Bell Fibe TV problems and Complaints

[Barb G]

@pshine - I was just watching a recording from 11:00 pm yesterday and saw minor pixelation and then freezing at about 54 minutes in to the program so about 11:54 - 11:55 pm yesterday.

I just called the C.O. and told him about both your occurrence tonight and mine from last night. He says he's going to investigate it and I do believe him as he's the one who called me several times last night to monitor and check up on things.

[pshine]

@Barb G - thanks. It's been fine this evening... maybe I'm starting to see things that aren't there!

[Dr.Dave]

Thanks for the version info Barb. That's the version we just upgraded to, so I'll be keeping a look out for the INFO screen popping up. We're at version 1.6.25314.10.

[ErikBRak1m]

Originally Posted by Barb G

This is my first time posting to a forum so hopefully I won't mess up!

I have had Fibe TV since Aug.3/10 and have had problems since day one.

1) When I watch recorded programs a 'Summary' menu pops up all by itself about 10 minutes into the program. I have to hit the 'Resume Play' option to get rid of the menu. I spoke with a Bell tech and he had me do a soft reboot of the PVR and that didn't help. I called again and they had me do a hard reboot of the PVR and a reboot of the modem as well - this didn't help. After 6 weeks of this happening multiple times every day and rebooting half a dozen times, I asked for a service call. The techs thought it might be the coax cables and so replaced them all and this didn't help. Next service call they replaced the PVR - this didn't help. I still have this problem. Has anybody else had this problem?

2) There is constant audio dropouts. Yesterday, the dropouts were so bad I couldn't watch the programs and am still having the problem today.

3) The picture pixelates or freezes quite frequently but the audio continues.

Every time I call Bell they want me to reboot something and this seems to be a band-aid rather than a fix.

Any help/suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

I just got this installed on Oct. 14, but I can also concur with points 2 & 3. The audio dropouts aren't always there, but they often do occur, including on recorded material. I'm presently watching some racing on TSN, and while the audio on the golf program before it was bad, it hasn't dropped out yet during the racing, and it's on the same station. Weird.

With respect to the freezing, I have found so far that two quick hits on the "LAST" channel button often frees it up again. Still, this is not the level of service we're expecting.

I have not yet had the "summary menu problem" you mentioned, and I dearly hope that I don't. Sounds like typical Bell baffle-gab with respect to the non-solutions. Sometimes it all depends on the "tech" you talk to. I had two discussions years ago regarding High-Speed with Bell techs who gave me completely wrong information and never called me back when they said they would, and then finally on another call after I escalated the matter, the guy fixed it in 5 minutes. Go figure. Then they had the nerve to send me a satisfaction survey. Oops. :P

[Barb G]

Originally Posted by ErikBRak1m

I just got this installed on Oct. 14, but I can also concur with points 2 & 3. The audio dropouts aren't always there, but they often do occur, including on recorded material. I'm presently watching some racing on TSN, and while the audio on the golf program before it was bad, it hasn't dropped out yet during the racing, and it's on the same station. Weird.

With respect to the freezing, I have found so far that two quick hits on the "LAST" channel button often frees it up again. Still, this is not the level of service we're expecting.

I have not yet had the "summary menu problem" you mentioned, and I dearly hope that I don't. Sounds like typical Bell baffle-gab with respect to the non-solutions. Sometimes it all depends on the "tech" you talk to. I had two discussions years ago regarding High-Speed with Bell techs who gave me completely wrong information and never called me back when they said they would, and then finally on another call after I escalated the matter, the guy fixed it in 5 minutes. Go figure. Then they had the nerve to send me a satisfaction survey. Oops. :P

ErikBraK1m: are you also in the Beach? The really bad problems were fixed Oct.14th and so far today I haven't had any problems.

[Barb G]

Dr. Dave, I'm sitting here listening to a 'Galaxie' music channel and I got a summary popup menu:

Watch
Record episode
Record series
More showtimes

Oddly enough when I selected 'Record episode', it did record! I didn't know I could record the music channels.

[ErikBRak1m]

Originally Posted by Barb G

ErikBraK1m: are you also in the Beach? The really bad problems were fixed Oct.14th and so far today I haven't had any problems.

I'm right in the Pape & Danforth area. Not too far from you. I'm still experiencing audio dropouts, but it almost seems to depend more on the program as opposed to the channel. I'm watching the NLCS right now, and everything is hunky-dory, whereas during the pre-game show there was audio drop-out on the same channel, just as there was during the beginning of the ALCS game I was watching on another Sportsnet channel. I am also experiencing the drop-out watching Discovery HD on 1520.

Hopefully this is an issue they will be working on and fixing as they go. I'm very happy with the picture quality, and the freezing hasn't been too bad (see my earlier post), but the audio drop-out is rather annoying. I can tell that there is definite drop-out, too, as I am running the PVR through my home theatre receiver, and I can see the Dolby Digital light flicker every time it cuts out.

[ErikBRak1m]

Originally Posted by Barb G

Dr. Dave, I'm sitting here listening to a 'Galaxie' music channel and I got a summary popup menu:

Watch
Record episode
Record series
More showtimes

Oddly enough when I selected 'Record episode', it did record! I didn't know I could record the music channels.

LOL! I was wondring about recording the music channels, too. I figured you could, but it's nice to have confirmation on that. : )

[secotton]

Interesting - my DD light doesn't flicker - it could be that with it being such a quick dropout (split second), the receiver doesn't loose the connection completely. It might also depend on the audio processor / receiver. I've got the Denon 890.

I'll be calling Bell about this soon - but I just fear all the troubleshooting they'll put me though and want to send out a tech, etc, etc...when it seems to be a more widespread issue that is probably an issue on their side more than anything else.

