I've been experiencing the slow sync up on HD channels since late last week. It wasn't that way before. Particularly channel 301 for me.

I think I'm going to get them to send a tech out even though I don't think it'll help.

Major problem last night with my 6208! I was happlily watching the Canada vs. Slovakia game I recorded when half way through the picture froze and the machine was non responsive. Finally after a few minutes it reset itself. Then it took approx. 1/2 hour later the guide reloaded and I could change channels, but I could not access any HDTV channels or my recorded programs. Finally I unplugged out it of frustration, after plugging it back in I was able to view my recorded programs but no HDTV channels still. So I spent the next hour on hold with Shaw, the csr tried a reset, now I could get 305 after about 30sec but all other HD channels still said "not authorized". I made a service appointment but the earilest I could get was next Wednesday! Pretty poor for a customer whose hardware is on the fritz! Anyway things slowely improved to the point where I can now receive the odd numbered HD channels (301,303,305) after a 30sec or more wait when changing channels, but the even channels do not come in at all.

If anyone has any ideas please help!

lego,

it's hard to wait for the full 30 seconds a channel change might take to find out if a channel is working, but do remember 302 is sometimes in "regional blackout", so you might never get it to tune in at certain times of the day (I was frustrated about this last night when I was investigating the veeeeeery long channel change times)

logo, sorry to hear about your unit resetting itself. But, at least I know I'm not the only one that had a spontaneous reset.

Lego:

Call shaw and tell them to add the HDTV channels to your account. Mine did the same thing yesterday. Apparently Shaw's computers kicked a bunch of people off the HD system...mainly people that did not have it before they got their 6208's.

30 second fix over the phone...

I have the same problem tuning HD channels, they seldom come on, even after 30 secs. However the fix described earlier works for me - go into the setup menu and change the audio language, ie English to Spanish, then back. Once you change it back to English the picture appears......

Obviously a widespread problem, but Shaw have no fix yet....

Lego:

Call shaw and tell them to add the HDTV channels to your account. Mine did the same thing yesterday. Apparently Shaw's computers kicked a bunch of people off the HD system...mainly people that did not have it before they got their 6208's.

30 second fix over the phone...

I did talk to a Shaw CSR, she checked to make sure that the HDTV channels were added to my account, then she remotely reset the DCT. It's not just 302 that isn't working for me, I cannot get any HD on any even numbered channels (302,304,306), I can get HD on the odd numbered channels but only after a huge time delay. Until my DCT reset itself yesterday everything was working perfect. Was there a firmware upgrade yesterday that may have caused this mess?

Lego

cheers Tony,

I'll try the language fiddle tonight and see if it works

it's weird - some channels seem to only take 10 seconds, others struggle through after 25...

anyway, I've cancelled the tech visit for now, I don't think there's anything that physically looking at the box will achieve, even if the person who showed up on my doorstep was a Motorola firmware engineer... at best, he would probably recommend a firmware upgrade!

Well, I have a 6200 and I to have experienced this guide delay. I think it may just be the guide and not neccessarily the STB as it remembers your command inputs and performs them when the guide unlocks, combinded with almost everyone here who is having the same issue leads me to think it isn't the box itself. I wonder if this is a communication issue with the node? When I first got my 6200 I also could not get any of the HD channels period. Even after they added them to my package and resset my unit. I still got the "this channel should be available soon" message but I left it one for 20 min and still nothing. In the end I had a service call lined up, they thought maybe I didn't have enough signal strength in that frequency range but...the day before the tech was due..poof! I got the HD channels. Since then I have had no delays in selecting them. No more than the regular non HD channels at least....however, I still seem to get this guide lock up occassionaly.

just to clarify, there are 2 DIFFERENT types of delay

1) the one where the remote seems to be dead - you press all kinds of buttons and nothing happens - BUT the little light on the front of the box tells you it's THINKING, and sure enough, sometime later (quite a while in fact), ALL of the buttons you've pressed start spewing their functions
This seems to affect many of the Motorola platforms (I've witnessed it on the 5100, 6208, and people say it affects at least the 6200 as well)

2) 6208-only I believe - the HDD related HiDef switching delay
whenever you change to an HD channel, this can take 10-25+ seconds
by the time the display comes on, the channel has already been recording on the DVR/HDD for the "missing" seconds, and you can actually rewind it those few seconds and see what you've "missed" on-screen! (I don't believe this would therefore show up on any of the non-HDD/DVR platforms, so you shouldn't see it on 6200, 5100, 2500, 2000, etc) - not having (some or all of) the HD channels enabled is also a separate issue that seems to keep cropping up with spurious machine resets, etc.

I've noticed the same freezes, too, on my DCT6200, since the i-Guide was installed. Perhaps this has more to do with the i-Guide than the box.

meshmellow

I've been getting the 30 second lockups on my 5100 ever since the new IPG showed up. It happens at least once per viewing session, usually more often....VERY IRRITATING!!

