[harsh]

I have no way of doing this that I know of.

I assumed that the AM21/LCC would give you access to True Crime (5-2), Quest (5-3), Twist (5-4) and KONG (16-1).

I reason that if these channels don't glitch as 5-1 does, the problem isn't with the broadcast signal but rather with how the DVR itself is processing KING5's NBC stream.

 

[JerryMeeker]

I assumed that the AM21/LCC would give you access to True Crime (5-2), Quest (5-3), Twist (5-4) and KONG (16-1).

I reason that if these channels don't glitch as 5-1 does, the problem isn't with the broadcast signal but rather with how the DVR itself is processing KING5's NBC stream.

Seems like you are referring to an area different from Austin, TX. In Austin, the NBC channel is 36 (KXAN), and has these digital sub-channels:

While I appreciate the suggestion, enabling one of the sub-channels, recording the content, and then searching for a drop-out sounds line quite a bit of work just to prove where the issue is. After all, the drop-outs are not occurring that frequently.

 

[harsh]

I was confusing things with the Seattle drop-out discussion. My bad.

In any event, you don't need to plow through a subchannel (Cozi, Rewind, Ion, Defy) recording until you've identified a glitch in the NBC feed that you're presumably watching anyway. Then you go to a subchannel recording and see if it has a glitch at the same wall clock time.

It is a bit of an ask to be sure, but it will pretty tightly pin down where the breakdown is (or isn't).

 

[JerryMeeker]

I was confusing things with the Seattle drop-out discussion. My bad.

In any event, you don't need to plow through a subchannel (Cozi, Rewind, Ion, Defy) recording until you've identified a glitch in the NBC feed that you're presumably watching anyway. Then you go to a subchannel recording and see if it has a glitch at the same wall clock time.

It is a bit of an ask to be sure, but it will pretty tightly pin down where the breakdown is (or isn't).

Thanks for clarifying. Just going to the wall clock time in the recording wouldn't be that difficult. I'll give this a try this week.

 

[litzdog911]

I haven't seen any of these issues with KING5 NBC in Seattle. I think Jerry lives somewhere else.

 

[JerryMeeker]

OK, interesting progress. I simultaneously recorded "This is Us" on the primary NBC channel (channel 36), and a sitcom episode on digital channel 36-2. At the 9-minute mark, there was a terrible picture drop-out on This is Us. I stopped the recording, switched to the recording on channel 36-2, and there was a break-up at the same 9-minute mark.

@harsh So, what does this tell us?

 

[James Long]

Glitch in the ATSC feed from the station.

 

[P Smith]

So, what does this tell us?

OTA issue .... at station, at local environment [EMI, power line], etc

 

[JerryMeeker]

Does this new test provide any information that I should report to the station's engineer?

 

[harsh]

Assuming your DIRECTV local receive facility (LRF) is some distance away from you, it must be a transmission glitch since it took out two networks sharing the same channel.

It would be a unique situation indeed where two relatively distant antennas were subject to the same interference.

 

[P Smith]

Why you discarding his local EMI ?

 

[JerryMeeker]

Assuming your DIRECTV local receive facility (LRF) is some distance away from you, it must be a transmission glitch since it took out two networks sharing the same channel.

It would be a unique situation indeed where two relatively distant antennas were subject to the same interference.

I don't understand what you mean by two relatively distant antennas. My home is actually very close to the hill where all of the local TV stations have their broadcast antennas. Wouldn't KXAN channels 36 and 36.2 be broadcasting from the same antenna?

And I have no idea where the DirecTV LRF is.

 

[JerryMeeker]

Why you discarding his local EMI ?

Sorry, don't know what this means.

 

[slice1900]

OK, interesting progress. I simultaneously recorded "This is Us" on the primary NBC channel (channel 36), and a sitcom episode on digital channel 36-2. At the 9-minute mark, there was a terrible picture drop-out on This is Us. I stopped the recording, switched to the recording on channel 36-2, and there was a break-up at the same 9-minute mark.

@harsh So, what does this tell us?

Given that 1) you see this on only the one local station not all of them, and 2) you see this in both the Directv delivered locals and locals received via ATSC PSmith's idea of EMI can be discounted. There's no way an EMI source powerful enough to affect both Directv's OTA reception and yours, but narrowband enough to only affect that one channel (RF 21 so not even near the UHF signal boundaries) would go unnoticed.

There are only two possibilities. One, the ATSC signal the station is broadcasting is a glitched, and if so you would see such breakups when watching on any ATSC tuner like if you used a splitter and connected OTA directly to your TV and watched live while recording until you see a glitch, then see if the glitch matches (so there's another thing you can try)

Two, the flaw is in the HR24, where some corner case in MPEG2 decoding is tripping it up. You can figure out if that's the case trying the splitter idea above or hooking your AM21 to your HR54 and see if the same thing happens.

If you determine it is the station's fault, find out the contact information for the station's engineer. Tell him you are seeing glitches when receiving the ATSC signal, and if you can provide him exact times you have seen it that may help. Whether he ignores you, claims you are wrong, fixes it or not who knows. All you can do is report it, and learn to live with it if you are ignored.

 

[JerryMeeker]

Thanks for your recommendations. The AM21 is connected to the HR54, not the HR24, if that makes a difference. And the OTA signal is actually already split off directly to the TV, but I don't want to have to continually watch live TV looking for a glitch to happen.

I'll report what I have to the station engineer and see what he says.

 

[harsh]

Deleted less windy version of slice1900's reponse.

 

[harsh]

And the OTA signal is actually already split off directly to the TV, but I don't want to have to continually watch live TV looking for a glitch to happen.

I doubt this would be helpful. The previously identified DIRECTV issue seemed to be limited to NBC broadcasts and since you're seeing it on a non-NBC recording, that mostly discounts that theory.

Something is tripping up KXAN's multiplexer that combines the four feeds into one RF channel but that's absolutely the station's problem to address. I suspect that these events are probably logged by the multiplexer so they more than likely know about them if they're paying any attention at all.

 

[James Long]

So ... it is not a DIRECTV issue. It is a station issue.

 

[P Smith]

So ... it is not a DIRECTV issue. It is a station issue.

On such case, I would use TSreader with OTA tuner, do record full TS of the frequency during the glitches and would try to analyze it by yourself or send it to the station engineer !

 

[harsh]

On such case, I would use TSreader with OTA tuner, do record full TS of the frequency during the glitches and would try to analyze it by yourself or send it to the station engineer !

The rest of us have no intention of trying to undertake what the station engineer should be on top of.

Not everyone is as curious about things that they can't control as you are.