts lately, along with KSDK (NBC)/Channel 5.

During the first commercial break, Channel 4 ran a crawl about the upcoming digital transition. While this crawl was on the screen, I experienced not one dropout. Almost immediately, when the crawl disappeared, the audio drop problems returned with a vengeance. The drops continued throughout the program -- until, in the last commercial break, they ran the crawl message again. Without audio drops, of course.

I'm not sure how running a crawl would affect the actual signal or how it could make a difference -- so this could be a coincidence -- but I did think it was worth adding to the discussion.

I should mention that during last night's LOST premiere, I experienced exactly ZERO audio drops. LOST, of course, is on ABC. Previous to the short-lived but somewhat successful L615, this station had some of the worst audio problems.

[Ron Barry]

I got so frustrated last evening that I searched and found this blog. Since I am now convinced that it is the 722 and not my antenna/amplifier, I will start collecting data to get a better feeling as to what is happening and when.

First off welcome to DBSTalk tpflum. Yes definitely collect more info. The more the better. I don't recall any other reports from your DMA.

One thing you can do is verify that you are getting a good signal on the Transponder that host yours localls. You can do this by when you are on this channel bring up the DIsh Point screen and watching the signal for a few minutes. See if you have a solid signal or if it is jumping around. That would help rule out a signal issue.

[moman19]

I noticed something the other night, watching a recording of Sunday's night broadcast of The Mentalist, which is a CBS program. It's on KMOV/Channel 4 here in St. Louis, and this station has been one of the worst for dropouts lately, along with KSDK (NBC)/Channel 5.

During the first commercial break, Channel 4 ran a crawl about the upcoming digital transition. While this crawl was on the screen, I experienced not one dropout. Almost immediately, when the crawl disappeared, the audio drop problems returned with a vengeance. The drops continued throughout the program -- until, in the last commercial break, they ran the crawl message again. Without audio drops, of course.

I'm not sure how running a crawl would affect the actual signal or how it could make a difference -- so this could be a coincidence -- but I did think it was worth adding to the discussion.

I should mention that during last night's LOST premiere, I experienced exactly ZERO audio drops. LOST, of course, is on ABC. Previous to the short-lived but somewhat successful L615, this station had some of the worst audio problems.

I noticed EXACTLY the same observations (every one!) on the same station/time/city. This must be an obvious clue to the root cause.

[tpflum]

Last evening, I only watched live, OTA HD from the local CBS station. At 9:00 I watched CBS Criminal Minds using the OTA tuner in the 722. I remember 1 instance of signal breakup that lasted for a second.

At 10:00 I recorded NBC Law&Order using the 722 OTA tuner and switched the TV to its tuner to watch CSI:NY. I saw no signal problems using the TV tuner.

Tonight, I expect the situation to be about the same except at 10:00, I plan on recording both an OTA program in HD using the 722 tuner and the USA Burn Notice (HD).

I don't watch any local channel programming provided by Dish on this TV as they only provide SD for the local channels. My wife watches the local SD programming on a bedroom TV and she hasn't complained about any problems. I really don't think we have a signal problem with Dish on any of their satellites.

I have excellent signal from the OTA antenna. The antenna is big and the TV tower is about 16 miles away with no obstructions. I can even receive some Cincinnati HD programming (about 65 miles to downtown Cinti). There is no reason that I should be getting occasional signal breakups when using the 722 OTA HD tuner on local channels.

As long as the networks are broadcasting new programming, I am watching that and recording any conflicting programs for later viewing. Over the holidays, there wasn't much new so that is when I started watching the previously recorded shows and I noticed the playback stutters, signal dropouts, and short term lock ups.

[keiths2112]

I have not been having any audio issues until this update. Recorded Lost
on Wed, watched it Thrs, it was unwatchable due to audio being out of
sync with video. Watched live news Thursday night, same audio
sync problems. So, both recorded and live broadcasts are out of
sync. This seems to be continuous. My TV is now unwatchable. I never
had a problem before.

ViP 722, Raleigh NC, DMA

Is there a way to revert back to 6.14 which I never had issues with?

Is there a way to block these updates, this is terrible.

[Rontero]

I'm just checking in to report that I have L616 and so far this is the WORST update for the St Louis area.

So far I have noticed Channel 4 and Channel 5 (CBS and NBC) are terrible. I have audio drop outs almost constantly. Every minute or so. It also introduced video freezing. You have to rewind to unlock the video. Finally, during the audio dropouts, I also get skipping where the show skips 1 or 2 seconds. If I rewind back I can usually see the skipped video.

Does anyone have any suggestions for communicating this through Dish. I dont want to waste my time but I would like to let them know of the problem.

[Rontero]

I just got off the phone with Dish. Customer Service connected me to DVR Tech Support. They found an engineering note that was asking for details. The Engineering note said not to replace the DVR since the probem will most likely re-occur. They took down details.

Most importantly, they wanted to know what channels had the problem.

I suggest everyone give them a call and talk to DVR tech support just to keep them informed of what you are experiencing.

[CopyChief]

Yes, NBC and CBS (4 and 5) in St. Louis do seem like they are the worst for the audio drops.

I have been communicating with Dish folks via the dishquality e-mail. I did receive a strange response this week (see an earlier post -- but basically they said it was only for picture issues) but later received an e-mail from a Dish engineer about the problem. I have e-mailed him back but not heard anything. So if you don't have time to sit on hold, this is a good route to use. The address is dishquality@echostar.com.

As with any CSR-type encounter, I've found it works best to give as much info as you can in each e-mail you send -- not necessarily relying on the person to follow the e-mail trail.

[tpflum]

On Friday, I watched two USA shows without any problems while recording 2 CBS shows for later viewing. Last evening I watched three off the air 722 recorded shows. The first was CBS show Numbers recorded 1/16/09. I played back without a problem.

The second was NBC's Life that was recorded early in December 08. Twice during the playback, I experienced for lack of a better word, a crash. What happened was a slight video interruption and a very loud, crash or static like noise. Loud is not an overstatement. I have heard that noise before but not for several weeks and it happened before I started making notes of the circumstances and all the recent problems.

Then I watched a NBC Law & Order, also recorded in December. The show would play back for awhile OK, then go into a pause for 1-5 seconds and then continue on without intervention. It happened a dozen times during the show. Several times I saw an error box pop up that stated the signal had been lost and several other times I saw a very short term signal breakup. It was frustrating to say the least.

[Henry]

ViP622DVR
L6.16

Two weeks with L6.16 ... no problems. Didn't have any with 6.14 or any prior release, either.

[Dr. Cool]

ViP622 here. As I reported before, I was having audio dropouts with HDNet after FW 6.16. I called tech support and they went with me over the reset routine, basically collecting information from all info menus, then doing a sat diagnosis (System Info), then a "Check Switch" reset, then a hard reboot, then dowloading the channel programming guide again. It *appears* that the audio dropouts are gone!!! I watched Star Trek Enterprise yesterday after the procedure and had no dropouts, while the norm was to have about at least six during a show.
I hope that the fix is permanent. Had no dropouts for 24 hours now.

[tpflum]

I have had continuing problems with both off the air recorded programs and off the air live broadcasts using the 722 built in tuner.

Tonight, I tried to watch NBC nightly news. It was a disaster. Several dozen times the show would freeze or the signal would break up. I tried the pause button and once actually got into the pause mode and it showed that I was already 5 minutes behind live time but I had not paused it myself. The show was almost unwatchable and I missed a lot of content. Once, when it came back alive after a lock up, it started back at the beginning of the show.

I called Dish after the show and the rep had me go into a diagnostic page of the menu. He determined that the hard drive was failing so they are sending me a replacement receiver. I don't know why a failing hard drive would cause the signal breakup problem but it certainly would explain the lockups on DVR playback.

One last weird symptom that I experienced last evening, was a several second (not an exaggeration) out of sync condition between the sound and picture. It started after a lockup while watching a recorded show. I was able to resync by hitting the pause button.

[Ron Barry]

I have not been having any audio issues until this update. Recorded Lost
on Wed, watched it Thrs, it was unwatchable due to audio being out of
sync with video. Watched live news Thursday night, same audio
sync problems. So, both recorded and live broadcasts are out of
sync. This seems to be continuous. My TV is now unwatchable. I never
had a problem before.

ViP 722, Raleigh NC, DMA

Is there a way to revert back to 6.14 which I never had issues with?

Is there a way to block these updates, this is terrible.

No there is no way to revert or block the updates.. Couple of questions... You mention two shows. What channels are you seeing this on? Is it your Dish HD locals or are you seeing this on OTA locals? Are you seeing these issues with any national HD channels?

[buzzcut]

i have a 622 connected via 6' hdmi cable to a Samsung 46" LCD.

a while ago, i noticed i had to adjust the sound on my 'locals' to a higher level (24-26)---when i switch back to an HD channel, or SD channel, i have to adjust the volume to a lower level (say around 14-18). just kinda accepted that---no big deal.

ok, last night, i was surprised i had to turn the volume up on my 'locals'---all the way up into the 40's (around 44) when i wanted to catch some of the news. i forgot i had to have it so high and switched back to the HD basketball game and about blew my ears out!!! so, now i have to remember i have the 'local' volume way up and to turn the volume way down before i switch back to HD or SD channels.

definitely a pain in the a$$!!!

i would take it the way it was before---not such a huge audio variance!

[tpflum]

As I await a replacement 722, I am still using the one with problems. Last evening, I was watching the local FOX channel using the OTA tuner and paused it for 10 minutes. When I started watching again, several times the DVR locked up for several seconds. Within 10 minutes it locked up and after several minutes I gave up and switched over to the TV tuner. When I checked back 30 minutes later, it was still locked up displaying the same picture.

I rebooted the 722 and it came back alive. I did not use the pause function again. I did however view the rest of a recorded show without problem. I still have 17 hours of recorded HD content to view before I have to install the new 722.

With regards to volume problems, I experience them all the time. I think the problem is caused by the providers. When I switch between the 722 tuner and the TV tuner for an OTA program, I notice some volume difference, but it is not significant. Commercials sometimes seem to be twice as loud as program content. From station to station, both OTA and satellite, I notice large differences at times. I wish they would get their act together and all broadcast the same audio level.

[Ron Barry]

i have a 622 connected via 6' hdmi cable to a Samsung 46" LCD.

a while ago, i noticed i had to adjust the sound on my 'locals' to a higher level (24-26)---when i switch back to an HD channel, or SD channel, i have to adjust the volume to a lower level (say around 14-18). just kinda accepted that---no big deal.

ok, last night, i was surprised i had to turn the volume up on my 'locals'---all the way up into the 40's (around 44) when i wanted to catch some of the news. i forgot i had to have it so high and switched back to the HD basketball game and about blew my ears out!!! so, now i have to remember i have the 'local' volume way up and to turn the volume way down before i switch back to HD or SD channels.

definitely a pain in the a$$!!!

i would take it the way it was before---not such a huge audio variance!

if you are connected receiver to TV, you might want to change to PCM only and see if that helps your audio difference. I would not recommend this if this is a receiver in a Home Theater environment but for a receiver to TV configuration it is a option in my opinion.

[koralis]

6.16 has made audio dropouts much worse for my 622, especially boston ABC OTA during Lost. Bleh.

[Rduce]

6.14 prior with no problems, now with 6.16 I am having the audio drop outs and low volume on OTA locals...

[dccatl]

What exactly are the audio issues that are being reported here? I have 2 722's both on 6.16, both connected to the TV's via HDMI (audio from the TV) and never noticed any audio problems up to about a week ago. Now on one of the receivers the audio will frequently disappear, form what I've noticed it's only when changing channels. Sometimes swapping to the other tuner and back will restore it, sometimes pausing live TV will stop it and almost always turning the TV (LG 42 LB5D) off and back on will restore the audio. I don't think (but can't be certain) that the audio has ever disappeared while just watching a channel. I do have an OTA antenna connected and do subscribe to my locals.

Is this the behavior that this thread is referring to or another issue?

[CopyChief]

The issue we're talking about is completely different from what you have described. It seems as if it is mostly confined to satellite HD locals in certain DMAs (especially St. Louis -- that's where I am), although some have reported audio issues on some other stations, too. The drops occur when watching a program either from the buffer or a recording, not live. It's almost like trying to have a conversation on a cell phone when your signal fluctuates -- words or syllables drop out unpredictably, yet fairly constantly during a program.

[moman19]

The issue we're talking about is completely different from what you have described. It seems as if it is mostly confined to satellite HD locals in certain DMAs (especially St. Louis -- that's where I am), although some have reported audio issues on some other stations, too. The drops occur when watching a program either from the buffer or a recording, not live. It's almost like trying to have a conversation on a cell phone when your signal fluctuates -- words or syllables drop out unpredictably, yet fairly constantly during a program.

Perfect description from another STL sufferer :(

[buzzcut]

The issue we're talking about is completely different from what you have described. It seems as if it is mostly confined to satellite HD locals in certain DMAs (especially St. Louis -- that's where I am), although some have reported audio issues on some other stations, too. The drops occur when watching a program either from the buffer or a recording, not live. It's almost like trying to have a conversation on a cell phone when your signal fluctuates -- words or syllables drop out unpredictably, yet fairly constantly during a program.



in my area, i have not noticed your stated situation---i just have a severe audio difference between the sub channels and locals (locals cranked up to around 44 on my tv scale---then, need to turn it down to around 16 for sub channels).

i had an acquaintance tell me that her friend was mentioning having the same problem---although, she has no idea what the situation is. i told him to relay the message.

