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CBLT CBC Toronto OTA Stuttering, Pixellation - May/June 2012

34K views 102 replies 29 participants last post by  dheian 
#1 ·
I have an ongoing problem that has been present though most of the hockey playoffs. While watching ota in Toronto on a Samsung LCD the game live is fine but as soon as it goes to commercial they studder and stop. Back to the live game and everything is fine. It also happens on replays although not as much. This doesn't seem to happen on my Sony set and doesn't happen on either set if I watch the game on Bell Tv. Anybody experiencing the same thing and if so what could be causing it? This only started in the playoffs. I haven't watched anything else on CBC so I don't know if it happens on other shows or not.
 
#2 ·
I've experienced exactly the same thing. Live action seems fine but everything else (commercials, replays, etc.) stutters. This began somewhere around the 2nd round of the playoffs, prior to that no problems. I figured CBC must have changed something technically that my tuner couldn't handle as it's fairly old (4th generation). But now that others seem to be having the same problem with likely newer equipment maybe there is something more to this.
 
#3 ·
Yeah, it sounds like it's affecting some tuners and not others. My 47" Vizio TV has a pixellation problem, but my Dynex TV up in my bedroom, which is at least 5 years old, does not, and neither does my 750Q tuner card. I have no idea what causes it. It started right around playoff time.
 
#4 ·
I've been noticing this issue during the CBC Kids shows in the morning. The video pixelates and stutters but the audio never drops. I thought it was some tropo or signal issues, but it is happening almost every day.

I tuned into the hockey game tonight to see if I could see what others were reporting. Sure enough, the live game is mostly fine, some of the replays stutter and pixelate as do some of the commercials. This is on an older 32" Samsung. I will have to check on my other TV's and try with my HD Homerun.

I don't recall exactly when this started, but it has been a while now.
 
#5 ·
NHL on CBC-CBLT

It seems it's every 10 seconds on or so that the picture stutters on CBLT- not good for viewing.

I'll be switching to NBC when games are carried even though the play-by-play announcer is a little over-the-top.
 
#6 ·
I checked again this morning with Animal Mechanicals which always has this problem. It seems that of my actual TV's, I only have the issue on my Samsung LN32A450 which is the oldest set. My Samsung LN46D460 and LG 26LV2500 are completely fine. I'm going to record for a while with my HD HomeRun with MythTV and see what happens.
 
#8 ·
I'm reading, but I have no light to shed.

At home, I'm on cable. I can switch to OTA when necessary but it's not my first choice.

At work I've had OTA on all day yesterday and so far today. It has been solid with a rooftop antenna.
I came across one TV in the building was blocky, but repositioning the set top antenna fixed that.
I discussed this thread with one of our transmitter gurus yesterday. We couldn't come up with a theory that fits the symptoms described here.
 
#9 ·
I noticed this phenomenon last night during George Stroumboulopoulos. There was a segment where Sean Cullen was talking about history. Whenever the picture was on Sean Cullen's face the picture was flickering and pixellating. But whenever the picture went to the historical images the reception was fine.

Also noteworthy is that the sound was not affected. I could hear Sean Cullen's speaking just fine even when the picture was acting up.

I was watching on a 32' Dynex LCD that is about two-years old.

Marc, please keep on thinking this through. I may have seen this before but I may have thought it was overload. Last night was the first time I spotted the pattern of only some pictures fluttering and others working just fine. And the sound being fine the whole time. It definitely wasn't overload.

I have a second antenna on my roof. An unamplified ClearStream2v. I'll hook it up to a single TV, record my observations and report back.
 
#10 ·
The symptoms of HWP's experience replicate mine exactly during the hockey games. Some commercials pixellate pretty badly, as does the HNIC intro theme video at the top of the hour. I didn't watch George Strombohoweveryouspellit's show.

I did notice two weekends ago, when CBC was playing a movie (Million Dollar Baby, I think) late on Saturday night, the pixellation was unbearable to watch, but there was absolutely nothing wrong with the audio. I went upstairs to my Dynex, which is about 4 or 5 years old, and there was not a problem with picture or sound.

Again, when I plug the cable into my 950Q tuner (using the same cable as my TV with the pixellation issues), the picture and audio are just fine as well. I'm tempted just to plug an HDMI cable into my TV and project it that way.
 
#12 ·
I switched the same Dynex TV to the unamplified cs2v antenna without any splits.

I put on the six oclock news.

The same flickering ocurred during the 5:45 commercial break for the Casino Rama ad and the Amex ad, but not the Nova Scotia and Luminato ad. And at 5:55 on the nuttella ad.

The news itself was fine for the few minutes I watched it.
 
#13 ·
I would tend to agree with tvlurker and it sounds like the mpeg decoder doesn't like the way they are encoded. Why it affects commercials primarily is a mystery though. Could it somehow be related to programming that isn't live?
 
#14 ·
Unwatchable tonight. Tried to watch Doc Zone. Stuttering and breaking up every few seconds. Hopefully we can resolve this problem. Everything was fine until a month ago. Something has changed. Not an antenna issue as this is, and has always been, my strongest signal at 100% on strength meter.
 
#15 ·
The stuttering problem has been constant on every program I have checked out on CBC since last night. Usually only on ads and also on "transition graphics" within a show. For example on the Six O'Clock News, there is a graphic used as they go from ads back to the anchors...it is a stylized "TORONTO." That image is also subject to the stuttering. When I woke-up this morning, it was still happening on the Morning News.

