# Brrrrriiiiip getting worse?



## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

I am noticing the Brrrriiiiipppp sound and audio issues more and more lately on a variety of channels including ESPN, MLB Network, Local CBS (which has been very bad for awhile), NBC and Fox.

Signal strengths are all 95+.
If I switch over to Comcast feed I don't notice the same problems.


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

Ken S said:


> I am noticing the Brrrriiiiipppp sound and audio issues more and more lately on a variety of channels including ESPN, MLB Network, Local CBS (which has been very bad for awhile), NBC and Fox.
> 
> Signal strengths are all 95+.
> If I switch over to Comcast feed I don't notice the same problems.


I don't know if it's getting worse, but I sure am noticing it more than I have in the past. I don't know if I'm getting more sensitive to it, or if it is actually happening more often. I am seeing picture break up (not the traditional pixellation) far more often than I have in the past...usually at least once or twice per hour show.

What is curious, is I went months and months never seeing/hearing anything even resembling brrrrp, and now I see it at least every couple days, but it's been that way for a few weeks at least.


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## schlar01 (Jul 16, 2007)

It happens a few times a day to me. That and my NBC HD feed was out last night when I tried to watch Leno. Thank God I'm paying almost $100 per month for this awesome product..................

If they are going to keep raising prices they had better damn well have perfect service.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

It's gotten way worse again on my locals including Fox, CBS and NBC. I haven't noticed it much on the local ABC. That said, there was a period last fall when it seemed to be completely gone. Too bad.


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## schlar01 (Jul 16, 2007)

It happened all the time on the EI package last year, too. I can only wait for that again


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

This is hard to say, since my Locals have had problems since Sept.
The Brrip can have video breakup and maybe even drop out as the Dolby encoder resets itself.
About a month ago, it lasted over 12 hours [on my CBS] until I called to complain about it. Then 45 min later, they managed to do a reset and clear it up. I find it hard to beleive a problem like this could go on so long without "somebody" at DirecTV noticing it. 
Using the customer base as a system monitor and then not giving the customer a "straight shot" to who needs to know about the problem, makes reporting these problems quite frustrating and time consuming.
Since this time, the magnitude of the Brrips, [length] has become less, but the quantity is on the increase, along with the number of channels having it. "It used to be" only on my locals, but now I'm seeing/hearing it on more and more "SAT" channels [NGCHD, etc].


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## jimmyv2000 (Feb 15, 2007)

been seeing this on FOXNEWS-HD and Speed-HD alot,ocassionaly on my local NBC.
Signals on 99 and 103 conus sats are 95+


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Channel 9 in DC is killing me. Every 3-4 min, breakups and audio stuttering , over 2 days now. Started right after that 3 hour outage.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

hoos51 said:


> Channel 9 in DC is killing me. Every 3-4 min, breakups and audio stuttering , over 2 days now. Started right after that 3 hour outage.


 From my experience, you need to call DirecTV and get the CSR to send an email to the network broadcast center. It seems to be the only way for them to notice that there is a problem.


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## wilbur_the_goose (Aug 16, 2006)

I too think it's getting much worse (and I'm a D* fanboy).


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## richardmb (Mar 2, 2006)

Does anyone know if they have a similar problem over at Dish*


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

richardmb said:


> Does anyone know if they have a similar problem over at Dish*


"know"? no, but if they're using the same MPEG-4 encoders, then they should be [if what the DirecTV engineers have told me is their problem].


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## richardmb (Mar 2, 2006)

What? you would use now in that sentence


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## JeffBowser (Dec 21, 2006)

I don't notice the audio noise issue so much (it's there, though), but the slow-mo effect that 1948gg mentions in the other thread does bug me. Must be dropping data.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

JeffBowser said:


> I don't notice the audio noise issue so much (it's there, though), but the slow-mo effect that 1948gg mentions in the other thread does bug me. Must be dropping data.


As it was explained to me, the encoder uses "something like", a phased locked loop, to keep the sync as it transcodes MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 and this is where the problem comes from as the signal breaks lock, causing a [quick] reset.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

I've called customer service who reported this to the engineering group. My guess is that goes into a black hole. 

Just for fun , I also called channel 9 engineering in DC but of course no one is dumb enough to answer the phone. I left a message the past 2 days. Sent a note to station president to at least have these local guys get in sync with Directv to get someone to step up to take ownership of the issue.

This is really UFB they can not fix a damn audio problem.


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## jrodfoo (Apr 9, 2007)

Yeah, I thought it was just me, but now that I've read this thread. Something has to be dddddoone... sorry.. just had a brrrrrrrip moment here.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

I've seen posts that CBS is having problems with new equipment/software with their affiliates. Earlier this week our local had major problems with both the DIRECTV feed and the OTA feed. Thankfully SD was clean.

(And no one answered at the time, but I think they were working on it. It did clear up in 15 minutes or so.)

Cheers,
Tom


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## JeffBowser (Dec 21, 2006)

Ah, I see. This will all work out. I suspect the ongoing issue and silence on it from those in charge are due to the fact that no good solution is yet possible or economically feasible. It will get solved in due course, like all technical issues. Doesn't change the irritation factor, though



veryoldschool said:


> As it was explained to me, the encoder uses "something like", a phased locked loop, to keep the sync as it transcodes MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 and this is where the problem comes from as the signal breaks lock, causing a [quick] reset.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Tom Robertson said:


> I've seen posts that CBS is having problems with new equipment/software with their affiliates. Earlier this week our local had major problems with both the DIRECTV feed and the OTA feed. Thankfully SD was clean.
> 
> (And no one answered at the time, but I think they were working on it. It did clear up in 15 minutes or so.)
> 
> ...


 It's not "limited to" CBS. I'm currently having NBC [as I type this] having problems.
Also [much shorter] "brrips" on non local HD channels and what *1948gg* reported with this coming at the "top of the hour". I see this more and more as I start playing a recording, right after the "soft padding".


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

It helps to call and tell them you're having issues too. When I call they tell me I'm the only one in the world having this issue


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## WestDC (Feb 9, 2008)

veryoldschool said:


> As it was explained to me, the encoder uses "something like", a phased locked loop, to keep the sync as it transcodes MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 and this is where the problem comes from as the signal breaks lock, causing a [quick] reset.


This makes the most sense to me, The Ditigal trans was suposed to kick in 2/17 Delayed till sometime in JUNE 09, When the stations no longer has to transmit both signals (upconvert and downConvert) the issue should go away and the old SD equipment that is held together with duck tape can be thrown out of the mix.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

hoos51 said:


> It helps to call and tell them you're having issues too. When I call they tell me I'm the only one in the world having this issue


Yes, I've been down this path too. level one CSRs don't have it in the "playbook". Email is all they can do. I've taken this all the way up to the office of the president. They showed interest [for a while] and sent out a team to inspect my system. After finding zero problems, they passed me a cell phone with an engineer, from the network broadcast center, on the other end. This is where I got the info I've posted.
While "the cure" isn't simple or easy, it also seems to be getting more prevalent [more channels having it] and *really* needs to be addressed.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> It's not "limited to" CBS. I'm currently having NBC [as I type this] having problems.
> Also [much shorter] "brrips" on non local HD channels and what *1948gg* reported with this coming at the "top of the hour". I see this more and more as I start playing a recording, right after the "soft padding".


Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I hear everyone here with problems on other channels as well. Only explaining one network's potential cause.

And this wouldn't likely explain problems with CBS affiliates' locally produced shows either, only network feeds.

Cheers,
Tom


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

WestDC said:


> This makes the most sense to me, The Ditigal trans was suposed to kick in 2/17 Delayed till sometime in JUNE 09, When the stations no longer has to transmit both signals (upconvert and downConvert) the issue should go away and the old SD equipment that is held together with duck tape can be thrown out of the mix.


Alas, the transcoding from MPEG2 to MPEG4 is _from_ the digital path, not the analog, SD path. MPEG2 is the digital encoding for over the air.

Cheers,
Tom


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

I'll call the president too if you private message me his number


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## dlt4 (Oct 4, 2006)

LameLefty said:


> It's gotten way worse again on my locals including Fox, CBS and NBC. I haven't noticed it much on the local ABC. That said, there was a period last fall when it seemed to be completely gone. Too bad.


I've only noticed it on the locals, and it just started within the last couple of weeks as far as I know.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

WestDC said:


> This makes the most sense to me, The Ditigal trans was suposed to kick in 2/17 Delayed till sometime in JUNE 09, When the stations no longer has to transmit both signals (upconvert and downConvert) the issue should go away and the old SD equipment that is held together with duck tape can be thrown out of the mix.


 "We can only hope", but since [at best] this may only mean each station can spend more of their resources "cleaning up" their MPEG-2 signal, it may NOT have any affect on the transcoding to MPEG-4 [since this is on the DirecTV end].
Since this has grown to channels that aren't local HD, it would suggest it's more on the DirecTV side than "the networks".


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> This is hard to say, since my Locals have had problems since Sept.
> The Brrip can have video breakup and maybe even drop out as the Dolby encoder resets itself.
> About a month ago, it lasted over 12 hours [on my CBS] until I called to complain about it. Then 45 min later, they managed to do a reset and clear it up. I find it hard to beleive a problem like this could go on so long without "somebody" at DirecTV noticing it.
> Using the customer base as a system monitor and then not giving the customer a "straight shot" to who needs to know about the problem, makes reporting these problems quite frustrating and time consuming.
> Since this time, the magnitude of the Brrips, [length] has become less, but the quantity is on the increase, along with the number of channels having it. "It used to be" only on my locals, but now I'm seeing/hearing it on more and more "SAT" channels [NGCHD, etc].


VOS,

I agree they seem to be shorter in duration but occur more often and on many more channels.
Newer channels like MLB Network are suffering from the issue. I assume if it were their problem I'd hear it on Comcast as well...but I don't.


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## dettxw (Nov 21, 2007)

Maybe I'm just not observant enough or not watching enough TV or variety of channels but the only real problem I have with the "brrrp" is when switching HDMI inputs on the Onkyo.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

I just called one of the wigs and I'm sure I was speaking to an AA. But they seem to be aware of all these issues and are working them. Used the word transition a lot.

But god she sounded good, I couldn't even get mad !


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

From their website: If you've contacted Customer Care and require additional clarification or support, 
contact Ellen Filipiak, Sr. VP of Customer Care.


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## spartanstew (Nov 16, 2005)

Noticed them quite a bit a couple of months ago, but haven't experienced it at all in at least 6 weeks. I thought it was getting better/fixed.


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## WestDC (Feb 9, 2008)

Tom Robertson said:


> Alas, the transcoding from MPEG2 to MPEG4 is _from_ the digital path, not the analog, SD path. MPEG2 is the digital encoding for over the air.
> 
> Cheers,
> Tom


Okay, so it no longer makes sense :sure:


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## kevinwmsn (Aug 19, 2006)

Fox is pretty bad about it near the end of their shows. For the past few weeks at the end of Idol and House it does it.


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## jefbal99 (Sep 7, 2007)

spartanstew said:


> Noticed them quite a bit a couple of months ago, but haven't experienced it at all in at least 6 weeks. I thought it was getting better/fixed.


I haven't noticed this in at least 6 weeks and still currently am not encountering it.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

I've heard it to a relatively small extent on CNN HD as recently as yesterday morning, and I have heard it with increasing frequency on my locals over the last couple of weeks. Last night watching _CSI:NY_ was quite bad and was accompanied by some macroblocking, something which had basically ceased altogether around here by late fall. It's rather disappointing that things appear to have taken a step backward.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

The engineer for WUSA in DC just called me and he is calling somebody in L.A. to talk about the issue on his station. That took me 2 days to pair them up and get them to talking.

I just went back to the SD channel for that station. it was terrible.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

Audio problems with digital/HD - it isn't just you.

Broadcast TV journals and magazines are full of articles that talk about the problems networks and local broadcasters are having with audio, and these are magazines that are not very sat-centric. It's a common problem throughout the industry, and a lot of work being done and money spent to resolve the problems, but it's more complicated than most folks realize.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

Just had another very audible one in the middle of _Survivor_ . . .

Query: Is it worth reporting these in the "Local HD Issues" threads still?


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## angelzofmadness (Feb 17, 2009)

richardmb said:


> Does anyone know if they have a similar problem over at Dish*


no problems with dish HD skips at all.


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## armophob (Nov 13, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Local CBS (which has been very bad for awhile)


All my WPEC CBS national feed shows have been horrible with it as well.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

All my issues cleared up around 9 PM. I think that call to the engineer at WUSA channel 9 helped. He called his counterpart I guess. Ill keep you all posted.


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## Mrmiami (Oct 3, 2006)

kevinwmsn said:


> Fox is pretty bad about it near the end of their shows. For the past few weeks at the end of Idol and House it does it.


Beginning too with AI not sure about House, had to go out but yes, it's more prevalent and more channels are involved now.


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## since 2/96 (Feb 7, 2007)

...but I've been having this problem for as long as I can remember and started this thread about it back in June of 2008...

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=131582&highlight=2%2F96


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

In the past this has been local networks, but I seeing it more and more on national channels like:
NGCHD
USAHD

[anybody got some others?]


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

since 2/96 said:


> ...but I've been having this problem for as long as I can remember and started this thread about it back in June of 2008...http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=131582&highlight=2/96


 "Those channels" are all MPEG-2, so it would seem NOT to be the topic of this thread, as it seems to be related to the MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 transcoding [which those don't have].


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## Mrmiami (Oct 3, 2006)

LameLefty said:


> I've heard it to a relatively small extent on CNN HD as recently as yesterday morning, and I have heard it with increasing frequency on my locals over the last couple of weeks. Last night watching _CSI:NY_ was quite bad and was accompanied by some macroblocking, something which had basically ceased altogether around here by late fall. It's rather disappointing that things appear to have taken a step backward.


LameLefty, you really haven't noticed the Slo-Mo effect at all? If what 1948GG is referring to is what our house refers to as "Old Time Movie Effect" it is most obvious while watching a football game or something with fast moving action. What I think is happening is frames are being dropped out of the broadcast image so you only are seeing perhaps frame 1 then frame 3 then 5 and so on, this gives the appearence of someone turning a handcrank to film the program. What can be done to correct it is anyone's guess but It should be addressed also. Now I would say it could be improper 3/2 pulldown but it happens on all of our tv's Plasma and LCD which are rated with perfect pulldown from Samsung and Sony so there different companies too. It's bothersome but not to the point of the digital burping were hearing more of lately


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

Mrmiami said:


> LameLefty, you really haven't noticed the Slo-Mo effect at all? If what 1948GG is referring to is what our house refers to as "Old Time Movie Effect" it is most obvious while watching a football game or something with fast moving action. What I think is happening is frames are being dropped out of the broadcast image so you only are seeing perhaps frame 1 then frame 3 then 5 and so on, this gives the appearence of someone turning a handcrank to film the program. What can be done to correct it is anyone's guess but It should be addressed also. Now I would say it could be improper 3/2 pulldown but it happens on all of our tv's Plasma and LCD which are rated with perfect pulldown from Samsung and Sony so there different companies too. It's bothersome but not to the point of the digital burping were hearing more of lately


No, I've definitely not seen that effect before.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

LameLefty said:


> No, I've definitely not seen that effect before.


[non sports] Sometimes it's tough to know if this [dropped frames] is the way the program was shot or not, as several directors seem to use "jump motion" as their style [yuck].


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## BkwSoft (Oct 18, 2007)

As this does appear to be getting worse as more and more HD locals are getting added, I'm wondering if the root of the issues isn't network related. What if the network between the local stations and DTV is starting to strain under the load, causing packets to arrive late, out of sequence, or just drop out alltogeather. That could certainly result in the encoders having issues dealing with the bad data.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

BkwSoft said:


> As this does appear to be getting worse as more and more HD locals are getting added, I'm wondering if the root of the issues isn't network related. What if the network between the local stations and DTV is starting to strain under the load, causing packets to arrive late, out of sequence, or just drop out alltogeather. That could certainly result in the encoders having issues dealing with the bad data.


We're at the end of a long chain. Networks have their problems, local stations have theirs, and DirecTV has theirs. As a viewer, we see the accumulative results. 
I know there are times that it is the station, as I can see the same with their OTA feed, BUT there are times when their OTA feed DOESN'T have the problem. There are also times when every [local] network is having the same problem.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Add TBS HD to the list.


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## BkwSoft (Oct 18, 2007)

Ok, sorry for the confusion, when I was refering to "network" I was refering to the physical and/or logical connection between the programing source (TV Station) and DTV. I many cases like my locals this is done over a fiber optic network of some sort. I wouldn't think it would be a dedicated fiber between the local affiliates and DTV but needs to be some type of packet switched or similar network.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

BkwSoft said:


> I wouldn't think it would be a dedicated fiber between the local affiliates and DTV but needs to be some type of packet switched or similar network.


There's actually information about this in various threads here, but I don't recall. I know in some cases Directv does (or did) receive the signals OTA at a receiving point and then transcode/uplink etc. after that. I also seem to recall that it varies from market to market.

Again, this is all going from hazy memory.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

LameLefty said:


> There's actually information about this in various threads here, but I don't recall. I know in some cases Directv does (or did) receive the signals OTA at a receiving point and then transcode/uplink etc. after that. I also seem to recall that it varies from market to market.
> 
> Again, this is all going from hazy memory.


In the Sacramento DMA, SD does go through fiber, while HD is [still] OTA [thus making it clear when DirecTV is having problems and the OTA signal is fine].


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

LameLefty said:


> There's actually information about this in various threads here, but I don't recall. I know in some cases Directv does (or did) receive the signals OTA at a receiving point and then transcode/uplink etc. after that. I also seem to recall that it varies from market to market.
> 
> Again, this is all going from hazy memory.


Most markets are received via OTA. Very few use fiber.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

BkwSoft said:


> Ok, sorry for the confusion, when I was refering to "network" I was refering to the physical and/or logical connection between the programing source (TV Station) and DTV. I many cases like my locals this is done over a fiber optic network of some sort. I wouldn't think it would be a dedicated fiber between the local affiliates and DTV but needs to be some type of packet switched or similar network.





veryoldschool said:


> In the Sacramento DMA, SD does go through fiber, while HD is [still] OTA [thus making it clear when DirecTV is having problems and the OTA signal is fine].





bonscott87 said:


> Most markets are received via OTA. Very few use fiber.


Well, then. There's his answer. 

To the extent it's network congestion causing the encoder resets, dropped frames, etc., it's on Directv's end in the statmuxing of the feeds onto transponders then, along with all the ancillary tasks associated with that.

To the extent is NOT related at all to network congestion, then we're still more or less in the dark.


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## cygnusloop (Jan 26, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> In the past this has been local networks, but I seeing it more and more on national channels like:
> NGCHD
> USAHD
> 
> [anybody got some others?]


Add BravoHD to the list. Never saw it on this channel until sometime this week. It's happening 2-3 time per hour.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

LameLefty said:


> Well, then. There's his answer.
> 
> To the extent it's network congestion causing the encoder resets, dropped frames, etc., it's on Directv's end in the statmuxing of the feeds onto transponders then, along with all the ancillary tasks associated with that.
> 
> To the extent is NOT related at all to network congestion, then we're still more or less in the dark.


For me I've hardly ever seen this issue on any cable channel (TNT, USA, etc.) and when I have it's very, very rare. I do see this all the time on my local CBS and NBC. But then again I see the exact same problem OTA directly to my TV. Thus the problem is with my local affiliates and nothing to do with DirecTV's feed or with the DirecTV receivers.

The vast majority of the posts I see on this are problems with local stations. Unfortunately in this day and age with all the new people getting HD they don't have an antenna and have no way to check the pure OTA feed unlike in the recent past where we all had an antenna to get HD. However if your local thread on AVS is active you might get answers there. Thus DirecTV gets the blame most of the time when I'd bet in many cases it's a problem at the local station, just like in my market.


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## The_Geyser (Nov 21, 2005)

It's getting bad for me. I just started hearing it this week, mostly on the Charlotte, NC locals.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

bonscott87 said:


> For me I've hardly ever seen this issue on any cable channel (TNT, USA, etc.) and when I have it's very, very rare. I do see this all the time on my local CBS and NBC. But then again I see the exact same problem OTA directly to my TV. Thus the problem is with my local affiliates and nothing to do with DirecTV's feed or with the DirecTV receivers.
> 
> The vast majority of the posts I see on this are problems with local stations. Unfortunately in this day and age with all the new people getting HD they don't have an antenna and have no way to check the pure OTA feed unlike in the recent past where we all had an antenna to get HD. However if your local thread on AVS is active you might get answers there. Thus DirecTV gets the blame most of the time when I'd bet in many cases it's a problem at the local station, just like in my market.


That may also be because that the majority of TV viewing is still with the major networks. The "cable" stations that are most widely watched (ESPN, etc) seem to get more than a few complaints about issues here. There are hardly ever ANY complaints about PQ or audio issues on QVC


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

I had it on both USA and SciFi tonight, had it a couple of times last night on USA during Burn Notice, remember it happening on NCIS on USA also. It's getting worse in the last couple of weeks or so, never ever noticed it on SciFi or USA before, but it's been happening sporadically on USA all week this week. My local ABC has audio dropouts for a couple of seconds, it's not there on cable, I've checked.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

ESPN still has a ton of problems as well.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

Yep, I heard a pretty obvious one (more of very short duration clip and then silence for ~1 second) during the first five minutes of _BSG_ on SciFi HD last night. I've never had any non-weather related glitches on SciFi before.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

rebkell said:


> I had it on both USA and SciFi tonight, had it a couple of times last night on USA during Burn Notice, remember it happening on NCIS on USA also. It's getting worse in the last couple of weeks or so, never ever noticed it on SciFi or USA before, but it's been happening sporadically on USA all week this week. My local ABC has audio dropouts for a couple of seconds, it's not there on cable, I've checked.


Strange, I didn't have it at all during Burn Notice or BSG. Oh well, guess I'll just chalk it up as luck on my part then.


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## bluemoon737 (Feb 21, 2007)

LameLefty said:


> I've heard it to a relatively small extent on CNN HD as recently as yesterday morning, and I have heard it with increasing frequency on my locals over the last couple of weeks. Last night watching _CSI:NY_ was quite bad and was accompanied by some macroblocking, something which had basically ceased altogether around here by late fall. It's rather disappointing that things appear to have taken a step backward.


Agreed...same thing here. Luckily my main HR20 has an OTA hook up so I've reverted to the OTA feeds for most of my network viewing (too bad since we just recently got the LiL HD feeds).


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## bluemoon737 (Feb 21, 2007)

Mrmiami said:


> LameLefty, you really haven't noticed the Slo-Mo effect at all? If what 1948GG is referring to is what our house refers to as "Old Time Movie Effect" it is most obvious while watching a football game or something with fast moving action. What I think is happening is frames are being dropped out of the broadcast image so you only are seeing perhaps frame 1 then frame 3 then 5 and so on, this gives the appearence of someone turning a handcrank to film the program. What can be done to correct it is anyone's guess but It should be addressed also. Now I would say it could be improper 3/2 pulldown but it happens on all of our tv's Plasma and LCD which are rated with perfect pulldown from Samsung and Sony so there different companies too. It's bothersome but not to the point of the digital burping were hearing more of lately


I've seen all of the above (mostly on network programming but other channels as well). The slo-mo effect, the macroblocking (becoming worse), the audio brrrpppss...all problems seem to be getting worse.

Maybe it's all that "space junk" blocking our signal path :lol:


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

Definitely increasing in frequency and channels over the last several weeks/months. Used to only see it on the locals, so I attributed it to something in the signal relay. But now it seems to be migrating to the nationals as well. I think it's time for a Briiiiiiippppp sticky logging channel and time...


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

bonscott87 said:


> Strange, I didn't have it at all during Burn Notice...


"I would bet" that you recorded the show from a different airing, because this week's "first run" did have it [for me too].


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

BattleScott said:


> I think it's time for a Briiiiiiippppp sticky logging channel and time...


I think that would be pointless. It happens so often, and we know DirecTV is aware of the problem. I just don't think they can do anything about it right now.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

Jeremy W said:


> I think that would be pointless. It happens so often, and we know DirecTV is aware of the problem. I just don't think they can do anything about it right now.


Probably so, but perhaps it could help isolate the problem and fix it if they can identify certain channels and/or times that are particularly affected.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Considering how poorly DirecTV's broadcast center "monitors" the HD locals [remember it took me to call in a problem that had been going on for over 12 hours almost continually, before anything was done], and even when there was a question about some channels, the broadcast center reported [to the office of the president] that they'd monitored the stations for [a whole] twenty min and couldn't see any problems.
"I'd say" the more light anybody can shine of this [growing] problem, the more help it "might be".
I've even sent a message [with a link to this thread] to the broadcast center engineer that had shown "some" interest.
"The problem" may not be simple or easy to fix, but then it may be "simply" one model/batch of encoders that is the cause.


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## Argee (Oct 16, 2006)

Food Network HD, History HD and HBO 501 to add to list.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

My wife, who rarely comments about TV type things at all, just asked me why the TV farts on the DirecTV channels. It appears there was a little audio flatulence during a Law & Order showing.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

veryoldschool said:


> "I would bet" that you recorded the show from a different airing, because this week's "first run" did have it [for me too].


I'll be honest in saying I don't know when the first run of Burn Notice is but it recorded Thursday at 10pm (EST). I had watched it on my HR20. We watched it again on the HR21 and that one also was free of issues.

As for BSG, on my HR20 it was recorded on Friday at 10pm which I know is the first run slot. It did not have any issues. I have a backup of BSG on my HR21 from the later (midnight) showing. What timestamps do these problems happen at? I can check. I don't want to watch the whole thing again as it was a bad episode.


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## jimmyv2000 (Feb 15, 2007)

ESPN2-HD during race last night burping 3 to 4 times an hour


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

I have virtually never seen/heard this problem on the non-local channels, other than ESPN which seems to have these problems fairly regularly. I do have the problem on DirecTV HD locals. During November last year, CBS here in DFW had this problem all the time, but whatever the station/DirecTV did it seems to have solved the problem. I still have an occasional glitch on the other HD locals, particularly ABC. Sometimes it happens on the off-air signal also, indicating that at least some of the time it isn't a DirecTV problem.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

bonscott87 said:


> I'll be honest in saying I don't know when the first run of Burn Notice is but it recorded Thursday at 10pm (EST). I had watched it on my HR20. We watched it again on the HR21 and that one also was free of issues.
> 
> As for BSG, on my HR20 it was recorded on Friday at 10pm which I know is the first run slot. It did not have any issues. I have a backup of BSG on my HR21 from the later (midnight) showing. What timestamps do these problems happen at? I can check. I don't want to watch the whole thing again as it was a bad episode.


I have the 10:00 pm episode recorded, and at about the 2:00 to 3:00 minute mark, there is a freeze and audio burp, when Sol is talking to 6 and he says something about 'I don't trust bripppp'(and the video freezes also), it's shortly after doc runs them out and tells them this place is for sick people.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

bonscott87 said:


> I'll be honest in saying I don't know when the first run of Burn Notice is but it recorded Thursday at 10pm (EST). I had watched it on my HR20. We watched it again on the HR21 and that one also was free of issues.


 10pm EST was the same showing as my 7pm, which did have the problem. I've deleted the recording, so I can't give you the timestamp.
"If" this turns out to be a software/hardware issue [on our end], it's going to be very hard to narrow down.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> 10pm EST was the same showing as my 7pm, which did have the problem. I've deleted the recording, so I can't give you the timestamp.
> "If" this turns out to be a software/hardware issue [on our end], it's going to be very hard to narrow down.


On Burn Notice, there was a count down timer right after a House episode, it froze and briippped right at the 3 second mark and the video glitched and the audio brippped until right about the 1 second mark, the video really jumped around, so if you have the 5 or 6 seconds right before 'Burn Notice' started, that's where it's screwy on my end.

Edit: started rewatching the episode: around the 3 or 4 Minute mark, after the scene on the roof, Michael is running to the waiting car with Fiona driving, when he opens the door and is getting the car: 
Fiona: 'Michael what happened' 
Brrrriipppp 
Mike:'He didn't want to make friends'


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

texasbrit said:


> I have virtually never seen/heard this problem on the non-local channels, other than ESPN which seems to have these problems fairly regularly. I do have the problem on DirecTV HD locals. During November last year, CBS here in DFW had this problem all the time, but whatever the station/DirecTV did it seems to have solved the problem. I still have an occasional glitch on the other HD locals, particularly ABC. Sometimes it happens on the off-air signal also, indicating that at least some of the time it isn't a DirecTV problem.


If this was six months ago, I'd be in the same boat, as the only national channels that I'd seen anything close to this was NGCHD, which I don't watch "that much".
A month or so ago, I "got hooked on" House, and have been watching more USAHD than before. House & Burn notice have been exhibiting this a lot lately.
While my locals "aren't any better", they haven't gotten "much worse" either and "some" of their problems are [most likely] from the stations.
DirecTV should have much better "control" [or monitoring] of the national channels though, and I am seeing the same problem more and more on them.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

I think the problem escalated(or seemed to) when we got that forced download a few weeks back.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

rebkell said:


> I think the problem escalated(or seemed to) when we got that forced download a few weeks back.


"I think" [:lol:] it doesn't matter, since I wasn't forced to download anything back then.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> "I think" [:lol:] it doesn't matter, since I wasn't forced to download anything back then.


You're right, it doesn't. I was at a friend's house watching USA HD last night on his H23-600, and it was brrrriiiiping quite a bit.


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## armophob (Nov 13, 2006)

WPEC channel 12 CBS here in WPB, FL has been determined to be tower issues affecting Dish, Directv and OTA.


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## mklimek (Nov 2, 2008)

Thank God for this forum and this thread. I thought I was going crazy. I hadn't noticed this very much until the past two weeks or so, and now I'm hearing that audio Brrrriiiiipp quite a bit.

I've noticed it most on my CBS channel, but I heard it almost consistently earlier today on my local Fox affiliate while trying to watch the NASCAR race--VERY irritating.

Also noticing it on some national HD channels, but seem to notice it more on the HD locals. Directv has to get this figured out. Surely someone on their end is working on a solution...

...right?


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

rebkell said:


> On Burn Notice, there was a count down timer right after a House episode, it froze and briippped right at the 3 second mark and the video glitched and the audio brippped until right about the 1 second mark, the video really jumped around, so if you have the 5 or 6 seconds right before 'Burn Notice' started, that's where it's screwy on my end.
> 
> Edit: started rewatching the episode: around the 3 or 4 Minute mark, after the scene on the roof, Michael is running to the waiting car with Fiona driving, when he opens the door and is getting the car:
> Fiona: 'Michael what happened'
> ...


