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What's the deal with ESPN's signal?

14225 Views 124 Replies 51 Participants Last post by  JAYPB
After this long you'd think that they'd be able to figure out the video freezes and fix it. It happens both on ESPN and ESPN2 and has for quite a long time.

I'm talking about the intermittent video freezes that we see on ESPN and ESPN2 all the time. I know it's not my signal, especially since the audio doesn't drop out.

I've seen it on every ESPN2 Nationwide race this year and every ESPN Cup race so far this year.
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I assume other people are as well, but if you are watching the NASCAR race at California tonight, does ESPN keep hanging up, especially on closeup fast motion scenes? It is really getting annoying. Its not my signal strengths, everything on 99c is above 90, mostly 90-96. I know other people have reported issues like this with ESPNHD since they moved it...is anyone else seeing this?
dtrell said:
I assume other people are as well, but if you are watching the NASCAR race at California tonight, does ESPN keep hanging up, especially on closeup fast motion scenes? It is really getting annoying. Its not my signal strengths, everything on 99c is above 90, mostly 90-96. I know other people have reported issues like this with ESPNHD since they moved it...is anyone else seeing this?
Yeah, I already started a thread on it.

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=138227

It's been going on for every race this year on ESPN and ESPN2.
ya, and its funny how it NEVER seems to do it during commercials....i flipped over to my time warner box to watch it so i wont have to see the freezing up.
dtrell said:
ya, and its funny how it NEVER seems to do it during commercials....i flipped over to my time warner box to watch it so i wont have to see the freezing up.
Interesting... I always thought it was an ESPN problem.

Maybe it's a DirecTV problem with the ESPN/ESPN2 feeds.
There was a thread somewhere where someone mentioned RF cameras. Don't know if that has anything to do with this or not.
Well I'm watching the race now on channel 799, the Hotpass Network feed, and I haven't seen any freezing. It's only on 206, and 209 last night.
I switched over to the MPEG2 feed on channel 73 and do not have any glitching there. So that is where I'll will remain, and you are correct, the glitch is annoying.:mad:
Hmmm, I wonder if 799 is Mpeg2 or Mpeg4...
RunnerFL said:
Hmmm, I wonder if 799 is Mpeg2 or Mpeg4...
I believe it is MPEG4

and so far, no glitches on time warner either.
dtrell said:
I believe it is MPEG4

and so far, no glitches on time warner either.
Ok, and 206 is Mpeg4 as well.

I wonder why 799 is fine but 206 is junk.
RunnerFL said:
After this long you'd think that they'd be able to figure out the video freezes and fix it. It happens both on ESPN and ESPN2 and has for quite a long time.

I'm talking about the intermittent video freezes that we see on ESPN and ESPN2 all the time. I know it's not my signal, especially since the audio doesn't drop out.

I've seen it on every ESPN2 Nationwide race this year and every ESPN Cup race so far this year.
I dont believe its ESPN. I never saw these issues when I had Charter, which was about 10 weeks ago or so.

When I was at my brothers who lives in a Comcast area a few weeks ago we watched a bunch of ESPNHD and never saw anything like I see on D* either.
haven't had any freezes, but the picture has intermitently looked like crap.. like it's bitstarved.. realy scratchy..
I haven't noticed any issues on 797 with the ESPN feed in the corner.
This happened quite a bit today during the UK-Louisville game. I was watching channel 206 (the MPEG-4) channel. Seemed like the picture would freeze, and then when it restarted it would stutter a moment, before continuing
dtrell said:
I assume other people are as well, but if you are watching the NASCAR race at California tonight, does ESPN keep hanging up, especially on closeup fast motion scenes?
It is entirely possible that the ESPN or DIRECTV encoders are being overwhelmed and are punting (I'd be leaning towards DIRECTV's MPEG4 encoders). It is also possible that they are suffering from wireless interference/signal loss that is whacking the signal. This happened a lot during the Olympic marathon.

I watched the last 42 laps on DISH Network and didn't see any of the problems you describe.

[Fontana reminds me of a parking lot]
harsh said:
It is entirely possible that the ESPN or DIRECTV encoders are being overwhelmed and are punting (I'd be leaning towards DIRECTV's MPEG4 encoders). It is also possible that they are suffering from wireless interference/signal loss that is whacking the signal. This happened a lot during the Olympic marathon.

I watched the last 42 laps on DISH Network and didn't see any of the problems you describe.

[Fontana reminds me of a parking lot]
I'm not sure it's DirecTV's Mpeg4 encoders... After changing to channel 799 I didn't see the problem again.
It would seem that if 206 has the problem and 73 doesn't that DIRECTV is getting a good ESPN HD feed and the problem may be with the DIRECTV MPEG4 encoder. Perhaps 799 comes from a more direct feed and easier to work with.
RunnerFL said:
Hmmm, I wonder if 799 is Mpeg2 or Mpeg4...
The .pdf file in this post lists channel 799 as being on the 101 satellite, which would be MPEG2.
RandCfilm said:
The .pdf file in this post lists channel 799 as being on the 101 satellite, which would be MPEG2.
Ahh, well that explains it..

DirecTV if you're reading this you have work to do on your ESPN/ESPN2 Mpeg4 feeds!
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