It is distracting and bothersome.

This problem is only on the CBC channel. I don't have any of this type of flickering on any of my other channels.
 
#16 ·
TSReader Details

I went through all of my channels this morning and compiled a list of the "descriptors" for the HD video portion of the streams. The only 720p channels I receive are CBC and SRC, all of the others are 1080i. There are a number of extra flags being picked up for CBC that aren't there for other channels. I have no idea if any of those would cause the issue.

CBC:

Elementary Stream PID 49 (0x0031) MPEG-2 Video
MPEG Video: Bitrate 15.000 Mbps Resolution 1280 x 720p
MPEG Video: Framerate 59.94 fps Aspect Ratio 16:9 Chroma Format 4:2:0
Descriptor: Video Stream Descriptor
Multiple frame rate flag: False
Frame rate: 59.94¼
MPEG-1 only flag: False
Constrained paramter flag: True
Still picture flag: False

SRC:

Elementary Stream PID 49 (0x0031) MPEG-2 Video
MPEG Video: Bitrate 14.000 Mbps Resolution 1280 x 720p
MPEG Video: Framerate 59.94 fps Aspect Ratio 16:9 Chroma Format 4:2:0
Descriptor: Data Stream Alignment Descriptor
Alignment type: video access unit
 
#18 ·
I'm glad I read about these issues with CBC occurring on some tuners and not others.

I picked up a Hauppauge WinTV aero-m a while back, and it's an awesome little USB tuner. Unfortunately it malfunctioned somehow and I had to send it back to Hauppauge for service. When it came back, I re-installed it and assumed everything was OK until I was watching CBC one night, and I noticed all the stuttering. Being lazy, I figured the repairs left me with a tuner which wasn't as good as the one I sent in originally, but thanks to this thread, I can see I'm going to have to do a little more checking!
 
#24 ·
I picked up a Hauppauge WinTV aero-m a while back... I re-installed it and assumed everything was OK until I was watching CBC one night, and I noticed all the stuttering.
I have the same hauppauge aero m tuner here in Buffalo and I don't see any issues whatsoever on CBLT. Perhaps you have some codec misconfiguration, etc.? Plenty of other dependencies / variables when using a PC based tuner.

edit: Looking at the signal stream in tsreader during tonites game I see the video bitrate is ~ > 15 Mbps.
Same as it was on March 31 2012, so nothing has changed in that regard.
 
#22 ·
I don't think it's a local Toronto issue at all because I have also noticed this odd video hiccup on CBC commercials too,.. [though I honestly don't watch much CBC content] My Samsung TVs [ my 2 Samsungs are about 1 year old now] seem to be decoding CBC fine, but the cm7000 [cm7000 D2A model is about 4 years old] shows a few video problems when I view CBC for any length of time.

There seems to be some sort of incompatible encoding/decoding issues that began [according to several posts in this forum] about 6 weeks ago with CBC,... and as others have noted,... NO OTHER channels show these kinds of odd behavior,.. so I'd step out on the limb and say that it's not just a seasonal issue or a pre-amp/TVtuner overloading issue.

Never had these video decoding problems prior to these recent reports so it's pretty certain that CBC has changed something that has left certain older tuners hanging near the edge of doom:mad:
 
#27 ·
roger1818.

My CBC is coming from Toronto also. I believe that what I've read so far in other posts is that the video hiccup issues are all coming from CBC's Toronto CNtower,.. but it is not just limited to being a Toronto area reception issue,. it's an issue that also involves all those other general outlying areas that receive the CBC Toronto signal, which would be outside of the 'Toronto reception' thread discussion area.
 
#28 ·
CBC Toronto

My CBC reception has always been perfect here in North York, approx. 12 km. from the CN Tower, The signal is coming from directly to the south,and has to pass through one concrete wall (the apartment unit beside mine), before it reaches my indoor-mounted CM 4221 clone antennas, so perhaps the attenuation level is ideal. I have a 2011 model Panasonic plasma 46 inch TV. It could be it has a very efficient ATSC tuner as well.
 
#29 ·
I was watching "Best Recipies Ever" on Sunday from 9:30-10 am. The show was fine, no stuttering. During every commercial break the stuttering started again. The only one that didn't have any stutters was a general CBC promo video. It was similar with Coronation Street when I spot checked that a couple of times.

It really reminds me of errors seen when bitrates are too high for the device and you get pixelation and stutter when the video is getting dropped.
 
#30 ·
Marc at CBC, more trouble.

The stuttering continues. I noticed it on both my Dynex and my Vizo, but not my Panasonic (at least not yet - I have not watched for it).

I have noticed that it is not just during ads and transition graphics - it is also during movies. Movies are uwatchable.

Please acknowledge the existence of this problem.

I will lend you a TV if needed.
 
#31 ·
I am not really certain what you expect to see. The bottom line is a certain number of us have stuttering and video drops on non live parts of the broadcast. Will seeing this give you any more information as to what is going on? I think the descriptions are pretty clear. CBC changed something. For some reason they can't, or won't say what it is and probably don't know why it affects certain tuners the way it does.
 
#32 ·
I am watching the Kings-Devils game on CBC right now. I originally just ran it to my TV and got the same pixellation problems I normally get. So for fun, I took my coax, plugged it into my PC tuner and then ran an HDMI cable into my Vizio TV (my pixellation problem child). There is no problem with the picture at all. If there was any doubt, there isn't anymore. Some tuners aren't playing nicely with CBC's encoding.
 
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