Ahhhh yes, I see the same thing every week at the beginning of Burn Notice, exact same spot. It's exactly what I've seen on a local for years when they "flip the switch" from SD to HD. If House isn't in HD it could be the same thing. Or if House isn't in 5.1 when it switches to 5.1 for Burn Notice it does it. I don't even notice things like that anymore because I've seen them on my HD locals for over 6 years and still see them. Basically I chalk that one up to USA and their switching equipment to HD and/or 5.1.

I didn't have the other one you're talking about at the 3/4 minute mark.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

rebkell said:


> I have the 10:00 pm episode recorded, and at about the 2:00 to 3:00 minute mark, there is a freeze and audio burp, when Sol is talking to 6 and he says something about 'I don't trust bripppp'(and the video freezes also), it's shortly after doc runs them out and tells them this place is for sick people.


I watched my backup copy on my other DVR and I see the same thing at the same time mark. Never noticed at all on my first watching. Again, maybe because I've seen this sort of thing OTA for many years (and without DirecTV equipment) that I'm just immune to it and I don't even notice it anymore. My wife never says anything about it either. Again, maybe we're just used to it over the years.

Carry on...


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

bonscott87 said:


> I watched my backup copy on my other DVR and I see the same thing at the same time mark. Never noticed at all on my first watching. Again, maybe because I've seen this sort of thing OTA for many years (and without DirecTV equipment) that I'm just immune to it and I don't even notice it anymore. My wife never says anything about it either. Again, maybe we're just used to it over the years.
> 
> Carry on...


 I too used to "blame it" on the station [and for good reason] "but" I have found times when the OTA signal didn't have "the problem", which has caused me to notice/look at it farther/deeper and see why DirecTV can't resolve "their part" of the problem.
I understand "garbage in = garbage out", but when it isn't garbage in and is garbage out, it needs to [should be] fixed.
"Getting used to it" isn't what I want to be doing for a paid service. Being told by DirecTV to change over to the SD feed, doesn't "sit well" with me either.
While "it's only TV", I'd have been fired from several jobs, if I had taken this approach to my work.


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## bluemoon737 (Feb 21, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> I too used to "blame it" on the station [and for good reason] "but" I have found times when the OTA signal didn't have "the problem", which has caused me to notice/look at it farther/deeper and see why DirecTV can't resolve "their part" of the problem.
> I understand "garbage in = garbage out", but when it isn't garbage in and is garbage out, it needs to [should be] fixed.
> "Getting used to it" isn't what I want to be doing for a paid service. Being told by DirecTV to change over to the SD feed, doesn't "sit well" with me either.
> While "it's only TV", I'd have been fired from several jobs, if I had taken this approach to my work.


Agreed 100%! The problem is getting progressively worse and now that I have canceled ST due to economic concerns from leaving the Navy in the not too distant future...there is little holding me to DirecTV. If they don't make improvements in this area it may cause me to at least entertain other options (never thought I would say that!).


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## V'ger (Oct 4, 2007)

Tonight at 9:45 EST on Channel 247, the opening title to Men in Black II was about the worst that I have seen. Brrps ever 15 seconds then finally so bad that the picture and audio would freeze for 10 seconds, then update a couple of frames. I changed channels and back to see if it was my HR20 and it was still messed up bad. About the end of the title and everything returned to normal and it has been fine since.


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## wrj (Nov 23, 2006)

I glad to read this thread. I upgraded(?) from a R15-300 to a HR22-100 a month or so ago. I never heard this defect on the R15. I thought I have a defective DVR. But before I called Directv, I checked out my wife's HR21. She has the same problem. I'm glad the problem is not isolated to something in my install but rather a general problem. Now D* has to fix it.


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## guffy1 (Apr 23, 2006)

bluemoon737 said:


> Agreed 100%! The problem is getting progressively worse and now that I have canceled ST due to economic concerns from leaving the Navy in the not too distant future...there is little holding me to DirecTV. If they don't make improvements in this area it may cause me to at least entertain other options (never thought I would say that!).


Im with ya there. I am so sick of these issues Im thinking about paying the ETF and going back to Charter Cable. I really feel that subs should be able to get out their contracts due to these issues, but I think we all know that short of a class action suit that will never happen. The problems are really out of hand in my book. They are charging us premium rates for a far from premium product. I cant watch any show on any channel without dealing with these issues anymore.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

wrj said:


> I never heard this defect on the R15.


This defect is directly related to MPEG4 programming, which the R15 cannot receive.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

Jeremy W said:


> This defect is directly related to MPEG4 programming, which the R15 cannot receive.


Does everyone suffer the brrrripppp at the same time? If I'm watching Burn Notice, and I get the brrrrippp, and you're watching it, do you get the brrrrippp at the same exact point in the feed?


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

rebkell said:


> Does everyone suffer the brrrripppp at the same time? If I'm watching Burn Notice, and I get the brrrrippp, and you're watching it, do you get the brrrrippp at the same exact point in the feed?


By and large, yes. It's an encoder issue, not a decoder issue.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

I'd like to thank the person who sent the email and is trying to get this issue to those that could do something.


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## schlar01 (Jul 16, 2007)

guffy1 said:


> Im with ya there. I am so sick of these issues Im thinking about paying the ETF and going back to Charter Cable. I really feel that subs should be able to get out their contracts due to these issues, but I think we all know that short of a class action suit that will never happen. The problems are really out of hand in my book. They are charging us premium rates for a far from premium product. I cant watch any show on any channel without dealing with these issues anymore.


Don't worry, I'm sure D* won't be giving credits out for the problem. After all, they are increasing prices and lowering quality!


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## bagdropper (Sep 24, 2007)

On Bravo HD the most, though HDNet also. 

I do remember MLB HD broadcasts last summer, it was more audio than video, the "brrt". However, these non-MLB hiccups seem to be a momentary pause in the video with the audio more or less being OK. Brand new H23 doing this now (Monday mornings on BravoHD during The West Wing make it almost unwatchable) as well as my prior H20's...not receiver dependent, and aside from last year's MLB, the same exact issue. 

I thought it was just me...


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Not sure if that was me , but I'm still on their a-- ......they do admit to the issue being there at least. I was clear of issues for 2 day. Now CBS channel nine in DC is having audio stuttering today , not as frequent as before. Pix elation is now accompanying this issue.

I just called L.A. again. Pretty soon they're going to quit picking the phone up. This is damn right annoying.

HR21-100


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

I want to thank another "un-nameable" person for their message and allowing me to post a bit more info.
The source seems to be dropped, repeat or bad Dolby Digital packets in the MPEG-2 signal. They are very subtle & infrequent, so you don't hear them, but once re-encoded [MPEG-4] they're more pronounced.

"I think" [as in my opinion only] that this may have been "flying under the radar" for some time and that the same problem with my locals has changed an "irritant" to "annoying", to me, and now every time it "pops up" [on my radar], I spot it, tag it, log it, and get further annoyed.
Having worked for one of the suppliers [before they made encoders] I can see:
The supplier says their product does "x". DirecTV buys bunches of them. "X" was designed in a lab with perfect input. DirecTV is using them in "the real world", where the input isn't perfect. The supplier isn't going to change anything for free, so if DirecTV wants "something else", they must pay the NRE costs.
"I hope" DirecTV can leverage their purchasing power to get the supplier to make their product more tolerant in the "real world".
I rarely like to be proved wrong, but I hope I will be over this, because I think this is a big pile of "do do" and isn't going away for a long time.
I seem to have a line from an old song running through my head right now:
"Send lawyers, guns, and money..."
http://www.wikio.co.uk/video/87788


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

veryoldschool said:


> I too used to "blame it" on the station [and for good reason] "but" I have found times when the OTA signal didn't have "the problem", which has caused me to notice/look at it farther/deeper and see why DirecTV can't resolve "their part" of the problem.
> I understand "garbage in = garbage out", but when it isn't garbage in and is garbage out, it needs to [should be] fixed.
> "Getting used to it" isn't what I want to be doing for a paid service. Being told by DirecTV to change over to the SD feed, doesn't "sit well" with me either.
> While "it's only TV", I'd have been fired from several jobs, if I had taken this approach to my work.


I'm not saying I don't agree. I guess what I meant is that I have seen this problem for years, long before I was watching HD from DirecTV so in my mind I don't even notice it if it happens. I'll try to notice it more in the future and post if I see it *along with the time* which I think would go a long way into determining if it's DirecTV encoders if everyone see's it at the same time (but it still could be the network).

As for USA, the blip as Burn Notice starts is most certainly a USA Network issue since it happens every week (at least I've seen it nearly every week). But any blips during the show may not be.


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## n3ntj (Dec 18, 2006)

Ken S said:


> I am noticing the Brrrriiiiipppp sound and audio issues more and more lately on a variety of channels including ESPN, MLB Network, Local CBS (which has been very bad for awhile), NBC and Fox.
> 
> Signal strengths are all 95+.
> If I switch over to Comcast feed I don't notice the same problems.


Kinda funny, but I've noticed this much more recently as well. I was watching Ken Burns's BASEBALL on MLB Network the other day, and this problem occurred quite often during the show. I've noticed it with other shows much more frequently the past week or so.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

bonscott87 said:


> I'll try to notice it more in the future...


 Frankly, if you don't "try", you'll be happier longer.
As you can see ^ it is a known issue and if you can "not notice" it, you'll be happier, cause once it "gets under your skin", it's going to be with you for a while.


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## guffy1 (Apr 23, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> Frankly, if you don't "try", you'll be happier longer.
> As you can see ^ it is a known issue and if you can "not notice" it, you'll be happier, cause once it "gets under your skin", it's going to be with you for a while.


Short of being blind and deaf, I do not understand how anyone could possibly not see the issue


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

guffy1 said:


> Short of being blind and deaf, I do not understand how anyone could possibly not see the issue


I see you too have "crossed over to the dark side". :lol:


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

On several of the channels where DirecTV is showing that problem...OTA and Comcast are not. I've gone so far as to record the same show from all three sources and then watch the playback. Problem exists on DirecTV's broadcast and not on OTA or Comcast. I'm not saying it doesn't happen there, but it is certainly far, far more prevalent on the DirecTV MPEG4 stations.

The HD leader needs to cleanup their signal conversion.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Ken S said:


> On several of the channels where DirecTV is showing that problem...OTA and Comcast are not. I've gone so far as to record the same show from all three sources and then watch the playback. Problem exists on DirecTV's broadcast and not on OTA or Comcast. I'm not saying it doesn't happen there, but it is certainly far, far more prevalent on the DirecTV MPEG4 stations.
> 
> The HD leader needs to cleanup their signal conversion.


If what I've seen and been told is "so", then yes the MPEG-2 signal may be the cause, but the problem isn't distinguishable in MPEG-2, but sure is after the transcoding to MPEG-4.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Indeed, a very minor burp can lead to a major brrrrriiiip.


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## mklimek (Nov 2, 2008)

VOS, so what does this mean? Are you implying that they won't or can't fix it?


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

mklimek said:


> VOS, so what does this mean? Are you implying that they won't or can't fix it?


DIRECTV is working with the encoder people to improve the encoding all the time. Part of that will be to minimize the effect a minor burp will have on the viewing experience.

They may even have an opportunity to minimize minor burps so even if you hear them on OTA, you won't on DIRECTV... But that might be a long way off. 

And everyone is still learning how to eliminate burps (both aural and visual) from the HD experience. It will take time. Many stations are going thru a whole new learning experience with this HD stuff. 

Cheers,
Tom


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

mklimek said:


> VOS, so what does this mean? Are you implying that they won't or can't fix it?


I don't doubt that a small mpeg2 glitch could cause a more noticeable mpeg4 problem, but it's hard to imagine that all these different stations are suddenly having the problem to the extent we're seeing them lately.

Edit: Funny thing, I've been watching USA and HDNet most of the day and don't remember hearing any brrripps at all today.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Tom Robertson said:


> DIRECTV is working with the encoder people to improve the encoding all the time. Part of that will be to minimize the effect a minor burp will have on the viewing experience.
> 
> They may even have an opportunity to minimize minor burps so even if you hear them on OTA, you won't on DIRECTV... But that might be a long way off.
> 
> ...


Tom,

My guess is they have changed something recently. The length of the brrrippp has gotten shorter, but there are much more of them.

BTW...maybe we need to figure out a better term for the error.

Does Dish suffer from this problem?


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

veryoldschool said:


> Frankly, if you don't "try", you'll be happier longer.
> As you can see ^ it is a known issue and if you can "not notice" it, you'll be happier, cause once it "gets under your skin", it's going to be with you for a while.


Oh I notice it. My brain just chooses to ignore it.  But if it gets worse as in more then once a show then I'll get more upset about it. I guess if you beat me up enough my skin gets hard and I don't notice the pain as much, perhaps that's the state I'm in now.


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## guffy1 (Apr 23, 2006)

bonscott87 said:


> Oh I notice it. My brain just chooses to ignore it.  But if it gets worse as in more then once a show then I'll get more upset about it. I guess if you beat me up enough my skin gets hard and I don't notice the pain as much, perhaps that's the state I'm in now.


I envy you  I wish I was able to shrug it off that easily. I try, but it just isnt working out for me

I missed a good couple minutes of Lost last week due to BBRRRipppp. Gotta draw the line there!


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

Ken S said:


> BTW...maybe we need to figure out a better term for the error.


MTA = MPEG Transcoding Anomaly

ASS = Audio Synchronicity Syndrome

DOA = Difficulties On Audio

Any other suggestions?


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

rebkell said:


> I don't doubt that a small mpeg2 glitch could cause a more noticeable mpeg4 problem, but it's hard to imagine that all these different stations are suddenly having the problem to the extent we're seeing them lately.


Yeah, I do find that to be a little fishy. It just seems like DirecTV got sold a bunch of crappy encoders, and nobody wants to own up to the issue.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

LameLefty said:


> Any other suggestions?


I have a few, but they'd result in a nice vacation from this site once a mod saw them.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

Jeremy W said:


> I have a few, but they'd result in a nice vacation from this site once a mod saw them.


:lol:

I was pretty particular about the ones I suggested.


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## BKC (Dec 12, 2007)

Let's all email Ellen.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

BKC said:


> Let's all email Ellen.


 [Not to be a rebel rouser] [email protected]


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

So as another data point, I was watching Friday night's episode of _BSG_ on the HR21 in the bedroom this afternoon and I had the exact same "brrrrip" at the same exact point in time as occurred on the HR22 out in the living room - grrrrr. And now, as I'm typing this post, I heard another obvious one on my Fox MPEG4 HD local (WZTV Fox 17) during a local commercial.

Until very recently, I'd never heard the effect at all on either of those channels, and NEVER during locally-produced material, only on stuff from the national feeds during primetime or sporting events.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

LameLefty said:


> Until very recently, I'd never heard the effect at all on either of those channels, and NEVER during locally-produced material, only on stuff from the national feeds during primetime or sporting events.


 "Proof" that DirecTV is working on it.  :lol:


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

Tom Robertson said:


> DIRECTV is working with the encoder people to improve the encoding all the time. Part of that will be to minimize the effect a minor burp will have on the viewing experience.


So, is this a confirmation that they are aware of and are specifically working on this "burp" issue, or that since they are continually working with the "encoder people", they would likely notice it and fix it in due time?


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## mklimek (Nov 2, 2008)

Good question. I'd like to know this as well if anyone has any insight.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

BattleScott said:


> So, is this a confirmation that they are aware of and are specifically working on this "burp" issue, or that since they are continually working with the "encoder people", they would likely notice it and fix it in due time?


 I can [will] "confirm" that they are aware of it. If you read my earlier posts, I've tried to explain what they've told me is the cause. I doubt they would tell me the cause if they weren't aware of it.
"The fix" apparently isn't as simple.
"I know" they've hired someone from one of the encoder makers to be their "in house" man. I don't know if he help design the encoder, or is just quite familiar with them.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

LameLefty said:


> MTA = MPEG Transcoding Anomaly
> 
> ASS = Audio Synchronicity Syndrome
> 
> ...


How about Audio Belch?


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

*W*rongfully *T*ransmitted *F*latulence


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## KoRn (Oct 21, 2008)

It is so annoying. It happens way to much during live shows. I was watching wwe raw and it happened 3 times. Even screwing up the picture 2 out of the 3 times. I hope they fix it soon.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

TNTHD, watching Leverage tonight, there was the top of the hour "glitch", which isn't that bad [for me], since it's a one time glitch.
The rest of the show didn't seem to have, the ever so annoying, problems as the "during the show" glitches we're having.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> TNTHD, watching Leverage tonight, there was the top of the hour "glitch", which isn't that bad [for me], since it's a one time glitch.
> The rest of the show didn't seem to have, the ever so annoying, problems as the "during the show" glitches we're having.


Had a small one at around the 2 or 3 minute mark, when Nate, Sterling and the Head of IYS(sp?), were talking, when Nate asked him if he was going to call the police, he answered Of course not(brrrrippp), you're a sick man Nathan. I watched the Leverage marathon almost all day and didn't notice any all day. It does seem to be getting better.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

I see those early show TNT glitches a lot, I've come to expect them in fact.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Still happening and frequent, called again today, been going on for five days now.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

On American Idol was off tonight. A couple of brrrrpppp plus it just didn't sound right, wife is going to give it a cpl more weeks and that's it. Thank god it wasn't Oprah.


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## schlar01 (Jul 16, 2007)

Its getting ridiculous. I think it happened 5-7 times last night while I was watching. D* should be issuing everyone a $20 credit per month until the problem is solved. You can't charge a premium price when all this BS is happening.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

rebkell said:


> Had a small one at around the 2 or 3 minute mark, when Nate, Sterling and the Head of IYS(sp?), were talking, when Nate asked him if he was going to call the police, he answered Of course not(brrrrippp), you're a sick man Nathan. I watched the Leverage marathon almost all day and didn't notice any all day. It does seem to be getting better.


Same here. There was the glitch when Leverage started. TNT is good at this just like USA. It's when they switch to 5.1 typically. I did notice the blip on that same word as you note. Very small one, barely noticed and probably wouldn't have if I'm not watching for it.

Watched 3 hours of hockey and some other stuff last night, all MPEG4, no brrrrrippps that I noticed.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

schlar01 said:


> Its getting ridiculous. I think it happened 5-7 times last night while I was watching. D* should be issuing everyone a $20 credit per month until the problem is solved. You can't charge a premium price when all this BS is happening.


So do I get a $20 credit even though I didn't see it on any MPEG4 HD programming I watched last night? 

You post it happened 5-7 times last night.

So what channels?
What programs?
What time during the programs?

Only with these details can a problem be tracked down for DirecTV to begin to address it.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

I had a major flip out(it wasn't exactly a brrrrippp, I don't know what it was) on the 9:00 pm eastern showing of Donnie Darko on HDNet at the 1 hour mark in the movie. If you recorded it, when Donnie is speaking in the microphone he tells Patrick Swayze(can't remember his name in the movie) off, the whole picture just went nutso, and there was actually another station of some kind that popped in for a few frames, it just lost it, it lasted probably a 1/4 to 1/2 second, but it was a real weird one.


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## jrodfoo (Apr 9, 2007)

I have noticed it briefly on ESPN, but to tell you the truth, I havent been paying attention that much to it. i just hope its resolved ASAP..


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

I called again last night, don't know what they're going to do.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

hoos51 said:


> I called again last night, don't know what they're going to do.


Are you contacting your local CBS station? The best way to get local channel issues resolved is to let your local station know their signal is crap on DirecTV so that they can go thru their high up channels and get it resolved. You should certainly contact DirecTV so it's recorded, but don't expect anything to happen other then it going into the CSR trash bin.

We had a problem with our HD locals back in 2006. All of us on AVS with DirecTV contacted our local stations. They all went to their contacts with DirecTV and the problem was a bad encoder in the local receive facility. About a month later DirecTV came in and replaced the bad encoder as well as upgraded software on some other equipment and the problem went away.

Certainly it may be a problem with DirecTV, but if you want anything to actually get done, you need your local station to do it for you.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Sure did the audio cleared up. Called them about the video but they won't return calls or Email now.


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## mklimek (Nov 2, 2008)

Tuned in to the last 10 minutes or so of Survivor. The Brrrriiiip happened several times during the tribal council alone.


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## jefbal99 (Sep 7, 2007)

I was watching the MSU game on BTN last night and had a few of these.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

This is really getting frickin old , stuttering back this morning every 2-4 minutes.


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## wilbur_the_goose (Aug 16, 2006)

Folks - it's just TV.
Chill - they'll fix it.


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## Mavrick (Feb 1, 2006)

Okay may have some insight here to why the local channels are having this problem for my local fox station was having this problem and I along with several others had been discussing it with their engineer who posts over on AVS Forum.

It appears that their exciter on their transmitter is the culprit and to solve the problem on directv they switched back to their low power transmitter that used a different exciter and it did solve the problem on directv but caused them to lose range to the people using OTA.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=15373089&postcount=1154

They later wired the exciter from their low power transmitter into their full power transmitter which allowed them to go back to 80% power and the problem was still fixed on Directv.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=15477324&postcount=1179

He later reveled that the problem exciter was made by Rhode and Schwarz and that they would return to full power as soon as Rhode and Schwarz repaired the exciter.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=15715016&postcount=1222

Hopefully this info will help other people that are having the same problems with their local stations point their stations engineer into a possible direction of what might be the problem.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

wilbur_the_goose said:


> Folks - it's just TV.
> Chill - they'll fix it.


Will the fix come before or after Channels I Get?


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Will the fix come before or after Channels I Get?


Ken, you have brightened my day....again...with your terse retort.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

So everybody just sits around while Rhodes and whom ever fixes the problem....Any timeframe....? 

Thanks a ton for your help


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

DUH....I missed the dates associated with the posts.....I'm a little slow.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

hoos51 said:


> So everybody just sits around while Rhodes and whom ever fixes the problem....Any timeframe....?
> Thanks a ton for your help


I don't think "every problem" is Rhode and Schwarz.
With one station's diligent work, they found their source, which was in their OTA feed.
Since national HD channels aren't received OTA, I don't expect Rhode and Schwarz to help.


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## guffy1 (Apr 23, 2006)

wilbur_the_goose said:


> Folks - it's just TV.
> Chill - they'll fix it.


This has been going on for a good 6 months or more now, and I think people have been way more than "chill" considering how long its gone on. "Chill" is the reason it isnt getting fixed, IMO.

I would encourage everyone to not be the least bit "chill". Be the exact opposite of "chill" or this is never going to get fixed.

I have personally called more than a dozen times, and had them out to my house another 4 times. I will continue to harass them on a weekly basis until it gets fixed. I will not "chill" :grin:


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

guffy1 said:


> I have personally called more than a dozen times, *and had them out to my house another 4 times*. I will continue to harass them on a weekly basis until it gets fixed. I will not "chill" :grin:


They actually came to your house about the brrrripppp, that is one gigantic waste of man hours and money on Directv's part, the problem comes from the transmission, it's evidently in their feed and to send some poor tech out to fix the unfixable is really sticking their head in the sand.


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## guffy1 (Apr 23, 2006)

rebkell said:


> They actually came to your house about the brrrripppp, that is one gigantic waste of man hours and money on Directv's part, the problem comes from the transmission, it's evidently in their feed and to send some poor tech out to fix the unfixable is really sticking their head in the sand.


Couldnt agree more... All they want to do is pretend its a hardware issue and they have replaced every single piece of hardware in my system. I make it more than clear everytime I talk to them or get a service call that I know it isnt a hardware issue. All they wanna do is play games...


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

rebkell said:


> They actually came to your house about the brrrripppp, that is one gigantic waste of man hours and money on Directv's part, the problem comes from the transmission, it's evidently in their feed and to send some poor tech out to fix the unfixable is really sticking their head in the sand.


"Actually" it wasn't the waste of man hours you may think.
I'd emailed the office of the president, which did take an interest. "I knew" it was on the DirecTV side.
Round one was to contact the network broadcast center and [frankly] their reply "didn't cut it".
Round two was to send out a "upper level" three man team to inspect my system.
This eliminated anything on "my end" and forced the ball to be "dropped" back in the broadcast center's court.
This is where the info I've posted earlier here has come from.


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## babzog (Sep 20, 2006)

It's happening on more than just Fox. Seeing it now on more locals plus other channels like SciFi, Discovery, etc. Not often, but often enough to be noticeably annoying.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> "Actually" it wasn't the waste of man hours you may think.
> I'd emailed the office of the president, which did take an interest. "I knew" it was on the DirecTV side.
> Round one was to contact the network broadcast center and [frankly] their reply "didn't cut it".
> Round two was to send out a "upper level" three man team to inspect my system.
> ...


I stand by the waste of time, are the receivers everywhere not exhibiting the problem? It's not some isolated thing, it should be able to be seen by anyone using a Directv receiver. In all honesty, how could they not know about the problem, it's happened off and on for a long time, just recently it has gotten much worse, does anyone even actually monitor what is happening, are the customers supposed to tell the engineering department about the blatant problems?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

rebkell said:


> I stand by the waste of time, are the receivers everywhere not exhibiting the problem? It's not some isolated thing, it should be able to be seen by anyone using a Directv receiver. In all honesty, how could they not know about the problem, it's happened off and on for a long time, just recently it has gotten much worse, does anyone even actually monitor what is happening, are the customers supposed to tell the engineering department about the blatant problems?


 Most of the answers to your questions would need to come from DirecTV.
"I assume" with all of the local channels, that the broadcast center doesn't monitor every one 24/7.


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## mklimek (Nov 2, 2008)

Does anyone have a reputable contact within Directv that can look into it? Say, within the engineering dept. or the like?


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

office......pretty much things happen and in the technical world some things might take as long as 4 months to fix. ( he referenced a sw patch, probably I really was just talking to a co-op) that's one hell of a sw patch if that's whats needed.

They tell me they have not had 1 call on this issue.


Let me tell you all, in my conversation, they really think we are the lucky ones, pretty much take you for granted ! well, fios guy is coming tomorrow, I may try that while running parallel with these super stars...if it's better I'll switch.

btw....my local CBS guy got them to admit they heard the audio issue. This is just a damn shame.


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## BKC (Dec 12, 2007)

wilbur_the_goose said:


> Folks - it's just TV.
> Chill - they'll fix it.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> Most of the answers to your questions would need to come from DirecTV.
> "I assume" with all of the local channels, that the broadcast center doesn't monitor every one 24/7.


I concede somewhat on the locals being hard to monitor, but most all the nationals are exhibiting the problem, so I think the QA end of Directv is pretty lax, either that, or we're getting fed a bunch of nonsense about no knowledge of the problem.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Let me tell ya pal....there is absolutely nothing pro-active going on. They aren't going to do anything unless its like the fiber being cut and a total loss. I am not exaggerating, I have had this stuttering for 10 days, 24x a day and they reacted like , no big deal, we need 10,000 people to call in and then we might look at it.

Again, it seems to be the CBS affiliate as far as local HD goes. The others seem OK.

You can track these issues back as far as 05/06, they know what the hell is going on, this is nothing new.


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## kycubsfan (Sep 1, 2007)

I'm seeing this phenomenon across a wide swath of HD channels, including MLB and SciFi.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Probably going to see them forever cause they are not 1 bit motivated to fix. Go google Audio stuttering Directv.


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## mklimek (Nov 2, 2008)

You'd think that these employees, especially the engineers or QA people, would have Directv in their own homes and would see this issue as well, get a clue, and start working on a solution.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

That's a great point, you do wonder....and that's what leads me to my negative thoughts about their sincerity.....lol


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

I can assure you that everyone who can utilize DIRECTV within DIRECTV gets DIRECTV. 

You guys make this sound like it is trivial the programming that is being done here. These are real-time MPEG2 to MPEG4 transcoders. MPEG4 is brand new, MPEG2 to the home is brand new, stations are going crazy working on these issues (read the individual DMA forums at AVSforums, there are horror stories about the issues), and networks are still working out the bugs in the whole AV plant they've just built for HD.

So to say "So and So doesn't care" this early in the game is just being mean, in my opinion. They do care. I know they care very much at DIRECTV, from Chase Carey on down. (It's pretty clear in his comments at investors conferences, by the way.)

Cheers,
Tom


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Tom Robertson said:


> I can assure you that everyone who can utilize DIRECTV within DIRECTV gets DIRECTV.
> 
> You guys make this sound like it is trivial the programming that is being done here. These are real-time MPEG2 to MPEG4 transcoders. MPEG4 is brand new, MPEG2 to the home is brand new, stations are going crazy working on these issues (read the individual DMA forums at AVSforums, there are horror stories about the issues), and networks are still working out the bugs in the whole AV plant they've just built for HD.
> 
> ...


Tom,

So DirecTV HD is in beta?
They may care and they may be working on the fixing the problem...but it's not fixed...and it's getting worse. Maybe they should consider not charging an HD access fee until they can make their HD access work a bit better than it is now...that might show the customers that they do "care". Although, I guess just not saying anything about it and just pretending it doesn't exist is the more ethical way to go.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

Ken S said:


> it's not fixed...and it's getting worse.


That's my biggest concern. This problem is getting MUCH worse. I was watching SciFi HD tonight, and it was happening every 2-3 minutes! Spike HD was about 4-5 minutes. It's getting to the point where it's actually starting to impact the "watchability" of the programming. Asking anyone to "chill" when things are only getting worse is absurd.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

Acknowledging that they have a problem would help a lot, then we know they are at least aware of it, but this act of not knowing there's a problem is the real worrisome part.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

rebkell said:


> Acknowledging that they have a problem would help a lot, then we know they are at least aware of it, but this act of not knowing there's a problem is the real worrisome part.


The people who need to know, know. The CSRs don't know, and although it really doesn't matter, it just ends up wasting DirecTV's money and their subscriber's time and patience.


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## weaver6 (Nov 3, 2005)

CBS last night was horrible. About 20 an hour. But, it happens on "cable" networks, too. Just not as often.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

Jeremy W said:


> That's my biggest concern. This problem is getting MUCH worse. I was watching SciFi HD tonight, and it was happening every 2-3 minutes! Spike HD was about 4-5 minutes. It's getting to the point where it's actually starting to impact the "watchability" of the programming. Asking anyone to "chill" when things are only getting worse is absurd.


So did it happen during BSG, 10pm EST showing? I won't be able to watch my recording until Sunday but I'll check for it.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

bonscott87 said:


> So did it happen during BSG, 10pm EST showing? I won't be able to watch my recording until Sunday but I'll check for it.


Sure did. I noticed one big one early (in the first couple of minutes - a complete audio/video "skip" that looked like 1 - 3 seconds just disappeared entirely) and a bunch of little brrriiiips throughout the hour.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

bonscott87 said:


> So did it happen during BSG, 10pm EST showing? I won't be able to watch my recording until Sunday but I'll check for it.


Yes, I remember one in particular early on, maybe 2 or 3 minutes, I'll check and give you the scene, It's right after

Kara: 'toothpaste in the universe. 'Gods know mos(brrripp= t of you need it), video freeze and brrrriiiippp, can't be missed.

