[djlong]

I've had an annoying problem with my pair of 612s that I've had for a few years and was wondering if the Hopper/Joey has the same problem or if it's 'been fixed'.

When recording a RSN HD feed (Red Sox or Bruins games in this case on NESN), if the timer started 1 minute early or if Dish didn't "switch" to the feed on time, I'd get 4 hours of "check back to see your sports teams".

Well, today, instead of getting "How I Met Your Mother", I got a half hour of the slate that they put up after losing the WHDH Boston feed (CBS) right after the Masters. Flipping the channel elsewhere and then BACK to WHDH had me looking at their regular schedule. Whatever methodology they use to these 'slate' channels doesn't work well enough to tell the receiver that something has changed.

Has anyone had this on the Hopper/Joey combo? I was originally going to wait until the software was updated so that 2 Hoppers can look like one. But perhaps I'd up the 'schedule' if this annoying 'feature' had been fixed.

 

[James Long]

I have not tried that on the Hopper ... I'll set a timer for a game tomorrow night and let you know what happens.

 

[djlong]

Thanks. Much appreciated.

 

[James Long]

When recording a RSN HD feed (Red Sox or Bruins games in this case on NESN), if the timer started 1 minute early or if Dish didn't "switch" to the feed on time, I'd get 4 hours of "check back to see your sports teams".

Well ... I'll commend DISH on changing the "check back" screen to a new picture. But the recording failed.

I set a "five minute early" timer for the 7:30pm Brewers vs Cubs on "412-19 HD" (which used to be channel 429 but on Hopper/Joey is hidden on an expanding channel). The timer recorded five minutes of the new slate and then ... black screen.

Sorry ... not functional. The Hopper doesn't know how to follow a channel as it is turned on any better that the prior receiver. (The issue being when the channel moves from being pointed at the slate to being pointed at the actual game/pre-game feed on the transponder.)

 

[Stewart Vernon]

Is this bug happening because the slate displayed is a common transponder mapping and only becomes linked to a live game transponder feed at the time it switches over?

I used to have an audio issue on my local PBS station similar to this... Basically my PBS was sending 4 SD channels all day until primetime... then at 8pm they switched to 1 HD + 2 SD... If I set a timer earlier than 8pm it would never have audio! Ultimately the problem was "resolved" when my local PBS just stopped that practice and went to keeping the HD feed live all day long.

It sure sounds to me like that is analogous to what is happening with the part-time RSN HD feeds... that they are not pointing to the right transponder until they go live... and somehow the recording being in progress doesn't allow the tuner to re-tune like it normally would when that change takes place... so the DVR ends up recording whatever slate was pointed to (or a black screen).

If this is the bug... I don't know how to fix it UNLESS Dish programmed a manual workaround that prevents you from defining a start-early timer on the RSN HD feeds.

Kind of like how when you set a timer for a PPV in advance it doesn't allow you to change start/end times... They need that kind of parameter in place for the RSNs... except allow end-late padding since games could run long unlike a movie.

 

[James Long]

Is this bug happening because the slate displayed is a common transponder mapping and only becomes linked to a live game transponder feed at the time it switches over?

Yes.
On each sports transponder along with the eight feeds that can be used for an RSN there is the "slate" that is used when an HD RSN is not in use.

DISH shuffles around which transponder each HD RSN is on early in the morning, effective at 6:15am ET. (HD RSNs are "Off Air" during this change.) All of the HD RSNs start the day are pointed to the slate. Meanwhile DISH loads up the HD RSN feeds that will be used later in the day on HDSKD channels.

(The Uplink Activity that I have been tracking for the past couple of years and JohnH tracked for the years before me shows the moves of the channels between transponders.)

When the HD broadcast window begins the channel is "moved" on the same transponder from one set of streams (video and audio for the slate) to another set of streams (video and audio for the channel). This is the move that is not being tracked properly. Your receiver is on the right transponder, it just isn't on the right video and audio feeds.

If this is the bug... I don't know how to fix it UNLESS Dish programmed a manual workaround that prevents you from defining a start-early timer on the RSN HD feeds.

The easiest fix is 24/7 RSNs ... barring that having the real RSN feed go live a few minutes early would help. Neither solution would fix the bug of not following the changes on the transponder, but it would help most people.

I suppose DISH could also do the switching back home at the uplink ... transmitting eight copies of the slate and switching on the feeds at the uplink instead of changing the table on the transponder.

As background, when you change channels on DISH your receiver looks at a large table of channels (currently 8544 in the system) pared down to the channels on the satellites receivable by your receiver (781 on my Hopper, with 736 authorized for viewing). That large table tells the receiver what satellite and transponder it needs to look at to find the channel. (This is the table I use for Uplink Reports.)

The next step is to look at the transponder pointed at in the large table for a much smaller table that has just the channels on that transponder present. This smaller table tells the receiver which video and audio feed to use for each channel. The receiver then pulls that video and audio feed out of the mux and displays or records them (or both).

What I believe is being missed is once the receiver looks in the small table and starts recording it isn't following changes. The receivers need to be trained to keep looking for changes - especially on the sports channels that do change at critical times.