[dccatl]

The issue we're talking about is completely different from what you have described. It seems as if it is mostly confined to satellite HD locals in certain DMAs (especially St. Louis -- that's where I am), although some have reported audio issues on some other stations, too. The drops occur when watching a program either from the buffer or a recording, not live. It's almost like trying to have a conversation on a cell phone when your signal fluctuates -- words or syllables drop out unpredictably, yet fairly constantly during a program.

OK, thanks. I reset (unplugged) the one receiver last night and didn't notice any problems afterward. Maybe I got lucky. In any case thanks again for the info.

[hokie-dk]

Watching basketball on local WUPV when sound disappeared. I can backup to any point in the broadcast and the audio is fine. If I go to live, the audio disappears again, but my audio receiver still shows an active audio stream. It's only happening on this one station. Right now, I'm watching with about a five second delay, and it's perfect.

[phrelin]

Here is my latest email sent to specific individuals with Dish Quality and Echostar Engineering along with copies to Tech Support and ceo@ in the chain of emails that goes back to last Summer: As I indicated to everyone in the January 9, 2009, email below, I am reporting in after having had several weeks of new recorded programming on all the local stations using the L6.16 update on our ViP722 and also comparing where possible recordings on our ViP612.

If one assumes that the original problem with the San Francisco Bay Area HD locals programming recorded from the satellite feeds was the playback repeatable syllable-changing audio dropout that caused the dolby on our A/V receiver to turn off/on on Fox and ABC, that particular dropout which made many shows unwatchable is gone.

Now all we have audio dropouts from all four locals that are not always repeatable, do not move when they are, and mostly do not cause the dolby to switch off/on. They are less frequent then the previous problem. These instantaneous dropouts do occasionally occur on cable channels, even premiums. Much of the time you really have to listen for them, but sometimes they can be annoyingly obvious.

I must admit that I am still puzzled over what it was that created the problem at the beginning of last summer. Prior to that time, the problem did not exist. The code prior to that time must still exist somewhere and for the life of me, I cannot figure out why it isn't in use today. L6.16 is tolerable, but not as good.

With that said, now it's time to take up the ViP612 with L6.02. It has always had the dropouts from the locals, but more like they are now on the 722. Also, the 612 has frequent audio/video dropout/freeze problems with recording from all channels which has been reported by many on DBSTalk's forums. Whatever you did to fix the problem on the 722 might, if applied to the 612, improve it's general performance. Frankly, if our 612 were our only experience with Dish Network High-Def, we would be very unhappy customers. Since it is about due for a software update to resolve it's various bugs, I'll wait to see what happens.

Sincerely,

[ME]

[Dario33]

Guys,

While not an audio drop-out issue, I've recently noticed a metallic-echo sound sometimes during dialogue. It's a recent issue -- close to when L6.16 was rolled-out. The issue is kind of hard to describe, but it's as if someone is speaking from a room with a metallic-like echo. Issue comes and goes and does not appear to be specific to any channel. VIP722 connected to Panny Viera via HDMI.

[CopyChief]

I have been exchanging e-mails with someone at Dish over this issue, and have been assured that Dish engineers are "very aware" of the audio-drop problem and that a fix is in the works. It was characterized as a "very large" update and that testing may take some time. I will reserve any editorial comment or refrain from using words like "soon" -- but this is somewhat encouraging.

I watched yesterday's Super Bowl on delay and did not experience any dropouts during the live broadcast, but during the national commercials, they were quite evident. A while back -- I think it was in this thread -- someone suggested this could come from content originating in film, which is 24fps. This certainly seems to hold true in this case and may be a clue as to the root cause.

I have shared this with the folks at Dish in hopes that, with more information, a solution will arrive much sooner.

[moman19]

........I watched yesterday's Super Bowl on delay and did not experience any dropouts during the live broadcast, but during the national commercials, they were quite evident. A while back -- I think it was in this thread -- someone suggested this could come from content originating in film, which is 24fps. This certainly seems to hold true in this case and may be a clue as to the root cause-------------------

This issue seems to manifest itself slightly differently in various markets. But here in St. Louis, it is absolutely a film (or 24fps) issue. In fact, while the Superbowl itself was pretty much flawless, the audio drops were very frequent during commercials and other filmed events.

The SuperBowl pre-game show took up most of the day on NBC and I caught much of it. Throughout the day, the drops would appear when filmed human-interest stories and/or commercials played whenever I was viewing a buffered event. Go to LIVE and the drops would vanish.

[Henry]

Had an interesting event this morning, although I'm not so sure it's related to L6.16.

As I usually do every morning, I went to the Interactive Weather screen. While I was navigating towards the Weather Channel app, I suddenly lost audio altogether. I was able to freely return to live TV but the audio outage continued no matter what channel I went to.

I figured a soft reboot would take care of it, but my wife was recording an LMN movie at the time. So I went to My Recordings and told the DVR to View the recording in progress, I was surprised to hear clear uninterrupted audio on the movie being recorded. I again changed channels, and again lost all audio on live TV.

I waited until my wife's movie had finished recording and performed a soft (held the Power button down) reboot. As expected, all audio returned.

I don't think it's related to L6.16 since it's not the first time my 622 has glitched while in the Interactive mode. It did it during L6.14 and earlier releases. Nonetheless, I thought I'd report it here in case someone else has had that experience.

[lukin4u]

i knew better than to watch superbowl on dely cause it is really bad @ my house

no problems live of course, but we rewinded a little to watch a commerical and sure enough the '1sec mutes' came back
cbs and nbc and pbs (39) are the worst for me

it is getting worse in my opinion

my 622 didnt do this but the 722 =all the time

[laterno]

Hello, I too am in St. Louis and I have been following this thread because I too have been having major audio drops while playing back HD shows on CBS and NBC. It seems to be getting worse and I cannot stand it! I finally called E* to complain and they sent a tech out free of charge. I knew this would not solve anything and you can guess their solution - swap out my 722 receiver. I told them no, because 1) I have too many things recorded and don't want to lose them and 2) from reading here it is an update issue and not a hardware issue.

They did however give me next month's HD service for free, so at least they are trying to make up for the problem. I hope this issue is resolved soon because shows on these stations are almost unwatchable!

Waiting intently....Lee

[normang]

I've noted issues on toon-hd, several drops out during 30 min star wars episode. Re-recorded the rerun of the episode the next day, drop outs persisted, but cannot say whether they occurred in the same spots in the show.

[Ron Barry]

There was a Star Wars episode last week that had some real funky audio issues. Center channel audio appearing in the rear channels. I believe it was source related.

[shinji257]

I have a ViP622 unit with L6.16 software on it. I have noticed audio dropouts on Cartoon Network HD lately. I only watch recorded programming from that station however the dropouts are reproducable. It will either produce as a sudden static burst then loss of audio for a few seconds or it may do the same but without the static burst. I know it happens because my receiver's DD indicator goes off. Per someone else's suggestion I did a cold boot. I only did that after noting at least one spot where it dropped audio. It still did it after the cold boot so the recording definitely contains the dropout in it. I'll check future recordings from that station to see if it continues.

[KWarner]

Hello,

I am in St. Louis too. I have the same audio problems that everyone else is having with "drop outs". After the software update it switched from Fox and ABC to NBC and CBS. Fox and ABC are fine now. I wanted to let everyone know that I complained to a CSR strongly, but appropriately and got my locals free for 6 months. I suggest others try this. My question is: What is the e-mail address for audio/video issues? I can't find it and want to talk with someone a little more in the know than the CSR's.

Thanks

[shinji257]

I have a ViP622 unit with L6.16 software on it. I have noticed audio dropouts on Cartoon Network HD lately. I only watch recorded programming from that station however the dropouts are reproducable. It will either produce as a sudden static burst then loss of audio for a few seconds or it may do the same but without the static burst. I know it happens because my receiver's DD indicator goes off. Per someone else's suggestion I did a cold boot. I only did that after noting at least one spot where it dropped audio. It still did it after the cold boot so the recording definitely contains the dropout in it. I'll check future recordings from that station to see if it continues.

Heh. Of course it continued to happen. I will give them a ring and see if something can't be worked out. Just glad to see I'm not alone on this. I am leasing my unit from them so if I have to get it replaced then so be it.

[CopyChief]

Hello,

I am in St. Louis too. I have the same audio problems that everyone else is having with "drop outs". After the software update it switched from Fox and ABC to NBC and CBS. Fox and ABC are fine now. I wanted to let everyone know that I complained to a CSR strongly, but appropriately and got my locals free for 6 months. I suggest others try this. My question is: What is the e-mail address for audio/video issues? I can't find it and want to talk with someone a little more in the know than the CSR's.

Thanks

The e-mail address I've used is dishquality@echostar.com. I can't say that I have had any great results with this, although I have been corresponding with someone from the tech/engineering operations side rather than a CSR, so I feel like I'm getting a more accurate story than I would otherwise. I send him an e-mail about every two weeks to check up, and he's usually very prompt in getting back to me, even with a "We're still testing a fix" message.

And that's the message I'm getting now -- they're still testing a fix, and it's a very large update so there's a lot of testing to be done.

[Dr. Cool]

After some additional testing, it's clear now that the latest firmware updates didn't solve my dropout problems. In reality, I'm now noticing them in more channels than before. I'm noticing them not only with PBS but also with FOX local OTA. I'm also noticing them with most Dish HD movie channels. Again, dropouts are not common but happen with noticeable frequency. They are random and not repeatable by rewinding. They happen over analog and optical connections. I've never noticed them with live shows, so I believe they're DVR related. Some shows are more prone to produce dropouts than others.

[Kevin Brown]

I have worse dropouts now with 616 than I had before too. The worse affected channels seem to be Fox and NBC.

[Dood]

I will do my best to temper my total anger with Dish Network. The audio problems I have are so bad that it is almost impossible to watch my TV any more.

I live in St. Louis. I have the VIP-722. I have a HD setup and filter my sound via optical through a receiver. I have software version L617.

Shows recorded on ABC, CBS and NBC in HD are unwatchable because of the software issues.

Shows paused and then watched are unwatchable as well.

I was told on this forum months ago a fix was right around the corner and to be patient. So here we are many months deep into the SAME problem and ..... Nothing has been done.

Why do I have to pay for such poor service? Why will they not credit my account because THEY have the problem and THEY are feeding it to me?

Why, when I call to complain, am I told they have never heard of this issue? Are the CSR's told to lie, or are they really clueless?

Like I said, I am locked into a contract and being delivered terrible service. Why should I live up to my end of the contract if they can't?

Someone here please explain this madness.

[moman19]

Dood, I feel your pain and cannot make any excuses for how long it has taken E* to resolve this issue....way too long IMHO. I've essentially learned to live with it by recording shows on the affected channels via OTA. Not a fix, but a good workaround if you have an decent OTA antenna.

What strikes me most about your note is the mention of audio issues on ABC. Here in St. Louis, the problem (as reported by a few, including me) seems pretty much limited to the local CBS and NBC affiliates (1080i channels) since introduction of Rel L6.16. I'll also bet you see it occur more often when the video source is film rather than tape or live. If ABC is giving you fits, I must wonder if something else is possibly going on with your receiver. ABC and Fox cleared up completely with L6.16 but then CBS and NBC caught the "disease".

[Dood]

Dood, I feel your pain and cannot make any excuses for how long it has taken E* to resolve this issue....way too long IMHO. I've essentially learned to live with it by recording shows on the affected channels via OTA. Not a fix, but a good workaround if you have an decent OTA antenna.

What strikes me most about your note is the mention of audio issues on ABC. Here in St. Louis, the problem (as reported by a few, including me) seems pretty much limited to the local CBS and NBC affiliates (1080i channels) since introduction of Rel L6.16. I'll also bet you see it occur more often when the video source is film rather than tape or live. If ABC is giving you fits, I must wonder if something else is possibly going on with your receiver. ABC and Fox cleared up completely with L6.16 but then CBS and NBC caught the "disease".


I do stand corrected, as the majority of the problems are on CBS-HD and to a lesser degree NBC-HD.

I live far enough from STL that OTA channels are not an option without an outdoor antenna. The problem is so bad that I will go back to DirecTv when my contract is up.

[CopyChief]

The thing about the audio drops problem I don't understand is how it can be a box-level software patch problem when the issue only seems to be in certain DMAs (St. Louis, especially)? If it were truly a software problem as Dish techs say, wouldn't it be affecting a wider range of users?

It seems to be there is a problem with the St. Louis uplink.

I would think, too that if Dish is truly just "passing on the signal" then it should be relatively blind to resolution or framerate-specific content, right? I just don't understand why crawls or local commercial insertions or 24 vs 30fps should make any difference in what Dish is delivering to my receiver in my specific DMA.

Like I said, if it were a wider decoding or software problem, wouldn't the problem be more widespread and show up on more channels than just the HD locals?

Sheesh. Just when you think you start to understand this technology...

[Dr. Cool]

Well, I don't live in St. Louis. I live in Northern Minnesota, and I have the problem with many HD channels, OTA or Dish provided. The problem *does not* come from the source and is not a signal quality problem. Live audio is not affected and SD programming is not affected. Only HD recorded audio is affected, and it's random and never repeats on the same spot when I rewind, although it may reappear on another spot. I have to rule out everything else except for a software or hardware DVR-related problem.

