DBSTalk Forum banner
Status
Not open for further replies.

Freezing/Pixelation issues on your Genie? Here's how you can help

109K views 191 replies 64 participants last post by  Stuart Sweet 
#1 ·
If you're experiencing freezing or pixelation issues on your Genie, post a description here. Also, do a keyword search for SENDREPORT -- this will give you the opportunity to send a report to DIRECTV engineers. I can't guarantee it will help, or that they'll even see the reports, but if you do that and post the report here I'll try to get the attention of the right people.
 
#53 ·
...found it....way too hard. It's doing remote logging. Gives you a number on the screen and then tells me to provide this number to DTV...What?

I'll just write this off as another wait and see until DTV comes out with a firmware or new machine. In the mean time, we'll adjust our DTV bill accordingly until the problem is fixed. (Lack of playback feature)

Thanks for the help.
 
#54 ·
Please understand that it's supposed to be hard, it's supposed to be something you don't accidentally find. Please post the number that it gave you on the screen here, and a DIRECTV Engineer will review the case.
 
#55 ·
Stuart Sweet said:
Please understand that it's supposed to be hard, it's supposed to be something you don't accidentally find. Please post the number that it gave you on the screen here, and a DIRECTV Engineer will review the case.
Thanks Stuart
I'll have to do it again. I didn't understand the part of writing anything down. I thought my machine was sending a report to DTV and they would fix it. I must be dreaming. The real problem IMO begins when DTV remains in denial. With the number of people reporting the problem, something must be up.

Anyway...I'm going to do some trouble shooting....I want to confirm that the problem is with the HR34. I'm going to delete the recording info (mgr) from the HR34 and then re-enter it on one of the HR21's and see if that does anything.
 
#56 ·
Have experienced several cases of pixelation that appears like someone is forwarding and reversing the image really fast for 4-5 seconds. Mostly happens in recording of local channel sports events. Event repeatedly occurs over 20+ times in a recording. Occurrences happen over Sept and continue in October.
HR34-700 firmware 0x740
Send report 20131013-1f46
 
#57 ·
OK.....I shifted the recording (local CBS) over to our HR-21. I then played it back across the network and viewed on the HR34 and it works fine. So IMO the problem is with the HR34 recording ...local CBS....? Not sure how or why that's possible.

If you have another machine on your network, try the recording there and then play it back on your Genie (HR34) and see what it does.

Also...this morning I tried to force (02468) an update. I have the 0740 on the HR-34. All it did was download the 0740 again. Why?
 
#59 ·
Had my HR34-700 Since April and the freezing/pixellation has been an intermittent but ongoing option. I was faked out for the first month or so thinking it was a signal strength problem with the satellite that transmitted the Las Vegas locals since my problem seemed to be NBC and CBS. Then I did some tests and realized it was a playback-only problem, watching the live feed is fine. I've been calling tech support doing the usual set of resets etc, to no avail. Plus they say there is no evidence of anyone else having this problem! I record Leno, Letterman and Fallon every night and 9 times out of ten one of them is largely unwatchable due to a pixellating freeze-frame that finally skips ahead after 20 seconds. My suspicion is the hard-drive, or the hard-drive writing software is defective. Whatever the problem is, I want a new box and they don't want to give me one. Currently awaiting a call from engineering at which time I will refer them to this thread. Tech support doesn't seem to acknowledge that DBStalk exists.
 
#60 ·
VaJim said:
Also...this morning I tried to force (02468) an update. I have the 0740 on the HR-34. All it did was download the 0740 again. Why?
Jim,

It's really a bad idea to force downloads without knowing what is in the stream, what to look for and what to avoid. There're reasons for this, but I don't have time to go into them.

Also, note you can delete entire posts in case of duplicates and such.

Good luck- sorry I don't have a direct answer for your machine glitches.
 
#62 ·
Laxguy said:
Jim,

It's really a bad idea to force downloads without knowing what is in the stream, what to look for and what to avoid. There're reasons for this, but I don't have time to go into them.

Also, note you can delete entire posts in case of duplicates and such.

Good luck- sorry I don't have a direct answer for your machine glitches.
Thanks

no big deal on the force download. I ususally don't get into that type of thing, but the way the HR34 has been acting, I was desperate. A couple of weeks ago it did get me 0740.

I just wanted to posted my experience about HR34 playback. Evidently it's 'fairly' common.
 
#63 ·
Freezes on OTA content, live or recorded, esp when viewed on C31 clients and always when the weather map goes up on the local news. Sometimes pausing or instant replay will recover a watchable experience. Other freezes happen after 20-30 minutes of watching live TV. Sometimes instant replay will recover, other times the only thing that returns the picture to watchable is to change the channel and return. Of course, this dumps the buffer.

Report All: 20131014-1CD9
 
#72 ·
I have not called DirecTV yet, but I am also seeing this issue, and like 2 other people's posts, I am only seeing this on shows recorded from my local CBS station (Ch 4 - Mpls/StP) and only on my HR34
It seems to be worse when I am recording 4 shows at the same time, less when it's only 1 or 2. My Genie is in my theater rack, so I have not yet checked to see if it happens live or not.
I have designated the Genie for all network broadcast shows, I use my HR24(?)s for all the "cable" shows, so I can not guarentee that it is only CBS/4. But I have not had a single issue with any other network (ABC/NBC/FOX/WB), even on hows that were recorded at the same time as the CBS show (on the same Genie).;
 
#73 ·
RobInMN said:
I have not called DirecTV yet, but I am also seeing this issue, and like 2 other people's posts, I am only seeing this on shows recorded from my local CBS station (Ch 4 - Mpls/StP) and only on my HR34
It seems to be worse when I am recording 4 shows at the same time, less when it's only 1 or 2. My Genie is in my theater rack, so I have not yet checked to see if it happens live or not.
I have designated the Genie for all network broadcast shows, I use my HR24(?)s for all the "cable" shows, so I can not guarentee that it is only CBS/4. But I have not had a single issue with any other network (ABC/NBC/FOX/WB), even on hows that were recorded at the same time as the CBS show (on the same Genie).;
Please run the report Stuart asked for and post the number and info here.
 
#75 ·
I have a HR-34-700. I have experienced both freezing of the TV picture as well as the receiver being non-responsive to the remote control since 0x740. I was hoping that 0x744 would resolve but it seems to have gotten worse. Send report ID: 20131019-32DE. Details:

1. Freezing - picture stays frozen for around a 10-15 second period. This has happened on live shows as well as recordings.
2. Non-responsive to remote - At times, the receiver does not respond to certain commands. The ones I have noticed are all D-pad functions including the select button, play/pause/rewind/stop and the number pad. This problem seems to happen everytime I use the double-play feature. Oddly, menu and info buttons continue to work. To see if this was remotes related, I tried different remotes - IR, RF, different models and two different remote apps - same results.
 
#76 ·
Problems started in late spring. At first it seemed to be only happening with local channels. But it has occurred on others. Only happens on playback of a recorded broadcast. The image would pixelate and then start stuttering along with the audio. Fast forwarding the replay usually got past the problem.

Over the last few weeks I have started to set recordings that exhibit this problem to be kept indefinitely on the assumption that the problem is related to bad blocks on the internal disk Just don;t like tying up the space.

When I called DirecTV tech support they had me make sure the cable from the dish was tight and restart the HR34. Needless to say that did not fix the problem.

DVR: HR34/700
SW: 0x740

SENDREPORT key: 20131019-339D
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top