# L282 didn't do it, so now what?



## srrobinson2 (Sep 16, 2003)

One day in early August, I got rid of my trouble plagued 921 and replaced it with a 942. I was one of the original 921 owners, so I paid $1000 for mine and lived with the pain for about 18 months. Finally, enough was enough, and I moved up to the 942. I was very very happy for about two months, then L280 was released and life with the 942 suddenly mirrored life with my 921--it sucked!

L281 came along--no improvements of any kind. L282 finally arrived this week, and no improvements (for me at least).

My audio still drops out 7 or 8 times during a 1 hour show, and I still don't have all of my OTA guide information.

I do appreciate the new guys helping out due to Mark's busy work schedule, but I have to ask if this site is effective now? It seems that people complain and post problems, but there is never any real information, nor any visible progress of remediation by Dish. 

I've monitored this site for two years and posted regularly when I had issues or could help someone out, but it truly seems to be a waste of time these days.

Are there any alternatives?


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## MikeW (May 16, 2002)

www.satelliteguys.us is another forum for Dish users.

As to the frustration of Dish products in general, I plan on waiting until DirecTV develops their networked receivers. Once a home media type option is available, there will be 5 more dish network receivers on E-Bay.

www.directv.com


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## voripteth (Oct 25, 2005)

I've been in contact with a Dish engineer and we'll be working together to get the audio problem in L282 fixed. He was quite surprised that there was still a bug there. My guess is we found a separate but related bug.

I'm not ready to give up yet. Hang in there for a bit more.

P.S. The engineer contacted me based on my post on this site, not the other one.


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## JM Anthony (Nov 16, 2003)

The answer to your question is sit tight and wait. I travelled the same path you did and moved to a 942 about the same time for the same reasons. I'm much happier with the 942 and will be even more so with a few more fixes. What seems crazy to me is that my OTA reception seems worse with the 942. I live in Seattle, land of multipath, and am waiting for relief in that area.

John


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## asarhan (Jul 29, 2005)

I'm really surprised you guys are still seeing audio drop-outs. I have my 942 connected via optical out like you, and I haven't had problems with audio drop-outs with L282. What receivers are you guys connected? Perhaps it is a problem with particular receivers. Have you tried the analog out by any chance?


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## joebird (Sep 15, 2003)

I was MUCH happier with my 942 vs. my 921 (which I still have) at first. Lately, I've had a few 942 issues that are starting to get old:

1) first/single press of the rewind trick play button more often than not does not function correctly. The screen graphics would indicate that it's rewinding at the slowest speed, but the picture is in freeze-frame. This one has been around for a while, actually...I can't believe I'm the only one with this problem, and/or that they have not fixed it.

2) stuck picture when using trick play features. Maybe I'm just hitting the buttons too fast, but fairly often I will have a frozen picture, even though the audio continues to function correctly. If I change channels, I get a few frames to move, then the video freezes again while the audio continues. A power-button reset is the only thing I can do to recover.

3) Audio/video out of sync still. Mostly on Voom channels, but I've had it happen on OTA channels as well.

4) lately there is a LOT of pixelization, often on the right end/side of the video lines. It's like the MPEG2 decoder has constant problems, and the recovery mechanism is not pretty. 

5) Just last night, I was fast-forwarding through a pre-recorded SD show off of my local Fox Sports channel. Normally there is some sense of smooth video when fast forwarding. All I saw was an incoherent jumble of macroblocks, no matter what speed I chose to fast forward with. Did they cut down on the number of I-frames, or what? The video did sync back up when I went back to Play vs. FF.


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## lakebum431 (Jun 30, 2005)

Joe -
Are all of these problems still present after the 282 download?


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

Alternatives srrobinson2?

The problems you mention are very extreme sounding. I got my 921 about 3 days before you, and sold it 6 months ago w/o looking back. For the most part, I've been happier with the 942. The only thing I can't do with it, that the 921 could do is change the channel in the guide preview window. Not a big deal.

Have you considered that L280 might have been more of a coincidence that happened at the same time your 942 went berzerk? 

As an alternative, you could call dish and tell them that your audio goes out 7 or 8 times per hour, and that you want them to swap it out with a working model.

I suspect that if you got another one, you might not have these problems....