It was definitely quite an episode last night on BSG.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

You sound like my wife ...Her answer is to just watch the SD channels. Sure , why not don't I just throw this 6----- dollar HD set over the mountain. 

With that attitude no wonder they won't fix anything.

I agree with Ken S , If they aren't going to provide a product you can enjoy, don't charge me or don't offer it until it works !


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

bonscott87 said:


> So did it happen during BSG, 10pm EST showing? I won't be able to watch my recording until Sunday but I'll check for it.


I didn't watch BSG, and the only reason I was watching SciFi in the first place is because someone else turned it on. But you've got your answer.

It's kind of funny how Dish does MPEG4 just like DirecTV, but you aren't hearing about this same problem with their channels. Seems like Charlie made the right choice in encoders.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

LameLefty said:


> Sure did. I noticed one big one early (in the first couple of minutes - a complete audio/video "skip" that looked like 1 - 3 seconds just disappeared entirely) and a bunch of little brrriiiips throughout the hour.


Ok, so I don't understand.

Watched BSG late last night, 10pm EST recording. HR21-200.

I had the one mentioned above right after Kara says "toothpaste", lasted maybe quarter second. After that I didn't have a single brrrrrrrip or drop out.

So if it's totally a transmission thing, how can we both have different experiences?

Perhaps it is a transmission issue and our various hardware/software is handling it better or worse. Mine obviously better for some reason.

I have an HR21-200 and an HR20-700, both on current national release, I haven't done any CE this cycle.

Oh, I asked my wife who watches CSI/CSI:NY a ton on Spike HD if she sees this and she said she hasn't noticed it, maybe once every other episode.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

bonscott87 said:


> Ok, so I don't understand.
> 
> Watched BSG late last night, 10pm EST recording. HR21-200.
> 
> ...


If you still have the show on your DVR, check the Domino commercial after the opening Segment of BSG(the next commercial break after the toothpaste part). I think there was one there, I wouldn't normally notice it, but when I was finding the other one, I was typing and the recording was playing back and I noticed it during the commercial.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

bonscott87 said:


> Ok, so I don't understand.
> 
> Watched BSG late last night, 10pm EST recording. HR21-200.
> 
> ...


That would seem to reinforce that you are correct that it is a broadcast issue, with different units handling it in slightly different ways.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

rebkell said:


> If you still have the show on your DVR, check the Domino commercial after the opening Segment of BSG(the next commercial break after the toothpaste part). I think there was one there, I wouldn't normally notice it, but when I was finding the other one, I was typing and the recording was playing back and I noticed it during the commercial.


I deleted it already. I do have a backup on my HR20 but it was from the midnight showing. I'll probably rewatch it anything since it was good and it'll be interesting to see if the later showing had the problem in the same place.


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## bcltoys (Feb 11, 2009)

Is this problem happening with all hd receivers or just dvrhd receivers.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

A good comparison point is if you see it in live TV that you also are recording, and then it shows up in the recorded version playback...that would seem to reinforce it being a broadcast issue....

Also...if anyone has examples on their existing recordings...further evidence..


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## retromzc (Sep 7, 2007)

bcltoys said:


> Is this problem happening with all hd receivers or just dvrhd receivers.


Trust me, it also happens on h20-100 and h20-600 non dvr receivers. Much too often.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

retromzc said:


> Trust me, it also happens on h20-100 and h20-600 non dvr receivers...


 Also on my H21-200, which should point to the SAT feed as "the source".


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> A good comparison point is if you see it in live TV that you also are recording, and then it shows up in the recorded version playback...that would seem to reinforce it being a broadcast issue....
> 
> Also...if anyone has examples on their existing recordings...further evidence..


If you notice it and then skip back and it's still there, should be the same thing. I've never jumped back and the brrrripppp disappear, but I have seen the slo-mo strobing effect change on the video. I was recording Leverage last week and it was doing the frame slo-mo/strobe effect a lot, I finally stopped the playback and restarted it and it played back fine(video, any audio brips were always there).


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

rebkell said:


> If you notice it and then skip back and it's still there, should be the same thing. I've never jumped back and the brrrripppp disappear, but I have seen the slo-mo strobing effect change on the video. I was recording Leverage last week and it was doing the frame slo-mo/strobe effect a lot, I finally stopped the playback and restarted it and it played back fine(video, any audio brips were always there).


That would seem to validate the broadcast stream as the problem then...


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

Just so others can compare. Yesterday watched several hours of programs from during the week.

CSI:NY, CSI and Numbers from local CBS - No problems (which is actually amazing taking our local CBS into account)
Burn Notice off USA - no brrrrrrrrrps (not even when it started like there was last week)
Cops off local Fox - no problems
Chuck off local NBC - One brrrrrrrp about 5 minutes in and they stayed in SD after a local commercial break about 40 minutes in but came back to HD about 2 minutes later (obviously a local problem there)


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## c9house (Sep 18, 2007)

This has been happening to me also. I recently upgraded to HD and never saw this issue on SD. I have the HR23.

Watched a DVR'd DollHouse ep. last night from Friday and it happened during that show. For me I've really only noticed it on Locals. Maybe I just watch more locals.


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## t_h (Mar 7, 2008)

Tom Robertson said:


> You guys make this sound like it is trivial the programming that is being done here. These are real-time MPEG2 to MPEG4 transcoders. MPEG4 is brand new, MPEG2 to the home is brand new, stations are going crazy working on these issues (read the individual DMA forums at AVSforums, there are horror stories about the issues), and networks are still working out the bugs in the whole AV plant they've just built for HD.


Here's my issue, Tom. Directv chose this technology, deployed it, sold it to customers, and they're charging a pretty good price.

Its clearly complex stuff and they haven't figured out how to make it work really, really well yet, nor do they seem to have tuned the inter-company relationships such that they can identify and resolve the problems in a more timely manner.

But theres no hesitation to continue to stuff more HD channels into the mix, more features, and even more complexity when they havent worked out the bugs in the basic audio and video transmission.

The HD is pretty. When it goes brrrriiiiiiipppppp!!!!! 5 or 6 times in a show, the enjoyment goes down a little bit.

So I appreciate the complexity of the technology, but it was directvs choice to implement it, and their responsibility to get it right before they sold it to a lot of customers.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

UPDATE.......After 2 long weeks of fighting, as of this morning I have gone many hours without a video or audio glitch. So far so good again this morning.

I went 24 x 7 for 2 weeks to all of a sudden its gone. Sure would like to know what the hell they did.

Many calls to the station , to Casey's office, to people telling me I was the only one that had it, etc....

The engineer did tell me he started to get more calls, maybe they took more interest after that. Again, have no idea who had ownership on this issue

Channel 9 WUSA Washington, DC


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

This is a key word and is the term the engineers or the broadcast guys in LA use. Now do ya think they know about the issue when they have a given nick name for it.....

They seem to think when it appears it's very hard to fix????? Thus my 13 day adventure. But damn it, Never, Never give up ! I Called every day ( wife says I have some real issues ) but I can work that problem ! 

So if you guys ever call about this issue Ref: Motor Boating, maybe that will help.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

hoos51 said:


> So if you guys ever call about this issue Ref: Motor Boating, maybe that will help.


More likely, you'll just offend the CSR: (Probably NSFW, but not really that bad) http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=motor+boating


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

Jeremy W said:


> More likely, you'll just offend the CSR: (Probably NSFW, but not really that bad) http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=motor+boating


This definition is probably closer to the problem than the one you linked:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorboating


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

rebkell said:


> This definition is probably closer to the problem than the one you linked:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorboating


No kidding, I realize that. But when you call DirecTV, you're not talking to an engineer. You're talking to a dumb CSR. And a dumb CSR is more likely to associate it with my definition than yours.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

hoos51 said:


> UPDATE.......After 2 long weeks of fighting, as of this morning I have gone many hours without a video or audio glitch. So far so good again this morning.
> 
> I went 24 x 7 for 2 weeks to all of a sudden its gone. Sure would like to know what the hell they did.
> 
> ...


Woohoo, hoos51! That is fantastic news.

Cheers,
Tom


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Hell, I know you guys were tired of me b-----ing, I know my wife was


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## David MacLeod (Jan 29, 2008)

well, so far I had been pretty much immune to this.
until today.
USA, TNT, TBS are horrific for past 6 hours.
unbelievable.
signal strength high, no weather, doing it on all my receivers and IS recordable, ...blah blah blah...


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Hell, let me tune and see what I'm getting.....do I have power of attorney to call for you ? 

Man, I know how bad it can be .....it's best to call them and report asap....Ref: Motorboating  Make sure they escalate also! And call every frickin day....they will try and wear you down but don't give up.


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## Mrmiami (Oct 3, 2006)

DVR'ed American Idol and attempted to watch it starting at 9:00 PM Est. Wow! This digital ripping-burping crap has got to go the program is unwatchable because now it's not just the noises but it is throwing the lipsync out.Looks like D* is going down the crapper with their quality. This is a LIL coming from D* sat so it's not an OTA Problem.

Still Running latest National release with HR20-700 Crapo DVR!!! WTF DirecTV!!!


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## seern (Jan 13, 2007)

Dave and guys, I am starting to see it spread. I see it both with live and, of course, recordings of shows that did it. Since it seems to be across the board, locals and nationals, it must be something going on with D* and not the individual sources.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Quality of the MLB Network is really sliding. I have friends that work for the network so I have it on quite a bit during the day and there's just lots of audio tears and pixelation. Doesn't matter if its a live event or a replay of a game from the sixties.

The worst, of course, was the audio problems during my son's 10 seconds on the network a couple of days back. Fortunately, my mother caught it on Comcast and was able to save a video for us.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

(Mod edit: redacted)

I have been chatting with a young lady by the name of Mara and for now my issues are fixed. They were very helpful.

Strike while the irons hot, they know there are issues but we need to work as a group to make sure they know this is happening everywhere . 

As a matter of fact it was also happening in her area .


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

hoos51 said:


> (Mod edit: redacted)
> 
> I have been chatting with a young lady by the name of Mara and for now my issues are fixed. They were very helpful.
> 
> ...


What did they do to fix it?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

hoos51 said:


> (Mod edit: redacted) [email protected]m
> 
> I have been chatting with a young lady by the name of Mara and for now my issues are fixed. They were very helpful.
> 
> ...


 Using this email will get you to the same group.
This is listed on the DirecTV website for all customers to use if needed.

[email protected]


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## bagdropper (Sep 24, 2007)

This anomily is still occuring during West Wing early in the morning on 273 HD. I've been home the last 2 days nursing a very sore back, watched a lot of DTV. 

The brrrt sound has disappeared, but various video anomilies still occur - almost like a freeze frame where the audio continues uninterupted, but the video either pauses or freezes momentarily - no brrrts. These instances sometimes on certain channels last as long as 5-6 seconds but most times are around a half second, second or two tops. All the DTV channels I watched, and the last 2 days its been around 30 or so, seem susceptible, both traditional SD channels like 256 and the newer HDs. Some, like 273 for TWW, are much worse.

I don't get these glitches at all on my OTA PC/360 derived locals.

This started somewhere around September or so. My old H20-600 (recalled early Nov 08) and 100's (2 still glitched up refurb replacements of the 600) and this H23 have all had this issue since before the recall process started for me, and my video collection recorded dates prove out - this started in fall 08.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

bagdropper said:


> almost like a freeze frame where the audio continues uninterupted, but the video either pauses or freezes momentarily


I've seen this as well.


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## bagdropper (Sep 24, 2007)

I counted...somewhere around 35 occurances of this from 8-9am on 273 HD during a very good episode of TWW. Again, most times, the audio comes through clean but the video freezes or blacks out about a second in length, but there were several of these where it went more or less black for about 5 seconds, sometimes the audio came with it sometimes not. 

At times, these anomilies would happen at a rate of 2-3 a minute, then disappear for about 5 minutes, then re-occur in rapid succesion.

It really was unwatchable at times.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

BattleScott said:


> What did they do to fix it?


I'll keep on it though and again, if no one calls , these issues won't get fixed. Do not give up, call every frickin day.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

hoos51 said:


> Do not give up, call every frickin day.


No thanks. If it gets to the point where I can't take it anymore, DirecTV will just lose a customer. It's not my job to stay on top of them when they're supposed to be providing a service I pay for.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

veryoldschool said:


> Using this email will get you to the same group.
> This is listed on the DirecTV website for all customers to use if needed.
> 
> [email protected]


I posted a number also, it was a Direct number, not a secret of any kind. Maybe I broke some code of honor but I wont do it again


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## bluetrue (Mar 6, 2009)

I am in the process of switching from E* to D* after 6 years with E*. My install is tomorrow and I have been concerned about the brrrrr issue, after reading this forum. However, I was just watching the FoxNews channel (HD) and the brrrrrr started happening. I replayed it to confirm. So it seems that Dish has the same problem, although this is the first time I have noticed it.

As I write this I am watching my recording of Glenn Beck for March 5. About 10 minutes in to the show I am getting long brrrrrrrrrrrs. Really bad.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

bluetrue said:


> I am in the process of switching from E* to D* after 6 years with E*. My install is tomorrow and I have been concerned about the brrrrr issue, after reading this forum. However, I was just watching the FoxNews channel (HD) and the brrrrrr started happening. I replayed it to confirm. So it seems that Dish has the same problem, although this is the first time I have noticed it.


Welcome to the forums, bluetrue! :welcome_s

And welcome to DIRECTV, coming soon.


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## firemandan (Mar 1, 2009)

The golf channel seems to be pretty bad, worse than most of the others for me.


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## Mrmiami (Oct 3, 2006)

bluetrue said:


> I am in the process of switching from E* to D* after 6 years with E*. My install is tomorrow and I have been concerned about the brrrrr issue, after reading this forum. However, I was just watching the FoxNews channel (HD) and the brrrrrr started happening. I replayed it to confirm. So it seems that Dish has the same problem, although this is the first time I have noticed it.
> 
> As I write this I am watching my recording of Glenn Beck for March 5. About 10 minutes in to the show I am getting long brrrrrrrrrrrs. Really bad.


As I am reading this I find myself wondering, because it is also happening with E*, if the increase in the brrrrip effect has anything to do with Sunspots/Solar radiation, I know it sounds ridiculous, but let me explain. Back in the 80's a buddy of mine had one of those C-Band? Sat dishes you know the 12-15 foot types (Yikes!) and twice a year definately March and I think around October his dish would go through Solar outages. What would happen is the program would gradually fill up with sparklies as we called them or static noise and progress to the point of no picture or sound, then gradually come back in reverse order and lasted anywhere from 10-20 min. I am not sure of the scientific reasons behind it but it had something to do with the season changes and the way the Earth was tilting on it's axis. Pretty heavy stuff but those types of dishes are used by every broadcasting channel to pump their signals up to the Sat's for redistribution to us. I know it doesn't really explain why it was occurring on the off months but it could be a part of the increase in them and it also doesn't help to resolve the problem but I guess if it were only 2 months out of 12 that we had to deal with the increase of them, it might ease the PITA it is. On the other hand, if your a Fan of March Madness and MLB (World Series) it just might be enough to cause you to step off that ledge:eek2:


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

Mrmiami said:


> As I am reading this I find myself wondering, because it is also happening with E*, if the increase in the brrrrip effect has anything to do with Sunspots/Solar radiation


It has to do with crappy MPEG4 encoders.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Mrmiami said:


> ...twice a year definately March and I think around October his dish would go through Solar outages. What would happen is the program would gradually fill up with sparklies as we called them or static noise and progress to the point of no picture or sound, then gradually come back in reverse order and lasted anywhere from 10-20 min. I am not sure of the scientific reasons behind it...


 Not to go too far OT but, this is when the Sun is in line with [behind] the SAT. The dish gets swamped with the Sun's radiation which raises the noise above the SAT signal.
As to the brriip, as Jeremy W posted, it has to do with how [poorly] the encoders are converting MPEG-2 to MPEG-4.


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## TBlazer07 (Feb 5, 2009)

WOW, It's like the campfire "beans" scene from Blazing Saddle.

I never experienced the infamous "brrrrippp" until today. I was watching the Today Show this morning and every 10 seconds during the "best frozen pizza" segment it, er, "brrrippp'd" one off. 

Then I realized I was watching "channel 4 - NY" (DirecTV) and not 4-1 NY (OTA). I never watch or record the D* locals only OTA. I kept switching back and forth and it only happened on the DirecTV local channel and not OTA. Without reading this entire thread I assume the issue is D* uplinks. 

After experiencing that, I'm glad all I have are HR20's w/OTA. That is really annoying. I have never noticed on ANY other channels.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

hoos51 said:


> I have been chatting with a young lady by the name of Mara and for now my issues are fixed. They were very helpful.
> 
> Strike while the irons hot, they know there are issues but we need to work as a group to make sure they know this is happening everywhere .





BattleScott said:


> What did they do to fix it?





hoos51 said:


> *Title text: "No one called back..."*
> I'll keep on it though and again, if no one calls , these issues won't get fixed. Do not give up, call every frickin day.


*(Title text inserted by me.)*

I'm confused. I took your original post to mean something was done that fixed the brrrp issue for you?
Did they return after a time or am I mis-reading the original post?

p.s.: splitting your message between the Title and Message areas can cause problems with a loss of context when people reply. Always a good idea to repeat the title portion in the message, or just ignore the title portion all together as most do unless starting a new thread.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Yes, the problem was fixed on my locals and it must be a secret as what they did to fix it.

That being said , this morning it's happening on other channels now but not as bad. Particularly Comcast Sports , channel 642.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

Just FYI that I didn't see it at all this weekend from my weeks recordings so far: Burn Notice, Numbers, CSI:NY, CSI and a hockey game on FS Detroit.

Wife's been watching Spike recordings all day today and no problems. They have seemed to gone away for me (although I didn't see them much in the first place). Either that or my receivers are handling it better (national release software).


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

I noticed small examples on _BSG_ Friday night, and I've seen it on more recordings from Fox (_Dollhouse_ and _Sarah Connor Chronicles_) as well as during my local CBS news.

EDITED TO ADD: Just heard another one during the Tennessee-Alabama basketball game on my CBS HD local.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

They seem less frequent lately, I still notice them, but the ones I'm noticing lately seem much shorter in duration and to me are less irritating. My local CBS is horrid right now, but it's a local problem, because I've got audio dropouts/glitches constantly on cable and Direct, but these aren't brrrippps, they're mostly just small dropouts.


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## t_h (Mar 7, 2008)

Watching "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" was painful. The first 7 minutes had almost as much brriipping as dialog. I was just about to give up and fire up the htpc and watch it off the fox web site when it stopped.

Nice clear, windless evening that it recorded.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

The worst part of all this, is that I don't remember ever experiencing much of any kind of problems for probably 9 months, when I first got locals, I expected to have some growing pains and did have some, but for the most part they got ironed out in the first two or three weeks, and now we're getting all kinds of glitches, I'd expect to be on cruise control by now.


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## techntrek (Apr 26, 2007)

t_h said:


> Watching "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" was painful. The first 7 minutes had almost as much brriipping as dialog. I was just about to give up and fire up the htpc and watch it off the fox web site when it stopped.
> 
> Nice clear, windless evening that it recorded.


Ditto for me, I was worried I would have to kill the recording and hunt it down on the 'net.

Several puns intended. :grin:


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## t_h (Mar 7, 2008)

I wonder how many HR's have been returned after receiving a dose of thermite.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

t_h said:


> I wonder how many HR's have been returned after receiving a dose of thermite.


One. But it walked in under its own power...


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

It was returned, but when it arrived the box was empty...


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## homebase (Sep 4, 2007)

Briiiiip is happening on the CBS local news now. Sure makes the weatherman more interesting to watch!


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

I thought this was worth posting here:


> I [through other means] know that the Brriiip is being worked on, but also that it isn't something that is going to be easy to fix.





TomCat said:


> I agree, and I also know it is being "worked on", but that term has a lot of latitude. When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and I'm not sure those working on it are all that qualified or knowledgable. IOW, I don't think they yet know how to work on it. Since zipper noise is so annoying, what they should do first is have the Harmonic folks give them an up rev for the encoders that will mute audio at a more sensitive level, which would be better than it burping. There is also the possibility that Sencore Atlas decoders are contributors to the problem. I know Sencore is actively dissecting TS captures in the name of fixing this, but I would not hold my breath, as their goal in all of that is to say "see, the TS is the problem. We're innocent".
> 
> One thing we do know is it is not a HR2x issue. I mistakenly recorded FlashPoint on two different HR2xs a few weeks ago, on a night when there were an unusual amount of burps. Well, guess what, the burps were in precisely the same locations on both recordings, which kind of seals the deal that they were in the TS to begin with, and not a manifestation in the HR2xs (one would expect a slightly different mainfestation on separate recordings, rather than a perfect reprduction).
> 
> ...


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## t_h (Mar 7, 2008)

Tom Robertson said:


> One. But it walked in under its own power...


So is that a $470 charge, or an account credit? 

VOS, sobering post. What is basically being said is that the technology is doomed to subpar performance issues due to complexity and interoperability issues and the fix is complicated and not readily at hand. Yes?

So why is it that Directv actively walked into this scenario and continues to add HD channels to something that produces poor results?

Its not like its a brpppp once a show or once a day. Its so bad I almost deleted a couple of shows and watched them off the internet at half the resolution.

That would = poor results.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

I can put up with the brriiippps better than I could with the lip sync issues we had a year+ ago, but why did they all of a sudden surface, the lip sync issues just seemed to go away and everything seemed fine, and now all of a sudden the brrrippp stuff starts happening.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

t_h said:


> VOS, sobering post. What is basically being said is that the technology is doomed to subpar performance issues due to complexity and interoperability issues and the fix is complicated and not readily at hand. Yes?


"I think" one of the main problems is that this isn't between "two parties".
We have the source "people", the equipment "people" and DirecTV [as a minimum]. This causes everyone to point to "someone else".
ie: the encoder people blame the source people. The source people blame the DirecTV system [people], which would point back to the encoders. 
"As I see it": the only way this will get corrected is for DirecTV to use the "purchasing power" to force the encoder makes to tolerate what the source people are sending. DirecTV has to be one of the major buyers of these encoders and as such, should be able to leverage this to get the encoder supplier(s) to improve their product. Even getting this to happen isn't going to be overnight. Imagine the Lawyers involved.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

rebkell said:


> I can put up with the brriiippps better than I could with the lip sync issues we had a year+ ago, but why did they all of a sudden surface, the lip sync issues just seemed to go away and everything seemed fine, and now all of a sudden the brrrippp stuff starts happening.


 Since this is directly related to the audio feed and its timing to the video, what "fixed" the lipsync problems *may* be the cause of the brrrippp [zipper] sounds.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> "I think" one of the main problems is that this isn't between "two parties".
> We have the source "people", the equipment "people" and DirecTV [as a minimum]. This causes everyone to point to "someone else".
> ie: the encoder people blame the source people. The source people blame the DirecTV system [people], which would point back to the encoders.
> "As I see it": the only way this will get corrected is for DirecTV to use the "purchasing power" to force the encoder makes to tolerate what the source people are sending. DirecTV has to be one of the major buyers of these encoders and as such, should be able to leverage this to get the encoder supplier(s) to improve their product. Even getting this to happen isn't going to be overnight. Imagine the Lawyers involved.


It boils down to the encoders DirecTV is using and has nothing to do with the "source people". These source people provide signals that cable and OTA tuners handle just fine. It was DirecTV's choice to move to MPEG4 and use MPEG2/MPEG4 transcoders and they need to drop the hammer on who ever they get the encoders from. What I don't get is why is this happening now and not before? Obviously something has changed in the signal path. Remove that change and make sure it operates correctly before putting it back in.

The fact that this is not already fixed means that DirecTV prefers trying to fix this on the fly instead of swapping out the suspect equipment. All the while testing the patience of their customers as well as using them as beta testers.

You mentioned lawyers, if this continues beyond another month I expect you probably will see a class action suit about it. I don't doubt that DirecTV is trying to fix the problem, but sometimes you need a legal "hammer" to force them to fix it in a timely and satisfactory manner, otherwise we're stuck with them trying to fix it "on the fly", which apparently hasn't worked very well so far.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

keenan said:


> if this continues beyond another month I expect you probably will see a class action suit about it.


On what grounds?


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

t_h said:


> So is that a $470 charge, or an account credit?
> 
> VOS, sobering post. What is basically being said is that the technology is doomed to subpar performance issues due to complexity and interoperability issues and the fix is complicated and not readily at hand. Yes?
> 
> ...


That is a very pessimistic point of view, quite frankly. Read the whole post again--there are many growing pain points with digital TV to the home and MPEG2 to MPEG4 is only one component.

Thankfully, broadcasters didn't give up on color in the 50s and 60s when "it looked to be doomed to subpar performance" in the real world. They worked on the technology, they created best practices, and new technologies cleaned up the viewing experience to be very, very good--for SD 

Just so, stations, networks and carriers are working on the _new_ technology, creating new best practices, and new advances in all this stuff to eliminate the burp that becomes the briiiipppp and better techniques for not letting the burps turn into brrriiippps.

So you don't have to throw away your HDTV to go back to black and white 10" screens yet...  (but if you still want to thro away your HDTV, I'll be happy to take it off your hands and not charge you a hazmat trash fee...) 

Cheers,
Tom


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

Jeremy W said:


> On what grounds?


Doesn't really matter, sometimes legal pressure is the only way to get a problem/issue in the public(subscriber) eye, once that's happened there's usually more pressure to get the problem fixed. No company wants to be known as providing an inferior product.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

keenan said:


> It boils down to the encoders DirecTV is using and has nothing to do with the "source people". These source people provide signals that cable and OTA tuners handle just fine. It was DirecTV's choice to move to MPEG4 and use MPEG2/MPEG4 transcoders and they need to drop the hammer on who ever they get the encoders from. What I don't get is why is this happening now and not before? Obviously something has changed in the signal path. Remove that change and make sure it operates correctly before putting it back in.
> 
> The fact that this is not already fixed means that DirecTV prefers trying to fix this on the fly instead of swapping out the suspect equipment. All the while testing the patience of their customers as well as using them as beta testers.
> 
> You mentioned lawyers, if this continues beyond another month I expect you probably will see a class action suit about it. I don't doubt that DirecTV is trying to fix the problem, but sometimes you need a legal "hammer" to force them to fix it in a timely and satisfactory manner, otherwise we're stuck with them trying to fix it "on the fly", which apparently hasn't worked very well so far.


I'd almost guess that it is a result of the source people, I'd suspect that the problem has come along since we started adding all the locals, I know my locals even via cable, who simply passes on the signal have their fair share of glitches and problems. My guess is that Direct is trying to make a catch all solution for all these different sources, which probably requires tweaks and modifications on both ends, decoders and encoders.

I'm fairly sensitive to the audio glitching, even not watching TV and it's just background noise those seem to catch my ear no matter what I'm doing or what else I'm into. I don't recall having any audio problems for a long stretch, when they started this flood of Locals, we had all these various problems with the locals. I just think they are trying to make the catch all solution and what we've got now is the compromise, which probably means 1 or 2 % of the problem sources in an effort to resolve their issues has spread across the entire spectrum.

But, I agree with the lawsuit and getting things in the public eye, because they don't seem to be concerned with even publicly acknowledging that their is even a problem.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

What's the basis for a lawsuit? What are your damages? A lawsuit here won't do anything other than get swept out of court relatively quickly.

This isn't just a locals issue...it's on every HD channel I've been watching. The problem is also occurring much more frequently than before. In a few instances where I have recorded the program from Comcast and DirecTV the issue is only affecting the DirecTV HD showing.

This isn't to say that there aren't glitches with Comcast and OTA from time to time...problems just seem to be happening much more often with DirecTV.

It seems DirecTV has once again pushed a product out the door that wasn't ready for release. First it was the HR2x DVR and now MPEG4 HD. I guess being a DirecTV customer is just all about being a paying beta tester.

It'd be nice if DirecTV were to acknowledge they're having a problem. It also wouldn't be unreasonable for them to drop the $10 HD access fee until they can provide quality HD service.

I understand it may be the components that DirecTV is using that are causing the issue...but that's still a DirecTV problem. DirecTV chose to go with MPEG4. You would think they did a fair amount of testing before making that selection. They're the ones that selected and purchased those components and they're the ones that would have tested them and deemed them reliable for release.

This is a company that supposedly specializes in the delivery of HD TV. They're going to make about $20 billion this year...it's time they step up and admit there's a problem and then make whatever changes are necessary to fix it.


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## jollygrunt (Apr 13, 2005)

I recently had DirecTV HD installed, and I've noticed that for me the aforementioned problem only occurs during primetime while recording HD locals with CBS and NBC being the main offenders, especially CBS. For example, yesterday I recorded "Big Bang Theory" & "How I Met Your Mother" and both had multiple brriiipping problems. However, the local news at 10pm on that same CBS channel, KGBT 4, which I record daily, has never had any of the same problems.

Is this an issue I should call in and report to DirecTV when it happens?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> It boils down to the encoders DirecTV is using and has nothing to do with the "source people". These source people provide signals that cable and OTA tuners handle just fine. It was DirecTV's choice to move to MPEG4 and use MPEG2/MPEG4 transcoders...


 It doesn't? Problems in the MPEG-2 feeds can go unnoticed, and yet get magnified in the transcoding to MPEG-4. Having worked for one of the encoder suppliers, maybe I can understand [better] how a product works fine in the lab [product development], and yet "craps out" in the field.


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## t_h (Mar 7, 2008)

Tom Robertson said:


> That is a very pessimistic point of view, quite frankly.


Perhaps. I think people had a lot less in the way of expectations and alternatives when the transition from b&w to color took place. I'd imagine the folks that got color to work 80% of the time were pretty happy with it working.

Expectations are a little bit different right now. I can get pretty flawless HD with an antenna plugged into my tv. I can get fairly consistent HD with a few glitches now and then with cable tv. My SD experiences with Directv for over ten years were pretty darn good.

Directv, in the quest to be the leader in HD offerings from a volume perspective seems (according to several experts here) to have wandered into a compatibility minefield with mpeg4 and the equipment they've deployed.

I'd have preferred they went for quality before quantity, and worked out the big bugs before bringing the product to the masses.

So I dont think its pessimistic. Seems like a fairly realistic and balanced view.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> It doesn't? Problems in the MPEG-2 feeds can go unnoticed, and yet get magnified in the transcoding to MPEG-4. Having worked for one of the encoder suppliers, maybe I can understand [better] how a product works fine in the lab [product development], and yet "craps out" in the field.


VOS,

I agree with you the source probably does have something to do with it. You're also right about things working in the lab and not in the field. Isn't that why you would do a lot of field testing before a nationwide rollout?

But...the more interesting question is what change was made in the last couple of months that has created the current issue.


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## w3syt (Feb 17, 2006)

Ours is actually worse on an off the air antenna to our $40 converter in the kitchen---no Directv involved. (Pittsburgh digi stations direct).