[Ron Barry]

Why do you have to rule everything else except the DVR Dr. Cool. The audio problems that are currently being discussed are mainly centered around locals and right now it appears to me that St. Louis DMA is ground zero.

If you are seeing it across all HD channels I would suspect something very unique to your configuration because that is not what the threads here are indicating. If audio issues move into the nationals channels this has a much higher exposure across the user base here so I would expect a lot more reports which I have not seen.

How often are you running into these audio issues? (How many times a day do you hear them). Is there a particular national channel you hear them on?

I definitely agree with the following.

1) Audio issues are not repeatable when you jump back so that tends to lend itself to the fact it is not stream related.
2) Seeing audio issues both local and national so that tells me that it is not a local DMA issue.

But I personally would not conclude that the issue lies in the receiver from there. for the following other pieces of info.

1) It is occurring with both MPEG2 and MPEG4 streams.
2) There are not others in large quantities reporting the same experiences.

Not sure what you are running into Dr. Cool, but I definitely think it is different from what the St. Louis group is experiencing and I personally I would not declare the issue software related.

Wonder if there is anyone else in Minnesota that can report their experiences....

Lets see if we can confirm the audio issue. Is their a particular program you record where it happens 100% of the time?

[Ron Barry]

The thing about the audio drops problem I don't understand is how it can be a box-level software patch problem when the issue only seems to be in certain DMAs (St. Louis, especially)? If it were truly a software problem as Dish techs say, wouldn't it be affecting a wider range of users?

It seems to be there is a problem with the St. Louis uplink.

I would think, too that if Dish is truly just "passing on the signal" then it should be relatively blind to resolution or framerate-specific content, right? I just don't understand why crawls or local commercial insertions or 24 vs 30fps should make any difference in what Dish is delivering to my receiver in my specific DMA.

Like I said, if it were a wider decoding or software problem, wouldn't the problem be more widespread and show up on more channels than just the HD locals?

Sheesh. Just when you think you start to understand this technology...

Remember... We had an audio fix in the receiver that did help a number of DMAs... Not everyone was effect by the issue so it definitely does happen.

My guess is there is all sorts of different technologies on the producing and sending side of the equation with all sorts of different configurations.

The St. Louis one is sending something in the stream that the receiver is not handling properly. You can fix it at the producing end or the receiving end. Guess based on the reports the determined the fix should be on the receiving end.

A good analogy would be the PC industry. You may have one set of software (OS) but all sorts of external influence (Drivers etc) and those influence play a part in the end user experience. Some users have no issues while others feel pain.

I hope St. Louis soon will be not feel the pain any more.

[Ron Barry]

I was told on this forum months ago a fix was right around the corner and to be patient. So here we are many months deep into the SAME problem and ..... Nothing has been done.

Actually there was a fix and it did fix a number of users that was experiencing Audio issues. St. Louis's issue obviously was not the one that they fixed and if you go and read the previous release threads (Audio ones included) you will see a number of posts indicating that the Audio issues being reported my be one defect or multiple ones. Hard to tell at this point because the experiences being reported was ranging from "All good" to "Really bad".

As for being told... I am sure you were told that there was a fix but I don't think anyone indicated that that a fix would address all audio issues people are reporting.

I know that people in St. Louis is feeling pain and I understand that. As for the length of time.. Well given the reports and the history around the issue it is obviously a tough nut to crack. There has been at least one fix pushed to address it and it caught a large percentage of the issues ("Looking at it from a National perspective"), but did not catch all. Someone posted that they were told their is another fix that requires a lot of testing because of the scope of the fix. Is this guaranteed to fix all issues? Nope.. I am sure the people working on it feel it will but since all root causes are not known for the people reporting the issue their is no way to guarantee the fix will address them all (Just like the first one).

All we can do as users here is to be detailed in reporting our findings and experiences and if you get tapped on your shoulder to take a download to check if the fix truly did address the issue to step up if you feel comfortable and help be part of the process.

Should you have to deal with this.. Nope.. but these systems are complex and as such defects do spring up from time to time. The little bit of good news is based on reports from users here is that they are aware of it and do appear to be actively trying to solve the issue rather then declaring it hardware or claiming an external defect out of their control.

[moman19]

If I may add.......

This issue (in St. Louis) was introduced by a software upgrade. Rel 4.49 did not have this problem. While it could be coincidental, common sense would dictate that the "bug" is somehow related to the new software.

As "fixes" progressed, the problem clearly migrated (again, in St. Louis) from the two 720p HD locals to the two 1080i HD locals where it remains with the current release.

IMHO, a software change introduced this issue and another software change moved the issue to other channels. This should be ample proof that software will eventually resolve the issue in St. Louis.

[Dood]

Actually there was a fix and it did fix a number of users that was experiencing Audio issues. St. Louis's issue obviously was not the one that they fixed and if you go and read the previous release threads (Audio ones included) you will see a number of posts indicating that the Audio issues being reported my be one defect or multiple ones. Hard to tell at this point because the experiences being reported was ranging from "All good" to "Really bad".

As for being told... I am sure you were told that there was a fix but I don't think anyone indicated that that a fix would address all audio issues people are reporting.

I know that people in St. Louis is feeling pain and I understand that. As for the length of time.. Well given the reports and the history around the issue it is obviously a tough nut to crack. There has been at least one fix pushed to address it and it caught a large percentage of the issues ("Looking at it from a National perspective"), but did not catch all. Someone posted that they were told their is another fix that requires a lot of testing because of the scope of the fix. Is this guaranteed to fix all issues? Nope.. I am sure the people working on it feel it will but since all root causes are not known for the people reporting the issue their is no way to guarantee the fix will address them all (Just like the first one).

All we can do as users here is to be detailed in reporting our findings and experiences and if you get tapped on your shoulder to take a download to check if the fix truly did address the issue to step up if you feel comfortable and help be part of the process.

Should you have to deal with this.. Nope.. but these systems are complex and as such defects do spring up from time to time. The little bit of good news is based on reports from users here is that they are aware of it and do appear to be actively trying to solve the issue rather then declaring it hardware or claiming an external defect out of their control.

I do appreciate your levity, but don't you think that Dish Network should at the very least "own- up" to the issue? Not only have I not received any kind of note via snail mail, when I call and talk to a CSR, they tell me they have never heard of such a problem and tell me to "reboot" the system. I mean isn't that their standard answer for most problems?

Again, why doesn't Dish Network offer some kind of rebate because they are NOT delivering what I am paying for?

[Ron Barry]

Rebooting is step one in most software related issues whether it be a PC or a DVR. Easiest and the least costly.

Based on what I know of Dish CSR system posted here, CSRs are not well versed in all the receivers from a defect perspective. They appear to be able to look things up, but based on my experience of looking up defects as a engineer depending on the reports it is not a easy task to associated something a person is telling you to a particular defect being reported. It would be nice to have more transparency in terms of software fixes, enhancements, and outstanding defects but it just is something that is not common in this sector and though I personally would like to see it I also understand the downside of doing such a policy and understand why a company might not want to do it.

As for Dish proactively informing people of this. Good question, but from my experience I am not aware of any company in this industry that provides any type of proactive notification system regarding software defects. My advice would be to email the CEO office and in a polite stern email, describe the experience you are having, indicate it appears from your research that the problem is software related, and what you feel is fair. My opinion is they should credit back the cost of locals given you locals are not providing what they should be.

[P Smith]

L617 begin spooling for all 622/722 last night. The thread become a history.

[phrelin]

Other than adding L6.17 to the name, this thread should still be viable. L6.17 did not address an audio dropout issue as far as I know.

For the record, on my ViP722 with L6.17 I still have audio dropouts on NBC and CBS locals off the satellite in the Bay Area; just annoying, but still there. It occurs on all four locals on my ViP612 which has not had a software update.

[Dr. Cool]

Yes, audio dropouts continue to happen even after a power plug reboot. I just had six of them while watching "Judgment at Nuremberg" recorded from HDNet Movies. Those are the same random dropouts that I've been having since FW 4 or 5, brief and not repeatable by rewinding. It means that nothing appears to have changed since the first FW upgrade that created the problem.

[moman19]

Other than adding L6.17 to the name, this thread should still be viable. L6.17 did not address an audio dropout issue as far as I know.

For the record, on my ViP722 with L6.17 I still have audio dropouts on NBC and CBS locals off the satellite in the Bay Area; just annoying, but still there. It occurs on all four locals on my ViP612 which has not had a software update.

A huge DITTO for St. Louis as well. Sooner or later this will be fixed, but an update or attempt at a fix sure would be nice. :bang

[CopyChief]

If I may add.......

This issue (in St. Louis) was introduced by a software upgrade. Rel 4.49 did not have this problem. While it could be coincidental, common sense would dictate that the "bug" is somehow related to the new software.
...


That's an interesting point, and I hadn't looked at it that way, that software introduced the problem so hopefully software can fix it. I hope this is, indeed, the case.

I'm still struggling to understand what it could be that is different about the St. Louis local situation that is causing so much trouble. Moreover I'd be interested to know if there are any folks in St. Louis NOT experiencing the issue with their HD (sat) locals.

I wouldn't say that the dropout problem ever "migrated." Before L616 (or was it 615?), I had dropouts on ALL local HD satellite stations, not just 720p FOX and ABC. The release did fix audio problems on ABC&FOX.

Believe me, I'd like nothing more than to be able to close the book on this little chapter of Dish annoyances. But for now, this thread definitely needs to stay open. If there's concern about an older firmware version being mentioned in a current thread, I wonder if we should spin off St. Louis HD local issues to its own discussion, so other issues affecting other stations can be address separately, since they seem to be separate issues?

[Dr. Cool]

You see, some have suggested that the problem could be due to a hardware defect or overheating of my ViP622.
I'll repeat: this is clearly not the case. As we all know very well, the problem started with a firmware upgrade. My ViP622 was perfect for almost a year before the dropouts started. And above all the dropouts happen only with *some channels* or *some shows*, and only in HD. Examples: *I've never had dropouts* with many HD shows such as "The Sopranos" on A&E. Never. Not even one. Watched almost the entire "The Sopranos" series on HD (it's Dolby Digital 2.0), through many different FW versions, and never had even one dropout.
On the other hand, I have dropouts *every time* with PBS OTA shows such as "NOVA" (Dolby Digital 2.0) and with many HDNet movies (mostly Dolby Digital 5.1) and also with shows such as "Enterprise" (this one started having dropouts after one of the latest FW upgrades, it's Dolby Digital 5.1).
Some have also suggested the problem is not widespread. I doubt it's true for a simple reason: people like my wife don't notice it. She's not an audiophile and therefore she doesn't tune in when the sound goes out for less than a second, like I do.

[Ron Barry]

Believe me, I'd like nothing more than to be able to close the book on this little chapter of Dish annoyances. But for now, this thread definitely needs to stay open. If there's concern about an older firmware version being mentioned in a current thread, I wonder if we should spin off St. Louis HD local issues to its own discussion, so other issues affecting other stations can be address separately, since they seem to be separate issues?

Nope.. what I will do is add the L6.17 to the thread in addition to L6.16 to indicate folks are still dealing with some issues.

Based on some other posts.. We still may be dealing with multiple issues here.

[Ron Barry]

You see, some have suggested that the problem could be due to a hardware defect or overheating of my ViP622.
I'll repeat: this is clearly not the case. As we all know very well, the problem started with a firmware upgrade. My ViP622 was perfect for almost a year before the dropouts started. And above all the dropouts happen only with *some channels* or *some shows*, and only in HD. Examples: *I've never had dropouts* with many HD shows such as "The Sopranos" on A&E. Never. Not even one. Watched almost the entire "The Sopranos" series on HD (it's Dolby Digital 2.0), through many different FW versions, and never had even one dropout.
On the other hand, I have dropouts *every time* with PBS OTA shows such as "NOVA" (Dolby Digital 2.0) and with many HDNet movies (mostly Dolby Digital 5.1) and also with shows such as "Enterprise" (this one started having dropouts after one of the latest FW upgrades, it's Dolby Digital 5.1).
Some have also suggested the problem is not widespread. I doubt it's true for a simple reason: people like my wife don't notice it. She's not an audiophile and therefore she doesn't tune in when the sound goes out for less than a second, like I do.

Your logic goes both ways Dr Cool.. If it was truly widespread and happening with a high rate of occurrence I am sure we will see more reports of issues given what you are describing is happening on HD nationals. It is possible that people are not watching what you are, but I have to expect that if it was happening in those shows I would expect others.

Sure it could be possible that hearing the audio issues could be related to the type of equipment installed (How good it does with audio) and how well people are tuned to the audio for sure. It also could be a perception that we each have on the frequency of audio issues. For some an occasional audio dropout goes on notice but to others it feels like a one of a thousand.

Also got the placebo effect going on. Read a bunch of thread about audio issues and then you start thinking you are hearing slight audio dropouts.

Not saying you fall into any of these categories Dr. Cool. Just some other possibilities that can be happening at any level from not happening to being part of peoples experiences that are being reported here.

That is what is so hard about these reports. People are definitely reporting differing experiences and the vary a lot which makes it really hard to pinpoint the exposure of the issues being reported. The only pattern I have been able to draw myself is that St. Louis is showing a pattern for the majority. All the other reports seem to be random in nature and could be anyone one of the above possibilities in addition to others not mentioned.

