Audio problems on 622, Dallas HD locals

[steveT]

I just 'upgraded' from a 721 to a 622 last Friday. So far it's not been a good experience, with multiple problems to work through. The one I'd like to ask here about is the audio problems on primetime network programming on the Dallas HD locals (received over Dish; I don't have OTA). I'm using optical audio out to Yamaha a/v rcvr.

I've recorded 5 shows now in the past 3 nights off Fox, NBC, and CBS. Only one of them had 'normal' home theater stereo, with all the proper audio channels going to each of the 5 speakers (I'm assuming these were all non-DD programs...) In the other 4 cases, there was NO CENTER CHANNEL sound at all. On the NBC station, all sound (dialogue/music/sound fx) were all coming from both left/right speakers, with nothing out of center/rears. On the CBS station, all sound was coming from left/right/rears, with nothing out of the center channel, making it sound like you were listening in the bottom of a well.

On the NBC station, during commercial breaks, if a "local" commercial was playing, everything sounded fine. As soon as it went back to program or network commercials, the problem resumed. On the CBS station, the problem never went away.

I've seen another thread of similar problems with no dialogue at all in any speaker. Can anyone tell me if they're seeing this problem on the Dallas HD locals? I tried calling Dish and they just blew the question off. If they can't fix this, that might finally be enough for me to return the 622 and end my 9-years as a Dish customer. After 8 years of being a fairly happy customer, this last year has been pretty bad, and I'm about at the end of my patience with Dish.

[MDavidM]

I have been a Dish subscriber since July 2006, and have had a 622 the entire time. It feeds video via HDMI to my Samsung DLP, and audio via optical cable to my JVC system.

While I do experience occasional short-term intermittent audio dropouts and pixellation, they are few and far between. I have not experienced any of the issues you describe, so I do not believe it is an issue with DFW locals.

[steveT]

Thanks; I just sent you a direct message as well, seeing if we might be recording some of the same shows at the same time, to test this out.

I'd had my 721 for about 4+ years, and a model 5000 for 4+ years prior to that, and this is the first time I've ever had the problem (although I never watched Dallas locals until they yanked my distant nets...)

[ChuckA]

I use audio thru HDMI to my TV instead of optical to an A/V receiver and it usually works well. However a few times over the last 4-5 months I have had problems with receiving the voice track (center channel I assume) on local channels. Mostly NBC if i remember correctly. I could hear the background sounds and music track but no voices. When this occurred to me it was on both OTA and Dish sat local broadcast so it had to be a problem with the local station. I have not had the problem in a month or two.

I read many posts about problems with the optical connections. I was really unhappy when I discovered my home theater setup did not accept optical in, but now, not so much. It seems that HDMI is much less error prone as far as audio is concerned, but not as robust of course.