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

Ken S said:


> What's the basis for a lawsuit? What are your damages? A lawsuit here won't do anything other than get swept out of court relatively quickly.


There really isn't any, and as I noted above, it really doesn't matter. What matters is that once someone files, or tries to file a lawsuit, it will get picked up by a tech site, then maybe another, and then hopefully it becomes a viral "news" story so that DirecTV has to respond with some sort of statement about the issue.

I'm certain they are working on the problem, but the question is, are they working on it in a fashion that will get it solved quickly? Short of subscribers leaving and/or raising enough stink about it, you have to wonder if they're really doing their utmost to fix it. Given the company is having a rather spectacular year in the face of a bad economy, and all of their competitors not doing so well, I don't think it's a stretch to consider they're not going "full-out" on fixing this. An example would be, instead of dumping the equipment they're using, they're letting the manufacturer try and fix it "in situ", all the while the customer is getting sub-par performance.

Believe me, I'm not a sue-happy sort of person, but I do know from past experience that it is often a method of getting results over leaving a company to their own devices, and time table, on getting something fixed.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> It doesn't? Problems in the MPEG-2 feeds can go unnoticed, and yet get magnified in the transcoding to MPEG-4. Having worked for one of the encoder suppliers, maybe I can understand [better] how a product works fine in the lab [product development], and yet "craps out" in the field.


The point being, the onus is the encoder company to work with what they have. IOW, if the signals coming from these stations/channels is not quite up to spec, what are they going to do, go to every station and "force" them to fix it? You know that's not going to happen, so they'll have to figure out how to make the equipment more tolerant.

As others have mentioned, why is this happening now? Did D* change out encoders recently? I think you mentioned this might be a result of fixing the lip-sync issue, but that happened quite awhile back didn't it?


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## eyalas (Aug 11, 2007)

Looks like I am now victim of this as well. This has been going on for me for a couple of days now on only one channel that I can tell, my local fox station. Every other station is fine. I thought it might be the broadcast, but switching to OTA looks and sounds great. As it is, Fox is unwatchable for me. I hope this gets resolved real soon.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

I hope everyone understands "I don't like it either". 
I've been "*****ing" about it since Sept. '08. 
I've called/emailed everyone I can.
When I first "heard about" the "source problem", "the answer" has always seemed to belong the DirecTV and their supplier to resolve, "if the OTA" signal was good [I know sometimes it wasn't here].
As for "the suppler" that I worked for, I left because I didn't agree with their management's "idea of" doing things. [Constantly wondering: Is this any way to run an airline] This only makes me think it is also part of the problem here.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> I hope everyone understands "I don't like it either".


Actually, we all thought you liked it so much that you were the one causing it. :lol:


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## runner26 (Apr 8, 2007)

hoos51 said:


> It helps to call and tell them you're having issues too. When I call they tell me I'm the only one in the world having this issue


I got the hot tip for you Pard. They say that to everyone. If we all called in with this sound problem (I am having it also) each and every one would be told that we were the only ones experiencing this. D* never never never owns up to a problem at their end. NEVER!!!!!!!!!


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> Actually, we all thought you liked it so much that you were the one causing it. :lol:


 I have been known to find the sound of a zipper unzipping attractive.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

keenan said:


> It boils down to the encoders DirecTV is using and has nothing to do with the "source people". These source people provide signals that cable and OTA tuners handle just fine.


You can't make such a wide and sweeping statement like that. When these problems occur with the HD locals in our area they are seen both OTA and cable along with DirecTV. Thus it's a "source" problem.

For the cable networks I hear ya.

As for the overall issue, I never noticed it that much in the first place, I did post a week or two ago in this thread that I was noticing it some, sometimes at the same time as others. In the past week/week and a half I haven't noticed it at all on any channels, even my locals.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

keenan said:


> An example would be, instead of dumping the equipment they're using, they're letting the manufacturer try and fix it "in situ", all the while the customer is getting sub-par performance.


I don't know how much things have actually changed at DirecTV under Liberty and Malone, but they have certainly gone downhill from my perspective. Within the last six months, DirecTV has had three major glitches with their guide data, causing widespread issues with the DVRs. Each time, they've had to release an emergency fix. This type of thing never happened before, but now it happens on a semi-regular basis.

And of course, we've got the ongoing issues with the MPEG4 encoders. I understand that it's not an easy problem to solve. But we've been dealing with this problem as it's gotten progressively worse for months. We're not paying any less for the product, and as of last week we're actually paying more. But DirecTV seems to be content with continuing down their current path of not doing anything to actually fix the problem.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

Jeremy W said:


> I don't know how much things have actually changed at DirecTV under Liberty and Malone, but they have certainly gone downhill from my perspective. Within the last six months, DirecTV has had three major glitches with their guide data, causing widespread issues with the DVRs. Each time, they've had to release an emergency fix. This type of thing never happened before, but now it happens on a semi-regular basis.
> 
> And of course, we've got the ongoing issues with the MPEG4 encoders. I understand that it's not an easy problem to solve. But we've been dealing with this problem as it's gotten progressively worse for months. We're not paying any less for the product, and as of last week we're actually paying more. But DirecTV seems to be content with continuing down their current path of not doing anything to actually fix the problem.


I think it's been a gradual quality reduction across the entire product. I first noticed it with SD when the HD product was being introduced. There was a gradual reduction in quality as the channels were squeezed from what was at one time a near DVD quality picture to what it is today, akin to a mediocre internet stream. With the HD it seems as though they have learned a lesson from that and realized they don't have to be BETTER than the rest, just try not to be worse and let the advertising do the rest. Ironically, the one thing that seems to be consistent from day one, for me anyways, is the customer service. I know others here have just the opposite experience, but I have always found their customer service to be second to none and still do. The product itself is another story, going downhill.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

I have a really dumb question. I know every week they have this cutting edge release and directv really likes the feed back on any issues from this group.

Is there a way that this bbbbbrrrrrrp issue can be sent up the line using that line of communication?


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

hoos51 said:


> I have a really dumb question. I know every week they have this cutting edge release and directv really likes the feed back on any issues from this group.
> 
> Is there a way that this bbbbbrrrrrrp issue can be sent up the line using that line of communication?


In way, absolutely. Thankfully, DIRECTV has read this thread and is very aware of the issue.

(I can't say they are still reading this thread, I'm sure the right people have been made aware of it.)


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

t_h said:


> Perhaps. I think people had a lot less in the way of expectations and alternatives when the transition from b&w to color took place. I'd imagine the folks that got color to work 80% of the time were pretty happy with it working.
> 
> Expectations are a little bit different right now. I can get pretty flawless HD with an antenna plugged into my tv. I can get fairly consistent HD with a few glitches now and then with cable tv. My SD experiences with Directv for over ten years were pretty darn good.
> 
> ...


Are you aware of the problems the sources are having creating clean signals? I've watch HD for 8 years now, in 3 different locales. I've watched all the local stations struggle to present a clean signal to OTA watchers, and it has been a major learning process.

Just a few weeks ago, CBS introduced new parts to their network--and caused burbs too many of their affiliate watchers. I couldn't watch OTA one nite!

So DIRECTV is struggling with Garbage In and not letting it be Garbage Out. Clearly they have work to do as do the sources themselves. My point is that it will get better and isn't a wasted technology as you intimated.

Cheers,
Tom


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

Tom Robertson said:


> So DIRECTV is struggling with Garbage In and not letting it be Garbage Out.


I think we can all understand that DirecTV is getting some "garbage" in the signals they're receiving. However, that same garbage doesn't impact other providers. I understand that everyone else aside from Dish is using MPEG2, but that doesn't concern me. DirecTV needs to deal with the garbage just like everyone else, without excuses.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Jeremy W said:


> I think we can all understand that DirecTV is getting some "garbage" in the signals they're receiving. However, that same garbage doesn't impact other providers. I understand that everyone else aside from Dish is using MPEG2, but that doesn't concern me. DirecTV needs to deal with the garbage just like everyone else, without excuses.


I'm saying 3 things:
1) Everyone is getting some garbage, so people should only blame DIRECTV for their "handling" of the garbage. (This has been heard on other providers other than DIRECTV or OTA, by the way.)
2) Everyone should remember that MPEG2 at the affiliate level is very new technology. This will take some time.
3) No one is "truly" excusing DIRECTV, especially DIRECTV. They absolutely will fix this, working with all the parties involved.

I'm sure no one is happy with the current state of HD; I know I'm not when I can't even watch OTA HD and have to switch to SD again.

One other comment. For me, it seems like things are better. Instead of Brrrriiippps, I seem to get tiny moments of silence most of the time. Perhaps things will be better soon for all of us? At least that is my hope.

Cheers,
Tom


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## t_h (Mar 7, 2008)

Tom Robertson said:


> Are you aware of the problems the sources are having creating clean signals?


Only comparator I have is with my dad who uses a tivo HD on comcast cable. He watches a lot of the same shows. I've never heard a brrp, and he's never noticed one either. He probably watches twice the amount of tv that I do.

Same local channels, pretty much the same dozen or so other HD channels like sci-fi, FX, NFL, etc.

In particular on a couple of shows that were almost all brrrps for minutes on end, he had a clean playback. Same channel. Same source. Same geographic area.

Small sample size, but its all I have.

I've also looked over at the HD tivo forum, and dont see any threads running to 15-20 pages about audio brrping.



> My point is that it will get better and isn't a wasted technology as you intimated.


Tom, Tom, Tom...you keep turning the dial up on what I've said. I didnt say it was a wasted technology. I said it doesnt work very well some of the time, it seems its not quite ready for prime time, they're continuing to shove 5 more pounds of stuff into the bag when its not holding the stuff thats already in it, and it seems...according to expert testimony in this thread...that its getting worse and it'll be hard to fix.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

t_h said:


> Only comparator I have is with my dad who uses a tivo HD on comcast cable. He watches a lot of the same shows. I've never heard a brrp, and he's never noticed one either. He probably watches twice the amount of tv that I do.
> 
> Same local channels, pretty much the same dozen or so other HD channels like sci-fi, FX, NFL, etc.
> 
> ...


Perhaps I should expound upon my statement, I believe it might be misleading to the point of being disingenuous. My apologies.

While these problems are heard on OTA and other providers, DIRECTV might be worse right now (or until recently). How much might be debatable, but probably really boils down to where and when the comparisons are made. 

Does that clear things up a bit?


t_h said:


> Tom, Tom, Tom...you keep turning the dial up on what I've said. I didnt say it was a wasted technology. I said it doesnt work very well some of the time, it seems its not quite ready for prime time, they're continuing to shove 5 more pounds of stuff into the bag when its not holding the stuff thats already in it, and it seems...according to expert testimony in this thread...that its getting worse and it'll be hard to fix.


It was this excerpt that sounded to me as if you felt the technology was wasted:


t_h said:


> ...
> VOS, sobering post. What is basically being said is that the technology is doomed to subpar performance issues due to complexity and interoperability issues and the fix is complicated and not readily at hand. Yes?
> 
> So why is it that Directv actively walked into this scenario....


And I felt was overly pessimistic. I am certain, that like the days of yore, when B&W to color was a major headache, these problems will be resolved to everyone's satisfaction. One local station and one provider at a time. 

Cheers,
Tom


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## t_h (Mar 7, 2008)

Perhaps it'd be helpful to follow this back to the source comment that I was, I thought, synopsizing...from Tomcat via VOS on how to fix this:

_"1) work with a thousand vendors to clean up signals that those vendors have both no idea how to clean up and no other problem distributing, other than to DTV. Low motivation there for the stations.

2) improve the decoders/receivers so they handle the anomalies better. This means that the propellor-heads that actually do understand the voodoo within MPEG transports streams (and there are very few who understand this intimately) are going to have to roll their sleeves up and figure this out."
_
That sounds to me like a string of (in)compatibilities that has to be worked out between lots and lots of people, many of which may lack motivation, and due to the fluid nature of the technologies, will constantly change. And that it may take quite some time to narrow down to a science.

Perhaps your b&w to color analogy is spot on. But back then you had 3-5 stations per geographic area, the station owned 100% of the broadcast gear and controlled the signal, and nobody was paying the stations extra for the color.

Do also bear in mind that I dipped my own toes into this problem and was told by directv that this was a problem with the local stations and national networks and out of directv's hands, while the local station told me that directv was the only recipient of their signals that was having these problems, so it was something that directv would have to fix. Some implications were made that directv's POP in my area had some issues, but a guy that works with one of the local stations popped into the thread and said the directv POP here was "first rate".

Classic fingerpointing + complicated technology + lots of different cooks making the soup = a recipe for some pessimism.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

In the B&W to color transition, there was the network feeds to the affiliates problem as well as the transmission providers issues. And the TV makers themselves. 

Yes, a modicum of pessimism that this won't be solved overnight. But it will be solved. 

Cheers,
Tom


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## bluemoon737 (Feb 21, 2007)

Tom Robertson said:


> One other comment. For me, it seems like things are better. Instead of Brrrriiippps, I seem to get tiny moments of silence most of the time. Perhaps things will be better soon for all of us? At least that is my hope.
> 
> Cheers,
> Tom


I've noticed the same thing Tom. I can't say the frequency of the problem is less, but the "impact" appears slightly lower. It seems to me that the rapid increase in the brriiippps closely followed the transition of the various providers to digital.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

I have some good news. My issue is back. 2-3 times on NCIS last night.


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## bluetrue (Mar 6, 2009)

Well I have had Directv for almost a week, having switched from dish. The brrrp problem is definitely worse on Direct. I hear it a lot on Fox News and quite a lot while I was watching MLB last night. I don't regret making the switch from Dish but I hope they are able to fix this soon.


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## WB3FFV (Mar 2, 2007)

Just to officially join this thread, and say YES I am part of the group having this issue too. I have one set hooked up using component for video, and TOSlink to my A/V processor for audio, from a HR20-700. I also have a second set, which is hooked up via an HDMI which of course carries the audio and video together, connected to an HR22-100 receiver. BOTH of my sets are exhibiting this issue. Generall it's the quick Brrrp's most mention here, and now and then a complete loss of sync where I get pixelized video and loss of audio for a moment.

This happens it's worse on my HD Local's, especially the local PBS station here in baltimore, but it does it on all locals. Heck I like to watch Motorweek on PBS, and it Brrrp's at least once every couple minutes through the entire show, sometimes as often as once a minute at times.

Now this is not just confined to locals, but as mentioned above I suspect it is confined to MPEG4 streams. As I have seen this happen on HDNET, SciFiHD, and even on TNT HD while watching last night. 

My wife drives me crazy *****ing about it, but not like there is anything I can do to fix it outside of saying yes dear, it pisses me off too. 

One comment made above, was a couple people talking about having Comcast, and not seeing such issues, and applying pressure. With proof like this thread showing this is an ongoing issue with DTV, you you would think as Cable and Sat are always fighting for customers, as you see Comcast ad's all the time about DirecTV. I would think a company like Comcast would jump up and tout, we can provide good HD content that doesn't have quality issues like DTV does, as it sure sounds like they don't..

At the same time, I have been patient about it all, and I do remember the early days of HDTV when our local stations only ran one or two shows a week in HD, and had all kinda issues. I often talked to their engineers about the issues, and eventually it did get resolved..


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## KoRn (Oct 21, 2008)

We had Charter cable before DTV and never had this issue with them. We had all the HD offering as well through them. We would just have complete audio drop out that lasted maybe a second or so once in a while. I could deal with that more then this annoying thing happening daily. It sucks.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

A source known to be very reliable at AVSforum says that CBS has been upgrading the software in their modulators to improve their part of the problem. Very welcome news for those of us who've been having problems with OTA as well as via DIRECTV.

Obviously, that doesn't help the other networks. Thankfully, I think DIRECTV is making headway with that too.

Cheers,
Tom


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

Tom Robertson said:


> Obviously, that doesn't help the other networks. Thankfully, I think DIRECTV is making headway with that too.


I hope that's the case, Tom. Nonetheless, I had several noticeable examples recorded over the weekend on SciFi as well as my Fox local. Prior to a month or two I never had noticeable problems like this on either of those two channels.


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## Bluegrassman (Feb 18, 2009)

1 week DTV customer. Add me to the list of those affected. And yes, it is very annoying, and my wife is definitely giving me a headache over it since switching from Comcast. I have to remind her that yes, it didn't happen on Comcast, but that our picture on D* is superior, as well as many more HD offerings with D*. Surely this will be fixed in the near future...


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## Mrmiami (Oct 3, 2006)

Tom Robertson said:


> I'm saying 3 things:
> 1) Everyone is getting some garbage, so people should only blame DIRECTV for their "handling" of the garbage. (This has been heard on other providers other than DIRECTV or OTA, by the way.)
> 2) Everyone should remember that MPEG2 at the affiliate level is very new technology. This will take some time.
> 3) No one is "truly" excusing DIRECTV, especially DIRECTV. They absolutely will fix this, working with all the parties involved.
> ...


Tom, things are not getting better, they are getting much worse and now it's D* transmissions of HD LIL that are grossly effected. Last night's House episode on Fox was the worse we have ever seen this problem. We had paused the program b/c we were clearing the dishes from diner, sat down to watch the program and as soon as we unpaused......Constant Brrrip, artifacts and some very serious sync problems. It got to the point where it happened about every 15 seconds and we couldn't really follow the program, It felt like we were watching one of those Godzilla movies from the 70's where words just don't match up with mouth movements. Comical yes but when you consider how much money and time that has been invested in the two setups we have and how our home has been aesthetically comprimised to put this equipment up on our roof, it's not very funny at all. It had taken us about 20 min to get caught up to live TV then we switched the channel to FOX OTA and thank god that was not having the same issues because we were able to watch the HD show as intended. I guess the point being here is that unlike my previous post's on this topic OTA was not being effected "as bad" as it were before ( I have not really had the chance to see if it is gone completely) and now it is on D*'s output side. Not only was the remainder of the House broadcast OTA better but it remained free from any of the problems we were expirencing with the D* LIL signal so it would not seem that garbage in-garbage out rule applies here.

The thing is, if we did have the problem on the OTA side, as we did before, then the decision had already been made that we would have to go back to cable until FIOS became available in our area. I have been a D* fan since day one (I was the first install in my upstate NY area in 94' that my company did) but it has gotten to the point where what good is all this equipment and technology if you can not use it as intended runs through your mind, quite often lately. With the cost, price increases and quality of service degradation I can't imagine how many others must feel the same way. For the life of me I can't figure out how D* can raise prices when the quality continues to decline and complaints increase in the current state of our economy.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

Monday Night DWTS the last 2 mins and into the next program were continuous audio burps and video breakups. The OTA signal was having video freezes (like random pausing and jumping ahead) but the audio was clean and continuous.


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## Que (Apr 15, 2006)

We have not have this on any of our DVRs. HR10-250 and 2 DVR40s. So this is just on DVR plus line?


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## t_h (Mar 7, 2008)

Seems its just MPEG4 HD channels, so you wouldnt have the problem on those.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Que said:


> We have not have this on any of our DVRs. HR10-250 and 2 DVR40s. So this is just on DVR plus line?


Principally this only appears on MPEG4 signals, tho I have seen it on OTA. (Hence the source of garbage in.)

Cheers,
Tom


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## David MacLeod (Jan 29, 2008)

Tom Robertson said:


> Principally this only appears on MPEG4 signals, tho I have seen it on OTA. (Hence the source of garbage in.)
> 
> Cheers,
> Tom


my local cbs has the issue, even on tv tuner itself. its slightly less pronounced but is there.


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## bcampbell (May 31, 2005)

I have to say, after having both cable and a few years back DISH Network, I never have had the problems I've had with DTV. The HD quality on DISH was much better and I'm constantly battling 771 issues, brrrrping, slow channel scanning. If I knew then what I know now I think I would have stayed with cable. The only reason I switched was due to the lack of HD on cable. And yes, I've had a tech out to realign and check things out...think its worse but not going to pay $50 each time they have a problem. Might be a long initial contract period unless they start correcting the many issues.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

bcampbell said:


> The HD quality on DISH was much better


Not anymore.


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## Que (Apr 15, 2006)

Tom Robertson said:


> Principally this only appears on MPEG4 signals, tho I have seen it on OTA. (Hence the source of garbage in.)
> 
> Cheers,
> Tom


We watch a TON of OTA HD. I will have to check with the better half but, if there was something wrong I know it RIGHT away.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Que said:


> We watch a TON of OTA HD. I will have to check with the better half but, if there was something wrong I know it RIGHT away.


 For "apples to be apples", you'd need to be watching the same local station.
"A while back", my local CBS [through DirecTV] was completely "hosed". Checking the OTA didn't have the problem.
"The kicker" was: it had been this way for over 12 hours, yet nobody had done anything about it.
I finally called a "special number" and got the "normal" line, yet 45 min later it was fixed.
Still can't understand why it had gone on as long as it did.


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## gquiring (Jan 8, 2006)

I have noticed a huge increase in these audio issues lately. And it's not just the locals, I experience the issues on Starz and other premium channels.


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## ricksterinps (Oct 11, 2007)

I'm not sure if it has been mentioned here, but last night I experienced this problem and I happened to be looking at my home theater system and when it occurred, my digital audio input notification disappeared. The only time that it isn't there is when I first turn the stereo on or during the briiip. Otherwise it stays active, even when I pause or rewind or fast forward. 

If the audio signal messed up due to weather or a bird, wouldn't the digital output still be sending some sort of voltage to the stereo receiver digital input and it would stay active? Maybe there is a audio buffer overrun that is causing the digital, or any output, to reset itself inside the satellite receiver.

Sorry if this has already been discussed.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

ricksterinps said:


> I'm not sure if it has been mentioned here, but last night I experienced this problem and I happened to be looking at my home theater system and when it occurred, my digital audio input notification disappeared. The only time that it isn't there is when I first turn the stereo on or during the briiip. Otherwise it stays active, even when I pause or rewind or fast forward.
> 
> If the audio signal messed up due to weather or a bird, wouldn't the digital output still be sending some sort of voltage to the stereo receiver digital input and it would stay active? Maybe there is a audio buffer overrun that is causing the digital, or any output, to reset itself inside the satellite receiver.
> 
> Sorry if this has already been discussed.


Not sure "discussed" or not.
What do you mean? 
[I'm thinking it's like the blue light I have that "shows" it's getting Dolby 5.1]
If the encoder is dumping, shouldn't the Dolby also "take a dump"?


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> If the encoder is dumping, shouldn't the Dolby also "take a dump"?


Yes. The receiver is outputting the digital data directly, so if the data isn't there, the audio receiver can't indicate what type of data it's getting.


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## Ed Campbell (Feb 17, 2006)

Now getting it occasionally. I wasn't back at the beginning of the thread.

Only happening with local CBS.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

I've got a new problem tonight, on my local Fox, I'm getting terrible lip sync issues, if I skip back and forth a time or two it will eventually straighten out, but if I just use the skip button, most of the time, the audio video is way out of sync, maybe a 1/2 second or more. 

It seems like the video starts immediately when I skip, normally a lot of the time when I skip, the video will be frozen and the audio will start, then when the audio catches up, the video starts and everything is in sync. Now, it's almost like when I skip the audio and video start at different times, I haven't had this problem before.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

Brrrips are killing my Fox local too. Idol was rotten with them last night, Bones had a bunch this evening (including visual artifacting, something I haven't seen much at all lately) and now Hell's Kitchen has had some bad ones right at the start. Grrrrrr.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

LameLefty said:


> Brrrips are killing my Fox local too. Idol was rotten with them last night, Bones had a bunch this evening (including visual artifacting, something I haven't seen much at all lately) and now Hell's Kitchen has had some bad ones right at the start. Grrrrrr.


I don't think I had a single brrrippp during Bones, but the lip sync issues were crazy. I changed to my local ABC and it's acting like normal, video freezes until the audio catches up, this seems to happen to the 720P stations more often than the 1080i(at least I seem to notice them more often on the 720P stations)


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

rebkell said:


> I don't think I had a single brrrippp during Bones, but the lip sync issues were crazy. I changed to my local ABC and it's acting like normal, video freezes until the audio catches up, this seems to happen to the 720P stations more often than the 1080i(at least I seem to notice them more often on the 720P stations)


"On a bad night" I've had both 720p & 1080i locals all have problem.
"For me" the 1080i seem to have more problems than the 720p, but this is very much: YMMV.


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## techntrek (Apr 26, 2007)

Thought things were all better, then I got a few "brrrips" in the NBC news broadcast last night. Guess not.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

Okay, so who do we have to kidnap and ransom at DirecTV to get this problem fixed? Having these audio issues during the Battlestar Galactica finale last night was disgraceful. I haven't watched a lot of TV via DirecTV lately(network TV I watch via Comcast) so I haven't really noticed this problem too much, but after watching the last 4 hrs of BSG last night it must have happened around 7-8 times.

It's sad the we as a user base have come to be so accepting of sub-par performance in the products we purchase and/or use, and don't think for a minute that companies like DirecTV aren't aware of that, otherwise this would have been fixed already.

Next week I'll be calling and asking for credits against my bill, and will continue to until this is fixed, because with this issue I'm not getting the advertised "_DIRECTV brings you the ultimate HD experience"_ performance.


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## gizzorge (Jul 31, 2007)

For what it's worth, it was happening a lot a few days ago while I was watching the 4:00 news. I switched to the OTA broadcast that runs through the receiver... same problem.

So, I am not sure if it's a network problem or a D* hardware/software issue.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

gizzorge said:


> For what it's worth, it was happening a lot a few days ago while I was watching the 4:00 news. I switched to the OTA broadcast that runs through the receiver... same problem.
> 
> So, I am not sure if it's a network problem or a D* hardware/software issue.


I've never seen it happen on any of the local channels via Comcast. Plus, Comcast takes USA Net and compresses it into a 3-pak QAM and I've never seen any mention of audio problems with their delivery, other than the additional compression. Comcast and DirecTV most likely use the very same feed from NBC/Universal, so what happens to it after that is on the carrier.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gizzorge said:


> For what it's worth, it was happening a lot a few days ago while I was watching the 4:00 news. I switched to the OTA broadcast that runs through the receiver... same problem.
> 
> So, I am not sure if it's a network problem or a D* hardware/software issue.


"All of the above".
Some of it is the networks, 
Some of it is "OK" on the network end, but still not "up to snuff" for the DirecTV equipment,
Other times it's all the DirecTV equipment.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> Okay, so who do we have to kidnap and ransom at DirecTV to get this problem fixed?


 If you happen to watch TNT's Leverage, then you might see this at Leverage HQ on the list of targets: http://www.harmonicinc.com/ah_management.cfm


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> "All of the above".
> Some of it is the networks,
> Some of it is "OK" on the network end, but still not "up to snuff" for the DirecTV equipment,
> Other times it's all the DirecTV equipment.


True, but the common thread is DirecTV as it doesn't happen on cable. The onus is on DirecTV to get there equipment providers to have the encoders/etc a little more tolerant. Hoping that the networks will provide a perfect signal that the equipment can handle is a pipe-dream, you can't even get the networks to agree on a DialNorm setting for audio. With over 200 markets with anywhere from 2 plus channels each it's a waste of time thinking the issue is going to resolved, or improved upon from that end.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> If you happen to watch TNT's Leverage, then you might see this at Leverage HQ on the list of targets: http://www.harmonicinc.com/ah_management.cfm


That works for me, the team isn't doing anything right now anyway. 

I though they were using Tandberg anyway? Not anymore? How about trying Harris?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> True, but the common thread is DirecTV as it doesn't happen on cable. The onus is on DirecTV to get there equipment providers to have the encoders/etc a little more tolerant. Hoping that the networks will provide a perfect signal that the equipment can handle is a pipe-dream, you can't even get the networks to agree on a DialNorm setting for audio. With over 200 markets with anywhere from 2 plus channels each it's a waste of time thinking the issue is going to resolved, or improved upon from that end.


I've been telling DirecTV this from the beginning, "but" I can't blame DirecTV *when* the same problem is happening with my OTA signal too.
[I save "my blame" for the times when I can *prove* it's their fault]


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> That works for me, the team isn't doing anything right now anyway.
> 
> I though they were using Tandberg anyway? Not anymore? How about trying Harris?


 Both Harmonic & Tandberg, but maybe more Harmonic now [since the problem has gotten worse :lol:]


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> I've been telling DirecTV this from the beginning, "but" I can't blame DirecTV *when* the same problem is happening with my OTA signal too.
> [I save "my blame" for the times when I can *prove* it's their fault]


But you're getting that OTA signal via your DirecTV equipment aren't you? So somewhere along the line DirecTV(and it's supplier's) equipment is at fault.

If you're getting it via a tuner in a display, then I don't know what to tell you, all I know is that the issue is non-existent via Comcast in the bay area.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> But you're getting that OTA signal via your DirecTV equipment aren't you? So somewhere along the line DirecTV(and it's supplier's) equipment is at fault.
> 
> If you're getting it via a tuner in a display, then I don't know what to tell you, all I know is that the issue is non-existent via Comcast in the bay area.


 Sony TV, HR20, HR21+AM21, doesn't matter. Sacramento locals are flaky [still].


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> Sony TV, HR20, HR21+AM21, doesn't matter. Sacramento locals are flaky [still].


Well, tell Mayor KJ up there to get on the local stations because you're getting audio issues during basketball games.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> Well, tell Mayor KJ up there to get on the local stations because you're getting audio issues during basketball games.


 After Oprah got involved, he seems to have his hands full with the homeless right now.


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## t_h (Mar 7, 2008)

veryoldschool said:


> Sony TV, HR20, HR21+AM21, doesn't matter. Sacramento locals are flaky [still].


Yes they are.

But the nationals still stink too. Battlestar Galactica was horrid last night. Through one part i had to mute the audio and turn on closed captioning. The dialog sounded like a pack of ducks quacking.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

t_h said:


> Yes they are.
> 
> But the nationals still stink too. Battlestar Galactica was horrid last night. Through one part i had to mute the audio and turn on closed captioning. The dialog sounded like a pack of ducks quacking.


During the first showing? 9:00 PM Eastern/ 6:00 PM Pacific? I only remember one little brripp, maybe two during the show, noticed one on a commercial, but didn't really notice much problem, certainly nothing extended. I only watched and recorded the first showing, have no idea about the 2nd showing.


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## t_h (Mar 7, 2008)

Not sure which one I got, already watched and deleted it.

There were several passages with very quiet dialog mixed in with unnecessarily loud mood music, and while straining to hear the dialog over the music I got an earful of full volume brrips.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> Both Harmonic & Tandberg, but maybe more Harmonic now [since the problem has gotten worse :lol:]


They started off with Tandberg for the initial rollout of HD locals, but they moved to Harmonic when they started the big MPEG4 national rollout. That's the last I've heard, so I believe all of the MPEG4 nationals are on Harmonic.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

rebkell said:


> During the first showing? 9:00 PM Eastern/ 6:00 PM Pacific? I only remember one little brripp, maybe two during the show, noticed one on a commercial, but didn't really notice much problem, certainly nothing extended. I only watched and recorded the first showing, have no idea about the 2nd showing.


