[Bad Rex]

I DVRed Harry Potter last Saturday off the NY MPEG2 feed. It was frozen, black screen, but an Exit and a second select seemed to do the trick, and the recording was fine except for an occasional pixelization outbreak now and then.

Now I've had my HR20 about two months and have had an HR10 about a year and it's just now occurred to me that an overwhelming majority of my HD recordings have some glitches, whether it's temporary audio loss or video degradation. I can't really say I've never had a flawless recording, but it's getting to the point where they happen so often I'm beginning not to notice them. I don't think this is something I should be expected to tolerate.

Am I alone or is this a commonly accepted feature of the technology?

Or more importantly, does MPEG4 greatly reduce these problems? (Still don't have a 5LNB dish )

 

[LameLefty]

I see occasional glitches on our local CBS MPEG4 HD local, whereas I almost NEVER see them on the MPEG2 national HD channels - ESPN HD, Universal HD, Discovery HD, TNT HD . . . all have just about perfect picture and sound for me (though I did note some dropouts and pixelation on some episodes of The X Files that I recorded on TNT HD this past weekend and watched yesterday, which was a first. They were repeatable when I trick-played back and forth, so I think they were transmission glitches in the MPEG2 streams rather than glitches in playback. Other MPEG2 HD recordings made around the same time from other channels worked fine.

 

[bwaldron]

Am I alone or is this a commonly accepted feature of the technology?

Well, I would say that the majority of my HD recordings (both sat and OTA) are glitch-free (on my HR10-250, I don't yet have an HR20). However, I would say that the incidence of minor signal issues is indeed greater for HD. Used to be much worse in the early days of HD.

 

[matto]

I also have noticed a huge increase in audio/video glitches with the HR20, compared to my experience with the HR10. My dish is aimed well, and recordings on the HR10 don't show the same frequency of degradation. I also prefer my MPEG2 west coast network feeds, so I rarely record HD Locals (since the quality is terrible, and the frequency of glitches is 10x worse).

The mpeg decoder in the HR20 just sucks.

 

[Xaa]

I would agree with Matto that most of the glitching, pixelation issues in HD that I have now tend to be from the mpeg4 locals. I think, in my experience, the mpeg2 has been as reliable as it was on the HR10.

Overall, currently, I expereince more picture defects than before.

 

[matto]

Sorry if I wasn't clear- I also get many more glitches in MPEG2 HD on the HR20 than I did on the HR10- but it is indeed still an order of magnitude better than the garbage I get for the "HD Locals".

 

[yensid]

Yeah, I also get the MPEG4 pixelation issues. This is obviously something they are going to have to work on if they are moving to MPEG4 on all channels.

 

[thiscopy]

I hadn't thought about it until you brought it up. But I too have yet to watch a glitch free recording. I have had something happen on all recordings, temporary loss of audio, pixelization, total freeze of playback, etc.

I just got used to it.

 

[matto]

are you married?
every time it happens, i get an angry glare from my wife.