Dish 6000 Chokes on Low Bandwidth Digital OTA channels

[Cyclone]

I have a Dish 6000 and I've always had a problem with the low bandwidth sub channels. The very low bandwidth channels. I often can tune them in ok, but I receive a black screen and no video.

This usually occurs on Weather Radar sub channels or "banner" screens that I get when my PBS stations turn off multi-cast subchannels to activate their HD channel.

I became particularly aware, when my CBS affiliate launched a Weather Sub Channel on 9.2. I received this channel perfectly, and it even had the audio of 9.1 playing, so you could continue to listed to your CBS TV show. Well, a few people called the station to complain about how the multicasting was effecting the HD on 9.1. The good station responded by reallocating bandwidth from the Weather Radar 9.2 back to the 9.1. When they did this, my 6000 began to fail to display the 9.2 radar channel.

Luckily for me, a local fellow HD viewer with a HiPix HD Tuner hard had posted bandwidth measurements for the local channels. He did this just prior to the stations reallocation. I asked him to repeat the measurements afterwards so I could find the difference.

GOOD Before: Dish 6000 able to view received the low-bandwith channels:

WUSA 9.1 16.5 mbs
9.2 1.924 mbs

BAD After: Dish 6000 unable to view

WUSA 9.1 16.9 mbs
9.2 1.533 mbs

This is a reallocation of only about 400kps, but it appears to have crossed the threshold that the Dish 6000 tolerates.

My question to everyone with a Dish 6000 (or even you 5000, 811, & 921 users), do you have problems with low bandwidth sub-channels. I have swapped out Dish 6000 receivers, as well as the 8VSB module. The problem persists.

I get the same behavior with the following PBS channels under 1.9 Mbs. I also have the problem with a few Baltimore/MPT channels which I don't have metrics for at this time.
WETA 26.1 13.8 mbs
26.2 3.6 mbs
26.3 1.0 mbs
26.4 1.0 mbs

[boba]

My 6000 is performing as you describe on channel 21-2 in Dallas which is weather radar. My Sansung T-151 OTA and my two Directv HDTV receivers have no problem with this channel. I just chalked it up to DISH garbage.

[Jason Nipp]

I have issues receiving certain channels since 2.80 hit the 811. I lost about 9 distant OTA channels in all. My doppler feed is from NBC...they killed the Doppler during the Olympics and opened up 3 digital subs...They are now back to 2 digitals. But when they were broadcasting 3 digitals I did not see any performance degradation or pixelation...Now I did however see tons of pixel breakups on the E* Olympic channel....imagine that huh?...To bad you weren't more local to me...I would bring over my 811 or mothballed SIR T-165 to test on your OTA channels.

Jason

[mikeinaustin]

is there anyway to get a 6000 to display this kind of bandwidth data? how about to display the format of the incoming stream?

[Cyclone]

No there isn't. But I do wish that more people with the 6000 and low bit rates stations would post about their experiece (works or does not work).

[SLONGO]

No there isn't. But I do wish that more people with the 6000 and low bit rates stations would post about their experiece (works or does not work).

Are you confusing bandwith with signal strength?
Maybe I'm missing your point but I don't see the connection.
OTA signal strength is constantly changing, wouldn't that more likely be the culprit?

[bavaria72]

Solongo has an interesting point regarding the constantly changing signal strength of OTA HD. I realize that all signals degrade over distance however it seems that the HD signal definitely is not nearly as stable as an SD signal (especially at the "fringe"). Is this due to the ever-changing amount of data of an HD signal causing the signal to fluctuate? I'm sure the broadcasters set the power to a specific level and that is that. However if a GSM cell site signal output fluctuated as much as my OTA HD signal does, this would mean that there was an issue with that cell site (not talking CDMA here). I wonder if there are FCC standards regarding the delta of signal strength for OTA signals (both SD and HD) over a set distance? I know there are power maxs/mins but anything governing the QA of the signal? Or is HD OTA signals like CDMA and the "coverage area" fluctuates based on the "load"? (for CDMA it is call volume, for OTA HD it would be data amount). Just musing....

[Cyclone]

No its not the signal strength. I can get 2.1 or 9.1 just fine with strong signal strength. Its just tuning into their subchannels where the 6000 fails to product a picture.

[none]

Here in the sacramento area I've been having problems rcvg PBS which has 4 sub channels (probably at low bandwidth). I thought it might be a PBS problem, but since it has persisted so long, it probably is linked to the bandwidth issue. Switching to these channels will often even cause my Dish 6000 to hang up.

bnam

[rcbridge]

Here in Philadelphia the local ABC has 2 sub channels, I don't know what the B/W numbers are but it seems to be okay. I also pick up a PBS from Allentown with 4 channels that seems to drop out sometimes.