I watched the first showing and there were several, there was at least one, maybe more during the battle scenes which could easily have been mistaken for normal battle sounds.

Point is, there shouldn't have been any.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

t_h said:


> Yes they are.
> 
> But the nationals still stink too. Battlestar Galactica was horrid last night. Through one part i had to mute the audio and turn on closed captioning. The dialog sounded like a pack of ducks quacking.


Not here. During the whole 2 hours and 11 minutes there was a grand total of 2 brrrrrrps on my HR20-700 via optical to a Yamaha 5960. One was at the exact transition to a commercial and there was another very slight one near the end and I barely noticed it at all, wasn't enough to slur the words or anything.

This was the 9pm EST recording. I was all prepared for a mess from this thread and there was none (for me).


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

keenan said:


> I watched the first showing and there were several, there was at least one, maybe more during the battle scenes which could easily have been mistaken for normal battle sounds.
> 
> Point is, there shouldn't have been any.


Never meant to leave the impression it was alright, I was just commenting that I didn't see any kind of extended problem that would require going to close captioned.

I've been watching a lot of ESPN(2) this weekend and I've started getting some audio drops, makes me wonder if they've decided to replace the brrripps with silence instead of the brrripps?


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

MLB Network is getting much worse not better. The problem is especially evident when they go to commercial. At one point this morning we counted 17 briiiips during a 30-minute span.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

rebkell said:


> Never meant to leave the impression it was alright, I was just commenting that I didn't see any kind of extended problem that would require going to close captioned.
> 
> I've been watching a lot of ESPN(2) this weekend and I've started getting some audio drops, makes me wonder if they've decided to replace the brrripps with silence instead of the brrripps?


And I didn't mean to imply that you did, we all want this to be fixed, and NOW rather than later. 

This talk about how the source(station/network) signal is "causing" the problem is discouraging as in my opinion, looking for this "fix" to come from there is a waste of time.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

keenan said:


> And I didn't mean to imply that you did, we all want this to be fixed, and NOW rather than later.
> 
> This talk about how the source(station/network) signal is "causing" the problem is discouraging as in my opinion, looking for this "fix" to come from there is a waste of time.


I don't doubt some of the locals may cause headaches, but I sure don't think the nationals, and in particular USA, SciFi(the ones I've watched for months on end, with no noticeable problems), just suddenly developed the problem. I just want dependability, after all we're paying a pretty penny for this service. I don't have any real alternative to D*, so it's not like I can just go find another provider.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

rebkell said:


> I don't doubt some of the locals may cause headaches, but I sure don't think the nationals, and in particular USA, SciFi(the ones I've watched for months on end, with no noticeable problems), just suddenly developed the problem. I just want dependability, after all we're paying a pretty penny for this service. I don't have any real alternative to D*, so it's not like I can just go find another provider.


So do I, and I agree that since the nationals are also doing it takes the focus off the locals as being a problem. The locals probably are sending crap signals, but since it's happening with nationals as well that tells me the problem really lies with what ever equipment D* is using and that it's an "in-house" problem.

DirecTV could buy their encoders from Radio Shack for all I care, they are the ones I send my monthly payment to, so they are the one's that are responsible for fixing the problem.


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## sd72667 (Aug 25, 2008)

I've had this same problem over the last few weeks. Was there an update lately that may have triggered it? It usually happens on my local Fox through DirecTV, not OTA. I recorded the Fox Sunday night lineup last week and the problem appeared 5-10 times over 2 hours. It has become a big problem.


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## djrobx (Jan 27, 2009)

Tonight was bad - two big brrrips. One was during Desperate Housewives on ABC Los Angeles. Completely killed one scene's dialog. Also had a long brrrip happen to Amazing Race on CBS. No problems with nationals. We watched HBO, Cinemax and Starz all weekend with no real issues. There were a couple teeny almost unnoticeable flubs in the Battlestar Galactica finale at the very beginning and end, perfect as far as I was concerned.

Every moderate to severe problem I've seen has been on the locals. I suppose I should just re-do my series recordings on the DNS nationals that LA happens to have access to, but that's not an option for the majority of folks.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

ESPN2-HD is really brrripping and blllurrrppping tonight, it got especially bad when they switched to the Duke/Mich St game.


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

Ken S said:


> MLB Network is getting much worse not better. The problem is especially evident when they go to commercial. At one point this morning we counted 17 briiiips during a 30-minute span.


The vast majority of these do not appear on network OTA. HD-LIL is another matter entirely. I'm getting frequent breakups on assorted HD-LIL shows that are recorded. By frequent, I mean every few minutes. I had an episode of House recorded the other night (that I switched recording sources on (from OTA to HD-LIL)), that was very, very annoying.

I can recall extensive discussions when I was advocating stridently for OTA retention in D* equipment, how many people told me I didn't/wouldn't need it when we got HD-LIL, and that I should mellow out.

About two months ago, I changed all my recordings from OTA to HD-LIL. The results have been dismal, to be kind. When I have some time on my hands, I'm going back to recording OTA-HD. Maybe in a year or so, HD-LIL will be reliable. I also notice the PQ is clearly better on OTA than HD-LIL (another thing I was being assured would not be the case).

As it turns out, HD-LIL in our area is not ready for prime time, while OTA-HD is hanging in there rather nicely with the HR20-700, HR21-200/AM21 (a few AM21 issues), or just the tuner in my Sammy HL-R5667W HDTV.

I have repeatedly compared the HD-LIL PQ to OTA PQ, and the difference is obvious. (btw, my HD-LIL signal levels are just fine). About two years ago, I said, "OTA is King" when it comes to HD picture quality (PQ). That hasn't changed. I was prepared to love HD-LIL, especially considering the recording efficiency, but it just isn't worth the compromise in relianility and degradation in PQ.

Back to topic, I see the brrrrpp and assorted breakups (HD-LIL) far too often to be satisfied with it. I think it has, indeed, gotten worse.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

Have the audio brips been replaced with video blips? 
Watching AI and Criminal Minds on Wednesday night and there wre no audio problems but now there seem to be intermittent video breakups with the audio staying consisitent.


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## say-what (Dec 14, 2006)

bonscott87 said:


> Not here. During the whole 2 hours and 11 minutes there was a grand total of 2 brrrrrrps on my HR20-700 via optical to a Yamaha 5960. One was at the exact transition to a commercial and there was another very slight one near the end and I barely noticed it at all, wasn't enough to slur the words or anything.
> 
> This was the 9pm EST recording. I was all prepared for a mess from this thread and there was none (for me).


I think I noted 2 minor brrrp's during this broadcast of BSG also, certainly nothing distracting enough to make note of or detract from my viewing experience - I watched the recording on my HR21 connected to a Sony Bravia via hdmi.



keenan said:


> This talk about how the source(station/network) signal is "causing" the problem is discouraging as in my opinion, looking for this "fix" to come from there is a waste of time.


I can tell you that in the New Orleans market, our Fox affilliate had horrible breakups and brrrrps when they switched to their full-time digital transmitter. The problems were seen OTA, on cable and sat. However, they adjusted some of the parameters on their transmitter and the problems are gone. Resolving the problem does take the cooperation of the source provider.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

say-what said:


> I can tell you that in the New Orleans market, our Fox affilliate had horrible breakups and brrrrps when they switched to their full-time digital transmitter. The problems were seen OTA, on cable and sat. However, they adjusted some of the parameters on their transmitter and the problems are gone. Resolving the problem does take the cooperation of the source provider.


Yes, when the problem is audible and visible from the source the obviously DirecTV would have problems with the signal.

The problem here is that otherwise issue-free signals from the source are ending up corrupted by the time they are viewed at the customer's home via DirecTV, whereas the very same source signals via cable/OTA are not.


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## jollygrunt (Apr 13, 2005)

I've had video and audio blackouts which can last around 15-30 seconds or so. These being separate, and new, from the audio brip problem. Again, they appear to only happen on the local HD feeds. For me, the CBS local affiliate (KGBT) is the prime offender, or at least appears to be, since I record it most often. I've noticed these problems only during recorded HD prime time shows, i.e., How I met your Mother, Big Bang Theory, NCIS, and The Mentalist. The local news at 10pm, which I record daily, never has these aforementioned problems.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

It appears that the Food Channel is now affected. I watched a bunch of recorded Alton Browns from late last year and it wasn't there, but it sure is now. Did Food Channel change something or was it DirecTV?


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

Ken S said:


> It appears that the Food Channel is now affected. I watched a bunch of recorded Alton Browns from late last year and it wasn't there, but it sure is now. Did Food Channel change something or was it DirecTV?


I don't know, I don't watch Food Channel, but I've been watching some of the marathons on SciFi during the day this week, Eureka and Tru Calling, and both of them seem to have few if any brrrrippps during the early part of the day, but after noon, they seem to start brrrrippping more and more.

Funny thing, I experience brrrippppps on USA and SciFi and TNT, etc the Nationals, but hardly if ever have them on my local network stations, which everyone seems to be experiencing, but the locals are such a wildcard, that's it's hard to determine much of anything concerning them.


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## knoxbh (May 1, 2002)

Recorded Law & Order on NBC and tried to watch it last nite - it was totally unwatchable. Voices & picture were bad - paused it every 2 o 3 minutes to finally get thru it. Having same problems with CBS (all were MP4). Wife wants to cancel Directv - not sure if it is Directv or the stations but getting mighty annoying, to say the least. And we have been with Directv since 1996.


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## flynn337 (Feb 27, 2009)

i watch a lot of the HD channels mentioned and i have yet to experience this (or at least what I'm imagining it would sound like)....


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

flynn337 said:


> i watch a lot of the HD channels mentioned and i have yet to experience this (or at least what I'm imagining it would sound like)....


Here ya go...you don't have to imagine it anymore.

DirecTV Brrrriiiiiip in color on MLB Network


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

rebkell said:


> I don't know, I don't watch Food Channel, but I've been watching some of the marathons on SciFi during the day this week, Eureka and Tru Calling, and both of them seem to have few if any brrrrippps during the early part of the day, but after noon, they seem to start brrrrippping more and more.
> 
> Funny thing, I experience brrrippppps on USA and SciFi and TNT, etc the Nationals, but hardly if ever have them on my local network stations, which everyone seems to be experiencing, but the locals are such a wildcard, that's it's hard to determine much of anything concerning them.


I seem to experience them pretty equally throughout the day although there are times when there is no issue for hours and then other times where it will happen six times in 30 minutes.

The only thing I'm sure of is the problem is much worse now than it was three months or so ago on the national networks. The locals have been bad for quite some time.


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## Matt9876 (Oct 11, 2007)

I've never had a brrrrip, must be the channels you guys watch or something.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

Matt9876 said:


> I've never had a brrrrip, must be the channels you guys watch or something.


Most of mine, don't have any noticeable video breakup, like the sample above, they just brip for a very brief instant, but they are definitely noticeable, and they're there, you might not even notice them, but if you've got one of the newer D* boxes and watch the Mpeg4 HD channels, I'm pretty sure you've had them, maybe just haven't paid them any attention.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

rebkell said:


> Most of mine, don't have any noticeable video breakup, like the sample above, they just brip for a very brief instant, but they are definitely noticeable, and they're there, you might not even notice them, but if you've got one of the newer D* boxes and watch the Mpeg4 HD channels, I'm pretty sure you've had them, maybe just haven't paid them any attention.


I went for over two years with MPEG-4 receivers and never heard it. Then I noticed it more and more with my locals, until last Sept. when I started *****ing about it to DirecTV.
"A while back" I started watching USAHD and House reruns as I just "got hooked" on House. This was the first national channel that I noticed it on. Various threads had others posting about it, but I hadn't seen it [before].
Now we seem to have a list of national channels with the problem.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

rebkell said:


> Most of mine, don't have any noticeable video breakup, like the sample above, they just brip for a very brief instant, but they are definitely noticeable, and they're there, you might not even notice them, but if you've got one of the newer D* boxes and watch the Mpeg4 HD channels, I'm pretty sure you've had them, maybe just haven't paid them any attention.


rebkell,

When I originally posted that example I explained that was not the normal example (although it was the first one I captured). Most of them are just audio interruptions.


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## Mrmiami (Oct 3, 2006)

Ken S said:


> rebkell,
> 
> When I originally posted that example I explained that was not the normal example (although it was the first one I captured). Most of them are just audio interruptions.


Oh no there not all just audio at least not for me in fact, as previously mentioned, the new addition is after the brrrrippp we lose the picture and sound for about 20-45 seconds in total blackout. Many of our recorded programs have also been hit with this new, added feature from D* so most of our recordings are quite less than perfect and some so bad...unwatchable. It's quite a shame and although the benefits of a true HD picture outweigh an SD picture anyday, if not done near perfect, I'd have to say I think I rather the picture be SD without being junked up. Perhaps they'll eventually fix the issue but if the "progress" they've made so far is any indication, it doesn't look too good right now.


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## rey_1178 (Dec 12, 2007)

lately this issue is becoming a more common annoyance.  what could be causing this?


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## andunn27 (Sep 24, 2007)

I actually have noticed reduced brips within the last few days.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

Using my 2 HR20-700's and HR21-200 alot this morning the past 6 hours - no signs of any Brrrriiiip issues here on any of the 30-40 channels viewed among those units.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

I heard one this morning on FX-HD, the Jodie Foster movie, can't remember the name of the movie, but there was a definite brrrrippp there, it's still around. It's not a constant on the channels I watch, but it's not gone.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

I'm going to honest here guys, I have not seen this at all in a week and have barely seen it at all in the past month. Maybe I'm just not watching the same shows...


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

bonscott87 said:


> I'm going to honest here guys, I have not seen this at all in a week and have barely seen it at all to begin with. Maybe I'm just not watching the same shows...


 "going to be"?, You are always honest here. [IMO]

FWIW: last night's House on USAHD didn't have one issue with the sound but, the video was jumpy as if frames were being dropped. Not at a "normal rate", but randomly thorughout the whole show and fairly often. It was a repeat, so I had seen it before without this probelm.

I have no idea if this is related to "the problem", but "if" they were now "locking on the sound" this could be the video suffering to stay in sync.


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## barryb (Aug 27, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> "if" they were now "locking on the sound" this could be the video suffering to stay in sync.


That makes a lot of sense to me VOS.

I have not experienced this "brrrrp" yet.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> "going to be"?, You are always honest here. [IMO]
> 
> FWIW: last night's House on USAHD didn't have one issue with the sound but, the video was jumpy as if frames were being dropped. Not at a "normal rate", but randomly thorughout the whole show and fairly often. It was a repeat, so I had seen it before without this probelm.
> 
> I have no idea if this is related to "the problem", but "if" they were now "locking on the sound" this could be the video suffering to stay in sync.


I've wondered if they try to compensate in different ways sometimes, I think I would rather have an occasional brrripp than the stuttering effect, the stuttering lasts longer than the brrripps do, for the most part. If it's some kind of reset, it's a shame they can't time the correction during a commercial break :lol: In my viewing it seems better than it was a few weeks ago, but it seems like it comes in spells sometimes, like I was talking about earlier in the thread, I watched the Eureka marathon the other day and didn't notice any brrripps, then as the day wore on, there were episodes that had the brrrippp several times in short periods of times.


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## wolfman730 (Sep 10, 2006)

Just had it on channel 771-1 HD, Rangers-Pitsburgh.:nono2:


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## guffy1 (Apr 23, 2006)

My 8 year old noticed it and commented on it repeatedly yesterday during Tigers spring training game on MLB Network . It was happening at least every 10 minutes throughout the entire game. Brrrriiippp is really bad on MLB Network everytime we watch it, which is often.


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## Extreme2KEclipse (May 29, 2007)

Attempted to watch Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles this afternoon (Show was recorded last night on my HR23-700) and this issue is so apparent that it makes watching it via my DVR impossible. Going to see if I can find it on Hulu now =(


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

So, a question to the people that say they don't see the problem at all. Are you suggesting that:

1. It's not a DirecTV-wide problem...just something wrong with our equipment or setup?

2. That the problem doesn't exist?

3. That it just doesn't affect the shows you're watching?

I'm not trying to start an argument...just don't understand what the blanket statements about it not affecting you adds to this discussion. People reporting the issue are giving specific shows and times. Saying you don't see the problem at that time might be helpful...otherwise, it just seems like you're trying to contradict or minimize the reports.

I can tell you the problem is consistently affecting shows/games on MLB Network and Food TV. Can't speak for other shows/channels. The problem is worse not better than it was three months ago.

I have posted a video of it occurring. It took me a grand total of watching for 10 minutes to capture that. They're not hard to find.

It sure would be nice if DirecTV would acknowledge the problem and at least say they're working on a fix.


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## hdfan1 (Oct 16, 2008)

The problem is really bad this afternoon on the local Dayton CBS station in HD. The picture is constantly breaking up.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Ken S said:


> So, a question to the people that say they don't see the problem at all. Are you suggesting that:
> 
> 1. It's not a DirecTV-wide problem...just something wrong with our equipment or setup?
> 
> ...


As you know, VOS being allowed to even mention the interactions he's had is about all the public acknowledgment you'll likely ever get. They do know about the problem and they are working on it. 

Cheers,
Tom


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Extreme2KEclipse said:


> Attempted to watch Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles this afternoon (Show was recorded last night on my HR23-700) and this issue is so apparent that it makes watching it via my DVR impossible. Going to see if I can find it on Hulu now =(


Fox is very good at having it on their "Fox on demand". (SD only.)

I'm watching this episode as I write this. The very first time we see the red parakeet(?) there is a brip (a medium one) and a spot of silence.

I quickly popped over to my backup which happens to be in SD. At roughly the same point, there is a glitch in the SD version as well.

I say "roughly the same point" as the silent parts overlap nearly identically. The brip preceeding the silence is not on the SD. At least I don't think so. It might be that the bird sounds are very close to a brip...

Cheers,
Tom


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## Extreme2KEclipse (May 29, 2007)

Tom Robertson said:


> Fox is very good at having it on their "Fox on demand". (SD only.)
> 
> I'm watching this episode as I write this. The very first time we see the red parakeet(?) there is a brip (a medium one) and a spot of silence.
> 
> ...


I had the issue happen several times within the first two minutes of the show. The Brrrpp and occasionally the audio dropping out. Watched it on Hulu with no probs =D

Glad I have the laptop with HDMI out, makes the hookup allot easier to deal with.


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## Extreme2KEclipse (May 29, 2007)

Ken S said:


> So, a question to the people that say they don't see the problem at all. Are you suggesting that:
> 
> 1. It's not a DirecTV-wide problem...just something wrong with our equipment or setup?
> 
> ...


I have not experienced the issue until today...or at least I didn't notice it which would be something hard to miss based on today's experience. Prior to today I would've thought it was just an equipment or setup issue...but now I think its something bigger than that.

I haven't gone back to read VOS's posts yet that Tom referenced, but maybe it has something to due with the new firmware or possibly some encoding issue at the providers end (I think this was referenced in the first page or two?)


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## KoRn (Oct 21, 2008)

No biiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrp in almost a week! I have been pretty vocal about this issue since day 1 of install. We are getting the video problem now though. Exactly what you are describing. That is new for us. Seems like D is finally trying to get this stuff worked out.



veryoldschool said:


> "going to be"?, You are always honest here. [IMO]
> 
> FWIW: last night's House on USAHD didn't have one issue with the sound but, *the video was jumpy as if frames were being dropped. Not at a "normal rate", but randomly thorughout the whole show and fairly often.* It was a repeat, so I had seen it before without this probelm.
> 
> I have no idea if this is related to "the problem", but "if" they were now "locking on the sound" this could be the video suffering to stay in sync.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Tom Robertson said:


> As you know, VOS being allowed to even mention the interactions he's had is about all the public acknowledgment you'll likely ever get. They do know about the problem and they are working on it.
> 
> Cheers,
> Tom


Tom,

Personally, I think that's just poor customer service.

But, as you know the bulk of my post was directed at the people who continually post blanket "I haven't seen it posts here" No specifics, nothing of assistance. We're not talking first-time posters either.

We're well past the point where there's a question about this being a signal problem from DirecTV (although they may not be the origination point of the issue).

I'm a bit interested in their motivation...although I doubt I'll get any answers of value.

Today on MLB Network we had the audio problems...but they didn't seem as frequent as they have been in the past...of course, I'm also recovering from my son's fourth birthday part (eight...four-year-olds, a bounce house and a visit from the fire dept will dull the senses).


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## rey_1178 (Dec 12, 2007)

i get the brrrriiiip mostly on spike HD.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Ken S said:


> Tom,
> 
> Personally, I think that's just poor customer service.
> 
> ...


I thought your post asking people who blanket post "I ain't seen nuttun'" was well done.

So I bypassed that, but was too lazy to trim it from my reply.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

Ken S said:


> So, a question to the people that say they don't see the problem at all. Are you suggesting that:
> 
> 1. It's not a DirecTV-wide problem...just something wrong with our equipment or setup?
> 2. That the problem doesn't exist?


I think it's obvious there is a problem. With the locals all bets are off because they are obviously so different, we can't compare them to be honest. I personally think there is a huge combination of equipment/setup issues that determine why some people see it and some don't.



> 3. That it just doesn't affect the shows you're watching?


Possible. If people want to get to the bottom of it those with problem need to post at a minimum the channel and the program, what time showing if there are multiples and if possible where in the program there were a brrrrrrp or two. But again with locals we can't really compare. My CBS may be terrible while yours is fine. Only true comparisons can be done with the national channels.



> I'm not trying to start an argument...just don't understand what the blanket statements about it not affecting you adds to this discussion.


I honestly don't post much in this thread. But when new people come to the thread and are confused that they don't see it then it helps them to know what some people don't see it or it's barely noticeable, for whatever reason. Also can help DirecTV with various data points. Many time finding the solution to a problem isn't finding out why someone has the problem but why someone else doesn't.

So my latest data point. We just caught up with Dollhouse on Fox yesterday, last 5 episodes. Had no issues with the first 4, had one minor brrrrrp in the last one from Friday night in the first 10 minutes. I checked my OTA backup and it was there as well. Thus the problem was with my Fox affiliate and nothing to do with DirecTV....this time.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

bonscott87 said:


> So my latest data point. We just caught up with Dollhouse on Fox yesterday, last 5 episodes. Had no issues with the first 4, had one minor brrrrrp in the last one from Friday night in the first 10 minutes. I checked my OTA backup and it was there as well. Thus the problem was with my Fox affiliate and nothing to do with DirecTV....this time.


I was listening closely to _Dollhouse_ this week, especially after there was a glitch in _Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles_, but _Dollhouse_ was fine. (So my feeling was your glitch was either timezone dependent or local affiliate.)

The good news for me is all my latest sound effects have been softer, not harsh nor loud has they had been in the past. (And still rare.) 

Cheers,
Tom


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

Tom Robertson said:


> I was listening closely to _Dollhouse_ this week, especially after there was a glitch in _Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles_, but _Dollhouse_ was fine. (So my feeling was your glitch was either timezone dependent or local affiliate.)
> 
> The good news for me is all my latest sound effects have been softer, not harsh nor loud has they had been in the past. (And still rare.)
> 
> ...


Out of curiosity did the gltich in Sarah Connor happen when John Henry was talking to Savannah? I had a real bad video/audio glitch on both cable and Directv both early in the show in the scene with John Henry and Savannah.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

rebkell said:


> Out of curiosity did the gltich in Sarah Connor happen when John Henry was talking to Savannah? I had a real bad video/audio glitch on both cable and Directv both early in the show in the scene with John Henry and Savannah.


I was early on when John and Sarah were camping and training. Right when the red parakeet chirped. (And hear a silent section on the SD version as well.)

Nothing else that I heard (and was listening, since others had mentioned that episode.)

Cheers,
Tom


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## gphvid (Jun 19, 2007)

Tom Robertson said:


> I was listening closely to _Dollhouse_ this week, especially after there was a glitch in _Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles_, but _Dollhouse_ was fine. (So my feeling was your glitch was either timezone dependent or local affiliate.)
> 
> The good news for me is all my latest sound effects have been softer, not harsh nor loud has they had been in the past. (And still rare.)
> 
> ...


I'm not at all certain that these are DirecTV's problems. Most of the networks these days air shows off servers and the servers can hiccup which will cause what we term at work as a digital hit or glitch. So when the program airs and the playback hits this spot causing the server glitch, Fox will air the glitch everywhere. Localized ones I've found on my boxes tend to be box-related. D* errors tend to be complete drops and then restores. As programming continues to go offtape and into servers for air, the likelyhood of glitches increases. Nobody's perfect and you must just accept that for now, this will happen but will be addressed with better servers and RAID drives and SAN banks. For me, as long as it doesn't horribly interrupt my enjoyment of a certain show, then I don't care. I'm just glad to have HD in the first place.


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## PlanetBill (May 8, 2006)

I also get the brrrriiiip. Have been for a couple weeks it seems. Only seem to notice on HD channels, well, thats all I really watch anyway.


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## HRJustin (Mar 5, 2009)

I notice this problem from time to time mainly on the local stations. It happens at least once on the local 11PM NBC news and The Tonight Show. I have also noticed it on other shows at random times. I barely ever have any visual errors just the audio blank spots. Every audio dropout birrrrrrrp that I have witnessed has been between 2-5 seconds. 

It really does suck when audio drops out in the middle of listening to the news or miss half a joke from jay leno. When im not watching the locals I usually skip around and I cant recall seeing this problem on non-local channels.


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## Mrmiami (Oct 3, 2006)

gphvid said:


> I'm not at all certain that these are DirecTV's problems. Most of the networks these days air shows off servers and the servers can hiccup which will cause what we term at work as a digital hit or glitch. So when the program airs and the playback hits this spot causing the server glitch, Fox will air the glitch everywhere. Localized ones I've found on my boxes tend to be box-related. D* errors tend to be complete drops and then restores. As programming continues to go offtape and into servers for air, the likelyhood of glitches increases. Nobody's perfect and you must just accept that for now, this will happen but will be addressed with better servers and RAID drives and SAN banks. For me, as long as it doesn't horribly interrupt my enjoyment of a certain show, then I don't care. I'm just glad to have HD in the first place.


It is "possible" that servers may be a potential culprit to only some of the programs being affected with this problem but only in the way it also was able to capture the problem. This doesn't explain why this problem affects Live TV also such as the Presidential address or MLB/NFL/NCAA/NASCAR sports which it has. So to pinpoint servers, I just don't see any real connection to them being the problem but I do know that the West Coast has sevaral shows that are recorded from the East Coast in real time then time shifted to be broadcast to them at a different timeframe. So in theory, if the problem was seen on the east coast feed, it should then be reproduced on the West Coast Feed of the same program if recorded. We should try that scenario out to see what happens.


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## erosroadie (Jan 9, 2007)

PlanetBill said:


> I also get the brrrriiiip. Have been for a couple weeks it seems. Only seem to notice on HD channels, well, thats all I really watch anyway.


This was a major problem several months ago, when WMAQ-5 in Chicago would have this occur while watching NBC Nightly News several hours later. Some episodes were almost unwatchable. Rewinds through the show have the sounds at the same points, so whatever it was, it was recorded as opposed to being random at playback. Also was a problem on some SportsCenter broadcasts on ESPN. Equipment is an HR21-700 w/AM21.

Now I hate to mention this, but I don't think this has occurred in the last three weeks, on any channel (holding breath here)...


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## knoxbh (May 1, 2002)

Recorded "Cold Case" last night on SD local channel and absolutely perfect when we had been having problems in the recent past on the HD channels. Also recorded "The Unit" last night but have not watched it yet. By the way, they were both on the CBS station where we had problems on the HD side.

Howard


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gphvid said:


> I'm not at all certain that these are DirecTV's problems. Most of the networks these days air shows off servers and the servers can hiccup which will cause what we term at work as a digital hit or glitch. So when the program airs and the playback hits this spot causing the server glitch, Fox will air the glitch everywhere. Localized ones I've found on my boxes tend to be box-related. D* errors tend to be complete drops and then restores. As programming continues to go offtape and into servers for air, the likelyhood of glitches increases. Nobody's perfect and you must just accept that for now, this will happen but will be addressed with better servers and RAID drives and SAN banks. For me, as long as it doesn't horribly interrupt my enjoyment of a certain show, then I don't care. I'm just glad to have HD in the first place.


If you would read some of the early posts in this thread, you might get a better idea.
"The problem" is layered. 
"Your servers" simply fall under problems from the broadcaster.
"Another layer" comes from DirecTV's uplink, which has been "proven" when the same program/broadcaster is watched via OTA and doesn't exhibit it.
A couple of my local network broadcasters air their programing an hour earlier and "your server" could explain some of their problems, but not when their OTA is fine.


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## TBlazer07 (Feb 5, 2009)

I have never experienced this problem on recordings via OTA reception from the NY 4 major nets through my HR2x's (90% of our recordings are OTA NYC locals). When I accidently switch to the DirecTV satellite reception of these NY locals (usually that would be "live") I constantly have the issue. Outside that I have only experienced it (that I noticed) one time on USA network. We do watch/record a lot of FX and have never noticed it there.


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## Prince Oz (Jan 15, 2009)

I think I may have figured out what is causing the Brrrriiiiipppp. I was listening real close to the Brrrriiiiiip over the weekend and as I started to here it, I turned the volume up on my receiver. It seems to be some kind of alien message and they are using the D* satalites to send there message out to all of the people that have been abducted by aliens in the past that have received an alien chip unknown to them. The signal seems to indicated that the aliens are upset over the lack of added HD content and that they are planning a D* take over to get more HD added.


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## Amerikes (May 18, 2006)

My wife watches TV mostly in our living room(HR21-100), and I watch it in our tv room(H20-100), and in my office(H20-600). I asked her some time back, if she had noticed anything, and she said no. Could it be a firmware problem with the boxes?

I will check with her again and confirm. I don't see how she could not notice it, had it been happening on that TV.

I would guess, that it has been discussed in this thread whether it would be box/firmware related. Has anyone narrowed it down to box, satellite?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Amerikes said:


> My wife watches TV mostly in our living room(HR21-100), and I watch it in our tv room(H20-100), and in my office(H20-600). I asked her some time back, if she had noticed anything, and she said no. Could it be a firmware problem with the boxes?
> 
> I will check with her again and confirm. I don't see how she could not notice it, had it been happening on that TV.
> 
> I would guess, that it has been discussed in this thread whether it would be box/firmware related. Has anyone narrowed it down to box, satellite?


 yes and no it isn't. [read earlier posts in this thread please]


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## Amerikes (May 18, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> yes and no it isn't. [read earlier posts in this thread please]


No, I am not going to read 15 pages for the quick input I threw in. Your initial part of your response was fine and appreciated. Your second part was really not needed...... :nono2:


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

Amerikes said:


> No, I am not going to read 15 pages for the quick input I threw in. Your initial part of your response was fine and appreciated. Your second part was really not needed...... :nono2:


Then use the Thread Tools to search the thread.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Amerikes said:


> No, I am not going to read 15 pages for the quick input I threw in. Your initial part of your response was fine and appreciated. Your second part was really not needed...... :nono2:


 While I understand 300+ posts aren't fun going through, on the other hand I put some work into posting some "good information" for others to read, and really don't want to repeat the effort.