Just an alternative suggestion, which you can try or ignore....


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## cebbigh (Feb 27, 2005)

Since L282 I have had none of the major glitches that I was having all the time with L280/281. From the sound of it, some are doing better and some not. It would be interesting to find out what the percentages are between those that L282 helped/didn't help. There has got to be something going on that makes for mixed results.


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## srrobinson2 (Sep 16, 2003)

asarhan said:


> I'm really surprised you guys are still seeing audio drop-outs. I have my 942 connected via optical out like you, and I haven't had problems with audio drop-outs with L282. What receivers are you guys connected? Perhaps it is a problem with particular receivers. Have you tried the analog out by any chance?


I have a high-end JVC receiver that also has my DVD player and Xbox hooked up via toslink. They don't have any problems, and my 942 works perfectly until L280. I have not switched to analog because I want DD sound.

As for a defective 942, I can certainly call and have them ship me another one, but they will charge me the s/h fee for doing it, and there is no guarantee that the new one will be any better. I certainly don't think it is a coincidence that these problems started as soon as L280 was rolled out.


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## zephyr (Jun 25, 2005)

srrobinson2, I notice a difference in our software versions (I have L282MAJD-N). Does that E vs. J mean anything? I cannot comment on audio problems, because I mostly listen through TV. When I use 5.1 for movies or concerts, I have not had any problem.

This goes back to cebbigh's earlier post: what is causing such a difference in outcomes between users?


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## joebird (Sep 15, 2003)

lakebum -- as far as I can tell, yes. A CSR verified #2, and I've only seen #5 once, but it was really ugly.


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## Bichon (Jun 5, 2003)

zephyr said:


> srrobinson2, I notice a difference in our software versions (I have L282MAJD-N). Does that E vs. J mean anything? I cannot comment on audio problems, because I mostly listen through TV. When I use 5.1 for movies or concerts, I have not had any problem.


I'm not positive, but I believe it may correspond to different hardware versions.

I noticed that when my 6000 went on the fritz and was replaced by Dish Network, the new one had (and in future, continued to pull) software with a different suffix than my original one.


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## SteveinDanville (Jun 26, 2002)

After L282, my picture is dramatically worse. The old right-side pixelating is now widespread through the center of the scene. Even watching college football yesterday when a player would just be walking back to the huddle slowly, a wide swath of pixelated blocks would follow him. After an hour on the phone with a Dish Advanced Tech Rep, we found that one tuner is worse than the other (she says that there is no way to know which tuner it is, which is interesting in itself), and that if you have used both HDMI and component cables connected to your TV, that is putting an excessive load on the 942 that will affect the picture quality. The reason I had both hooked up was because after L281, I wanted to see if the purely digital HDMI feed might be the problem with pixelation on the right side of the screen, so I bought good Monster THX cables and hooked them up so that I could perform back-to-back viewing of picture quality. Pixelation problem was the same, but I also found that I got somewhat richer colors from the component cables. I was never advised by Dish to then disconnect one or the other, so even though I just left the input on HDMI to my plasma, I was never told to disconnect the redundant cabling. As of last night, I am now running component cables only, with the HDMI cable safely in a drawer. An Engineering person is supposed to call me within 48 hours, but frankly, the last time I was told this, on Oct. 29th, nobody ever called. My audio issues appear resolved, but I honestly haven't tried to recreate the environment that caused the wrong audio or no audio issues. Too much bad juju on that front... Finally, we disconnected and reconnected the Sat. 1 and 2 RF feeds, and the picture quality improved. She said that static electricity can build up and affect the picture quality. My system is grounded, but she said it can happen anyway. Re: skipped timers, I'll find out tonight, as I have three shows in a row on HBOHD set to run, plus the NBC 80's SNL special. Last week at the same time, the 2nd tuner did not fire a timer to watch 60 Minutes; got home to no 60 Minutes recorded (was Howard Stern interviewed by Ed Bradley last Sunday? Just wondering...). So, I'll know a lot more tomorrow.


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## zephyr (Jun 25, 2005)

My observation/hypothesis on the pixellation is that it occurs when reception is marginal.

I only have the problem on one OTA digital channel, which has always been the problem reception channel. It's as if a small disruption in signal causes a chain reaction of tearing up the screen. And yes it is much worse since L282.