It's interesting because I've read many threads about the AT&T U-Verse guys seeing this audio dropout issue with no avail - I think the fix for some was to replace the IPTV box with a new Cisco one they started rolling out down south.

@ Dr. Dave - anyone on MTS have audio dropout issues at all?

I wonder if an update to Microsoft Media Room client software would alleviate these issues?

One thing I do need to say - I can live with the audio dropouts for now - i really love the service as a whole, and not having to deal with Rogers is a big plus.

I'm just waiting for the 'special offer' from Bell since I've been using the service for about a year now - since it was in 'trial' phase. I'm still on the 'trial' pricing so not much for me to complain about.

[secotton]

Originally Posted by ErikBRak1m

LOL! I was wondring about recording the music channels, too. I figured you could, but it's nice to have confirmation on that. : )

I think you can record almost everything with the exception of the On Demand channels.

[ErikBRak1m]

Originally Posted by secotton

Interesting - my DD light doesn't flicker - it could be that with it being such a quick dropout (split second), the receiver doesn't loose the connection completely. It might also depend on the audio processor / receiver. I've got the Denon 890.

I'll be calling Bell about this soon - but I just fear all the troubleshooting they'll put me though and want to send out a tech, etc, etc...when it seems to be a more widespread issue that is probably an issue on their side more than anything else.

It's interesting because I've read many threads about the AT&T U-Verse guys seeing this audio dropout issue with no avail - I think the fix for some was to replace the IPTV box with a new Cisco one they started rolling out down south.

@ Dr. Dave - anyone on MTS have audio dropout issues at all?

I wonder if an update to Microsoft Media Room client software would alleviate these issues?

One thing I do need to say - I can live with the audio dropouts for now - i really love the service as a whole, and not having to deal with Rogers is a big plus.

I'm just waiting for the 'special offer' from Bell since I've been using the service for about a year now - since it was in 'trial' phase. I'm still on the 'trial' pricing so not much for me to complain about.

I'm happy with the service thus far, too, but as you're saying, this seems to be widespread, and it seems to be Bell's issue, not ours. I just bought this PVR at the beginning, too, so I hope it's not "pooched" already.

[ErikBRak1m]

Originally Posted by secotton

I have some of the issues also listed here:

1) Audio dropouts. I find I can alleviate this issue by rewinding a program by about 20 - 30 seconds, but it doesn't always work. This makes me beleive it's an issue with the box itself. Apparently, the ATT Uverse users have talked to great extent about this sort of issue

2) Summary menu poping up. This only seems to happen when wathing some recordings - and usually near the end.

I'm in the Don Mills / Eglington area by the way - so not sure which CO I'm connected to.

As per 1) I also tried the "rewind" thing, and it seems to more or less work, although not in all cases. Also, and this is really weird, I recorded an episode of Top Gear from BBC Canada, and there are "drop-outs" all through it. I also recorded the ALCS game yesterday, during which the audio drop-outs were constant when I watched the beginning of it, but here's what's weird: When I start watching that "recording," there don't seem to be any drop-outs!!! Ok, now I'm completely confused! Will try and watch the whole game later and see if it "drops out" again, but this is definitely a strange problem.

[Dr.Dave]

Originally Posted by secotton

@ Dr. Dave - anyone on MTS have audio dropout issues at all?

I haven't heard of anything serious. There have been a few cases with people having problems with audio pops or dropouts switching from 5.1 to stereo during commercials. In some cases, the problems were resolved by replacing an old audio receiver with a modern one, changing from HDMI to optical audio or analog (red/white RCA connectors) or changing the settings on the STB from "Surround sound" to Stereo.

[Dr.Dave]

I think I can confirm that this is a bug in version 1.6.25314 of Mediaroom. MTS recently switched to the same version of Mediaroom as Bell. Since then I've seen the INFO screen pop up 2 or 3 times over the weekend. I never had the problem with the previous version which I had since installation in January. The INFO screen or "summary" screen is the screen you get when you press the INFO button on the remote.

So far I've only seen this on recorded programs, but that's not surprising since less than 10% of my viewing is "live" TV. The last time this happened I tried to recreate the problem by rewinding the program about a minute and watching that segment again, but the INFO screen didn't pop up the second time. So it's more complicated than just a byte sequence in the data stream that is causing the popup.

[ErikBRak1m]

Originally Posted by Dr.Dave

I haven't heard of anything serious. There have been a few cases with people having problems with audio pops or dropouts switching from 5.1 to stereo during commercials. In some cases, the problems were resolved by replacing an old audio receiver with a modern one, changing from HDMI to optical audio or analog (red/white RCA connectors) or changing the settings on the STB from "Surround sound" to Stereo.

When I was talking to the Bell Tech last night, he said there have been some problems reported when people use HDMI and the set top box. I may consider switching the audio to "Optical Out," as that may solve the problem (the Tech thought so, too). I was also told that some "station/program feeds" are not necessarily 100% compatible with FibeTV, hence the audio drop-outs, and hence why I was experiencing a problem with one program and not another, even though they were on the same station.

This will take some fiddling, it looks like, to get to the bottom of it. Fortunately, I do happen to have an optical cable lying around somewhere. Since the best the audio can be is Dolby Digital anyway, there's nothing to be really lost by going to optical instead of HDMI for the audio. Hopefully the option to send it via optical and override the HDMI output (for audio) is there. I don't really want to hook-up component cables for the video as well unless I absolutely have to.

It was also suggested that a future update (firmware) may solve the problem as well. I would prefer that solution. One has to wonder sometimes if they ever actually test updates before they release them to the customers.