Tough nut to crack and a tough nut to even determine pain levels and exposure to the customer base.

[Dr. Cool]

Read my lips: I know what I'm hearing. I have an electronic engineering degree, have done electronic gear repairing as a part-time job while young, and have been an audiophile for more than 30 years now. My audio gear is perfect, any minor problem would never go unnoticed. My amplifier is not the problem, since dropouts also happen with the direct analog connection to the TV set, all other gear turned off except for the ViP622 and the TV.
There's clearly only one screwed up piece of gear here, and it's called ViP622.
There's one way your argument can be correct: my ViP622 has a very subtle hardware defect that makes it "able" to discriminate between "The Sopranos" and "Star Trek Enterprise", for example. It's not PCM versus Dolby Digital (both are Dolby Digital) and it's not 5.1 versus 2.0 (dropouts happen with both).
In my experience, this kind of hardware failure would be *extremely unlikely*. Much more likely that Dish engineers screwed up with one of the soft upgrades (soft became unable to deal with some data in the streams; hardware cannot do all the fast processing at times), and now they cannot find their way back. Oh, this I know, since I've worked as a software engineer too, so I know how sausages are made...

[Ron Barry]

Not doubting what you are experiencing Dr. Cool. Where my doubts lie are in the fact that the lots of the people have them but they are just not hearing them. I know people that post here are definitely more sensitive to audio and video issues and would pick up on them if they were experiencing them and that does not appear to be the case at this moment.

Definitely a possibility that the reason some are experiencing this issue while others is not on nationals could be tied to the viewers usage patterns. I definitely don't watch the shows you indicated.

Couple of follow up questions. Is it limited to the programs you mentioned or are you seeing this across all content you are watching. Of the content you are watching what is the frequency you are seeing it (2 times an hour? 20 times an hour?). Does it happen 100% of the times. Is there one particular show it happens a lot on. I would like to see if it happens in my configuration.

There could also be a difference between 622 and 722. I have a 722 so I that could be a factor here.

[olguy]

Just to add some fuel to the fire... I have been recording all the CBS programs OTA via the 622 in order to have CC now that the 622 has 6.17 and there have been no audio problems. Last week I recorded ER OTA in that time slot and Eleventh Hour via satellite. When we watched Eleventh Hour last night there were a number of audio dropouts. I tried to set up CSY:NY tonight to record HD and SD via satellite and HD OTA as well. The 622 won't let me do that. I can get OTA and either HD or SD. It did, however let me do that for the local news at noon which is currently recording.

[olguy]

Duh! I couldn't set the second sat timer on CSI:NY because Lost is running until 9:05. I set a manual for 9:10 so I'll have SD, HD and OTA for the same program to check for audio dropouts. And there were none on the HD local news on the CBS affiliate at noon today.

[phrelin]

Just to make it clear what we see in our household (which gets no OTA and its locals from San Francisco), at this time the audio dropouts are as follows:

NBC and CBS: 2 to 4 per 1 hour show; instantaneous and mostly not disruptive to the Dolby on my A/V tuner; sometimes repeatable and sometimes not; same on my 722 and 612.

ABC and Fox: about the same as NBC and CBS on my 612 (which has no updated software) but far fewer on my 722 and limited to transitions and commercials; the totally disruptive dropouts on my 722 were eliminated with the software update.

Cable and Premium Channels: very infrequent, but they do happen and the effects are the same as NBC and CBS though mostly not repeatable.

These results are based on experiences over a long period of time during which my 722 was swapped out by Echostar Engineering to help with solving the ABC and Fox problem.

I do have to pay attention now or I miss many dropouts; in fact it has gotten to the point that I miss some my wife hears. If we weren't so involved with the problem, I doubt we would notice most of the dropouts except on NBC and CBS.

This problem was in no way related to anything other than the way Dish processes the data stream between the time they get it from the channel and the time it appears on my A/V system out of the Dish box. I say that with conviction because the problem was originally reported by customers with 622's and 722's after a major software update. I say that because the reports came from certain DMA's around the country; for example, in California the problem is in the San Francisco and Sacramento DMA's but has not been reported in Los Angeles.

I'm now getting a new problem with locals (particularly on ABC and Fox on my 722) where the audio will start to "burble" (like it's under water) then go silent sometimes with a video freeze. It's happening more and more, such as during the Oscars Best Picture review of the the nominees.

I'd say the new problem might be a developing problem with my 722, but something similar occurs on the 612, a problem which has been reported for a long time now. My gut tells me it's happening when I'm recording two HD streams while watching a recording and skipping through the commercials. I have experimented with the 612 and see the frequency of this problem fall off when I don't watch anything from it when it is recording.

Heat is not a problem. Signal strength is no longer a problem for some of the HD cable channels now that Ciel 2 is up.

:rant:
As you might guess, I'm not happy that Echostar has moved on to marketing Sling when it has not expended sufficient resources to produce reliably clean A/V signals through the existing ViP DVR's. For me, acceptable noticeable A/V signal loss tolerances aren't what I'm getting. My guess is that we wouldn't see these problems if Charlie had simply settled with TiVo instead of straining the processing capabilities of the hardware. My guess is that had the Fox and ABC problem been in LA and NYC every engineer working for Dish would have been moved to a special lab in one of those DMA's until it was fixed.

I certainly hope moman19 can drive by some lab in St. Louis and wave to a team of frustrated Echostar engineers who otherwise couldn't see or solve the problem sitting in the Rockies.

Sorry, Ron, but I needed to rant.
:rant:

[moman19]

.......There could also be a difference between 622 and 722. I have a 722 so I that could be a factor here.

There is ABSOLUTELY a difference between the 722 and the 622. I believe each uses a different Broadcom MPEG decoder.

While both my 622 and 722 suffered similar audio dropouts with earlier software releases, The 622 is completely cured while the 722 still has horrible and constant dropouts. I'm talking maybe 100+ drops per hour. Both are on L6.17. I think the 622 issues vanished with L6.16.

[Dr. Cool]

Couple of follow up questions. Is it limited to the programs you mentioned or are you seeing this across all content you are watching. Of the content you are watching what is the frequency you are seeing it (2 times an hour? 20 times an hour?). Does it happen 100% of the times. Is there one particular show it happens a lot on. I would like to see if it happens in my configuration.

There could also be a difference between 622 and 722. I have a 722 so I that could be a factor here.

Yes, I'd also bet that the 622 and the 722 behave differently under different FW versions, assuming that they really have different AV processors.
My audio dropouts however are pretty consistent, here is what I could gather up to now:
(1) My wife's lineup is almost entirely made of HD channels and she *loves* to zap. When she is zapping, we *never* hear audio dropouts, no matter if it's OTA or Sat channels. So I can discard dropouts with live programming with almost 100% of certainty.
(2) Even when she's not zapping, if it's live there's never a dropout, at least with the shows she watches, like some on Food Channel (Emeril, etc.), HGTV, TLC (Jon and Kate plus 8, Seventeen and Counting). She always watches them live, and there was never a dropout.
(3) When we record, or there's absolutely no dropout (A&E "The Sopranos") or there are always dropouts, depending naturally on the FW version, such as more recently with HDNet "Enterprise." I don't record many series in HD however (most of the series that I watch I record in SD).
(4) Movies in HD or don't present any dropout or have always and consistently the same dropout pattern. It appears to me that the higher the quality of image, the higher the chance of dropouts, but there's no way to really know. B&W movies also have dropouts. Most of the movies that I watch come from HDNet Movies, MGM Movies and Universal, and it appears to me that all of them can be affected.
(5) The frequency of dropouts is very consistent across sources. No matter if it's an OTA show or a Dish movie, if there's a dropout, there'll be more to follow, and frequency, I would guess, is about one every 10 minutes. They are very short, but long enough to make the amplifier panel "blink" (as in a stream loss) and to make a word in a dialogue incomprehensible.
(6) *VIDEO IS ALWAYS PERFECT*. I find it amazing that only audio is screwed up, video processing should be much harder to get right, and yet it has never been affected.
(7) Since one of the latest FW upgrades I started to also have the "burble" or "metallic robot" sound that phrelin and others are talking about. It's less common than the audio dropouts, but for sure I never noticed them before. It's a pretty bizarre sound, I'd have noticed if it had been there before.
(8) I've never had audio dropouts with the defunct *ZOOM* channels, and I watched them a lot. Picture & sound of those channels were glorious relative to mainstream consumer standards. I was clearly a happier costumer then...

I always wondered if the hard drive isn't the culprit, but then, how is it possible that video is not affected???

[moman19]

Dr, Cool -- I'm sorry to say that your issue is far different from mine because in my case (and others in St. Louis) it is almost exclusively limited to the local HD channels. I don't see (hear) this at all on the channels you mention. This dovetails with Ron's explanation. I don't doubt that you're having some real issues, but they are most likely not related to what's going on down here and in a few other locations. I base this on the fact that I have not seen any similar reports from others in your location. But who knows????? It may be time to swap receivers and see what happens. Have you tried?

Phrelin and I used to have similar reports. But now he's getting issues on channel/receivers that work fine for me and Vice Versa. This illustrates how the issue varies from place to place and box to box.

[moman19]

....I certainly hope moman19 can drive by some lab in St. Louis and wave to a team of frustrated Echostar engineers who otherwise couldn't see or solve the problem sitting in the Rockies......

Huh? I would grab them by the shorts if I could, but I know of no E* engineers in this part of the world.;)

So moving to Ciel 2 made no difference? That's bad. The St. Louis locals are currently on the 118 sat but are also supposed to move to Ciel 2. I was hoping the move might somehow magically resolve the issue.

[Dr. Cool]

Dr, Cool -- I'm sorry to say that your issue is far different from mine because in my case (and others in St. Louis) it is almost exclusively limited to the local HD channels. I don't see (hear) this at all on the channels you mention. This dovetails with Ron's explanation. I don't doubt that you're having some real issues, but they are most likely not related to what's going on down here and in a few other locations. I base this on the fact that I have not seen any similar reports from others in your location. But who knows????? It may be time to swap receivers and see what happens. Have you tried?

Phrelin and I used to have similar reports. But now he's getting issues on channel/receivers that work fine for me and Vice Versa. This illustrates how the issue varies from place to place and box to box.

Yes, I'm starting to consider doing it, if only to discard the possibility of hardware failure.

[moman19]

Yes, I'm starting to consider doing it, if only to discard the possibility of hardware failure.

Go for it. At worse, it eliminates a big variable. At best, your problem goes Bye, bye.

[Dr. Cool]

Dr, Cool -- I'm sorry to say that your issue is far different from mine because in my case (and others in St. Louis) it is almost exclusively limited to the local HD channels. I don't see (hear) this at all on the channels you mention. This dovetails with Ron's explanation. I don't doubt that you're having some real issues, but they are most likely not related to what's going on down here and in a few other locations. I base this on the fact that I have not seen any similar reports from others in your location. But who knows????? It may be time to swap receivers and see what happens. Have you tried?

Phrelin and I used to have similar reports. But now he's getting issues on channel/receivers that work fine for me and Vice Versa. This illustrates how the issue varies from place to place and box to box.

Although... Do you watch lots of *recorded* stuff from HDNet, MGM and Universal? Because one thing I can tell you: almost all dropouts that I have or come from these three Sat channels or come from OTA channels.

If you don't watch recorded shows from HDNET, MGM and Universal, then it could perfectly be that the problems that you have in the end are only different from mine due to differences in OTA streams.

[CopyChief]

Dr Cool, I really think your issue is a different one than we're seeing, at least in St. Louis. I do record shows from non-local HD stations (including HDNet, we don't subscribe to MGM or Universal so I can't speak to those) and have never noticed as much as an audio blip on those.

On two of our satellite-delivered HD locals, the CBS and NBC affiliates, we're getting audio drops on nearly every network series. Drops occur both over the optical cable and on the TV2 coax connection.

The drops occur very frequently, at least every couple of minutes, and often in groups of two or three. They seem to last around half a second each. Often, they're repeatable with a rewind.

Another glitch seems as if it has become more common, too. Occasionally the video and audio will "freeze". I can rewind to get out of the freeze, and often I'm a minute or so ahead of where I thought I should be in the program. When I start playing again, there's often a drop right around the point of the freeze.

[Dr. Cool]

CopyChief, thanks for the info.

[Dood]

Well, I must say that I recorded Survivor last night on the local STL HD channel and there were NO sounds drops. None.

Have they fixed it or is this a tease?

[HobbyTalk]

Could be your local station has fixed their problem. Only way to know is to continue watching. I know at some times my local stations are terrible with my A/V receiver losing sync a lot. Most times there are no problems. I know I wish none of them would change audio formats between programming and commercials ;)

[moman19]

Well, I must say that I recorded Survivor last night on the local STL HD channel and there were NO sounds drops. None.

Have they fixed it or is this a tease?

That's KMOV (CBS), right? If you viewed it in a buffered state (not real time) and you're certain it was via sat and not OTA and you noticed no dropouts during the commercial breaks (I find most dropouts occur during film and not during video tape), it may have been resolved.

I hope you are right on all counts.

[Ron Barry]

Well it would be a fix at the sending end then since there was no update on the receiver end. People from St. Louis, report back in a few days or earlier if this truly is the case.

[moman19]

Well it would be a fix at the sending end then since there was no update on the receiver end. People from St. Louis, report back in a few days or earlier if this truly is the case.