For satellite, I believe the 942 is much more sensitive to a slightly mis-aimed dish than other receivers. I was having pixellation problems months ago on satellite HD. I tweaked the dish aim ever so slightly to get the highest possible signal strength and have not had a problem with a satellite channel since.
Just a hypothesis.....

Oh, and I had HDMI and component connected simultaneously for quite a while under 281 and previous to do an A/B comparison. I did not notice any impact on pixellation.


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

SteveinDanville said:


> After an hour on the phone with a Dish Advanced Tech Rep, we found that one tuner is worse than the other (she says that there is no way to know which tuner it is, which is interesting in itself), and that if you have used both HDMI and component cables connected to your TV, that is putting an excessive load on the 942 that will affect the picture quality. I was never advised by Dish to then disconnect one or the other, so even though I just left the input on HDMI to my plasma, I was never told to disconnect the redundant cabling. As of last night, I am now running component cables only, with the HDMI cable safely in a drawer.


How is the pixellation now that you disconnected the Component? I have been switching to 480p output to eliminated the pixellation. I also have both Component and HDMI hooked up, so if pulling one works, I would rather do that.


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## Moridin (Mar 22, 2005)

I have only HDMI connected, and I see horrible pixellation.


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## SteveinDanville (Jun 26, 2002)

LtMunst said:


> How is the pixellation now that you disconnected the Component? I have been switching to 480p output to eliminated the pixellation. I also have both Component and HDMI hooked up, so if pulling one works, I would rather do that.


I am running component cables only and the pixelation is still bad. I'm now seeing frozen video/audio and audio gaps, along with a sort of "stuttering" picture in HD that looks like a bad streaming video on a computer. My experience is getting worse with every update. And I cannot imagine resorting to running my plasma on a 480p format!


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

SteveinDanville said:


> And I cannot imagine resorting to running my plasma on a 480p format!


I only do this for SD programs which is where I have most of my pixellation problems. This resolution does not harm SD PQ. This way your TV will upscale the signal instead of the 942.


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## joebird (Sep 15, 2003)

I'm not sure how having component and HDMI both connected can affect the picture, or increase the load (so to speak) on the box. I would assume that these two types of signals are driven by different ICs in the box. If they haven't engineered the power supply well enough to supply current to both chips, that's pretty scary.

I'm not buying that argument. I think it's either over-compression, low signal strength (i.e. taxing the error correction) or something along those lines.

Then again, I'm not sure I've seen it with my 921 (I watch the 942 much more often).


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

My money is on the scaler as the problem.


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## voripteth (Oct 25, 2005)

asarhan said:


> I'm really surprised you guys are still seeing audio drop-outs. I have my 942 connected via optical out like you, and I haven't had problems with audio drop-outs with L282. What receivers are you guys connected? Perhaps it is a problem with particular receivers. Have you tried the analog out by any chance?


The audio drop-out problem happens on Component, Optical and HDMI outputs. It happens on live or recorded material. Pre-282 it could be easily reproduced. Now it is more random but still happens. Reboot does not always restore the sound which actually makes the bug worse than pre-282.


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## Jon Spackman (Feb 7, 2005)

There is no such thing as "live" shows on a 942. Everything is through the hard drive then viewed.


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## Bichon (Jun 5, 2003)

j5races said:


> There is no such thing as "live" shows on a 942. Everything is through the hard drive then viewed.


Just to pick nits, there is such a thing. The analog OTA channels are shown live and never recorded to the hard drive. (Ain't I a stinker?  )


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## Jon Spackman (Feb 7, 2005)

Ok, right. I forgot about analog OTA (who watches that anyway). 

Otherwise analog aside, If you watch it on the 942 it has been through the hard drive before you see it.


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## SteveinDanville (Jun 26, 2002)

j5races said:


> Ok, right. I forgot about analog OTA (who watches that anyway). QUOTE]
> 
> My basic analog cable through my 942 looks so much better than the over-compressed signal I get from the satellite that I'm going to get a DVD recorder with a HDD and a tuner so that I can start time-shifting my basic cable and get some good quality viewing again. THAT'S who watches OTA! I interpret OTA and basic cable analog as one and the same.


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