# VIP 622 DVR problems...



## TredH20 (Jan 9, 2007)

Hello -

I am having an issue with programs that I have DVR'd in HD. A certain points throughout the playback, the screen will pixelate with green pixels and freeze up and stutter. The audio plays back with no issues. It usually on last for a few seconds and then the video fixes itself. But last night, I tried watching the episode of Lost that I recorded from the night before - and the problem lasted a good minute to a minute and a half. Skipping back or fast forwarding doesn't help at all. This problem seems to only happen with HD programming - I notice it on the episodes of Planet Earth I have been recording all of the time. I never have this issue while watching live HD programming. 

Is this a known issue with the 622? Is my 622 about to die? Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks ahead of time!

Chris


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## rkklinke (Feb 25, 2005)

Anytime I have had problems with the dvr, the best solution I have found was to erase everything on it. I know it sucks but watch what you want and then kill everything all at once. Just my 2 cents.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Hard to determine TredH20. I have seen some breakup on Planet Earth also. Not sure if it is the 622 or stream related. As for lost? Hard to say.. Was it OTA or Dish HD locals. 

How often are you seeing the issue. Are you seeing it on all HD or just occasionally. Might want to check your transponder strength also. See EKB link above for channel to transponder mapping..

My guess would be your 622 is not failing but without more details in terms of frequency it would be hard to come to any conclusions. The other thing to make sure is heat? some people have added Laptop coolers and have seen increased reliability in their streams.


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## TredH20 (Jan 9, 2007)

Thanks for getting back to me,

Well it seems to only occur with the HD programs that I record - and it seems to be with every program I record, though to varying degrees. Sometimes the video breakup only lasts a second or two, and other times it lasts for over a minute. 

The satellites that I have HD on are 110 and 61.5 - and they have transponder strengths in the mid to high 90's. I never notice problems when watching HD live - only when it is DVR'd. I do not have OTA HD. 

I will give a shot at deleting some of the recorded programs - though I would say that I have less than 10% capacity saved on the hard drive. I am usually pretty good at deleting programs. 

I will also look into a cooling mat - newegg.com has some pretty good deals it looks.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

If you only have less than 10% capacity, I don't think you need to delete any more.. I always run with about 3 to 5 hours of capacity left so I doubt that is your issue... Interesting it is only recorded content.. If it was stream related you would see this on both your live and recorded content. If you information is accurate, I would rule out stream strength and quality issues. 

That would make me think that trying a fan and see if that improves things. Also, when you have this occur and it goes away... Does jumping back and re-running the same content give the same result (Video breakup)? If it does, I would lean more to a disk related issues than temp related. 

One thing you can do to narrow things down is when you find a piece of video that shows the issue, turn off your 622 (Power cord) and wait about 30 minutes to cool down. plug it back in and replay the clip. Does it appear again? 

If these things don't improve things then you might have a bad box. I would expect some breakup to occur and it is very hard to get a feel if yours is above normal but if you are getting long durations of it over a minute and are seeing it an average of above 1 to 3 times an hour I would consider this above my experiences.


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## Hall (Mar 4, 2004)

Before you worry about a cooling fan, check the HDD temps. I don't know the steps from memory, but there's a diagnostic menu (under System Setup ??) and then a "Counters" button. Hit that, then use the Page Up and Page Down buttons on your remote to move through the list. I think anything over 130' F might be something to worry about...

Where is the 622 located ?? On an open or closed shelf or inside a cabinet ??


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Not a bad idea, but I am not sure if 130 would be the point. Both of mine are above 130 for maximum and I am not having any issues. 

I don't think any correlation between the drive temp and pixelization/audio drop out has been made. Something worth checking.... I believe its Menu-6-3


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## Hall (Mar 4, 2004)

Pure speculation here.... 130' F was a wild-ass guess. Since getting my laptop cooler, my "High" temp is 120' F or so. Not to say 130' F is too high, but if it's there or higher, look into it.... If it's 120' F or so like mine, it's not a factor, I'd guess.

The HDD temp isn't the best thing though and this is PC-based ideas, mind you. If the CPU is like a PC CPU, it slows itself down as it gets hot. If it gets too hot, slows down too much, it might not be able to "keep up" with the req'd horsepower. Sound good ??


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## TredH20 (Jan 9, 2007)

Hey there - 

Didn't get a chance to check the temps last night, but I will do that this evening. I can tell you that the 622 is inside a cubby space in the wall - but it has a TON of space in the back that is open. On the left side of it is the media receiver for my television, only a few inches away- and on the right is about 6 inches of space before the wall. 

I have tried the rewind/fast forward to see if I could get the sections that are garbled to playback normally - but I still get the pixelation and video stutter.


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## TredH20 (Jan 9, 2007)

Got the temp readings - 

High Temp was 127
Low Temp was 100

Avg Temp is 111

So it doesnt look like temp is a problem, I have seen people have much higher temps than this.


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## wje (Mar 8, 2006)

Ron Barry said:


> Hard to determine TredH20. I have seen some breakup on Planet Earth also. Not sure if it is the 622 or stream related.


What kind of breakup were you seeing? I didn't see pixelation, but the stream seemed to 'skip' occasionally, very annoying. It was almost as if a second of both video and audio had been cut out, but no other visible artifacts. I've been wondering if it was a 401 problem, or a problem with the feed.


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## Hall (Mar 4, 2004)

TredH20 said:


> This problem seems to only happen with HD programming - I notice it on the episodes of Planet Earth I have been recording all of the time. I never have this issue while watching live HD programming.


 I've seen a couple of posts from others with a similar problem, that is, live playback is fine but recordings aren't.

I know it's a hassle, but I had playback problems with a 522 years ago and I "cured" it by rebooting the receiver at least once a week. So long as I did that, I didn't see trouble whereas others continued to have trouble.


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## TredH20 (Jan 9, 2007)

wje said:


> What kind of breakup were you seeing? I didn't see pixelation, but the stream seemed to 'skip' occasionally, very annoying. It was almost as if a second of both video and audio had been cut out, but no other visible artifacts. I've been wondering if it was a 401 problem, or a problem with the feed.


Hi Wje-

The whole screen freezes, then green pixels form all over a majority of the screen and the video begins to stutter. All the while, the audio is playing back fine.


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## ezra (Mar 10, 2007)

i was looking at what we would do if you had called a tsr and reported the issue and under the t/sing steps normally they suggest deleting the events and then rebooting the 622... however if the recver keeps doing the same thing over and over then the receiver needs to be exhanged I would suggest a test if you would... set your dvr to record all day and night different hd channels begin with discovery hd (discovery is sat 110 xdr 17) record 30 minutes then move on to another channel and do all your hd channels, then record several channesl in sd also in 30 minute blocks.. this should work your 622 enough to see if it may be a hardware issue... the test is to see if all hd channels will record with garbels and then continue on with the sd channels. if only certain hd channels show garbels and no sd channels show garbels then it may be a signal issue but im leaning more twards a hardware issue...remember to stress the 622 out by recording two programs at the same time 2 hd then try 1 hd and one sd and then 2 sd... if you then see that there is corruption on the recorded data i would call in inform the tech of the test and to ra the recver as this is not a known receiver issue..


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