Look for my Avatar to shortcut to the info.


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## Cobra (Aug 9, 2006)

I have started to get it the last 2 ce's, including my h20, plus the ota channels audio is terrible


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## Amerikes (May 18, 2006)

Hey, regardless, the first part of the post was all that was needed. It was succinct and to the point and appreciated. Don't be ridiculous. IMO.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

Amerikes said:


> Hey, regardless, the first part of the post was all that was needed. It was succinct and to the point and appreciated. Don't be ridiculous. IMO.


It's not ridiculous to suggest someone do a search (using the fine forum and thread search tools so helpfully provided) rather than repeating information over and over and over again in a long thread.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

LameLefty said:


> It's not ridiculous to suggest someone do a search (using the fine forum and thread search tools so helpfully provided) rather than repeating information over and over and over again in a long thread.


VOS even said "please," which is way more than I would have said.


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## Amerikes (May 18, 2006)

LameLefty said:


> It's not ridiculous to suggest someone do a search (using the fine forum and thread search tools so helpfully provided) rather than repeating information over and over and over again in a long thread.


Hey, I would think that you would want to be more helpful to people that do not post that often in these forums. Search??? I couldn't even get the private message read that oldschooler just sent me.

"PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER" Groucho Marx....


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## yuppers519 (Aug 6, 2007)

Prince Oz said:


> I think I may have figured out what is causing the Brrrriiiiipppp. I was listening real close to the Brrrriiiiiip over the weekend and as I started to here it, I turned the volume up on my receiver. It seems to be some kind of alien message and they are using the D* satalites to send there message out to all of the people that have been abducted by aliens in the past that have received an alien chip unknown to them. The signal seems to indicated that the aliens are upset over the lack of added HD content and that they are planning a D* take over to get more HD added.


Ahhhh............I understand now.:lol:


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## ChrisPC (Jun 17, 2003)

I only get it on MPEG4 locals on my HR20-700. It's not a big deal, since I only watch the OTA signal, anyway.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

The women's NCAA basketball game tonight on ESPN has horrible audio, brrrippps, and audio drop outs just constantly throughout the entire game that's on right now Oklahoma/Purdue. The first game didn't have drop outs, but had plenty of brrrippps(they are very short ones, but there were a ton of them). The current game doesn't seem to have as many brrrrippps, but has a ton of just dropouts(silence).

Edit: Within a minute of me posting this message, they just apologized for the audio problems they are having  ...


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

I happened to listen to a movie I recorded in Sept. from HDnet movies. It had one nasty BRIPPP, definitely much worse than the ones I've had of late.

So I definitely content DIRECTV (and their encoder company) is doing a much better job. (And still has some work to do.)

Cheers,
Tom


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

This thread should just be deleted. They know there are issues and apparently they aren't going to fix. We can post till our eyes pop out. In the DC area this has been going on for months on Fox and CBS. Numerous people responding they can live with it doesn't help.

The bills gets here on time though!

The only alternative is to change to something else.


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## islesfan (Oct 18, 2006)

Ken S said:


> I am noticing the Brrrriiiiipppp sound and audio issues more and more lately on a variety of channels including ESPN, MLB Network, Local CBS (which has been very bad for awhile), NBC and Fox.
> 
> Signal strengths are all 95+.
> If I switch over to Comcast feed I don't notice the same problems.


Pretty annoying during Chuck on Monday!


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## runner26 (Apr 8, 2007)

hoos51 said:


> This thread should just be deleted. They know there are issues and apparently they aren't going to fix. We can post till our eyes pop out. In the DC area this has been going on for months on Fox and CBS. Numerous people responding they can live with it doesn't help.
> 
> The bills gets here on time though!
> 
> The only alternative is to change to something else.


Oh yes never any problem with the bill. I have noticed that about D* over the years, the service is just plain awful but the bill is right on the dot every month. I hate the just live with it attitude from D*. They seem to have a real tough time just living with me not paying my bill. They get real huffy as a matter of fact. I have am having the brrrp problem on the local network channels like so many others here. I suspect the interface between D* and the various networks is hosed in some obscure way and D* can't/won't fix it.


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## jollygrunt (Apr 13, 2005)

Last night the video and audio problems were just awful during NCIS and The Mentalist. I watched them timeshifted and they were very hard to watch.

After last night, I'm considering recording in SD only.


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## Hutchinshouse (Sep 28, 2006)

I only get this "Brrrrriiiiip issue" when watching FOX (Los Angeles, DIRECTV feed, ch.11).

The Brrrrriiiiip always happens on AI. Sometimes after the Brrrrriiiiip the TV screen goes black for several seconds at a time.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

The only Brrrrrps here were on CBS...and now now for at least 2 weeks. Even then, they were very rare.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Tom Robertson said:


> I happened to listen to a movie I recorded in Sept. from HDnet movies. It had one nasty BRIPPP, definitely much worse than the ones I've had of late.
> 
> So I definitely content DIRECTV (and their encoder company) is doing a much better job. (And still has some work to do.)
> 
> ...


Tom,

I believe that the severity of the incidents is less than they used to be, but they occur a whole lot more often than they did before. We have been playing a number of movies we recorded from HDNet Movies recently and the problem was nearly non-existent until about December when they start appearing. The movies recorded in 2009 have many, many more problems although they're shorter.

MLB Network averages about 4 an hour.

At least from here the problem isn't going away...it's getting worse on the nationals.

On locals...there were a couple problems during Chuck and The Unit last week...nothing during Mad Men.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

hoos51 said:


> This thread should just be deleted. They know there are issues and apparently they aren't going to fix. We can post till our eyes pop out. In the DC area this has been going on for months on Fox and CBS. Numerous people responding they can live with it doesn't help.
> 
> The bills gets here on time though!
> 
> The only alternative is to change to something else.


At the very least this thread can inform others that are experiencing the issue that the problem isn't with their equipment.


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## runner26 (Apr 8, 2007)

Hutchinshouse said:


> I only get this "Brrrrriiiiip issue" when watching FOX (Los Angeles, DIRECTV feed, ch.11).
> 
> The Brrrrriiiiip always happens on AI. Sometimes after the Brrrrriiiiip the TV screen goes black for several seconds at a time.


I live in L.A. and the brriips are bad on Fox and also CBS.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Tom,
> 
> I believe that the severity of the incidents is less than they used to be, but they occur a whole lot more often than they did before. We have been playing a number of movies we recorded from HDNet Movies recently and the problem was nearly non-existent until about December when they start appearing. The movies recorded in 2009 have many, many more problems although they're shorter.
> 
> ...


I've been watching a lot of the women's tourney on ESPN(2) and there have been many incidents, but they seem to be shorter in length, but actually more frequent in occurrence. There were genuine audio problems during the 2nd game on last night, but the first game had many brrrrippps during the broadcast.

On another note, I've been recording/watching Star Trek Enterprise on HDNet, didn't catch it during it's initial run, and to my knowledge I have not encountered one audio brrrrippp, and I've watched 18 episodes counting today, and I'm almost positive I have not heard one brrrrippp.


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## jollygrunt (Apr 13, 2005)

Last night I watched the soccer games on ESPN2HD timeshifted, and although there was some pixelization during some parts of the two and a half hour broadcast, it was nowhere near as bad as the problems I'm having with the local HD feeds during primetime.


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## jimmyv2000 (Feb 15, 2007)

fox news is still doing it numerous times During The fox report and the O' Factor show


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## mlb (Jul 31, 2008)

Local feeds are the worst for me, but I see it on the ESPN's and MLB Network as well. I can't understand why D* has not been able to isolate and fix the national channels at a minimum by now.


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## flynn337 (Feb 27, 2009)

Ken S said:


> So, a question to the people that say they don't see the problem at all. Are you suggesting that:
> 
> 1. It's not a DirecTV-wide problem...just something wrong with our equipment or setup?
> 
> ...


I'm just suggesting that:

4. Either 1 or 3., or I just haven't seen this issue. Maybe I'm getting lucky.

Just trying to offer a data point, and perhaps hope, for you. If you tell me what to watch and when, I'll do my best to do so so we can compare. But a thread where only the folks affected offer data isn't as helpful as raw data.

I saw the youtube video you linked (below) and it's not at all what I guessed from reading this thread. I thought it was purely an audio issue, but what you're getting is a couple seconds of both video and audio artifacts.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

flynn337 said:


> I saw the youtube video you linked (below) and it's not at all what I guessed from reading this thread. I thought it was purely an audio issue, but what you're getting is a couple seconds of both video and audio artifacts.


Since the audio & video need to be sync'd, it really depends on the length or magnitude of "the glitch". My locals have been fairly good for a couple of months, but in the past week several different channels are starting to show this again. Sound and picture breakup for about a sec as the encoder "recovers".


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

flynn337 said:


> I'm just suggesting that:
> 
> 4. Either 1 or 3., or I just haven't seen this issue. Maybe I'm getting lucky.
> 
> ...


Do you watch any TNT, USA, SciFi nationals, there is no way to really compare local networks, unless you are watching the same station, but if you've got any shows in particular you watch or have on your DVR, we'll keep an eye out for glitches to compare.

Someone suggested a while back that we might start a thread that dealt with specific brrrippps and when they happened, for comparison, but locals aren't as good as the nationals, because everyone should be on the same Nationals.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

Watched Scrubs recorded off my local ABC affiliate, and the brrriiippps were *awful*. It was the worst I had ever experienced, probably 10-15 during the entire 30 minute show.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

flynn337 said:


> I'm just suggesting that:
> 
> 4. Either 1 or 3., or I just haven't seen this issue. Maybe I'm getting lucky.
> 
> ...


flynn,

The example I posted was worse that most...usually they're just audio. But, I didn't seek that example out ... it was just the first one that hit after I tried to record one.

If you want to experience the problem watch MLB Network for any given period of time and you'll hear it. Although, it is sporadic...you can go a couple of hours without seeing/hearing it and then it'll occur five times in 30 minutes.

There's nothing wrong with someone saying..."I didn't see it during that show... or I watched XXX and it was fine" Those are valid data points. It's the folks that post "Doesn't happen to me" and that's all they post that is of little service.


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

Was watching "I Love Lucy" today between noon and 1 PM on my local MyNetworkTV outlet KCOP-13. Burrriiippps along with picture break-up were terrible as well, occurring every few minutes . Had to switch to OTA which cleared up that problem but unfortunately led to another as the AM21 tuner module has a difficult time with KCOP’s pre-transition DTV signal broadcasts on UHF-66. Unless it's a nice sunny day I keep getting occasional flickers of the "771 tuner error" now and then whenever their are overcast skies with moderate humidity or worse the wholesale disappearance of the off-air signal when it rains.


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## dodge boy (Mar 31, 2006)

Just started hearing this today... wierd I never noticed it before...


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

Watched a recording off FOX last night of "Terminator- The Sarah Conor......."last Friday's episode, and for the first 10 minutes or so, it was loaded with constant "BRRRRRP" and delayed sound and video stutter. It was a complete MESS  I was ready to just stop watching and delete the whole recording when all of a sudden........ the image jumped around.......went from wide screen to side bars and back to wide screen, One huge long "BRRRRRRP" AND BING!!!!! ALL perfect. 
Just like that. Not a "BRRRRRRP" not even a "BRR" the rest of the recording was fine. I'm not an expert, but it looks like it's transmission related to me.
The lowest signal strength I have is 92, everything else is at 95% or higher. And as far as other recordings, or even live TV, 1 or 2 "BRRRRRRP"'s during the coarse of watching D* for an evening. It is random, but I am noticing the "BRRRRRRP" much more and at times.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gilviv said:


> Watched a recording off FOX last night of "Terminator- The Sarah Conor......."last Friday's episode, and for the first 10 minutes or so, it was loaded with constant "BRRRRRP" and delayed sound and video stutter. It was a complete MESS  I was ready to just stop watching and delete the whole recording when all of a sudden........ the image jumped around.......went from wide screen to side bars and back to wide screen, One huge long "BRRRRRRP" AND BING!!!!! ALL perfect.
> Just like that. Not a "BRRRRRRP" not even a "BRR" the rest of the recording was fine. I'm not an expert, but it looks like it's transmission related to me.
> The lowest signal strength I have is 92, everything else is at 95% or higher. And as far as other recordings, or even live TV, 1 or 2 "BRRRRRRP"'s during the coarse of watching D* for an evening. It is random, but I am noticing the "BRRRRRRP" much more and at times.


 When it changes to pillarbox and back, it pretty much is the broadcaster doing it [having the problem].


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

How about all the other stuff/times? Any thoughts?


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## Hutchinshouse (Sep 28, 2006)

Normally I get this issue when watching FOXHD. Last night I got the issue at least 3 times when watching BIOHD. It got very old!


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## jrodfoo (Apr 9, 2007)

Jeremy W said:


> Watched Scrubs recorded off my local ABC affiliate, and the brrriiippps were *awful*. It was the worst I had ever experienced, probably 10-15 during the entire 30 minute show.


I did not have one brrriip when I watched it. and I've watched it 3 times now... hmm..


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

jrodfoo said:


> I did not have one brrriip when I watched it. and I've watched it 3 times now... hmm..


 Not much "hmm" to this. One local uplink was having the problem while another wasn't. It is only the nationals, that are the same for everybody, that would be a "hmm" if one didn't have it while another did.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gilviv said:


> How about all the other stuff/times? Any thoughts?


More than "thoughts", I've posted [way back on the earlier pages] what [or where] most of the "problems" come from.
[to recap]

some come from the network feeds
some come from the local broadcasters
some come from the DirecTV uplink encoders [transcoding MPEG-2 to MPEG-4]
Since we're at "the end of the food chain", we see/hear all of them.


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

Thanks VOS! but why the frequency of the problem now? It wasn't noticeable before because it wasn't happening before(at least not to me). Other than a rare "Rain Fade" during a severe T-storm I didn't get any signal/transmission problems.
This thing (BRRRRRP) occurs more than once a day now, at any time, and on any of the Local affiliates, or for that matter- any other channel from D*'s signal I may be watching. My wife and kids are much less critical of "THE QUALITY" of what they may tune into, and they've noticed that its happening alot. ""Daddy, it sounds like Sponge Bob has the hiccups again"" (Nickelodeon HD)

Help me help Sponge Bob!!!!


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gilviv said:


> Thanks VOS! but why the frequency of the problem now?


 That would be the $64,000 [if you're old enough to remember that show] question.
Has there been a firmware update to the encoders? 
Have the encoders been swapped out?
Is there a bad batch of encoders?
I don't know and fairly sure those at DirecTV, that have been in contact with me about this, won't be telling me.


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

THANKS for your honesty, man!!!!! I really hope they are reading these threads and will quickly correct this problem.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> More than "thoughts", I've posted [way back on the earlier pages] what [or where] most of the "problems" come from.
> [to recap]
> 
> some come from the network feeds
> ...


As far as FOX stations go, line 2 above can pretty much be eliminated as they all run the same system. For my money, line 3 is the heavy favorite for being the culprit.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gilviv said:


> THANKS for your honesty, man!!!!! I really hope they are reading these threads and will quickly correct this problem.


 This topic has been in several threads and in one of them there was the thought that to correct/improve the lip-sync problems, some were having, there may have been a change which has caused the birrps.

[not knocking the software people] Many times when I've needed a software "fix" for a problem in a system I was testing, "the fix" would result in something else having a problem. Then there was the "fix for the fix" [and so on].


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> As far as FOX stations go, line 2 above can pretty much be eliminated as they all run the same system. For my money, line 3 is the heavy favorite for being the culprit.


You don't receive your signal from the same Fox station that I do... :lol:


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> You don't receive your signal from the same Fox station that I do... :lol:


No, but it's the same network signal fed through the same FOX-supplied and setup splicer system, far less variables. That's why FOX stations might be a good test bed for this problem, if there's a problem with only some of them then I would look long and hard at the D* encoders and/or setup of those encoders at those problematic stations.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> No, but it's the same network signal fed through the same FOX-supplied and setup splicer system, far less variables. That's why FOX stations might be a good test bed for this problem, if there's a problem with only some of them then I would look long and hard at the D* encoders and/or setup of those encoders at those problematic stations.


I don't think there is much question about the encoders, but "my Fox" airs shows an hour earlier [like CBS does here] than your does "I think", or does yours also have the news at 10? [a quick check shows it does]
"Then there is always" the OTA feed to the DirecTV uplink, which at times seems to be two juice cans and a loose string.


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## jrodfoo (Apr 9, 2007)

Has Brrrrriiiiip been copyrighted yet?


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> That would be the $64,000 [if you're old enough to remember that show] question.
> Has there been a firmware update to the encoders?
> Have the encoders been swapped out?
> Is there a bad batch of encoders?
> I don't know and fairly sure those at DirecTV, that have been in contact with me about this, won't be telling me.


VOS,

Did DirecTV change something else with their broadcast...maybe they're compressing a bit more...putting more channels on a transponder?

Although your guesses are solid too...firmware update or they swapped out a bunch of encoders around the same time.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Ken S said:


> VOS,
> 
> Did DirecTV change something else with their broadcast...maybe they're compressing a bit more...putting more channels on a transponder?
> 
> Although your guesses are solid too...firmware update or they swapped out a bunch of encoders around the same time.


 I would think: they already know how to squash the crap out of the channels [the old Ku MPEG-2] and this seems to be exclusively MPEG-4, so while "I don't know", I wouldn't think so.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

gilviv said:


> Watched a recording off FOX last night of "Terminator- The Sarah Conor......."last Friday's episode, and for the first 10 minutes or so, it was loaded with constant "BRRRRRP" and delayed sound and video stutter. It was a complete MESS  I was ready to just stop watching and delete the whole recording when all of a sudden........ the image jumped around.......went from wide screen to side bars and back to wide screen, One huge long "BRRRRRRP" AND BING!!!!! ALL perfect.
> Just like that. Not a "BRRRRRRP" not even a "BRR" the rest of the recording was fine. I'm not an expert, but it looks like it's transmission related to me.


As noted, in this case your local Fox station had a problem, big clue is the switch to 4x3 then back to 16x9. Basically sounds like their 5.1 audio was having major issues, they dropped to SD, reset the 5.1 and then brought it back to HD. Anyone with OTA or cable in your area would have seen the same thing.

Seen this many times for the past 6 years with my locals. Just a few months ago my CBS had very similar problems at the start of CSI. They dropped to SD and stayed that way thru the first commercial break. When CSI came back they switched back to HD and all was well. Found out on our local thread on AVS (see my signature) that the station engineer said they had an equipment failure and were able to switch to a backup before the next segment started.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> I don't think there is much question about the encoders, but "my Fox" airs shows an hour earlier [like CBS does here] than your does "I think", or does yours also have the news at 10? [a quick check shows it does]
> "Then there is always" the OTA feed to the DirecTV uplink, which at times seems to be two juice cans and a loose string.


Ah yes, you guys in the valley are still living in the 19th century, early to bed/early to rise to get out there on all those "family" farms early. :lol:


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> Ah yes, you guys in the valley are still living in the 19th century, early to bed/early to rise to get out there on all those "family" farms early. :lol:


 It really is "those guys", since I'm up @ 2,300' in the Sierras.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Did DirecTV change something else with their broadcast...maybe they're compressing a bit more...putting more channels on a transponder?


Transponder loading hasn't changed.


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## tvjay (Sep 26, 2007)

I wonder if DirecTV knows there is a problem because I was part of a firmware upgrade at my local receive point. I noticed an improvement on my local channels picture quality almost right away.


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## tas3986 (Feb 6, 2008)

I am having the same problems, but only on local channels. Yesterday I was so frustrated, I decided to switch my TV to my local TV antenna, rather than Directv. To my surprise, the local stations were the source of the problem, but only on the digital signal. Directv was just passing the burping signal through their system.

Occasionally I get a burp on other directv channels, but it is so infrequent that I am not concerned. Yesterdays locals, on two different channels, was really frustrating, as it was never ending.

Suggestion... always check another source.


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## tvjay (Sep 26, 2007)

tas3986 said:


> To my surprise, the local stations were the source of the problem, but only on the digital signal.


Good point, as the local stations (and the networks to some extent) are still getting their HD infrastructure in place and working out the bugs. I know that recently CBS released a software upgrade for their networking receivers that caused some problems with black flashes and audio dropouts. Not every problem is DirecTV's fault, however that doesn't mean they are immune from fault sometimes.


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

bonscott87 said:


> As noted, in this case your local Fox station had a problem, big clue is the switch to 4x3 then back to 16x9. Basically sounds like their 5.1 audio was having major issues, they dropped to SD, reset the 5.1 and then brought it back to HD. Anyone with OTA or cable in your area would have seen the same thing.
> 
> Seen this many times for the past 6 years with my locals. Just a few months ago my CBS had very similar problems at the start of CSI. They dropped to SD and stayed that way thru the first commercial break. When CSI came back they switched back to HD and all was well. Found out on our local thread on AVS (see my signature) that the station engineer said they had an equipment failure and were able to switch to a backup before the next segment started.


The "Brrrrriiip" occurs more than once a day now, at differ. times, and on any of the Local affiliates, or for that matter, any other channel from D*'s signal I may be watching. I get what your saying about Locals, but the Nationals???? And only recently for me has the"Brrrrriiip" monster:eek2: shown its ugly head!!!! So what changed??


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## jimmyv2000 (Feb 15, 2007)

gilviv,


its opposite for me my locals are great rarely a burp but Fox News,MLB, and a few other nationals are burping several times an hour.
just watch the FOX REPORT at 7 eastern time and you will see (HEAR) 

My brother has CRAPCAST and his HD nationals don't burp we did a comparison test on fox news recently and not 1 burp on there versus several from D*


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## xmguy (Mar 27, 2008)

LameLefty said:


> It's gotten way worse again on my locals including Fox, CBS and NBC. I haven't noticed it much on the local ABC. That said, there was a period last fall when it seemed to be completely gone. Too bad.


I have the same issue too. CBS was worse. I noticed watching CSI Miami this week it was very bad.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

gilviv said:


> The "Brrrrriiip" occurs more than once a day now, at differ. times, and on any of the Local affiliates, or for that matter, any other channel from D*'s signal I may be watching. I get what your saying about Locals, but the Nationals???? And only recently for me has the"Brrrrriiip" monster:eek2: shown its ugly head!!!! So what changed??


Yea, I was only talking about the specific issue you had and using it as an example of a transmission issue that wouldn't be DirecTV's fault. Certainly the long term brrrriiiiipp issue is DirecTV's fault at some level.


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## runner26 (Apr 8, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> I don't think there is much question about the encoders, but "my Fox" airs shows an hour earlier [like CBS does here] than your does "I think", or does yours also have the news at 10? [a quick check shows it does]
> "Then there is always" the OTA feed to the DirecTV uplink, which at times seems to be two juice cans and a loose string.


I am just going to go out on a limb with my suggestion here crazy as it is going to sounds to some of the D* fanboys on this site. How about this, an honest straight forward answer to our problems from Directv? I know, I know, it must seem like crazy talk to some here but instead of all of us indulging in endless guessing about what is going on and what is being done to fix the problem (if anything) we get some good old fashioned honest answers from Directv? Is that soooooo much to ask, for gods sake? We all pay good money every month for crap service and when we go to D* we are treated like ingrates who are intruding into things that are none of our business. How about D* just fesses up to the problem? Or am I asking too much?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

^ your sure allowed to say/feel what you want.
Some pages back, I've posted what DirecTV has told me to my questions about the problem.
Feel free to ask them yourself.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

runner26 said:


> How about D* just fesses up to the problem? Or am I asking too much?


DirecTV doesn't fess up to problems unless they absolutely have to. I don't like it, I don't think it's a good way to do business. But that's the way it is.


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## runner26 (Apr 8, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> ^ your sure allowed to say/feel what you want.
> Some pages back, I've posted what DirecTV has told me to my questions about the problem.
> Feel free to ask them yourself.


There seems to be some confusion here. I went back through this thread and read your every post I can't say i am much enlightened, but that is all right. I don't send you money every month so I don't see the problems i am having as something you should be required to answer although I can see you are trying. I DO send money to D* every month and I can not for the life of me understand why I can only seem to get info about this and ALL the other problems second or third hand. This is Directv's responsibility, not yours not dbstalk, not all the other people who are having trouble. Why the terrible case of lock jaw on Directv's part? They certainly have many many ways to communicate with me. They could have a dedicated channel for instance since we are all subscribers to begin with. This channel could explain in simple language know on-going problems and what is being done. Instead we get the famous D* stonewall. Why? Is this a matter of national security (always a favorite)?


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## RobertE (Jun 10, 2006)

runner26 said:


> There seems to be some confusion here. I went back through this thread and read your every post I can't say i am much enlightened, but that is all right. I don't send you money every month so I don't see the problems i am having as something you should be required to answer although I can see you are trying. I DO send money to D* every month and I can not for the life of me understand why I can only seem to get info about this and ALL the other problems second or third hand. This is Directv's responsibility, not yours not dbstalk, not all the other people who are having trouble. Why the terrible case of lock jaw on Directv's part? They certainly have many many ways to communicate with me. They could have a dedicated channel for instance since we are all subscribers to begin with. This channel could explain in simple language know on-going problems and what is being done. Instead we get the famous D* stonewall. Why? Is this a matter of national security (always a favorite)?


My take on why they won't publicy acknowledge this or any other issue: If they do, you better believe that Dish, Timewarner, Cox, etc, will have those issues in adds in a matter of days if not hours.

So, while I would like to know more about issues, it just isn't going to happen. It would be corporate suicide.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

RobertE said:


> My take on why they won't publicy acknowledge this or any other issue: If they do, you better believe that Dish, Timewarner, Cox, etc, will have those issues in adds in a matter of days if not hours.
> 
> So, while I would like to know more about issues, it just isn't going to happen. It would be corporate suicide.


Exactly. This question comes up every time there is a problem. Companies aren't going to put out a press release about every little problem they have with their product. It's plain stupid from a business sense. Nobody does it, why is DirecTV special that they must do it?

Would I like more direct info? Sure. But then I also live in the real world where I know that won't happen instead of fantasy land where every company does things in my best interest. 
Thing is, we get a lot of indirect info and feedback on this very forum from DirecTV (some of which is in this very thread) which is a lot more then most people get with companies they do business with.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

The problem is that DirecTV has no control over the fix for the issue. There are obviously problems with the 8095 mpeg4 encoders from Tandberg which DirecTV can do nothing about. They can only wait for Tandberg to fix the problem.


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## runner26 (Apr 8, 2007)

BattleScott said:


> The problem is that DirecTV has no control over the fix for the issue. There are obviously problems with the 8095 mpeg4 encoders from Tandberg which DirecTV can do nothing about. They can only wait for Tandberg to fix the problem.


And you know this how?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

BattleScott said:


> The problem is that DirecTV has no control over the fix for the issue. There are obviously problems with the 8095 mpeg4 encoders from Tandberg which DirecTV can do nothing about. They can only wait for Tandberg to fix the problem.


 I think it's really the Harmonic encoders and why they've brought someone from Harmonic "in house".


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> I think it's really the Harmonic encoders and why they've brought someone from Harmonic "in house".


Yeah, these problems didn't seem to happen back when they were using Tandberg encoders.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

I suppose it could be either one but the the problems seemed to start more in line with the new Tandberg encoders. The Harmonics had been in service prior to that without these issues.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

runner26 said:


> And you know this how?


Reading.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

BattleScott said:


> I suppose it could be either one but the the problems seemed to start more in line with the new Tandberg encoders. The Harmonics had been in service prior to that without these issues.


What new Tandberg encoders? Last I knew, DirecTV has been using Harmonic exclusively since the rollout of MPEG4 national channels.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

Jeremy W said:


> What new Tandberg encoders? Last I knew, DirecTV has been using Harmonic exclusively since the rollout of MPEG4 national channels.


That was apparently for the first stage of the HD expansion. According to this, they switched back to Tandberg for the latest expansion. Sounds like these were more desirable for the LiL expansion

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20081016005483&newsLang=en


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

BattleScott said:


> That was apparently for the first stage of the HD expansion. According to this, they switched back to Tandberg for the latest expansion. Sounds like these were more desirable for the LiL expansion


OK, so they've been using Tandberg for the new LIL markets since October. But AFAIK, *all* of the national channels still use Harmonic encoders. It would be interesting to compile data from people who have had their LILs turned on since October, and see if they're noticing a problem on their locals.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

Jeremy W said:


> OK, so they've been using Tandberg for the new LIL markets since October. But AFAIK, *all* of the national channels still use Harmonic encoders. It would be interesting to compile data from people who have had their LILs turned on since October, and see if they're noticing a problem on their locals.


I'll go first. Ours were turned on in October and we definitely have the problem, most noticably on the locals.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

If someone can tell me when the Chattanooga locals were added, I can say that I don't notice the brrrippps often if ever on my locals, but I definitely do notice it on the nationals. If I have audio problems with the locals, I normally have a complete dropout, but I don't remember hearing the brrrrippps on the locals. Another thing, and it's really not very definitive is that the audio dropouts I suffer on the locals take longer to recover than just the brrrrippps I get on the nationals.

Edit: Chattanooga locals were added on 08-27-08


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

My locals were turned on in march '06 and I've been complaining since Sept of last year.


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

OK EARTHLINGS! FIX YOUR _MODULATORS_, YOUR ENCODERS, YOUR TRANSPONDERs AND/OR WHATEVER IT TAKES TO GET THIS VERY, VERY, VERY....DID I SAY -*VERY*- ANNOUYING PROBLEM FIXED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*Bottom line:* We are subscribers to Directv, we chose them as our subscription service; we pay _them_ and in turn we expect _them_ to deliver a quality, constant, and reliable product into our homes. For the most part they due. We all know that there are other services out, but for whatever the reasons most of us are pretty loyal to D* 
We like D* and ALL we really want is to watch UN- BRRRRIIIPPPing TV!

.........AND MRV .........AND Dual Buffers .......AND Widgets .... And lower prices and WORLD PEACE AND......

OK, sorry. Brrrrriiiiip IS getting worse for me!!!


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## Halo (Jan 13, 2006)

Channel 13 KCOP in LA is so bad. I don't watch this channel much but now that baseball is back I'm going to be watching it.

Constant audio nnnnnnnttttttt sometimes with broken up video. Sounds like the bionic woman about to jump over a fence.

Game winning hit in the bottom of the ninth? I guess so. I didn't see it because it was in the middle of another screw up.