Oh, if only it was true. After Dood's report, I thought I would check on tonite's episodes of Ghost Whisperer and Numb3rs on the local CBS afilliate........Audio dropouts all over the place. No change. Zero drops in real time. But hit the PAUSE button for a few seconds or SKIP BACK and I'm hearing several per minute. It's non-stop. Hit the LIVE button and they vanish!

[olds403]

I am still having the same audio dropout issues I have always had, starting with 6.14 and now with 6.16. They are very similar to Dr. Cool's issues. I also watch a lot of recorded material from HDNet, MGM, EncoreHD, but get them live also. Very short audible dropouts on both national and local OTA channels. I am using HDMI for video to TV and optical out for audio to AV receiver all the time.

It was very noticeable on my local Fox channel last night. Trying to watch the news and sometimes it was difficult to understand because the audio dropouts will obliterate a word here and there. I have seen no change in dropout behavior with any update.

[moman19]

I am still having the same audio dropout issues I have always had, starting with 6.14 and now with 6.16. They are very similar to Dr. Cool's issues. I also watch a lot of recorded material from HDNet, MGM, EncoreHD, but get them live also. Very short audible dropouts on both national and local OTA channels. I am using HDMI for video to TV and optical out for audio to AV receiver all the time.

It was very noticeable on my local Fox channel last night. Trying to watch the news and sometimes it was difficult to understand because the audio dropouts will obliterate a word here and there. I have seen no change in dropout behavior with any update.

Are you located in the Detroit DMA and locked onto the 118 sat? That might point to a common cause. If so, we may have to wait for E* to move us onto the 129 bird, which is in the cards anyway. But no clue as to when.

I don't know if such a move will change anything but it would clearly eliminate a variable.

[Ron Barry]

Oh, if only it was true. After Dood's report, I thought I would check on tonite's episodes of Ghost Whisperer and Numb3rs on the local CBS afilliate........Audio dropouts all over the place. No change. Zero drops in real time. But hit the PAUSE button for a few seconds or SKIP BACK and I'm hearing several per minute. It's non-stop. Hit the LIVE button and they vanish!

Thanks for the feedback moman.. Would have shocked me but was hoping it to be true.

[olds403]

I am in the Lansing Michigan DMA, my satellites are 110/119 and 61.5. Which satellite I see should have no bearing on my OTA through the 722, which I also have dropouts on. I believe it is some sort of audio processing problem in the 722. I get the dropouts on pretty much all the HD channels I watch, OTA and Satellite. I may get them on SD channels too except I don't watch those often enough to notice.

[CopyChief]

I can confirm that I still have the drops, too, in St. Louis. Not much appears to have changed.

For what it's worth, this week I wrote to both local stations affected by the problems, and they said they are aware of the issue and are "pressuring" Dish to fix the problems.

I know a lot of their customers have been "pressuring" Dish, too, and we see how far that has gotten us since October, so I'm not feeling especially hopeful on this day.

[Kevin Brown]

I only had the FOX/ABC dropout problem to a slight degree before. But overall dropouts got worse with 616. I now have 617, and I think things are much improved !!

[phrelin]

I only had the FOX/ABC dropout problem to a slight degree before. But overall dropouts got worse with 616. I now have 617, and I think things are much improved !!Do you have a 622 or 722?

[moman19]

I am in the Lansing Michigan DMA, my satellites are 110/119 and 61.5. Which satellite I see should have no bearing on my OTA through the 722, which I also have dropouts on. I believe it is some sort of audio processing problem in the 722. I get the dropouts on pretty much all the HD channels I watch, OTA and Satellite. I may get them on SD channels too except I don't watch those often enough to notice.

I must have missed the fact that your issues are from OTA channels. That's probably unrelated to this discussion as I believe most reports in this particular thread point towards the locals via sat. But then again, I have no doubt that your issue is very real and perhaps there is a common cause.

[moman19]

Do you have a 622 or 722?

Great question. I look forward to hearing his response. In my case, only the 722 has this issue.

[Dood]

I was wrong, the problems are now worse than ever.

I just watched Big Bang Theory and counted 588 drops. I then watched Two And A Half Men and counted 444 drops.

As soon as my contract is up I am done with Dish Network. They have not fixed the problem and have done nothing but lie to me.

I see now why DirecTV is gaining so many customers and Dish Network is losing so many.

[ZBoomer]

I just watched Big Bang Theory and counted 588 drops. I then watched Two And A Half Men and counted 444 drops.


You're telling me you actually sat there watching counted up that high? Wow man, just saying "constant dropouts" would have been just as effective.

Next time I suggest watching the show, not counting over 1000 dropouts. :rolleyes:

[vader22]

I can confirm that I still have the drops, too, in St. Louis. Not much appears to have changed.

For what it's worth, this week I wrote to both local stations affected by the problems, and they said they are aware of the issue and are "pressuring" Dish to fix the problems.

I know a lot of their customers have been "pressuring" Dish, too, and we see how far that has gotten us since October, so I'm not feeling especially hopeful on this day.

What two stations do you have the problem with? For me it is NBC and CBS. It's so bad I can't watch NBC recorded. CBS isn't as bad but it is pretty bad.

[CopyChief]

Yup, NBC (Ch.5, KSDK) and CBS (Ch.4, KMOV) are the culprits in St. Louis. The shows I watch on CBS haven't been "new" in a few weeks, but typically the drops have been pretty evenly distributed between the two. But I do agree that NBC is bordering on unwatchable.

Honestly, I'm quickly losing patience with this issue. Ok, to say "quickly" is not accurate, since I've been dealing with this problem since at least October, and have been talking about it here almost since then.

Yes, Dish has offered me a partial credit, and I appreciate that.

But at this point I just want it to work.

[Dood]

Yup, NBC (Ch.5, KSDK) and CBS (Ch.4, KMOV) are the culprits in St. Louis. The shows I watch on CBS haven't been "new" in a few weeks, but typically the drops have been pretty evenly distributed between the two. But I do agree that NBC is bordering on unwatchable.

Honestly, I'm quickly losing patience with this issue. Ok, to say "quickly" is not accurate, since I've been dealing with this problem since at least October, and have been talking about it here almost since then.

Yes, Dish has offered me a partial credit, and I appreciate that.

But at this point I just want it to work.


They have told me over and over that there is no problem. just more proof they lie. Dish Network will soon be a faded bad memory.

[Dood]

You're telling me you actually sat there watching counted up that high? Wow man, just saying "constant dropouts" would have been just as effective.

Next time I suggest watching the show, not counting over 1000 dropouts. :rolleyes:


I did because I wanted to report it here.

[vader22]

Yup, NBC (Ch.5, KSDK) and CBS (Ch.4, KMOV) are the culprits in St. Louis. The shows I watch on CBS haven't been "new" in a few weeks, but typically the drops have been pretty evenly distributed between the two. But I do agree that NBC is bordering on unwatchable.

Honestly, I'm quickly losing patience with this issue. Ok, to say "quickly" is not accurate, since I've been dealing with this problem since at least October, and have been talking about it here almost since then.

Yes, Dish has offered me a partial credit, and I appreciate that.

But at this point I just want it to work.

How much of a credit? I guess I should contact them and see about that too!

[CopyChief]

They have told me over and over that there is no problem. just more proof they lie. Dish Network will soon be a faded bad memory.

Maybe I'm too trusting, but I think it's a matter of talking to the right people. I really don't think anyone is outright lying, I just believe some folks are better informed than others. That doesn't make it better, I know, nor does it get us any closer to a solution.

Here's my suggestion, if you haven't already: Ask to have your problem escalated so you can talk to the next level of support. And e-mail dishquality@echostart.com. Be very specific outlining the problem at all times and in all contacts. It's a bit tiresome but it has helped me get some results.

No, no -- results probably isn't the right word. Satisfaction. That's more accurate. I say "some" because I'll only be completely satisfied when things work as advertised.

[CopyChief]

How much of a credit? I guess I should contact them and see about that too!

They offered me a credit in the neighborhood of $20, and said it would appear on my next bill. As I said in a previous post I'm satisfied with that gesture. But that sense of satisfaction will only last if I see some real movement on the patch soon.

The last update I received (yesterday) stated that they had written the patch and were testing it internally, and that if it passed those tests they'd release it for beta testing.

They're not giving out any timetables at this point, and as much as I hate not knowing, I don't blame them one bit.

Anyway, I'm hopeful -- both that a solution is in sight, and that my hope is not misplaced.

[Kevin Brown]

I only had the FOX/ABC dropout problem to a slight degree before. But overall dropouts got worse with 616. I now have 617, and I think things are much improved !!

Do you have a 622 or 722?

722.

[phrelin]

722.Hmmm. Well I have a 722 and a 612 an still get dropouts on both. ABC and Fox are much better than they were, but NBC (KNTV) and CBS (KPIX) can get really annoying at times. But then, I got a couple of dropouts the other day on an ABCFamily show.

[olds403]

This is something new for me, I officially noticed the "talking under water" audio yesterday. I was watching something recorded on the DVR(Glenn Beck on FoxNewsHD) and it had several instances of really strange audio. This is in addition to my short non-repeatable audio dropouts on ALL HD channels, national or OTA.

I have a 722 connected to TV via HDMI for video only, audio is optical to av receiver. L6.16

[phrelin]

This is something new for me, I officially noticed the "talking under water" audio yesterday. I was watching something recorded on the DVR(Glenn Beck on FoxNewsHD) and it had several instances of really strange audio. This is in addition to my short non-repeatable audio dropouts on ALL HD channels, national or OTA.

I have a 722 connected to TV via HDMI for video only, audio is optical to av receiver. L6.16I've had the problem occur for awhile now, occasional but irritating. Rarely, but it does happen, the problem is so bad the video locks up. Happens on locals and cable channels, though I have never seen it on premiums. Recordings only and I don't get OTA. And both the 722 and 612.

[Dood]

I called again today to complain of the problem. Talked to 4 different people and they all told me this is the first time they have heard of the problem.

Can someone here explain that to me? I'd really like to know.

[DR_LaRRY_PEpPeR]

Hi all, I've checked in here occasionally, though never posted my symptoms, as they were covered by everyone else. :) Dropouts only on 24fps material (recordings, never watched any live), sometimes accompanied by about a 10 second jump forward (had to skip back once) or a freeze (had to rewind maybe 30 seconds, since it went that much ahead while frozen). I think those 2 things were [mostly] only on the NBC/CBS channels (5/4) though.

Well, sometime between Monday night and Tuesday morning, it seems that our HD locals got new MPEG-4 encoders, as recordings are taking a lot less space since then (my AVS Forum post #8964 (www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15983597#post15983597), item 2).

Awhile after I played Knight Rider from Wed., I began to think I couldn't remember hearing audio dropouts during it (though the local channel is not passing 5.1 now, so figured that might be related, but it's not). Then last night I played Eleventh Hour from CBS and its audio was flawless, which has never happened before! (AVS Forum post #8966 (www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15986364#post15986364))

Now since then I played a little bit of the second half of Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles (first half was OTA because of conflict), and it was also fine -- I'm sure I also had drops on Fox shows. And just now checked the beginning of Life on Mars on ABC, which was glitch-free.

So each channel/network seems to be doing well! :hurah:

Did any other markets notice smaller recordings suggesting new encoders? :grin: I would assume some newer markets have had the same types of encoders as national channels (more efficient) all along. I don't know which or how many DMAs had this problem, but maybe that's what they have in common.

[moman19]

.....Well, sometime between Monday night and Tuesday morning, it seems that our HD locals got new MPEG-4 encoders, as recordings are taking a lot less space.......

I agree. Something has changed. I have not had much time to fully review recorded events but preliminary scanning of 24fps events recently captured on CBS and NBC do seem to be dropout free! This is great news if no other channels are adversely affected. You may recall that this issue first appeared (in St. Louis, anyway) on the local 720p channels. When they were cured via a software update the issue migrated to the 1080i locals.

Hence, it's a genuine fix as long as it doesn't pop up somewhere else. So far, so good.......:joy:

[moman19]

I called again today to complain of the problem. Talked to 4 different people and they all told me this is the first time they have heard of the problem.

Can someone here explain that to me? I'd really like to know.

It does not surprise me that the customer care folks would be clueless. Who knows what country the first line is sitting in?

All that aside, check your CBS and NBC locals. I think the problem has been finally resolved in the past few days. Dropouts appear to have suddenly vanished (in my house, anyway) and there is speculation on the Forums that encoders have been swapped, upgraded or tweaked.

Let us know what you find. The feedback can only help.

[moman19]

Message to Copy Chief & Vader:

You guys are also in St. Louis, like me. Please check recent recordings on KSDK and KMOV. I think the dropout issue is FIXED and am looking for other eyeballs to confirm that it's not just me.

[Dood]

Message to Copy Chief & Vader:

You guys are also in St. Louis, like me. Please check recent recordings on KSDK and KMOV. I think the dropout issue is FIXED and am looking for other eyeballs to confirm that it's not just me.

Mine is just as bad, if not worse, how is that possible?

[CopyChief]

Message to Copy Chief & Vader:

You guys are also in St. Louis, like me. Please check recent recordings on KSDK and KMOV. I think the dropout issue is FIXED and am looking for other eyeballs to confirm that it's not just me.

