Keep Losing HD Channels

[nymart]

Anyone else having this problem? I have two sets of HD locals (presumably MPEG4 and MPEG 2 but what do I know)...One set are the regular numbers 3, 4, 7 etc. the other set are 80,82,86. For whatever reason...I am guess the HR20...I lose the signal to the higher number channels at least twice per week. I go to the channel and get the 771 message. If I do a red button reset, everything comes back fine, but that is the only way I have found to get them back. PS...most of my season passes are setup on the higher channels so I keep missing recordings which is NOT going over well at home...thanks.

[dsm]

I've seen people postulate on this board that there may be a correlation between software hangs and the MPEG2 HD channels, but I don't know if there is any truth to it. My own unsubstantiated theory is that weak signals expose software bugs in the HR20. The MPEG 2 locals are on different satellites which you may not have as good a signal for those. The MPEG4's should also use less disk space so why not switch to them?

-steve

[nymart]

The MPEG4's should also use less disk space so why not switch to them?


I don't mind changing everything to use those, but I don't even know which ones are which? I just know that originally I had issues getting the lower channels (I think it was during transition time where I had two sets of channelss 3, 4,7 one labeled NY7 and one labeled WABC. Sometimes I still have both and other times I only have one). So which is which ? I thought the higher numbers (80,82,86) were the newest and best channels to use?

[dsm]

Ok, I see and it is confusing. I don't have it in front of me right now, but there are 4 sets of locals I can think of:

70-80's: These are the older MPEG2 channels. They tend to be in your region rather than your exact locals, but you may have gotten lucky if you are near a big city.

chan#-#: If there is a hyphen in the number then these are off the air locals you are picking up from an antenna.

chan# AND the channel name is the station call letters (e.g. WSBK): These are the MPEG4 locals and are the newest channels off the new satellites where most of the HD content will eventually be moving. This is equivalent to the "#-1" version of the OTA signals. These are probably the ones you want to record now. If you want the "-2, -3" other digital signals some of your locals may transmit then you need an off the air antenna.

chan# AND the channel name is not the call letters: These are the SD versions of the channels. These are names with a prefix which is your "region". Mine is "BN" I think for boston.

-steve