Dropped audio and then no FF

[couchpotatoe]

Besides the horrible MC audio problems on my 6416 I have been having a few other audio issues with recordings. And so far seems to be with HD only, not on the MCHD channel this time. This is worse than out of sync audio....I will loose audio for up to several minutes, at first I thought it is just the broadcast as it would go off for 10 seconds so I just sat and waited till the sound came back. When it became a minute or more I just started to FF, but it wouldn't! I pressed it so it was FF3 FF4 and I was watching the picture continue to play as normal, without audio. The last program I watched on Detroit Public broadcast channel in HD lost audio in a program half way through, after 10 minutes of no audio and can't FF to a good part of the show, I gave up!

Has this happened to anyone else? I am wondering if its my 6416 or Shaw.

When the above audio problem happens I can stop the recording and then start it and no change, its still silent until it decides to come back. Yet there is immediate audio on Tv when I stop the recording, so its not the TV acting up. Thanks.

[steve4005]

I'm having similar problems with increasing frequency. Last night I was playing back a recording and noticed the picture would freeze or advance very slow - no audio. The FF 1, 2 etc advances the frames very slowly if at all. This has happened a couple of times with the FF but the first time I noticed the playback either freezing or advancing slowly with pixalations on the screen.

The only way I could fix this was for me to turn the 6416 off and unplug it from the back for a few minutes then plug it back in but I don't want to keep doing this as a temporary fix?

Wondering if others have had similar problems before I call Shaw.

Regards,

Steve

[bogentu]

Exactly the same thing happened to me last nite...no FF or Rewind, but 30 sec skip and 15 sec Replay worked, although it was a bit slower than usual to respond. Backed up a hockey game an hour...15 seconds at a time

[Kurgan]

It happens to me all the time. I typically have to exit the recording, switch the channel on Live TV and then go back into the recording to get the audio back up and running. Definately a issue with the PVR.

Lately I have had audio/visual issues with 90% of the HD recordings. I watched 24, and 2 episodes of American Idol last night and had dropped audio and broken video over 10 second intervals a couple of time per hour long show. Not sure if it's a PVR issue or just a crappy HD feed from Shaw.

If it keeps happening I am going to try to get the box replaced.

[flyte]

Do you have a firewire cable plugged into it? If so, remove it and reset the box. I had plenty of FF/RW problems with my firewire cable plugged in.

[couchpotatoe]

Nope....no firewire cable used.
Its just connected to TV via HDMI.
Its excellent other than that dropped audio once in a while, and I know when it will do it. I can guarantee to be able to recreate it and make it happen over and over again as I see a recording end or start in the back ground, as soon as I pause or FF I will get the audio drop when I Play, every time a recording has started or stopped in the background.
Since I know its a known issue I just live with it. Don't know how some others are lucky to not see this problem when recording one show and watching another...lucky! Are they on Component rather than HDMI? I wonder if that matters?
I have no issues with freezing picture or slow FF like steve4005 mentioned.
When ever I read about the dropped audio I have never seen any mention of freezing or slow FF along with that. Sorry. My old 6412 PhIII used to do the whole nine yards of troubles when ever it pleased. I had 4 of those in a month, now my new 6416 is excellent for about 5 months and has never had any issues except the dropped audio issue.

[steve4005]

Yes I do have a firewire attached however the freezing and audio loss happened before the firewire (maybe not as much??)
I've been trying to narrow down when my problems happen - I can tell something is going to go wrong when my fastfoward/rewind advances the picture one frame at a time if at all
It seems after I download my recorded pgm file to my laptop that the freezing/and or loss of audio problem occurs?
I'm using component cables as my Toshiba has only 1 HDMI port which I have my DVD player attached to it.

Thanks everyone for your comments and input.