Well, my eyeballs can't confirm anything about audio :)... but I did watch Thursday's 30 Rock on KSDK (5, NBC) and it was dropout-free. I have also noticed that KSDK, for whatever reason, is not passing 5.1 -- sometimes it seems like they forget to flip a switch or something.

KMOV, CBS (4) is passing 5.1, but when I watched tonight they were running 48 hours, which was not a film/24fps event so likely would not have had the drops, so I didn't test it.

I'll try to run a more comprehensive test tomorrow night. But for now... dance of joy! Woo hoo! Tentative dance of tentative joy, yes... but dancing nonetheless!

To Dood -- make sure the events you're testing were recorded in the past couple of days. If you're continuing to have dropouts and if the dropouts are on any other channels, you may have another issue... just what you want to hear, I know.

[Ron Barry]

Does sound like some promising news... Keep the reports coming in guys over the next few days. Both positive and negative. Boy this will be a shock given the issue was always thought to be receiver based.

[Dr. Cool]

Dropouts continue with recorded programming. More common on MGM HD and HDNET Movies, over satellite. Less common on FOX and PBS OTA, yet they're there. No dropouts with most other channels. No dropouts while watching live.
Took ViP622 out of the cabinet, gave it plenty of air. Nothing changed. Dropouts continued.
Disconnected HDMI cable, used optical audio and component video only. Nothing changed. Dropouts continued.

[lujan]

I had numerous dropouts from our satellite local NBC station on "Knight Rider" this week. It was a recorded show I watched last night. I've watched other NBC shows with no dropouts but I can't remember whether they were local OTA or local satellite.

[vader22]

Message to Copy Chief & Vader:

You guys are also in St. Louis, like me. Please check recent recordings on KSDK and KMOV. I think the dropout issue is FIXED and am looking for other eyeballs to confirm that it's not just me.

I watched Thursday night's Office last night and it was flawless. Most of my CBS and NBC shows are on Monday so I'll check again tomorrow night and report back.

[phrelin]

Message to Copy Chief & Vader:

You guys are also in St. Louis, like me. Please check recent recordings on KSDK and KMOV. I think the dropout issue is FIXED and am looking for other eyeballs to confirm that it's not just me.Gee, this is good news!

Does sound like some promising news... Keep the reports coming in guys over the next few days. Both positive and negative. Boy this will be a shock given the issue was always thought to be receiver based.While it did appear that the 622 with L6.16 handled the mpeg decoding fine, I always thought it was how Dish handled the stream between the local station and my boxes since those with OTA said the problem didn't appear on their recordings played back on the same DVR. And it was only in some DMA's.

With that said, moman19 please let the rest of us from other areas know as DR_LaRRY_PEpPeR's post indicates that Dish's mpeg encoder has been changed out for St. Louis. If the recordings are substantially smaller and the audio dropout (and perhaps other glitches) are gone, yippee! But the rest of us will have to start lobbying to get the change in our areas.

[moman19]

I don't know if the new files are bigger or smaller, but I'd swear that image quality of the two channels, that had the issue, has noticeably IMPROVED.

[CopyChief]

I don't know if the new files are bigger or smaller, but I'd swear that image quality of the two channels, that had the issue, has noticeably IMPROVED.

I didn't do a comprehensive test last night, only watching a bit of CBS programming delayed to test. I did not hear a single dropout... and that's good news!

I agree about the picture quality. I can't put my finger on exactly what changed, but it does seem a lot... sharper. Honestly I hadn't noticed anything wrong with the quality before, but now the quality of the picture on the locals seems much more in line with even the national HD offerings.

[moman19]

.....I agree about the picture quality. I can't put my finger on exactly what changed, but it does seem a lot... sharper. Honestly I hadn't noticed anything wrong with the quality before, but now the quality of the picture on the locals seems much more in line with even the national HD offerings.

A big Ditto!. Let's hope nothing changes.

[phrelin]

Well, I'm hoping I'm not jumping the gun, but I sent the following email to all the folks at Dish and Echostar I've been interacting with on this issue:
Subject: Report of a significant change in the audio dropout problem in St. Louis - we need this in the Bay Area

I'm sure you all are aware that on the DBSTalk's ViP622/ViP722 - L6.16/L6.17 Audio Related Issues Discussions thread there are reports and discussion of a significant improvement resulting in the apparent elimination of the audio dropout problem along with significant apparent video improvements. It also appears that the change is the result of a change in the mpeg encoding system apparently resulting in smaller files on the DVR's.

So when are we going to see the change for those of us in the Bay Area who also have put up with this for almost two years now?

Sincerely,

[Kevin Brown]

phrelin- How do you listen to your audio? Like I mentioned, I have been having a pretty good experience with L6.17 and not many audio (or video dropouts) at all. I use the analog outs from the receiver to my display.

[CopyChief]

A big Ditto!. Let's hope nothing changes.

Another positive test tonight for St. Louis HD locals. I watched a recording of NBC's Chuck on KSDK-5 and experienced exactly ZERO audio drops.

This is fantastic.

I sincerely hope folks in other markets who have had similar problems find solutions, too.

[Ron Barry]

Good to hear CopyChief... Please report back after about a week of random viewing with your experiences....

[vader22]

I watched Thursday night's Office last night and it was flawless. Most of my CBS and NBC shows are on Monday so I'll check again tomorrow night and report back.

During the watching of recorded programs on both NBC and CBS last night I had zero audio dropout! :)

[Dood]

I echo the fact that the STL locals in HD have been audio "drop-free" for several nights now.

[phrelin]

phrelin- How do you listen to your audio? Like I mentioned, I have been having a pretty good experience with L6.17 and not many audio (or video dropouts) at all. I use the analog outs from the receiver to my display.Optical digitial audio out to my AV receiver which gives 5.1 dolby digital surround sound (component video to the display).

The audio/video is always perfect on the HDNet channels, with a range of intermittent (HD locals) and occasional (some cable channels) and rare (premium channels) real problems like audio dropout and video freezes plus the daily irritations like stretch-o-vision on the Turner channels. I guess in a perfect world someone would put Mark Cuban in charge of all HD TV quality control.

I know that five years from now, this likely will all be regarded as HD growing pains.

[phrelin]

And so far I have received no response from Dish Quality to my email regarding when the fix applied to St. Louis will be applied to the Bay Area. So I sent another this morning:
Subject: No response???

Dear Dish Quality:

After putting in considerable effort to work with you all, I was disappointed that I received no response to my last email (see below).

It is very clear based on the posts at DBSTalk that the problem has been solved in St. Louis but not in the San Francisco Bay Area. Discussion of this problem on DBSTalk began with this February 2007 post Since receiving 4.49, I have been experiencing... (http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=1509141&highlight=audio#post1509141) so it isn't like I'm not patient.

I would like to know that changes similar to what was done last week for St. Louis are planned for us.

[Ron Barry]

Phrelin,

How convinced are you that the issues are the same?. Based on the reports I have read in the thread I am not convinced they are. I think you might be seeing something different. If it was the same, I would expect the issue to be much more severe that it is being reported.

So know that St Louis if feeling a bit better.. Lets get some updates in the San Fran Area as to what people are seeing. What is the current state form your perspective and others fill free to chim in if you are seeing or not seeing what Pherlin is experiencing.


Ron

[phrelin]

Phrelin,

How convinced are you that the issues are the same?. Based on the reports I have read in the thread I am not convinced they are. I think you might be seeing something different. If it was the same, I would expect the issue to be much more severe that it is being reported.

So know that St Louis if feeling a bit better.. Lets get some updates in the San Fran Area as to what people are seeing. What is the current state form your perspective and others fill free to chim in if you are seeing or not seeing what Pherlin is experiencing.


RonLet me begin by saying that the miserable Fox and ABC dropouts were gone with the latest software releases. But with that said....

I get momentary audio dropouts on all four HD locals on recordings only. It occurs maybe once or twice per hour show on average. It tends to occur more frequently near advertising breaks but it is not limited to that. It rarely turns my dolby digital off/on any more. They can be annoying, but sometimes either I or my wife don't hear it but it is there when skipped back and replayed. In other words, most of the time you have to be listening for them.

Ron, the St. Louis fix appears to be a significant modification of the mpeg encoding process based on the posts here. Perhaps these posts are wrong, but I don't see how they could be since no receiver software change has occurred. Since there are some video stream problems that I see (again usually almost unnoticeable on my 722 but more noticeable on my 612) I am hoping that a new encoding system would give the overall improvements here that St. Louis has experienced. I know the fix could be in the signal acquisition and uplink hardware which might mean considerable expense. But I'm going to keep nagging as I want near perfection (meaning HDNet channel quality).;)

[Ron Barry]

Ron, the St. Louis fix appears to be a significant modification of the mpeg encoding process based on the posts here. Perhaps these posts are wrong, but I don't see how they could be since no receiver software change has occurred. Since there are some video stream problems that I see (again usually almost unnoticeable on my 722 but more noticeable on my 612) I am hoping that a new encoding system would give the overall improvements here that St. Louis has experienced. I know the fix could be in the signal acquisition and uplink hardware which might mean considerable expense. But I'm going to keep nagging as I want near perfection (meaning HDNet channel quality).;)

It is possible.. but the folks in St. Louis was having drop outs in much larger magnitude from what I read. It is also possible that the equipment between the two is very different.

Nothing wrong with wanting the best and working towards it, but it is also very possible that the fixes in St. Louis is specific to that particular issue. Remember, early on in the process some felt (including myself) that we were talking about a number of issues. So far we have seen two fixes. One on the sending side (St. Louis) and one on the receiver end (The one you reported).

My opinion is what you are experience Pherlin is a third. Question is.. Is it in the receiver or at the source end.

So nothing wrong with asking the question. But as simple as the answer my seem to find, I am sure it is not. Communication within companies in a lot of cases is poor at best as you cross lines of responsibility.

[moman19]

......I get momentary audio dropouts on all four HD locals on recordings only. It occurs maybe once or twice per hour show on average. It tends to occur more frequently near advertising breaks but it is not limited to that. It rarely turns my dolby digital off/on any more.........

Frankly, this sounds quite different from the issues I was experiencing in STL prior to the fix. And I think others in this town had similar experiences. For me, the dropout issue started with the Fox and ABC locals on my 622 and 722, but migrated to NBC and CBS with a later attempt of a fix via a software upgrade. That's where it has remained until this week's cure. When the issue migrated to CBS & NBC, it only moved to the 722. In other words, my 622 has been fine for several months. I don't own a 612, so I cannot comment.

Also, when I had dropouts, I would have (without exageration) more than 100 per hour and the Dolby 5.1 pilot would flash like a beacon.

So while I don't doubt Phrelin is having a real issue, the symptoms are similar but not identical.

[RollTide1017]

DiSH just launch the Montgomery HD locals this week and I believe I'm experiencing this issue. I've never had a problem with audio drops until now and it is only on the newly added HD locals. I also haven't been following this issue at all since I was experiencing it so, I'm still trying grasp what is going on.

All I now is this, I watch The Office recorded from the new NBC HD local from DiSH and had about 4 audio pops throughout the episode (they sounded more like pops to me instead of drops). My wife then watched ER and noticed the same popping sound but couldn't remember how many times. Tonight we were watching a repeat House episode on our local FOX HD from DiSH and would get these weird video block flashes then the audio would sound garbled. If we paused the show for a second it would fix the audio. This happened about 5 times throughout the episode. All this only seems to happen on recordings because I never notice it when watching our local HD channels live. It is also only the local HD channels as everything else is fine.

I really hope DiSH can fish this issue because it is annoying. Since mine sound more like pops, I'm also worried about it damaging my speakers. I put a lot of money in to my speakers and can't afford to replace them any time soon. i was so excited about our locals launching but this issue has kinda deflated that excitement.

Here are my stats:
722 with 6.17
OTA is also in use and never experienced this problem from the antenna.

[phrelin]

Frankly, this sounds quite different from the issues I was experiencing in STL prior to the fix. And I think others in this town had similar experiences. For me, the dropout issue started with the Fox and ABC locals on my 622 and 722, but migrated to NBC and CBS with a later attempt of a fix via a software upgrade. That's where it has remained until this week's cure. When the issue migrated to CBS & NBC, it only moved to the 722. In other words, my 622 has been fine for several months. I don't own a 612, so I cannot comment.

Also, when I had dropouts, I would have (without exageration) more than 100 per hour and the Dolby 5.1 pilot would flash like a beacon.

So while I don't doubt Phrelin is having a real issue, the symptoms are similar but not identical.Oh, my 722 problem started just like yours. ABC and Fox were a nightmare. But then I started getting the less frequent dropouts on CBS and NBC with no dolby off/on before I sent my unit into Echostar Engineering. Everything continued with the replacement unit. The software fix for me (in the San Francisco Bay Area) eliminated the big problem with ABC and Fox. But when you all in STL developed the big problems with NBC and CBS I ended up with the less frequent, no dolby impact, dropout on all four.

Whatever they did in STL sounds like it was somewhere between them receiving the station's signal and you receiving the signal at your box, not a problem your box. And if, indeed, there was a change in compression utilities on the ground at the uplink facilities, I want that fix in the Bay Area.

The fact that from the beginning I have been getting the "minor" dropout same problem on my 612 which hasn't had any recent software updates pretty much convinces me that this is on the ground in the DMA. The appearance of new reports in new HD DMA's of the kinds of problems we experience now reinforces my mindset that there's a problem on the ground.