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

Halo said:


> Channel 13 KCOP in LA is so bad. I don't watch this channel much but now that baseball is back I'm going to be watching it.
> 
> Constant audio nnnnnnnttttttt sometimes with broken up video. Sounds like the bionic woman about to jump over a fence.
> 
> Game winning hit in the bottom of the ninth? I guess so. I didn't see it because it was in the middle of another screw up.


I know, see my earlier post here;

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=2051262#post2051262

about the same issue I'm having with KCOP-13's terrible burrriiip'ing signal via DirecTV.


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## STEVEN-H (Jan 19, 2007)

I get it on Fox News HD all the time. Last night it was bad on the CBS final four broadcast both OTA and Sat. but, then they had some problems and dropped to SD for a while. It happens to me often enough to be a bother.


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## witz (Jan 30, 2008)

I am in Baltimore and have called many times to document the loss of sound on my local HD channels. I sometimes can view the show with sound, but then nothing during random commercials, not a problem, but now I cannot get sound on many of the broadcasts for my local HD's. It only happens on the Locals not any other HD broadcast.

Here is the question, given what I have stated above, I run everything thru a Sony reciever (7.1 SS, HDMI) sound and video system. Is this a possible factor and why does everything else function without issue, except the locals?


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

This morning and last night, I noticed the brrrrp artifact on CNN-HD, quite a lot. This morning I heard it at least 4 times in a 20 min period. This was "live", not recorded. I rarely observe it on MSNBC, which I have on as a "news radio" for hours on end, in fact, I may never have seen it on MSNBC. I have seen it on ESPN-HD, CNN-HD, and several OTA locals.

An unrelated observation (to this thread):

Lately our NBC affiliate (OTA) has had many, many bad visual breakups and loss of audio. Checking the same channel HD-LIL, there was only one breakup and that was cutting in and out of commercials. (and...before someone asks, the OTA signal is 100% and fully stable). Watching NCAA basketball on the CBS affiliate (OTA) produced no kind of artifacting whatsoever (4 hours of viewing)

Go figure.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

We are in Moscow for the week and so far have yet to hear any Brrriiiips on the flat-screen in our room....oh and yes they have HD over here.


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## MizzouTiger (Jan 10, 2007)

Have to say that I've have been keeping an eye on this thread for a while, even though I hadn't been experiencing the problem.

Well, tonight it seems to be happening quite often. Particularly on DirecTv's feed of our locals here in St. Louis. Was getting very annoying while currently watching Castle on ABC. Just switched over to OTA and not experiencing the problem now.


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## mhayes70 (Mar 21, 2006)

MizzouTiger said:


> Have to say that I've have been keeping an eye on this thread for a while, even though I hadn't been experiencing the problem.
> 
> Well, tonight it seems to be happening quite often. Particularly on DirecTv's feed of our locals here in St. Louis. Was getting very annoying while currently watching Castle on ABC. Just switched over to OTA and not experiencing the problem now.


I also noticed in KTVI Fox tonight during 24 and it just happened as I was typing this on CBS for the b'ball game.


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

Still getting the Brrrriiippp!
Last night. twice during Dancing w/ the Stars, LIVE (ABC) and 2 times while watching my recording of 24 (FOX) and then 5 times in a 2 hour period watching NATGEO(276) recording this morning.
I must say they are much lower in volume and a little less frequent, but they're still there.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

Ended up on FX today and Wicker Man was brrrippping a lot. It seemed to have gotten better for me for a week or two, but now I'm noticing like I was before. Also, I seem to be noticing more lip sync issues lately. 

I've said it before, I'll take the brrrippp all day vs lip sync.


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## jollygrunt (Apr 13, 2005)

The National Championship game on CBS last night was really bad, and I was watching it live, not even timeshifted. It had so many video and audio problems that I had to switch over to the SD channel. :nono2:


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## celticpride (Sep 6, 2006)

This is starting to get very frustrating to say the least as i watch my locals a lot and have this problem a LOT on ktla 5,kttv 11, and ABC7 here in los angeles DMA. I really wish theyd find out whats causing this and fix the problem!!


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## flasherz (May 27, 2007)

MizzouTiger said:


> Have to say that I've have been keeping an eye on this thread for a while, even though I hadn't been experiencing the problem.
> 
> Well, tonight it seems to be happening quite often. Particularly on DirecTv's feed of our locals here in St. Louis. Was getting very annoying while currently watching Castle on ABC. Just switched over to OTA and not experiencing the problem now.


I'll add to this. They've made some change to the St. Louis locals recently -- only in the past few weeks have I noticed these artifacts (and the St. Louis locals have been around for a long time now). They seem to be getting worse -- my wife tells me that she noticed the burps previously, but green macroblocking is now a bit more prevalent too.

OTA on my HR20 does *not* exhibit these symptoms.

I've sent DirecTV a letter -- my wife is advising me to dump DirecTV in favor of a simple OTA + HD TiVo setup. Sure, we'd miss a few programs but would save the NFL ST subscription price + $75/mo.


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## putty469 (Jun 5, 2007)

flasherz said:


> I'll add to this. They've made some change to the St. Louis locals recently -- only in the past few weeks have I noticed these artifacts (and the St. Louis locals have been around for a long time now). They seem to be getting worse -- my wife tells me that she noticed the burps previously, but green macroblocking is now a bit more prevalent too.
> 
> OTA on my HR20 does *not* exhibit these symptoms.
> 
> I've sent DirecTV a letter -- my wife is advising me to dump DirecTV in favor of a simple OTA + HD TiVo setup. Sure, we'd miss a few programs but would save the NFL ST subscription price + $75/mo.


I started having the same issues a few weeks ago on the St. Louis locals. Interestingly, I had just mounted my HDTV on the wall and changed HDMI cables. But what flasherz and MizzouTiger are saying is exactly what I'm seeing. It is sporadic but annoying.


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## timmmaaayyy2003 (Jan 27, 2008)

Just to add to the dissatisfaction, it's happenning all over the place. I don't get locals from DTV and it happens on Discovery, SciFi, TLC, everywhere. I originally thought it was a software issue, but since it happens on all types of systems with all versions of software, it seems that the issue is either on the uplink or the satelites themselves.

Last night I noticed it no less than half a dozen times in a one hour show!


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Here we go again, they are back in DC , getting hammered on CSI tonight , channel 9 CBS....what a bunch of BS ! This is really getting old. Is it possible to get the FCC involved?


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## mpollack (Feb 11, 2008)

Terrible problems tonight with Brrrriiiiipppp during the Comcast Sportsnet Bay Area (San Francisco / San Jose) broadcast of the Sharks hockey game on channel 696-1. There was a video and audio discontinuity (roughly) once every couple of minutes. It's a maddening way to watch a sporting event. Is there anyone at DirecTV who is interested in hearing about these issues from customers and who whose job it is to fix it? I'm reluctant to call their Customer Support as I've never gotten anywhere with them when I've encountered problems of this sort in the past.


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## Jimmy 440 (Nov 17, 2007)

I was just going to post the same complaint.The Sharks game was awful !


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

timmmaaayyy2003 said:


> it seems that the issue is either on the uplink or the satelites themselves.


It's the encoders. The uplinks and the satellites cannot cause issues like this, they're not that involved with the signals.


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## wolfman730 (Sep 10, 2006)

Jimmy 440 said:


> I was just going to post the same complaint.The Sharks game was awful !


Yes it was, very annoying.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

mpollack said:


> Is there anyone at DirecTV who is interested in hearing about these issues from customers and who whose job it is to fix it? I'm reluctant to call their Customer Support as I've never gotten anywhere with them when I've encountered problems of this sort in the past.


There is no direct number to call, but I would call DirecTV and ask the CSR to send an email about it to the network broadcast center. They're the ones in control & interested in it.


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## sassynstl (Apr 10, 2009)

Started noticing this on all local channels. Last 3 days, cannot even watch HD it's so bad. Called D* and they sent out technician, pretty much did everything aside from running new cables.

Called D* back and managed to get a case worker who had never heard of this issue before???? Directed him to this forum. He escalated to the engineering group who will be "monitoring" St. Louis feeds until Monday...holding breath.

Also sent emails to KSDK and FOX (2).

Seriously do not know who changed what, but I'm back to watching and recording SD channels since you cannot watch HD local channels for more than 30 seconds without losing pic/sound for 2-5 seconds...horrible.


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## Hey_Hey (Aug 23, 2006)

mpollack said:


> Terrible problems tonight with Brrrriiiiipppp during the Comcast Sportsnet Bay Area (San Francisco / San Jose) broadcast of the Sharks hockey game on channel 696-1. There was a video and audio discontinuity (roughly) once every couple of minutes. It's a maddening way to watch a sporting event. Is there anyone at DirecTV who is interested in hearing about these issues from customers and who whose job it is to fix it? I'm reluctant to call their Customer Support as I've never gotten anywhere with them when I've encountered problems of this sort in the past.


Yeah it was absolutely horrible, the worst I have ever seen. I called DirecTV customer service and the CSR was very sympathetic, checked to see if it was a known issue, couldn't find it. He said he would log it, but I got the impression he really didn't do anything besides sympathsize with me.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

Hey_Hey said:


> Yeah it was absolutely horrible, the worst I have ever seen. I called DirecTV customer service and the CSR was very sympathetic, checked to see if it was a known issue, couldn't find it. He said he would log it, but I got the impression he really didn't do anything besides sympathsize with me.


It not by accident that it is not a "known issue". If it were entered in the CSR Knowledge base as an official issue then customers would have a legitimate right to seek billing credits or other compensation until it is resolved.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

BattleScott said:


> It not by accident that it is not a "known issue". If it were entered in the CSR Knowledge base as an official issue then customers would have a legitimate right to seek billing credits or other compensation until it is resolved.


This isn't quite true. I've had them enter it as a known issue, which means they won't setup a service call [for one thing] and the credits would be from $1-5 so they wouldn't "force" anything to change.


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## manny1 (Oct 4, 2006)

Thanks for this thread. It has saved me from chasing DTV's problem around my house. My dropouts seem to be limited to my backhauled mpeg4 locals. My nationals don't seem to be affected. I always felt it was a transport issue as it affects every box I own, two different HD DVR's and a straight H 21 HD box. They HAVE to be seeing this problem. The systems they have to audit signal QA through the chain must have alarm bells ringing all over the plant.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

manny1 said:


> They HAVE to be seeing this problem. The systems they have to audit signal QA through the chain must have alarm bells ringing all over the plant.


 "One would think so", but I had a local doing this for over 12 hours [8 AM -8 PM], and only after I called did it get "fixed" [read reset their damn box] 45 min later.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> This isn't quite true. I've had them enter it as a known issue, which means they won't setup a service call [for one thing] and the credits would be from $1-5 so they wouldn't "force" anything to change.


What is the correct title to use for the issue you created? If everyone calls and reports it under that same name, perhaps it will get more attention...


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

BattleScott said:


> What is the correct title to use for the issue you created? If everyone calls and reports it under that same name, perhaps it will get more attention...


The thread title should work, but some CSRs also know it a "the zipper sound".
The more calls [even by the same customer] the better.
You might also want to email: [email protected]


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> The thread title should work, but some CSRs also know it a "the zipper sound".
> The more calls [even by the same customer] the better.
> You might also want to email: [email protected]


A consistent term is needed for a CSR to find the issue in a KB search. If I call cand say "audio briiiiiiip" and you call and "audio zipper" neither CSR is going to find what the other entered. And if they do, it will be thrown out with the bath water because of the thousands of hits on the "audio" keyword.

You are the only person to date who seems to have gotten any acknowledgement from DirecTV that there is an issue on their end, so whatever the exact phrase is that you used is what everyone needs to use.


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## QuickDrop (Jul 21, 2007)

The Brrrrriiiips have actually gotten better for me over the past year. I used to always get them watching my local ABC affiliate (among other less consistent channels), but in the last nine months they basically disappeared.

Forgive if this has been asked and answered but has there been any connection made between the sound and the amount of hard drive space available? I ask because the sound did return briefly a few weeks ago when my "available space" was dwindling into the lower single digits and went away as I cleared up space. Other than the local issue, I seem to remember the sound only showing up on other channels before when the DVR seemed to be reaching it's limit.

It's probably all a lazy observation on my part.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

QuickDrop said:


> Forgive if this has been asked and answered but has there been any connection made between the sound and the amount of hard drive space available?


It happens on receivers that don't even have hard drives.


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## lug1 (May 13, 2003)

I never had this problem until DirectV made me change out from H20 to H21 receivers.


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## usnret (Jan 16, 2009)

I'm getting a lot of it on just about all channels now. I sent an email to the lady that veryoldschool advised to. Just wondering if I sprinkle some BeanO on the dish, maybe that would help??


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## thestaton (Aug 14, 2008)

Does this happen to those of you who have your box running through a receiver? I've got my HR21 / AM21 box ran through a Onkyo 705 and I can only recall hearing this once, and I can see why your angry cause it was jolting. 

I hope they get this fixed asap.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

thestaton said:


> Does this happen to those of you who have your box running through a receiver?


It happens both ways for me, though it's actually worse through the receiver because it takes more time to sync back up to the signal.


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## gquiring (Jan 8, 2006)

This issue is getting worse. Last night I was getting these brrrrrip sounds every show I recorded. I don't understand how 15+ years later D* has managed to take a reliable service and made it look like a beta program.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

gquiring said:


> I don't understand how 15+ years later D* has managed to take a reliable service and made it look like a beta program.


If DirecTV had been offering MPEG4 HD for 15+ years, you'd have a point. But they haven't been.


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## psweig (Feb 4, 2006)

I became a member of this group yesterday. Fox, 32 (LIL) recordings of M*A*S*H all had the Brrrrp bug. So far, all other recordings have escaped.


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## gquiring (Jan 8, 2006)

Jeremy W said:


> If DirecTV had been offering MPEG4 HD for 15+ years, you'd have a point. But they haven't been.


From my point of view when I got D* in 1995 you plugged it in and the service just worked. No brripps no black screens no Mpeg artifacts just a service that you could take for granted. MPEG4 has been around for years, this is not bleeding edge new technology.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

gquiring said:


> From my point of view when I got D* in 1995 you plugged it in and the service just worked. No brripps no black screens no Mpeg artifacts just a service that you could take for granted. MPEG4 has been around for years, this is not bleeding edge new technology.


The MPEG4 transport is not new, but the distriubtion of the MPEG4 streams on a large scale is new. New encoders and dynamic compression methods involving bandwidth sharing and optimization are in their infancy and constantly changing. Add in the rush to be first, have the most and the best and problems like these are bound to show up. Not trying to defend anybody, I want fixed NOW too, but in this case I don't think the fix is going to be soon or simple.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

gquiring said:


> From my point of view when I got D* in 1995 you plugged it in and the service just worked. No brripps no black screens no Mpeg artifacts just a service that you could take for granted. MPEG4 has been around for years, this is not bleeding edge new technology.


I tend to agree with most of that myself, I don't remember having many problems with the system picture or audio trouble for a long time, I had it when I first got hooked up Fall of 07(lip sync mostly), but they seemed to have smoothed that out and by early 08, most audio/video problems seemed to be working smoothly. 09 comes around and all of a sudden we're having all kinds of wrinkles, and I'm talking about the National HD channels that have been available for nearly two years.

Mpeg4 is very bad, or at least their implementation of it is when errors occur in the source stream, it takes a considerable time to recover from a glitch. My one comparison are the locals, when my cable feed has a glitch in the network feed, it glitches and recovers instantly, whereas the Directv feed can sometimes take 5 or 6 seconds or longer to even get the audio back.


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## jimmyv2000 (Feb 15, 2007)

lug1 said:


> I never had this problem until DirectV made me change out from H20 to H21 receivers.


i have 2 h20's and 1 h21 all -100's and it get the brrrrriiiips on all of them
mostly on the *nationals* and occasionally on my local NBC


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Actually, while MPEG2 has been around even longer, there is a huge learning curve for many of the content provers (local stations!) on using MPEG2 for the first time.

Basically Digital TV for locals stations is not plug and play yet. There are all kinds of new rules stations have to learn for setting up HD studios.

Cable and broadcast networks are finding out as well that HD isn't plug and play, even tho they may have been using MPEG2 in their stream before. In the SD world, studios would use mostly analog in their production process and convert to MPEG2 once... Sometimes only at the final stage.

In the HD realm, the whole plant is changed. Every step is now digital. So all the equipment that used to be analog (and working well) is now completely changed out with digital equipment that doesn't interoperate so well yet.

As far as DIRECTV goes, yes MPEG4 has been around for awhile, even some limited streaming MPEG4 in video conferencing, but not nearly at this level of real-time data transcoding and this level of number of stations. This really is cutting edge use of MPEG technology.

Cheers,
Tom


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## BubblePuppy (Nov 3, 2006)

Tom Robertson said:


> Actually, while MPEG2 has been around even longer, there is a huge learning curve for many of the content provers (local stations!) on using MPEG2 for the first time.
> 
> Basically Digital TV for locals stations is not plug and play yet. There are all kinds of new rules stations have to learn for setting up HD studios.
> 
> ...


Ok, here is a question that hasn't been answered to my satisfaction. I have Directv, no problem, but my brother has Comcast, why does he need a new box to get channels 30(?) thru 70(?)? His tv is connected via a cable card.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

BubblePuppy said:


> Ok, here is a question that hasn't been answered to my satisfaction. I have Directv, no problem, but my brother has Comcast, why does he need a new box to get channels 30(?) thru 70(?)? His tv is connected via a cable card.


I guess you'll have to ask in a Comcast forum. 

I'm also guessing that ComCast has changed their modulation to a level his TV doesn't support? Or they are forcing their customers to go with cable boxes even tho they shouldn't if the TV and cablecard solution should work?

Cheers,
Tom


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Tom Robertson said:


> I guess you'll have to ask in a Comcast forum.
> 
> I'm also guessing that ComCast has changed their modulation to a level his TV doesn't support? Or they are forcing their customers to go with cable boxes even tho they shouldn't if the TV and cablecard solution should work?
> 
> ...


 "or" the cablecard standard isn't being conformed to as was hoped.


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## Justin23 (Jan 11, 2008)

I notice it is happening a lot on my local Orlando, FL Fox station. We DVR Idol and it was sporatic over the last few weeks. This past week's Tuesday recording was almost unwatchable. Right from the get go it was "brrriiipppp" and the audio was out of sync almost 2-4 seconds. Has this issue been happening with cable companies on their HD channels or just D* & E*?

J


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

BubblePuppy said:


> my brother has Comcast, why does he need a new box to get channels 30(?) thru 70(?)? His tv is connected via a cable card.


Unless Comcast has moved those channels to SDV, which is *highly* unlikely, your brother is being fed a line of BS. But this is a DirecTV forum, so...


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## usnret (Jan 16, 2009)

Just as an update. Last week I email'd the person that veryoldschool provided and I received a phone call from Cary this am. She is a very nice person. She ask about the briiip and pixulation problem that I indicated in my email. I explained what was happening. She more or less said that they (DTV) did not really know about the problem. She is sending a tech out this Thursday to check everything (I told her that I felt that he/she shouldn't be charge for it as he did a great installation). She told me that I would not incur a charge nor would the tech. Will update if you like after the visit Thursday.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

usnret said:


> Just as an update. Last week I email'd the person that veryoldschool provided and I received a phone call from Cary this am. She is a very nice person. She ask about the briiip and pixulation problem that I indicated in my email. I explained what was happening. She more or less said that they (DTV) did not really know about the problem. She is sending a tech out this Thursday to check everything (I told her that I felt that he/she shouldn't be charge for it as he did a great installation). She told me that I would not incur a charge nor would the tech. Will update if you like after the visit Thursday.


They did this for me also.
Keep a few recordings of "the problem" to show them.
"In my case", after going all over my system [and finding nothing wrong], they then contacted a network broadcast center engineer.


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## usnret (Jan 16, 2009)

Thats what Cary said. That after he check'd the system out and reported back to her, she would pass it up to her engineering section. I don't have any recordings to provide to the tech. Any other suggestions that might help him?? She also said that she would have the tech take down the small dish (leaving the bracket) as I get the Toledo locals on the "big dish" now. I have rerun the sat setup and things are good in that respect.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

usnret said:


> Thats what Cary said. That after he check'd the system out and reported back to her, she would pass it up to her engineering section. I don't have any recordings to provide to the tech. Any other suggestions that might help him?? She also said that she would have the tech take down the small dish (leaving the bracket) as I get the Toledo locals on the "big dish" now. I have rerun the sat setup and things are good in that respect.


 If you can't "show him", then the only thing would be to "describe them" [well] to him. "A picture is worth 1000 words".


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

usnret said:


> Thats what Cary said. That after he check'd the system out and reported back to her, she would pass it up to her engineering section. I don't have any recordings to provide to the tech. Any other suggestions that might help him?? She also said that she would have the tech take down the small dish (leaving the bracket) as I get the Toledo locals on the "big dish" now. I have rerun the sat setup and things are good in that respect.


If it does it while you're waiting, you can always record it when it happens, it will always be in the buffer and you'll have an example to show.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

Show them this. I was watching a Bobby Flay episode on FoodTV (a station that we watch very regularly and have only recently started to notice it on). This is by far the worst occurance to date so I recorded it and dumped it to DVD for reference if needed.

Has anyone else had this level of video loss and sync issues along with the audio brrripppp?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

BattleScott said:


> Has anyone else had this level of video loss and sync issues along with the audio brrripppp?


 Yep, my local NBC is this bad, but in my case, it's from the station as it's the same when I change over to their OTA channel.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

BattleScott said:


> Show them this. I was watching a Bobby Flay episode on FoodTV (a station that we watch very regularly and have only recently started to notice it on). This is by far the worst occurance to date so I recorded it and dumped it to DVD for reference if needed.
> 
> Has anyone else had this level of video loss and sync issues along with the audio brrripppp?


FoodTV is getting worse and worse lately.

I also reported the problem to DirecTV. They informed me that I was the first to "ever report this problem". I directed them to the video I uploaded (which they can't view from work) and was told I could have a service call, but I would have to pay $50.

I declined.

Perhaps DirecTV will get serious about improving their service one of these days...but today isn't it.


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## usnret (Jan 16, 2009)

OK BattleScott, I have downloaded your example (which are just like those that I have seen) and will show the tech. Just kinda seems to me that DTV knows of the problem, just don't have a solution, so they are kinda ignoring it. Especially knowing that you have sent them your example. I will try and isolate one off of future recordings and send it to them too. I let you all know what happens this Thursday.


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## spoonman (Feb 21, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Yep, my local NBC is this bad, but in my case, it's from the station as it's the same when I change over to their OTA channel.


My local CBS station is getting so bad it's almost unwatchable. My uncle, who I got to move over to Directv, is having the same issue. He isn't too happy right now...

I have no issues with my OTA channel.


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

I spoke with D* on Saturday after a bunch of my Friday's recordings were FULL of BRRRIIIIPPP. They said "they were not aware of any problems". Granted, it depends who you speak to over there, because my very next call was treated as if it were a DVR on the fritz problem-- "let's try reseting the box.... and then we may have to FORMAT......" SAY WHAT!!!!!
I can't believe they have no clue that this many of us are experiencing this issue. It is random, but it is happening. Sometimes you can set your watch by it, and there are times when it , well, just is happening at all times.
Observation:
The Masters this Sunday over the local CBS station experienced a few BRRRIIIPPP, but the feed over the D* 702 channel was clean.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

usnret said:


> Just kinda seems to me that DTV knows of the problem, just don't have a solution, so they are kinda ignoring it.


They're not ignoring it at all!

"They" know about it and the have decided to take the Microsoft approach:

Categorically deny the problem exists until they have a solution at which point it isn't a problem, is it?


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

harsh said:


> They're not ignoring it at all!
> 
> "They" know about it and the have decided to take the Microsoft approach:
> 
> Categorically deny the problem exists until they have a solution at which point it isn't a problem, is it?


That's GREAT!!! We'll just keep sending them our money and settle for inadequate service. Uuuunttttiiillll they figure oooouuuuttttt there ooooooown tttttttech problems, sorry I must have just had Brrriiippp issue. Oh, but that isn't a known issue. If there was a way to Brriiiiiippp the checks we send them every month, ..... bet they'd fix it real quick! :grin:


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gilviv said:


> That's GREAT!!! We'll just keep sending them our money and settle for inadequate service. Uuuunttttiiillll they figure oooouuuuttttt there ooooooown tttttttech problems, sorry I must have just had Brrriiippp issue. Oh, but that isn't a known issue. If there was a way to Brriiiiiippp the checks we send them every month, ..... bet they'd fix it real quick! :grin:


 Take anything Harsh say with a grain of salt, since he doesn't have DirecTV service.
While CSRs may not "know about it", DirecTV does and has been good at giving me the information that I've posted here [back in the first 100 posts].


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

VOS,

With all due respect...while someone wispering to you is nice...they need to let their CSRs know of this problem. At the very least it would prevent a lot of needless service calls and receiver returns. They could even go so far as to state they know their is an issue and they're working on it. It has been months now and it appears to be getting worse...not better.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

Ken S said:


> VOS,
> 
> With all due respect...while someone wispering to you is nice...they need to let their CSRs know of this problem.


With all due respect, VOS already responded to that specific point now more than once.

DirecTV is aware of the issue.

Telling the CSR's til the cows come home won't let them know any better.

On top of that, the problem is not isolated to just their transmission of the broadcast signals.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Ken S said:


> VOS,
> 
> With all due respect...while someone wispering to you is nice...they need to let their CSRs know of this problem. At the very least it would prevent a lot of needless service calls and receiver returns. They could even go so far as to state they know their is an issue and they're working on it. It has been months now and it appears to be getting worse...not better.


Ken [with or without respect] I'm not saying DirecTV is handling this [or anything else] perfectly. Those that have the problem should report it. Once "enough" have, it gets "on the list". I know it does because that is exactly what they did for my DMA [twice].
I got pissed one day when it had gone on for over 12 hours. I couldn't believe I was the only one in my DMA to notice it. I finally called, heard the "normal" crap, and yet 45 min later, the screen went "please don't cal..." and they fixed it.


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

Oh YEAH! Just tried to play the recording of "24" on FOX, it was trashed and they(DIRECTV) were nice enough to FLASH a message after about 30 minutes of chopped-up video and audio that read something like "PLEASE DO NOT CALL: THIS STATION IS ....TRANSMISSION..... something or other, yata, yata" Couldn't see the whole message, but it was coming from DirecTv; their logo was all over it. Meanwhile, over on ABC's Dancing with the Stars, oh that was also destroyed. Couldn't watch but 20 minutes of that. D* didn't post a message on that one. Now they got the wife all pissed- off. :eek2: 
"The Unit" last night on CBS, was all over the place, had to stop it.

Listen, V.O.S., I agree with you 95%, OK 99.5% of the time, but this thing is really getting out of control. Who knows what upper management at D* is telling their CSR's, who cares! It is so frequent that lately I have a 50-50 chance that anything I schedule to record on my DVR or watch live will have some transmition issues. It is a sad day in D* history when we can sit here and say "I'll take RAIN FADE over this" At least you know what's causing it! 
Someone, somewhere spilled there coffee in the DirecTv thing-a-ma-gig, time to clean it up before it gets really gummy so we can all get back to WATCHING great SAT.TV on D*.
I don't want to go back to Dish or Cable:nono: PLEASE don't want to go back!


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

*gilviv*, I understand your point. When it isn't working, it sucks. I've been there too.
For "that message" to show up, somebody called it in. It sucks also that if you're recording "something" you can't know that the recording is screwed up until you watch it. Makes using a DVR a bit pointless.
"All I can say is" keep calling DirecTV and send an email to the address I've posted here ^.
While my locals "aren't perfect", they've gotten better than they were.
[FWIW: I also don't buy the DirecTV "line" that I can watch the shows on the SD channels. Crap, why did I get the HD if I wanted to watch/record SD?]


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## bb37 (Dec 27, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Those that have the problem should report it.


I've been watching this thread very closely. I suspended my DirecTV service back in January with the intent of reactivating it sometime in May or June. I did not have the problems described in this thread before I suspended service, so I've not personally experienced it. Based on what I read in this thread, you can imagine that I'm reluctant to reinstate.

But I will toss out this challenge to all of the posters and lurkers in this thread--You can complain all you want, but I suspect that nothing will get done if you don't call DirecTV. Take VOS's advice and call or email DirecTV.

You conspiracy theorists all believe that DirecTV knows about the problem and refuses to do anything about it. Heck of a way to run a non-essential service-oriented business if that's true. But you have to understand that in order to solve the problem, they have to know the problem exists, they have to know that a sufficient number of customers have the problem so that subscription rates might be impacted, they have to know how to solve the problem, and they have to have the corporate funding to actually fix it. You are dealing with a fair amount of corporate inertia and a solution is not likely to happen overnight.

Every one of you who has complained in this thread needs to call DirecTV. Do it now! Stop typing and start dialing! I commend those who have contacted DirecTV already. For those who haven't, what are you waiting for?


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

bb37 said:


> You conspiracy theorists all believe that DirecTV knows about the problem and refuses to do anything about it. Heck of a way to run a non-essential service-oriented business if that's true. But you have to understand that in order to solve the problem, they have to know the problem exists, they have to know that a sufficient number of customers have the problem so that subscription rates might be impacted, they have to know how to solve the problem, and they have to have the corporate funding to actually fix it. You are dealing with a fair amount of corporate inertia and a solution is not likely to happen overnight.


It is not a "theory". DirecTV has acknowledeged that there is a "problem(s)" through the mods here as well as through VOS, who has been in contact with the engineering staff. Most of the posters in this thread have contacted DirecTV, some many times and always the same response (VOS excluded) of "there are no known issues".

The corporate "inertia" in this case very likely stems from the fact that the problem is widespread involving more entities than just DirecTV and simply not knowing how to fix it. Politically and economically, they cannot simply say to the public that they know about the issue and are working to correct it as that would be grounds for people to seek corrective action through either account credits or unrestricted early termination.


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## codespy (Mar 30, 2006)

Just got a biiirrppp yesterday morning around 7:25am on NBC (4). This occurred on my Sony SAT-A55 on a round dish antenna.

When this occurs on my HR20's, the sound is so bad I have to change the channel and then change it back to get normal sound.


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## gusbuf (Aug 20, 2006)

I recorded 24 last night in HD. I am in the Buffalo, NY market. The first half hour was so bad with the brrriiippps, my wife and I were almost resigned to waiting until today and then watching the episode tonight online at the Fox website. It eventually stopped about half way through the show. I called tech support. He pretended to not know of the brrripp problem. But after some prodding, he admitted he knew about it. But for our station (WUTV 29), he said there was a statement from the local broadcaster that they were having audio issues. I have my doubts as to whether that is true or not. Even the commercials were experiencing the problem. D* needs to start addressing this issue with a little more seriousness, IMO.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

How I even found out what I have is from:

Calling the normal CSR line.
repeating #1 several times
emailing DirecTV
having a response from my email
letting them inspect my setup
ruling out everything else and then explaining to me what it is/was in a way that "makes sense" to me and how I see the problem.