I'm going to give Shaw a call tonight and complain...I'd suggest others experiencing this problem do the same to get them looking into it.

On the bright side, I have really been enjoying the new STRETCH option for 4:3 material on my 5100. Upconverted SD material looks better, no burn-in risks for my CRT rear-projection unit, it's a pretty good stretch (not TOO much cropping) and I now don't have the delay when switching from an HD channel to an SD channel.

I did talk to a Shaw CSR, she checked to make sure that the HDTV channels were added to my account, then she remotely reset the DCT. It's not just 302 that isn't working for me, I cannot get any HD on any even numbered channels (302,304,306), I can get HD on the odd numbered channels but only after a huge time delay. Until my DCT reset itself yesterday everything was working perfect. Was there a firmware upgrade yesterday that may have caused this mess?

Lego
I am going through the same problem now. 301 about 7-10 sec, the others nothing. Called Shaw once they rebooted twice, I am waiting for a call back now.

In the mean time I'll try the language fix.........

It worked!!! But you may have to do it everytime. Come to think of it, I did have Spanish show up in the Guide on its own a while back, but I changed it without any changes in channel reception.

Tony - How did you come up with the fix?

Just talked to a Shaw rep, the problem tuning HD channels seems to be very widespread. All he has received from head office is an acknowledgment that they consider it to be a "glitch" which will be fixed in a future release of the software.....

So we either wait the 30 secs (which often seems to be much longer, and sometimes infinite), or we use the setup/audio/language toggle to get an HD channel.

And wait for Shaw to fix it....

Tony - How did you come up with the fix?

I posted it a few days ago, wondering if it would work for anyone else. Just stumbled upon it somehow... Unfortunately, channels broken like this just don't seem to record properly, so I can't record two of my channels... (Oh, and not HD channels, either - Mystery and Lonestar.)

Other problems: I have had one or two spontaneous reboots, once the box got totally messed up when I tried to channels or something while rewinding a recorded program, and one time the 'remote button pressed' led on the front panel freaked out blinking madly, and the unit acted as if remote buttons were being pressed like crazy until I power-cycled it (definitely not related to the unit picking up an actual IR signal). (That sure isn't fun when you lose all your program guide info... I'm addicted to that guide!)

When I first spoke to a TSR about the slow HD channel changes and the 30 second lockup and the spontaneous re-boot she had not heard about the latter two but suggested I check the power line quality going to my 6208.

I humoured her and have tried different ways to plug it in and even bought an APC EMI filtering power bar to at least eliminate that issue. Unfortunately, it has changed nothing. Although after that Audio Setup suggestion it has come up faster.

Funny thing is that when I set it up to record and HD channel when I'm not there it syncs up immediately and starts recording. When I turn on the 6208 and view directly it doesn't.

After playing some more last night it seems that I have the same problem that others here do. The HD channels are working it just takes some time for them to come up, sometimes upto 3 minutes! The interesting thing is that after the picture comes up you can rewind back the delayed time, so obiviously the unit is receiving and processing the signal it is just refusing to send it to the TV until it's damn good and ready!

I tried the language swap fix it seemed to work the first few times but then it stopped working as well.

I have had the 6208 for 3 weeks and it was working flawlessly until 2 days ago when it locked up and rebooted, my question is if others have just noticed this behaviour just over the last few days, has there been a firmware or software change that caused these problems or have our machines reached the end of their warrenty period? ;)

On the bright side, I have really been enjoying the new STRETCH option for 4:3 material on my 5100. Upconverted SD material looks better, no burn-in risks for my CRT rear-projection unit, it's a pretty good stretch (not TOO much cropping) and I now don't have the delay when switching from an HD channel to an SD channel.

How do you enable the stretch mode? I have a 5100 too and all my upconverted material stays at 14:9 regardless of the TV Type setting. I must be missing something...

When you are watching TV go to the DCT 5100 or 6200 or 6208 and turn off the power by pressing the power button, next press the menu button above the power button. How on your TV screen you will see
TV type pick 16:9
YPbPr pick 1080i
4:3 override pick stretch
Use the 4 up, down, left and right buttons to pick the above settings
When you are finished press the menu button the TV screen will go black the hit power and enjoy

It seems more and more likely that the delay problems some of us are having is due to Shaw implementing 5C copy protection on the HD channels in the last few days.

I recorded an HD program last night, when I went to view it I pressed play and had nothing but a black screen for about 2 minutes then the show came on and preceeded normally. I then stopped and tried to restart, this time the black screen delay was even longer, but again it eventually came on. This is obvisiously not a reception problem, maybe the delay is due to a very poor decryption algorithm, I don't know, but it seems that Shaw may have jumped to gun implementing 5C before their hardware was capable of dealing with it?

I hope the situation improves soon, I'm going to send an email to Shaw suggesting that the 5C implementation is causing problems and see what response I get if any.

Lego