Infrequently, I do get other types of audio dropout on cable channels and got one on Friday's Bill Maher on HBO, which is unusual for a premium but has happened before. Once I had to re-record a movie on HBO, but I have to assume that was a problem outside my box as the second recording was perfect.

My 612 has many more audio/video problems which I know are box related - but I use it in such a way that I can live with it for now. After they get the 722k and the 922 up and screwing up, then maybe they can turn back to improving all those 612's they've foisted on folks. (Yeah, that just the cynic in me.)

And I'm getting really irked as I received no response to my last two emails sent to the same people who were asking me all kinds of questions and had me sending them my box, etc. (Ironically, the cc to Tech Support which was only to keep that division in the loop resulted in the standard form gee-what's-this-new-complaint email back asking for my account info when every @#$%&* email I sent includes all the previous emails and if the tech had read all the way down to the bottom he/she would have seen all the info was there.)

I want Echostar/Dish to do in our area whatever it was they did in St. Louis. I'm troubled by the fact that Ron in Southern California and folks in NYC and the folks in the Rockies living near Echostar's labs never had this problem and that Echostar spent all that time and money on the box software and then had to fix the STL disaster without changing the box software. All logic says there is a problem with inconsistency between the DMA's on the ground.:mad:

[Dood]

So far - So good.

Too bad Dish Network lied to me when in was obvious there was a problem. Classless.

[Ron Barry]

As with most large support organizations, One of the main issues they all seem to have in common is the distribution of information across the front lines. These are the people that take numerous calls of all sorts and all receivers. From my past experiences and from reading posts here it is obvious that the issue tracking mechanisms within most Sat/Cable companies can definitly use improvement.

Though it may appear that Dish is lying, My personally opinion is just a lack of information exchange and poor look up tools because based on posts regarding this issue Dish was aware of it and was working on it. So I don't think it was a matter of a company just outright lying, but more a matter of not all CSRs/Advance Tech people being aware of the issue.

Anyway.. this is wondering a bit off topic here but I thought it deserved an response... I know it was a long time coming, but I am glad that St Louis got some relief and hopefully can start enjoying a better local experience.

[moman19]

...... I know it was a long time coming, but I am glad that St Louis got some relief and hopefully can start enjoying a better local experience.

Amen, brother. This case is closed, as far as I'm concerned.

[phrelin]

Amen, brother. This case is closed, as far as I'm concerned.Well...! (Think Jack Benny look, or maybe you're too young.)

So you got your fix and you're abandoning the rest of us.:D

[Dr. Cool]

If only it would be that simple:
"24" recorded OTA from Fox yesterday: no dropouts.
"The Big Red One" recorded over satellite from HDNet Movies two days ago: about five random dropouts, none of them reproducible by rewinding, image perfect (meaning, not a sat signal problem).
Watched lots of shows today, none from Platinum channels, both recorded and live, OTA and satellite, and had zero dropouts.
Again, I doubt this is a hardware problem. Otherwise, why they consistently appear only with certain shows in Platinum HD channels, and sometimes (although not lately) with OTA channels?
The engineering is probably flawed, and I bet people will realize that dropouts are endemic to certain channels and shows only slowly, as they change viewing habits, falling by chance on new troubled "spots."

[Ron Barry]

Definitely a possibility Dr. Cool and one that I think has been brought up a few times since the we started the audio threads. It appears that at least two issues have been addressed since we started and some have felt ("Including myself") that we are seeing more than on issue.

My guess is what you and Pherlin are seeing might be the same and it is definitely use case based and has less weight on the customer pain scale than the previous two issues. The analogy that comes to mind is clearing the forest to see the trees. Well they have cleared two huge redwoods and are now hopefully looking at the smaller trees.

Definitely keep this feedback coming and if you can nail it to happening on particular shows I think that would be most helpful.

[phrelin]

The analogy that comes to mind is clearing the forest to see the trees. Well they have cleared two huge redwoods and are now hopefully looking at the smaller trees.Ouch! Where we live Redwoods are sacred. From my web site home page:

http://www.phrelin.com/images/Rw2frsm.jpg

[Ron Barry]

:lol:

Sorry... Bad analogy for someone that is lucky to live in such a wonderful location. Love the Redwood Trees.

[phrelin]

:lol:

Sorry... Bad analogy for someone that is lucky to live in such a wonderful location. Love the Redwood Trees.Yeah, that really made me smile. We do feel lucky. But those trees have created line-of-sight problems for me in the past. Not that I'm complaining....:sure:

[Jim5506]

Sacred redwoods, isn't that idolatree?

[moman19]

Well...! (Think Jack Benny look, or maybe you're too young.)

So you got your fix and you're abandoning the rest of us.:D

(I wish I was too young to remember Mr. Benny). I'm still lurking. But I'm a much happier camper these days. Hopefully, the remaining dropout issues like yours will be addressed now that another veil has been lifted.

[olguy]

As I posted in another thread, I now have audio drop outs on my local CBS affiliate in Houston. They are repeatable, they are more prolonged on the optical to my Onkyo than on the HDMI to my TV. And this just started with 6.18 so hang in there St Louis. You'll get it back with the next revision :p

[Dr. Cool]

I've had 6.18 for a few days now. Picture quality has always been fine with HDNet Movies. Even if not perfect, much better than the rest.
As I reported before, I'm having however frequent audio dropouts with HDNet Movies (and HDNet) when the show is DVR recorded. Some movies and shows are more affected than others.
For example, I decided to test it thoroughly yesterday, and watched "Little Big Man" at 9:30 PM, "Bonnie and Clyde" at 12:00 AM, and "Little Big Man" again at 2:00 AM, and recorded all three shows. I experienced no dropouts at all when watching them live. Nonetheless, when I rewound and rewatched parts of them, what were before dropout-free scenes had sometimes audio dropouts, although *only* with "Little Big Man," on *BOTH* time slots and around approximately the same places!
So it looks to me like these were problems with the "Little Big Man" stream originating from the HDNet source, problems that affect *ONLY* DVR watching. For example, if the problem was with the sat signal (which by the way is strong and perfect), I shouldn't have had audio dropouts around the same scenes only on both broadcasts of "Little Big Man" and no dropouts with "Bonnie and Clyde."
By the way, I changed *ALL POSSIBLE* settings of my ViP622 and the dropouts wouldn't disappear.
How can something like this be happening?

[phrelin]

Got L6.18 on my ViP722 this morning. Did a hard reboot. Recorded and watched tonight's NCIS and The Mentalist on KPIX 5 CBS. Had dropouts that did not affect the dolby on my A/V receiver, not repeatable when replayed. Fairly typical for CBS show since L5.XX (can't remember exactly which version and it doesn't matter, as there is no indication that Dish is continuing to deal with this dropout problem).

Ron, you might as well add L6.18 to the thread title.

[Bill_K]

Dancing with the stars, ABC, San Francisco, 3/24…Recorded program had an abrupt audio drop out half way through the program lasting several minutes (don’t know how many). The fix was to stop the play back, then go back and resume. Apparently, the audio/video sync gets lost.

I’ve notice this problem while watching live satellite feeds as well. The fix for this situation is to switch to another channel, and then back to the show you were watching.

As other posters have mentioned, this problem is not isolated to ABC.

Dish has been through several firmware updates over the last 6 months and has still has not been able to fix this problem. PAs my Dish bill goes up, so does my dissatisfaction. Thankfully, there is an alternative.

L618 firmware

[tnsprin]

Dancing with the stars, ABC, San Francisco, 3/24…Recorded program had an abrupt audio drop out half way through the program lasting several minutes (don’t know how many). The fix was to stop the play back, then go back and resume. Apparently, the audio/video sync gets lost.

I’ve notice this problem while watching live satellite feeds as well. The fix for this situation is to switch to another channel, and then back to the show you were watching.

As other posters have mentioned, this problem is not isolated to ABC.

Dish has been through several firmware updates over the last 6 months and has still has not been able to fix this problem. PAs my Dish bill goes up, so does my dissatisfaction. Thankfully, there is an alternative.

L618 firmware
We need to hear what SF OTA saw (or possibly all west coast). No problem here in NY.

[phrelin]

We need hear what SF OTA saw (or possibly all west coast). No problem here in NY.Tonight we recorded "In the Motherhood" on San Francisco ABC KGO 7. While we don't plan to watch that show again, the period of time between the start of the show and about 4 seconds into title screen was without audio. Had to ff beyond and rewind back to just before the audio started up. Don't know if that was true for OTA.

"Grey's Anatomy" on the same channel was fine in the next hour.

We are having this intermittent problem more and more, but we had it before L6.18. Still have the other audio dropout problem. Still have jerky video. Still don't have whatever they did on the ground to fix St. Louis. Still have not received the courtesy of a response to my emails on the subject. Still p*ssed about the latter.

[keiths2112]

Tonight, while watching a DVR'd Big Bang Theory, lost audio for about 1 minute. Then while watching live 2 1/2 Men, lost audio for about 30 seconds. In addition, lost the ending of 2 1/2 Men due a commercial that ended straight into the credits. Not sure if this is Dish or Channel 5's problem. Not happy!

[Dood]

I just want to confirm that indeed the STL audio issues seem to be a thing of the past. I have noticed no issues for several weeks.

I also want to apologize for being a bit testy about this issue, but I felt that my complaints to Dish Network were falling on ears of people who didn't care. Obviously someone cared, but that same customer service needs sent down to the CSR's.

So I am a happy camper now and I hope those of you that still have issues are more patient than I was.

[kww]

Thank you for your email. We apologize for any inconvenience this issue has caused.
Thank you for providing the information for our engineering department. Bla bla bla.....

They are currently working towards a resolution for this issue.
Unfortunately, we do not have a status report for this situation at this time. :nono2::nono2::nono2:

Your business is greatly appreciated bla bla bla.....

Thank you,
Brandon W.

DISH Network Technical E-care

DISH 500 vip722 /L6.18/dual mode/ HDTV via component and TOS/SDTV via modulator/Sling classic on SVID and RCA audio

[Slordak]

Most of the recent discussion here seems focused on locals in specific markets, and I agree that it's good that these local channels have experienced improvements. However, even more customers would be helped if the more general audio problem were fixed. Again, just to be absolutely clear:

1) Use a satellite channel which is not a local, to reduce any chance of this varying by market or broadcast type. For example, use Food Network HD.
2) Use Dolby Digital as the audio type, with a Dolby Digital receiver connected via optical providing the sound.
3) Watch completely live television. Verify that there are no audio dropouts heard and everything works as expected.
4) Use the "pause live TV feature" to pause the programming for a few minutes. Watch the programming in this "delayed" mode. Verify that brief audio dropouts (~1 second) are heard every so often, but that if one backs up and replays a section where a dropout is heard, the audio is fine the second time.

Is this issue still present for folks or not?

[Dr. Cool]

Following the steps above, I have them present with Platinum HD channels such as HDNet Movies, but not with regular HD channels such as Comedy Central. I start to wonder if it's not a problem with HDNet.
Besides the original question, I have yet rare but clear audio dropouts with OTA PBS despite having a 100% perfect OTA signal. For example, I had two or three dropouts while watching a recording of "We Shall Remain." Notice that it doesn't happen with all PBS shows, normally only with new, high quality prime time stuff.

[manzelmo]

Following the steps above, I have them present with Platinum HD channels such as HDNet Movies, but not with regular HD channels such as Comedy Central. I start to wonder if it's not a problem with HDNet.
Besides the original question, I have yet rare but clear audio dropouts with OTA PBS despite having a 100% perfect OTA signal. For example, I had two or three dropouts while watching a recording of "We Shall Remain." Notice that it doesn't happen with all PBS shows, normally only with new, high quality prime time stuff.

All of my PBS OTA recordings yesterday had audio problems. I don't watch them live it was pretty depressing. I'm gonna check today to see if it is still happening plus check FOX local so I don't get a surprise recording "24" OTA on Monday

[phrelin]

Last night, 2 hours of HBO programming and 2 hours of USA programming had no audio dropout. On the other hand, "Cold Case" from the satellite feed of KPIX 5 CBS had three very annoying audio dropouts. Just thought I'd post this info occasionally for what it's worth.

[garytjia]

I have L618 on my 722. In the last few days, suddenly 2.0 audio signal stopped being passed onto my receiver and I can only hear noise from the subwoofer but no audio through the rest of the speakers. The receiver indicate 2.0 audio, but no audio. When the program goes to 5.0 audio, the sound came back. I usually only watch HD programs and now if we go to a local ad or local program which output 2.0 audio, there is no sound. I talked to Dish tech support and we could not resolve the problem. Does anyone experienced this or have any insight to this issue?

Thanks,

[kww]

We never watch live TV, (that’s why we have a DVR…) :eek2:
so I have no data there. But the short one word drop outs happen on all recorded programming…. (All) And yes this is using a DD link to a DD receiver.
:nono2:
As a side note we have never see this issue watching the same recorded content on the SD TV running off the TV-2 modulator
:eek2:

[Slordak]

I can't believe this issue (i.e., the one word/one second audio drop-outs when using the optical link and watching non-live content) has been around this long. Is it possible that Dish Network only has analog audio connections for testing? Or that the issue is so complex that they simply can't fix it? This issue is trivial to reproduce, and impacts nearly everyone who uses this hardware configuration.

It's not new, it's not a mystery, but it's incredibly irritating. I'm really starting to think about switching to AT&T U-Verse, since the "wait, what was that word?" viewing experience is getting to be a real deal-breaker.