Steve

[couchpotatoe]

You know on second thoughts I think I know what you were saying steve4005. I forgot about something...
About two weeks ago I had similar freezing during FF for a couple days, but it was only on one HD channel the PBS East (CH308 WTVSD) and only during one program I recorded a couple of times for two days, which was History Detectives. It'd get half way and then get a long few minutes of silence and can't FF. It had been having audio blank spots for split seconds on and off all the way through up to the time it went silent for ages, then I couldn't get it to FF, or if it did the odd time it sort of FF one frame and froze again, but I could let it play ok with no audio until it came back. It seemed that if there was more than a split second or two of silence and be a minute of silence, that would cause the freeze during FF somehow.
Anyway, I blamed the broadcast and never happened again. I never rebooted or anything. It wasn't like the PVR had locked up or frozen solid.

And this few seconds of no audio was nothing like the well known audio dropped after FF issue. I had nothing going on at the same time.

[Snakebyte]

I've been getting the 3-4 second audio dropouts. So far, as far as I can tell, I am only getting the dropouts on FoxHD in my recordings. I only record in HD. I'm just starting to track what and where this occurs. Has anyone narrowed down if this is channel specific? HD specific? PVR specific?

I read the one post about second recordings starting and stopping creating dropouts in a recording currently in progress. Does this seem to be a trend?

I'm using the 6412 P3. Thanks.

[spitoon]

I'm pretty sure I've been experiencing these drop outs with more frequency lately...it makes me a bit nervous because I returned my first 6412 P3 due to really bad audio drop out problems...like once a minute for 1-2 seconds at a time. It's nowhere near that bad yet, I hope it's the signal and not the box.

[Snakebyte]

Ok, I got a couple more dropouts last night. All 3-4 seconds in length. In recordings. One on CBS HD, and one on NBC HD. No other recordings in progress.

So far I've tracked that these happen all over the place with no ryhme or reason. So far only on HD (although I don't watch enough SD to have an idea) and regardless of live or playback.

Any thoughts? Hardware or broadcast issue? Thanks.

[hedge]

I'm also getting this on my 6412III. Sometimes the audo will come back by just using the skip-back on the remote. I was getting it bad on Lost last week (I believe that's on ABC) but I have also had it on NBC (during CSI). Last night I was even havin the problem on TSN (non-hd, channel 21 in calgary).

This seems to be different than the old audo drop problem where you had to click prev-prev to fix.

I'm having this problem with 'live' tv and recordings... although with a pvr I'm not sure there's really a difference.

[mgabriel]

Hi

I just wanted to post about this issue as myself and two friends are also experiencing audio dropouts on HD channels only.

I've complained several times to Shaw regarding the problems. They sent out a tech, who checked everything he could and he also swapped out my existing 6412 Phase III for a new 6412 Phase III and the drop-outs continue. The signal strength coming into the house is excellent (confirmed by the tech), so it's not a weak signal.

The tech support I spoke to at Shaw over the phone said he doubts it is signal strength, but sent the tech anyways. He informed me that it is an issue with all Motorola HD boxes. I asked if they had any idea when a possible fix or resolution would be available, but he could not provide one and indicated that they're "at the mercy" of Motorola to find a solution.

Don't accept audio dropouts, please complain to Shaw. Hopefully the more people that complain the sooner we might see a fix for the problem.

It's really irritating when the drop-out happens on an important piece of dialog or punch-line

I haven't noticed drop-outs on DiscoveryHD, but have on Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, and CTV (HD stations). (Added ABC, forgot about that station)

I neglected to mention that drop-outs occur while watching "live" and recordings. Doing the rewind and play again doesn't always bring back the audio.

Mark

[couchpotatoe]

Remember though, theres two different audio dropouts happening. Theres the one that you guarantee to drop audio if a background recording ends or starts whilst you watch another recording and then you FF or Pause it.
Then theres the ones you guys mention where audio disapears for a few seconds and comes back on its own. I have also had that. I don't know if its hardware or broadcaster related.

[Snakebyte]

Yes, I'm definitely trying to differentiate between the two problems. I'm experiencing the short dropouts that don't seem to be related to anything. I'm very curious to know how widespread this problem is.