[phrelin]

I can't believe this issue (i.e., the one word/one second audio drop-outs when using the optical link and watching non-live content) has been around this long. Is it possible that Dish Network only has analog audio connections for testing? Or that the issue is so complex that they simply can't fix it? This issue is trivial to reproduce, and impacts nearly everyone who uses this hardware configuration.

It's not new, it's not a mystery, but it's incredibly irritating. I'm really starting to think about switching to AT&T U-Verse, since the "wait, what was that word?" viewing experience is getting to be a real deal-breaker.I have to conclude that it doesn't happen to the folks in the Denver area. They are closer to the satellites. It is impossible to believe that Echostar engineers would put up with this in their own homes. Of course, they may get their TV from cable....:eek2:

[AlbuquerqueJohn]

I see no mention of Software Revision L6.51 or L6.52. Are the various revisions specific to geographic areas? Colorado isn't that far from Albuquerque, yet I see no mention of the software that shows on my (third) 722k -the L6.51 revision. Where am I missing the proverbial boat??:D

[phrelin]

I see no mention of Software Revision L6.51 or L6.52. Are the various revisions specific to geographic areas? Colorado isn't that far from Albuquerque, yet I see no mention of the software that shows on my (third) 722k -the L6.51 revision. Where am I missing the proverbial boat??:DThe 722k is not covered by this thread entitled ViP622/ViP722 - L6.16/L6.17/L6.18 Audio Related Issues Discussions . It's not that we don't like you 722k users, it's that Dish is not using the same software versions.:)

By the way, if you are having the audio dropout, tell us about it anyway because it's likely the software code creating the problem is the same. I have the problem in my 612 and am not reluctant to mention it here.

[Ron Barry]

Yes by all means if you are experiencing audio issues on your 722K report these here. I will update the title to reflect the 722k.

[Dr. Cool]

As an update, I should report that because of the frequent dropouts that I had before I canceled my subscription to HDNet and MGM, and as such my audio dropouts are gone. No audio dropouts with HBO HD channels. Dropouts with my OTA channels such as PBS and FOX have been rare lately, so for me it stopped being an issue.

[AlbuquerqueJohn]

Yes, my 722k is having audio issues. It appears to be on the HD channels as well as SD. It will decrease in volume, "stutter", then fall off to nothing. Over three minutes or so it starts to come back in reverse - low volume, "stutter", then slowly back to normal.

Hitting "rewind" soetimes help, but most often not. Changing channels (hit previous channel & recall) typically resolves the issue immediately.

[phrelin]

As an update, I should report that because of the frequent dropouts that I had before I canceled my subscription to HDNet and MGM, and as such my audio dropouts are gone. No audio dropouts with HBO HD channels. Dropouts with my OTA channels such as PBS and FOX have been rare lately, so for me it stopped being an issue.If I liken the problem to "noise", for my wife and I it "quieted down" to the point that frequently only one of us would notice a dropout. But then it would be "loud" on a particular recording, most often from locals off the satellite but a very few times even on HBO. It still tends to happen when there are "breaks" in the flow such as before or after a switch to commercials or from or to blank screens. The reality is that for us it has become mostly "non-disruptive" but it is still there and needs to be fixed IMHO.

[Slordak]

Gah, the website seems to have gone down as I was trying to post a reply...

One thing I wanted to point out is that the 622/722 "single-word audio drop-out" problem may be related to how the A/V receiver on the receiving end handles the brief loss or garbling of the Dolby Digital signal. If the invalid or corrupt data in the bitstream is very small, different brands of receivers might handle this with more or less disruption for the end user. Some users might experience virtually no audio loss at all, while others might lose all audio data until the receiver and the stream are "re-synced", which may result in the loss of a word or two.

Of course, it seems like some huge number of users are watching through their built-in TV speakers and thus are immune to this issue altogether...

[phrelin]

Gah, the website seems to have gone down as I was trying to post a reply...

One thing I wanted to point out is that the 622/722 "single-word audio drop-out" problem may be related to how the A/V receiver on the receiving end handles the brief loss or garbling of the Dolby Digital signal. If the invalid or corrupt data in the bitstream is very small, different brands of receivers might handle this with more or less disruption for the end user. Some users might experience virtually no audio loss at all, while others might lose all audio data until the receiver and the stream are "re-synced", which may result in the loss of a word or two.

Of course, it seems like some huge number of users are watching through their built-in TV speakers and thus are immune to this issue altogether...This is a good observation. It also appears that a dropout from my 722 causes my A/V receiver more processing problems than my 612. But from 722 to 722 there seemed to be no difference.

[BarryG]

the 622/722 "single-word audio drop-out" problem may be related to how the A/V receiver on the receiving end handles the brief loss or garbling of the Dolby Digital signal. Using 722K 6.51 here and listening to the HDMI or component analog audio outputs (NOT the optical) - I've found some recordings plagued (every 30sec) with the single word audio drop-outs. I've seen it most often on major network news telecasts, both OTA and via satellite.

[EHorst99]

In SF Bay Area with 722's:

Lot's of audio problems, recently. Recorded network shows (Tonight Show) having little "glitches" or soft clicking sounds every 10-15 seconds. Very annoying.

Recorded movies -- WALL-E and The Assination of... -- both unwatchable due to serious audio dropouts. Some for extended (multi-seconds) periods of time.

Audio quality has taken a significant hit recently.

[BarryG]

Recorded network shows having little "glitches" or soft clicking sounds every 10-15 seconds. Very annoying.
Same experience here - this is a seriously annoying problem.

update: these clicks seem much worse on the 722K's HDMI output than on Component analog audio output.

[phrelin]

...having little "glitches" or soft clicking sounds every 10-15 seconds. Very annoying.For whatever it's worth, had that tonight for about 35 minutes on "The Closer" on TNT.:nono2:

[LG811User]

Noticed the same thing with all the SF Bay Area locals - KGO seems to be the worst

[phrelin]

Noticed the same thing with all the SF Bay Area locals - KGO seems to be the worstI don't even post about the problem with the Bay Area locals any more. After fixing the major problem with Fox and ABC audio dropouts, I'm under the impression Dish Network has said to me: "This is all we're going to do for our few very unimportant Bay Area HD customers." And that impresssion came from direct interaction with Echostar Engineering and Dish Quality.

But since I can't get DirecTV because of line-of-sight issues and Comcast doesn't offer HD in our area, I'm trapped with this attitude. Huge sums spent on lawsuits and developing new equipment, modest to no expenditures spent of making existing equipment work as advertised. Even Microsoft keeps plugging away on current products.

[LG811User]

Interesting. Honestly it's been perfect for me for months now - maybe even a year.

I just started see problems again about 2 weeks ago.

[l8er]

Had the audio glitching (clicking?) every few seconds during an NBC show last night (KSDK, St. Louis, via satellite). Very annoying. VIP722k to Sony KDS-60A3000 via HDMI, no external amp or processing. Just switched back to Dish about a week ago and have noticed on other channels as well, but not as severe as last night on KSDK.

[SteveRS]

After suffering through the dreaded brief audio dropout on all recordings for more than a year it is now gone.
On the 622 internal hard drive I played ~15 concert and movie selections for over an hour and a half with no audio dropout blips. Normally there would be at least one every 10 minutes per recording. I went back thru 3 years of recordings.

I now am going thru 2 years of selections on 2 MyBook 750 gig external hard drives.
After 45 minutes of Heart on Soundstage(remember old Rave ch 9470 on VOOM) nary an audio blip.

What the heck is going on?
When will it return?

After being a Dish subscriber for about 10 years(6000, 921, 622) I know about their long history of bugs. I'm not going to get my hopes up ;)

DVR-622 software version L621

[rgmiller6]

I am a new subscriber to Dish Network and I have a VIP 612 DVR hooked up to my home theater receiver with an optical cable. Surround sound and all audio is great until I go to the local channels of CBS and NBC than I lose ALL audio at all times on those networks. My temporary fix for this has been to go to MENU-6-6 and select PCM only, I than lose surround sound on all channels but do have audio on all channels. Can anyone help me with this problem. Thanks in advance.

Here is an update: On NBC Sunday, June 28th, I had audio on the PGA golf but only on some of the commercials. Still no audio on CBS though.

[advocate]

Hey everyone! I just posted a solution on the stuttering/lip sync thread which may solve the problems that are being reported in this thread as well. My discussion thers is quite detailed, and I don't want to repeat it all here. But, the short answer is that you need to reduce the number of events on your schedule, and that may solve the issue. Delete non-essential timers or modify the timers so that they result in fewer "events" on the schedule, and this may eliminate your audio issues. See my post there for more details.

[jetfan]

I am posting about the clicking/popping sounds that some have reported. I have had a 622 since early May and twice have had to do a soft reboot of the DVR to get rid of the clicks and pops. Sometimes pausing a show and resuming it will make the clicks go away, other times I reboot. It was really bad last night, during live and recorded broadcasts. This doesn't happen when playing other audio sources: games, dvds. So, I believe it's the DVR, although I'm a novice at this, and this is my first DVR, I'm a quick learner.
Anyway, it's oddly comforting to see some others are experiencing the same symptoms as me.

[BarryG]

The clicks/pops seem significantly worse when more than one HD program is being recorded simultaneously. My OTA recordings (722K/MT2) seem to have more clicks/pops than my satellite recordings.

[BarryG]

I'm getting the clicks/pops consistently on my daily NBC/PBS news recordings. I started recording both the OTA and satellite feeds and the clicks/pops are present on both. They're also present when viewing the broadcasts live. This is a very glaring fault!!!

[jetfan]

I had to reset my DVR last night for the first time in 2 weeks because of clicks that wouldn't stop.

[bnewt]

noticed over the week end that TNT was having audio problems during King Kong. I have the 722 with 6.18

[feffer]

Using VIP 722 and recently noticed audio fading in and out on ABC (not OTA). This was on a recording of George Stephanapolus' Sunday morning talk show. The volume faded and returned continuously throughout the show. My audio goes thru an AV/R to a 5.1 speaker system. A recording of a show on CNN a few hours later was fine. Later, I noticed the problem again, also on ABC. It's hard to tell if the volume is going up/down on all the speakers, or if it is shifting around from center to R-L speakers (kind of sounds like it might be the later). All the wiring is OK. Anyone else noticing this?

Like many of you, I suffered thru the quick sound drop-outs on Fox and ABC. I hope this is not a mutation of that horrible issue. I did a search and didn't find this mentioned, but I haven't visited this forum for a few months.

feffer

[skyviewmark1]

So has this problem gone away for everyone.. I just changed one of my receivers to a 722k with the OTA Module.. Hooked via HDMI to my Onkyo System and projector. Hooked via Component to my 32in lcd. Audio through my Onkyo on DolbyDigital was a total mess. Dropouts ever so often. No audio problems via component to my LCD TV. Changed the Digital output to my Optical cable instead of HDMI and audio was unchange, still dropouts.. This was happenning on ABC via OTA and CBS via Satellite. Any thoughts?

[BarryG]

Any thoughts?
audio issues persist - I'd guess that the unit has design problems

[bnewt]

I see lip sync problems almost nightly with MSNBC. I do see some problems with other channels, but with MSNBC it seems to always be out of sync.

[Mogrub]

I had recurring audio drops on my new 722k Dish setup. The fault is triggered when recording using one tuner and watching live tv using another tuner. At that point, if you pause or rewind the live feed, when playback resumes, the audio drops out every few seconds from that point forward. If you then record that program, the drops are also present upon playback. Resets fix the issue for a short time, but when you replicate the fault inducing conditions, the problem recurs.

Connection is HDMI from the 722k to the Pioneer VSX 918V amplifier. There is an OTA module installed but the fault appears to be completely independent of it. Box is in single mode.

Dish sent a replacement 722k. Same problem under the same conditions.

In addition to the 722k to Pioneer amplifier HDMI link, I've also got the audio and video feeds from this 722k sent to a VCR via RCA cables, and from the VCR to the Pioneer amp using RCA cables.

I just replicated the conditions necessary to cause the audio fault, and had the audio drop clearly (and annoyingly) present while listening through the primary HDMI link. I then changed the Pioneer input so that I was listening to the same program via the RCA feed, changing nothing else. Via RCA, there were no audio drops. You can switch back and forth at the Pioneer amp to listen to the HDMI feed (problems) and then the RCA feed (no problems).

Fascinating. Irritating too.

So I took the audio signal from the 722k to the Pioneer amp via an optical cable. Same program still playing with audio drops. Only audible on the HDMI feed. Not via RCA or optical links.

So I moved all of the equipment and rewired as this problem dictated. The video signal now goes direct to the TV from the 722K via HDMI, and the audio travels solo from the 722k to the amp via optical. That's fine, as far as it goes, but since my HDTV is several years old, and thus has only one HDMI input, I am now forced to take the BluRay player video signal to the TV directly, where I'm forced to use the component video jacks, since the only HDMI input is now monopolized by the direct feed from the 722k. Not ideal.

Maybe this information will help somebody else with their audio headaches. I'll repost if the signal drops recur using the new connection scheme, but so far so good.

[Red Dwarf]

Thanks so much! Good info. Dish was clueless about this bug.

[drmckenzie]

I have been getting numerous sound dropouts on recordings -- about a second in duration.

However, when I jump back immediately after a dropout and replay the section, the dropout is gone, and the sound is fine.