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## David MacLeod (Jan 29, 2008)

gusbuf said:


> I recorded 24 last night in HD. I am in the Buffalo, NY market. The first half hour was so bad with the brrriiippps, my wife and I were almost resigned to waiting until today and then watching the episode tonight online at the Fox website. It eventually stopped about half way through the show. I called tech support. He pretended to not know of the brrripp problem. But after some prodding, he admitted he knew about it. But for our station (WUTV 29), he said there was a statement from the local broadcaster that they were having audio issues. I have my doubts as to whether that is true or not. Even the commercials were experiencing the problem. D* needs to start addressing this issue with a little more seriousness, IMO.


watching, and recording, 24 on OTA last night did not have these issues.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

gusbuf said:


> I recorded 24 last night in HD. I am in the Buffalo, NY market. The first half hour was so bad with the brrriiippps, my wife and I were almost resigned to waiting until today and then watching the episode tonight online at the Fox website. It eventually stopped about half way through the show. I called tech support. He pretended to not know of the brrripp problem. But after some prodding, he admitted he knew about it. But for our station (WUTV 29), he said there was a statement from the local broadcaster that they were having audio issues. I have my doubts as to whether that is true or not. Even the commercials were experiencing the problem. D* needs to start addressing this issue with a little more seriousness, IMO.


I would guess they are addressing it "very seriously" from an internal standpoint. As stated before, they cannot afford to publicly embrace the issue until they are well on the way to correcting it. 
At this point, I believe they are still in chase mode trying to identify the various scenarios that are causing these issues and isolating the problem device(s). Furthermore, working with the manufacturers of the devices can be very problematic because they can't afford the perception that their equipment is unreliable and in many cases will deny and deflect the issues being brought to them by DirecTV in the same way DirecTV does with their customers. 
Luckily for DirecTV, this problem seems to be isolated strictly to the mpeg4 HD channels so what we consider to be "widespread" is actually a very small percentage of the DirecTV customer base.


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## narunetto (Apr 7, 2008)

God, I'm watching KOMO 4 in Seattle here today, its done the Brrrip probably 50 times in the last 3-4 mins. Its horrible.


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## celticpride (Sep 6, 2006)

Time to switch back to mpeg2 or to switch providers? well i guedd i''ll have to put up with this problem until my contract is up (dec.2010.) of course i think they'll have the problem fixed by then, if not i may not be the only one leaving.


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## codespy (Mar 30, 2006)

In case anyone missed my post earlier, I am getting brips on my mpeg2 Sony receiver as well. This receiver and (30" round) dish is completely isolated from my Slimline/WB68 multiswitches that serve my HR10 and HR20 IRD's.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

codespy said:


> In case anyone missed my post earlier, I am getting brips on my mpeg2 Sony receiver as well. This receiver and (30" round) dish is completely isolated from my Slimline/WB68 multiswitches that serve my HR10 and HR20 IRD's.


Based on what you posted about having to switch channels to get the sound to normalize, I don't believe you are experiencing the actual "bbbrrriiippp" condition that this thread is centered around. That sounds like a possible HDMI issue. I have an R15 SD DVR on the same dish/lnb and have never experienced the "bbbrrriiippp" issue on it. And just because I like to type the word, not ALL "bbbrrriiippps" are THE "bbbrrriiippps"


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

See this thread about the CBS problems at the network: http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=156260

It appears that CBS network is supposed to have codes in the program to properly switch the audio at the affiliates to 5.1 but it's not working properly for many affiliates leading to no center channel, audio hiccups and the brrrrrrrps.

Obviously this is just CBS but it explains how some of these problems are complicated and not always with the provider but with the network.


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> How I even found out what I have is from:
> 
> Calling the normal CSR line.
> repeating #1 several times
> ...


Going where you've been VOS. Tried steps#1 & 2. Just finished step 3 waiting on #4, and #5 is scheduled tomorrow morning(I know what the tech is going to say) I'll Post what #6 is if and when.

A CSR MOMENT NOTE:
My 1st contact w/ D* today was one of those "we're not having any issues" and "let's reset or reformat your DVR......" that was the end of that call.

My 2nd contact was ready to replace the DVR(HR20-100) FREE! 
Hell, I've been trying to negociate some kind of deal to upgrade my R15-300 and they won't budge from the $200. Yet the CSR was ready to swap out my perfectly functioning HR20 as the solotion to their KNOWN problem. Flustered by my reluctance, I was transferred. Guess to what dept.---RETENTION!

I guess 3rd contact: The SR.CSR was like, "..and you are here because????" I dunnno, I replied.
She did ackowledge that "problems with various channels were experienced last night" almost in an _I cannot confirm nor deny_ kind of way.
At least they have all been really nice and professional.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Save a copy or two of recording that show this. It helps, or did for me.
The email goes to a much higher level than the phone call does. You should even get a temp [it changes every couple of months] number to call and get to this level/person who sent the email reply.


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## David MacLeod (Jan 29, 2008)

TBS doing it right now on family guy about every 2 minutes. pretty bad.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

I have noted many more instances of this problem lately, on several more channels than before. Until last fall, nearly every instance I saw was on my CBS local; then the duration, intensity and associated visual artifacting decreased rather notably, as did the frequency. For awhile, I didn't notice the issue at all for several weeks. Then as the problems started appearing on other channels, the frequency took a sudden ramp upwards. Problems with my CBS local came back with a bit of a vengeance and for the first time I started seeing problems on my Fox and NBC locals, as well as on SciFi, TBS and others.

Well, to give the devil his due ... this week problems seem much reduced, or perhaps even eliminated on my locals. I haven't noticed a single noticeable instance on either CBS, NBC or Fox yet since the weekend. I realize the week is young, but it's a hopeful sign.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

LameLefty said:


> I have noted many more instances of this problem lately, on several more channels than before. Until last fall, nearly every instance I saw was on my CBS local; then the duration, intensity and associated visual artifacting decreased rather notably, as did the frequency. For awhile, I didn't notice the issue at all for several weeks. Then as the problems started appearing on other channels, the frequency took a sudden ramp upwards. Problems with my CBS local came back with a bit of a vengeance and for the first time I started seeing problems on my Fox and NBC locals, as well as on SciFi, TBS and others.
> 
> Well, to give the devil his due ... this week problems seem much reduced, or perhaps even eliminated on my locals. I haven't noticed a single noticeable instance on either CBS, NBC or Fox yet since the weekend. I realize the week is young, but it's a hopeful sign.


Last fall my locals were on an almost monthly cycle. I'd get a batch of them growing to all chnnels I would watch, then [after *****ing] they seemed to clear up and a few weeks later would have grown to another "bad day", and me *****ing again. This went on from Sept to Jan.


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## celticpride (Sep 6, 2006)

Doing it really bad on my local fox kttv L.A.11 right now TMZ almost unwatchable my wife is upset , if this keeps up i may leave D* for fios sooner than i think!Darn im trying to hang in their to see what the new directv hd tivo looks like.but if wife who normally doesnt pay attention to stuff like this notices the problems,then she''ll start to bug me to switch providers.(darn if the verizon fios with the $150.00 rebate commercial just played,and my wife is staring at me as if to say HELLO WHAT ARE YOU WAITNG FOR?).


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## Jared701 (Sep 9, 2008)

I didn't read all 20 pages but I still don't know what you guys mean by Brrrriiiip  

I've started getting more instances of what seems like an hdmi handshake issue where the audio goes out for like 2-3 seconds and it makes a sound when it first goes out. Is that what you are talking about?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Jared701 said:


> I didn't read all 20 pages but I still don't know what you guys mean by Brrrriiiip
> 
> I've started getting more instances of what seems like an hdmi handshake issue where the audio goes out for like 2-3 seconds and it makes a sound when it first goes out. Is that what you are talking about?


 More than likely "that's it". When I've had handshake problems, I get a screen full of snow.

If you go back to the forum and this thread, there is a paper clip icon. Click on it to go to a saved file of this problem.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> When I've had handshake problems, I get a screen full of snow.


Yep. A HDMI handshake problem wouldn't manifest itself as an audio dropout with a brrrrriiiipppp.


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## volkl (Jun 17, 2007)

I noticed several brrrrriiiips during the new season of The Deadliest Catch on 278, DiscoveryHD, Tuesday evening. This is an mpeg4 HD broadcast. Using an HR20-100 using HDMI with the 24F firmware.

Not a network or local rebroadcast condition is necessary.

Do we know that the brrrriiiip happens at the same time for all of us? Does it happen when using component connections? This would be a fun experiment for those that have multiple receivers that could be placed side-to-side.

I highly doubt that this is related, other than it being another audio issue, but while playing the Game Lounge during the free period this past weekend, while playing Texas Holdem, if one hit the select button before the screen had completed its counting of the pot, the audio music would start to play a half beat past where it should have started.

I don't recall ever hearing a brrrriiiip on my DSR709 directivo series 2, but it isn't using HDMI, uses analog S-video.

Perhaps observations of the problem varying in frequency is related to firmware updates to the receivers. A stable firmware release could have audio/video sync elements refined, then when a new firmware is released, we have to go through another cycle of sync refining. Who knows?


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Jared701 said:


> I didn't read all 20 pages but I still don't know what you guys mean by Brrrriiiip
> 
> I've started getting more instances of what seems like an hdmi handshake issue where the audio goes out for like 2-3 seconds and it makes a sound when it first goes out. Is that what you are talking about?


Jared,

There is a link in my signature with a short video of the problem. Yes, it could look like an HDMI handshake issue. Some people don't hear the sound if they're using an AV receiver and just get a dropout.


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

Well *VOS*, reached STEP 5>>>a tech. came out today per the request of a Sr. CSR only to find that all my connections were perfect. That my signal strength(under heavily clouded/rainy skys) was at worst 95% across the board. And to basically tell me "he really didn't know why they sent him out here or what this thing called *Brrriiippp* is." This is a guy with -from what he told me -about 10 years with the company. I quickly educated him, he was in shock more than anything else, that local techs are not passed this info.:eek2: or so he says.

Haven't noticed any *Brrriiipp* issues for about 20 hours.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gilviv said:


> Well *VOS*, reached STEP 5>>>a tech. came out today per the request of a Sr. CSR only to find that all my connections were perfect. That my signal strength(under heavily clouded/rainy skys) was at worst 95% across the board. And to basically tell me "he really didn't know why they sent him out here or what this thing called *Brrriiippp* is." This is a guy with -from what he told me -about 10 years with the company. I quickly educated him, he was in shock more than anything else, that local techs are not passed this info.:eek2: or so he says.
> 
> Haven't noticed any *Brrriiipp* issues for about 20 hours.


Now with this "on your record", the next step is to feed it back to the email address to get them to point a finger at the network broadcast center, for them to fix their sh...


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Now with this "on your record", the next step is to feed it back to the email address to get them to point a finger at the network broadcast center, for them to fix their sh...


It's like a game, but I see how they want to play it. We really all need to call-in and inform them(D*) of these or any other issues we may be having with our service. Don't get me wrong, this is an exellent forum and just like many jump on to post issues here, as many should be calling D*. Heck, they have enough CSRs on staff at all levels.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gilviv said:


> It's like a game, but I see how they want to play it. We really all need to call-in and inform them(D*) of these or any other issues we may be having with our service. Don't get me wrong, this is an exellent forum and just like many jump on to post issues here, as many should be calling D*. Heck, they have enough CSRs on staff at all levels.


 "The game" is theirs. First "prove" there is nothing on the customer's end causing it, then force the network center to do their job.

If this was anything on "our end", then this forum/thread would/could do more to help.


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> "The game" is theirs. First "prove" there is nothing on the customer's end causing it, then force the network center to do their job.
> 
> If this was anything on "our end", then this forum/thread would/could do more to help.


You hit the nail on the head!!!Amen to that brother *VOS*!


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gilviv said:


> You hit the nail on the head!!!Amen to that brother *VOS*!


 Depending on your local station, some [of us] have been able to contact the station engineer and had this resolved much quicker since they have a vested interest and know the contacts at the broadcast center.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Started watching some shows on Discovery tonight and it appears that it too is a victim of brrrriiiippp. Called DirecTV to report it and was once again told there is no record of that problem and it must be my receiver. They wanted me to format the box this time.


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## yminoh (Apr 16, 2009)

I have it on my HD Channels. Especially on Cartoon Network HD. I called DT Support. They were not aware of an issue. Sent a Tech out for alignment. Still have the issue. UGH!!!!!


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

yminoh: Let me be the 1st to welcome you to this great forum

It has been way over 24 hours since my last Brriiippp, but who knows? I also did just get the last NR (02F4) within that time period, so again, who knows.

Let's keep the calls going to inform them of the issue!


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## yminoh (Apr 16, 2009)

Thanks for welcoming me. Finding this forum really helps with my sanity. Glad I am not alone with this problem


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## yuppers519 (Aug 6, 2007)

Watching american idol in hd is a joke. I pay for High Definition and can't even watch what i want to watch when i want to watch it. WHAT IS GOING ON DIRECTV??? tHE LAST MONTH HAS BEEN ABSOLUTLY HORRIBLE TRYING TO WATCH MOST HD CHANNELS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DISH HAS CAUGHT UP. Thinking of making the switch!!


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## usnret (Jan 16, 2009)

Well, the Tech came today to check on the briiip problem. Bottom line is that he changed out the LNB for a new one (the new one with the 3 ribs on it). Said that if that did not fix the problem he would then:
1. Change the multiplexer, if that didn't work he would then
2. Have the local electric co. do some sort of a 24 hr. test to see if there are any spikes, if that didn't work he would then
3. Perform a "dish check", closing out a portion of the dish to see if that solves the problem.
4. I was going to have him take down the single dish because our locals when to the other dish. He indicated that I shouldn't do that because I would just get letterbox pictures on my R22 untill the locals all went digital.
He was a nice guy, gave me his "personal" phone nr. and I bid him cheerio.
"sigh"


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## rey_1178 (Dec 12, 2007)

this issue has been the worst for me the last 2 days! espnews HD was horrible yesterday and today! so were a few of the other HD channels. I only notice this issue on the HD channels! it's just been getting worse for me.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Now experiencing the issue during a showing of some show on TLC (Table for 12). The problem almost always occurs when coming into or out of commercials.


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## bb37 (Dec 27, 2007)

Ken S said:


> The problem almost always occurs when coming into or out of commercials.


Does the sound change between 2.0 and 5.1 when going in/out of commercial?


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

bb37 said:


> Does the sound change between 2.0 and 5.1 when going in/out of commercial?


No...not that I've noticed.


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

gilviv said:


> It has been way over 24 hours since my last Brriiippp, but who knows? I also did just get the last NR (02F4) within that time period, so again, who knows.
> 
> Let's keep the calls going to inform them of the issue!


Brrriiipps have been better for me since Wednesday, it may just be a coincidence, but after I got the last software NR (0x2F4) the Brrriiipps have almost gone, almost none at all. Update related???
* NOTHING ELSE HAS BEEN DONE TO MY SETUP! NO RESET, NO RE-FORMAT, NOTHING!*
The story continues, *VOS if you're out there!* 
So the tech has been out and my setup is perfect, he found NO problems with anything out on my end of the D* chain.
My letter/e-mail to D* was answered. In a nutshell, the reply was; that "they" are aware of some of us having these issues and that "they" are doing everything withing their power to correct the problem and inform their personnel. (As per a very nice and polite "executive" from D* corporate office).
IT'S ON RECORD!!!!!!!!:grin:
I had explained "my/our" frustrations about not only having the problem, but also hearing D* CSRs' "not aware of a problem" replys.
We'll see where this goes. 

As some us here have stated before, it's in their best interest to fix this thing and quick.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gilviv said:


> Brrriiipps have been better for me since Wednesday, it may just be a coincidence, but after I got the last software NR (0x2F4) the Brrriiipps have almost gone, almost none at all. Update related???
> *NOTHING ELSE HAS BEEN DONE TO MY SETUP! NO RESET, NO RE-FORMAT, NOTHING!*
> The story continues, *VOS if you're out there!*


Nothing has changed "on your end", but.......  [think you're going to hear "oh we fixed the encoder that was the problem"?] :lol:


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

Naaaah!!!!:nono2:

They wouldn't tell us what they fixed/changed?
What do you think about my crazy notion??? _"but after I got the last software NR (0x2F4) the Brrriiipps have almost gone"_

Just a coincidence, wishful thinking, could software have a play in this or have I been lucky?:icon_stup


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gilviv said:


> Naaaah!!!!:nono2:
> 
> They wouldn't tell us what they fixed/changed?
> What do you think about my crazy notion??? _"but after I got the last software NR (0x2F4) the Brrriiipps have almost gone"_
> ...


 Software = zero effect, & I'll leave the other two [or three] up to you :lol:


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## IndyMichael (Jan 25, 2003)

It was so bad on Tuesday nights Leno that it would brrrrrrrrrrriiiiiip, then the picture would freeze, then go black, then take a few seconds to go back to normal. It did this several times in the first 5 minutes.


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## fudpucker (Jul 23, 2007)

OK - I'm not getting "brrrps" but I have noticed that the video on some of my HD channels has become very poor quality. Not so much the resolution as the smoothness of the video.

Example: right now, watching Jay Leno on the local HD NBC feed (from DTV satellite.) Instead of appearing to be smooth video, it appears to be a bad quality film, as if the frames per second are less than normal. I switch to the SD feed, and it looks normal. And if I switch to the OTA HD feed, it looks normal. Only has this look on the HD local satellite feed.

And I'm seeing the exact same effect on CBS (Letterman show.) HD satellite feed of the local, looks like a cheap video tape recording. The SD looks fine, the OTA HD feed looks fine.

We've been noticing this a LOT lately and it seems to be changing from a once in a while problem to a regular problem. Is this related to what this thread is discussing?


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

fudpucker said:


> OK - I'm not getting "brrrps" but I have noticed that the video on some of my HD channels has become very poor quality. Not so much the resolution as the smoothness of the video.
> 
> Example: right now, watching Jay Leno on the local HD NBC feed (from DTV satellite.) Instead of appearing to be smooth video, it appears to be a bad quality film, as if the frames per second are less than normal. I switch to the SD feed, and it looks normal. And if I switch to the OTA HD feed, it looks normal. Only has this look on the HD local satellite feed.
> 
> ...


Not it's not what we're discussing, but I know what you are talking about, normally I can jump back or forward and it will correct itself, it's like the decoder on the box gets out of whack some way. Jumping back and forth will usually get it smoothed out, but if it is displaying like that, it tends to keep doing it until you interrupt it some way or the other.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

fudpucker said:


> OK - I'm not getting "brrrps" but I have noticed that the video on some of my HD channels has become very poor quality. Not so much the resolution as the smoothness of the video.
> 
> Example: right now, watching Jay Leno on the local HD NBC feed (from DTV satellite.) Instead of appearing to be smooth video, it appears to be a bad quality film, as if the frames per second are less than normal. I switch to the SD feed, and it looks normal. And if I switch to the OTA HD feed, it looks normal. Only has this look on the HD local satellite feed.
> 
> ...


That "effect" or problem you noticed is an issue with your local station's feed and how it is being handled on Directv's end. In the relatively early days of MPEG4 a couple years ago, quite a few markets were affected by this issue on specific channels, and it even had a nickname around here ("Slow-mo" effect or something like that, I think. Anyone else remember this?) My market was not affected so I never saw it, but lots of people did in other places.

Anyway, that is NOT the same thing as the audio "Brrrriiip" we're discussing here and so far as anyone has indicated is not related to it. The best advice I can give you is call or email the station's engineering department and tell them there are issues with their video feed through Directv that are not visible OTA and not visible on other stations.

* * * *

Now, on to the "Brrrriiip" issue itself: I watched an hour or so of CBS last night (traditionally the worst offender here in this market) and there were no issues at all. Another hour of Fox (which had begun having serious issues in the last couple months) and I heard only the tiniest/slightest possible audio glitch but I had to do a double-take and I wasn't entirely sure I heard it. I couldn't rewind to confirm because my wife had the remote, but I figure if it was that uncertain, that's dramatic improvement. And then another hour or so of NBC programming (where I've heard the problem a time or two lately) and again no issues. All these shows were recorded between last Thursday night and last night. So at least in the Nashville market, things are improving greatly.


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## Jared701 (Sep 9, 2008)

Ken S said:


> Jared,
> 
> There is a link in my signature with a short video of the problem. Yes, it could look like an HDMI handshake issue. Some people don't hear the sound if they're using an AV receiver and just get a dropout.


Yep, I've been experiencing a lot more of this too. From what you guys have said I'm not sure I want to go through all the hassle of calling and likely being told they have never heard of that... It's not as bad for me as it sounds like it is for most because it's almost just like a sound cutout for me and not a bad sound.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

LameLefty said:


> Now, on to the "Brrrriiip" issue itself: I watched an hour or so of CBS last night (traditionally the worst offender here in this market) and there were no issues at all. Another hour of Fox (which had begun having serious issues in the last couple months) and I heard only the tiniest/slightest possible audio glitch but I had to do a double-take and I wasn't entirely sure I heard it. I couldn't rewind to confirm because my wife had the remote, but I figure if it was that uncertain, that's dramatic improvement. And then another hour or so of NBC programming (where I've heard the problem a time or two lately) and again no issues. All these shows were recorded between last Thursday night and last night. So at least in the Nashville market, things are improving greatly.


I (knock on wood) also have noticed a pretty good improvement lately. May be coincidental, but I just haven't been noticing them as regularly over the past week or so as we were for the past couple months. Hope this is a sign that they have found some of the gremlins...

btw, no changes whatsoever. Same hardware, same software, same everything.


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## IndyMichael (Jan 25, 2003)

Did it to me again when I was watching Voyager on Spike, it would brrrrrrrrrrriiiiiip, then the picture would freeze, then go black, then take a few seconds to go back to normal. It did this several times, then I lost at least 5 minutes to a screen that said DirecTV was experiencing technical difficulties.


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

BattleScott said:


> I (knock on wood) also have noticed a pretty good improvement lately. May be coincidental, but I just haven't been noticing them as regularly over the past week or so as we were for the past couple months. Hope this is a sign that they have found some of the gremlins...
> 
> btw, no changes whatsoever. Same hardware, same software, same everything.


DITTO! 
Except for a quick Brrriiipp during 24(FOX) last night and another quick one during Dancing w/ the Stars(ABC), it has been quite.


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## CrazyforYeshua (Feb 23, 2008)

rey_1178 said:


> this issue has been the worst for me the last 2 days! espnews HD was horrible yesterday and today! so were a few of the other HD channels.* I only notice this issue on the HD channels!* it's just been getting worse for me.


That's true. On the TV in the b/r (SD) there are no brriiipppp issues at all .On any channel. Ever.
Wierd......


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

CrazyforYeshua said:


> That's true. On the TV in the b/r (SD) there are no brriiipppp issues at all .On any channel. Ever.
> Wierd......


It's not weird at all. The issues lie with the MPEG4 encoders, and the SD channels are all MPEG2.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

brrrrrrrrrrriiiiiip, at exactly 10:30 last night during the Mentalist.The picture would freeze, then go black, then take a few seconds to go back to normal. 

Did it one time.


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## yminoh (Apr 16, 2009)

Does someone have a video sample? I would luv to compare it to what I am have...if not, I could just post a clip of my video.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

yminoh said:


> Does someone have a video sample? I would luv to compare it to what I am have...if not, I could just post a clip of my video.


If you click on the "paperclip" icon for this thread on the main forum page, you'll see someone posted a perfect example of what we're talking about here.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

yminoh said:


> Does someone have a video sample? I would luv to compare it to what I am have...if not, I could just post a clip of my video.





LameLefty said:


> If you click on the "paperclip" icon for this thread on the main forum page, you'll see someone posted a perfect example of what we're talking about here.


That is my video, but is a "very extreme" example. Normally there isn't such a loss of video, just the brriiiipp sound and perhaps a slight video freeze or skip. Like the very end of the clip after the video comes back.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

BattleScott said:


> That is my video, but is a "very extreme" example. Normally there isn't such a loss of video, just the brriiiipp sound and perhaps a slight video freeze or skip. Like the very end of the clip after the video comes back.


That's true - I should have noted that in my reply.

Sadly, that's how bad things got late last summer and into the fall on our local CBS station, routinely (several times an hour). Then most of the video problems disappeared but we had three or four times the audio problems, sometimes even several per minute. Then it totally cleared up, then it came back this winter (joined by the rest of our locals and some nationals too) and now it appears to generally be getting better.


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## CrazyforYeshua (Feb 23, 2008)

I used to get that sound when I had TWC's DVR-that was a couple of years ago. But, it was just those of us that had the DVR, people with no DVR never had that problem.


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## yminoh (Apr 16, 2009)

Thanks for the info. I review the paper clip from the beginning of the thread and not sure if my problem is the same. Please don't get mad but could someone review my video and see if it fits under the brrrp category? Right before the 3 sec mark, the video drops out for a split second but video remains clear. Every HD show...so very annoying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WErCF-in0Eo


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

yminoh said:


> Thanks for the info. I review the paper clip from the beginning of the thread and not sure if my problem is the same. Please don't get mad but could someone review my video and see if it fits under the brrrp category? Right before the 3 sec mark, the *video drops* out for a split second but *video remains clear*. Every HD show...so very annoying.


There is a audio dropout.
Not sure if it's from the same cause as this thread.
"Some" are using AV amps that are "blanking" the brripps, which might be like your clip.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

yminoh said:


> could someone review my video and see if it fits under the brrrp category?


My semi-professional opinion says no. Especially since you most likely recorded analog audio to make that video, the distinctive brrrriiiipp sound would have definitely been there.


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## yminoh (Apr 16, 2009)

Jeremy W said:


> My semi-professional opinion says no. Especially since you most likely recorded analog audio to make that video, the distinctive brrrriiiipp sound would have definitely been there.


I actually recorded the video with a digital audio cable so the sound was dolby surround. I used the hd pvr 1212. Great device but I don't get much use out of it because of this stupid audio drop.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

yminoh said:


> I actually recorded the video with a digital audio cable so the sound was dolby surround. I used the hd pvr 1212. Great device but I don't get much use out of it because of this stupid audio drop.


Hmmm, well that changes things a little bit. You said that these dropouts occur very frequently, right? I would suggest running the audio through the analog outputs, which will definitely allow you to hear the brrrriiiippp if it's there. It's possible that, like VOS said, your decoder is simply masking the sound.

If it's still just a clean drop through the analog output, then this is something else.


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## yminoh (Apr 16, 2009)

Thanks for your suggestions...I'll mess with it tonight


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Had a major one @ 10:48 during the commercial of CSI.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Sorry, CBS Channel 9 Washington DC


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## jponte55 (Apr 21, 2009)

The birps are so bad on comcast sportsnet new england tonight during the second half of the celtics game. Almost unwatchable. Anyone else experiencing this? I should have taped it on tnt.


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## Cuprous (Jan 23, 2009)

jponte55 said:


> The birps are so bad on comcast sportsnet new england tonight during the second half of the celtics game. Almost unwatchable. Anyone else experiencing this? I should have taped it on tnt.


Yes terrible here for comcast sportsnet NE as well, trying to get through the celtics post-game but it is terrible.


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## egould (Sep 25, 2007)

Same here on CSNE, only during the second half. I have never experienced it before on a repeated basis.


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## mfeinstein (Sep 1, 2007)

Same for me on CSNE during last night's Celtics game. I had never seen this before either, and certainly not at the frequency I saw it last night.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

The White Sox/Orioles HD feed was an absolute Brrriiiipppathon for a while then seemed to settle down.


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## ub1934 (Dec 30, 2005)

* Got the same thing on Fox Mon. night on 24 at least 5 or 6 times *


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## johnp292 (Mar 16, 2009)

We had lots of problems with brrrrrrip last night, early in the evening during the 6pm news/Jeopardy/Wheel. Sound would either drop out or brrrip, pic would distort, then we'd get a blank screen for a second or two and then it would recover. This was on our HD/DVR unit, didn't look at any of the others. My wife said it had been happening all day but was worse in the evening. TV was almost unwatchable for a bit, it was happenning so often.

I tried an RBR out of frustration. Once the system came back up, we had one or two more occurances and then it stabilized for the rest of the night, but I don't know if that was due to the RBR or because we changed to a different channel at 8PM.:scratchin


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

Much less, alot less, but still happening on different channels. All HD.

I could go hours without experiencing a *Brrriiipp* and then....... 1,2 even 3 quick ones.


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## IndyMichael (Jan 25, 2003)

Grey's Anatomy was almost unwatchable last night, must've been 30-40 brrrriiiips last night.

Just now my 3 year old was watching Dora and it brrriiiiped twice and she said "Daddy, the tv is broken".

I'm beginning to find it completely unacceptable that DirecTV can't fix this.


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## bb37 (Dec 27, 2007)

Three of the last four posts seem to be talking about problems on local channels. It would be helpful if posters would identify the locals they are having problems with.

Also, as has been mentioned, complaining here won't fix the problem. You need to call DirecTV. Hopefully, the more calls they get, the greater incentive they will have to fix the problem.


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## captcab_99 (Feb 3, 2007)

jponte55 said:


> The birps are so bad on comcast sportsnet new england tonight during the second half of the celtics game. Almost unwatchable. Anyone else experiencing this? I should have taped it on tnt.


It was driving me crazy last night too. I thought it was just me until I opened this thread.


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## IndyMichael (Jan 25, 2003)

bb37 said:


> Three of the last four posts seem to be talking about problems on local channels. It would be helpful if posters would identify the locals they are having problems with.
> 
> Also, as has been mentioned, complaining here won't fix the problem. You need to call DirecTV. Hopefully, the more calls they get, the greater incentive they will have to fix the problem.


Grey's was on our ABC affiliate in Indianapolis, WRTV 6.

My wife is very easy going, but was pissed it effed up Greys. She's going to call today and ask why they can't fix it and if we can get out of our contract if they don't fix it soon.


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## yminoh (Apr 16, 2009)

Jeremy W said:


> Hmmm, well that changes things a little bit. You said that these dropouts occur very frequently, right? I would suggest running the audio through the analog outputs, which will definitely allow you to hear the brrrriiiippp if it's there. It's possible that, like VOS said, your decoder is simply masking the sound.


I used component for video and rca jacks for audio which all were hooked up directly to the tv. Same problem with audio dropping out. If it is not the brrrp issue, any advice what I should say to DirectTv?


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

Call and email your local affiliates as well. Assuming it's not being caused or contributed to by something on their end (and it might be), they can put a different kind of pressure on Directv than that of an ordinary isolated customer.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

yminoh said:


> I used component for video and rca jacks for audio which all were hooked up directly to the tv. Same problem with audio dropping out. If it is not the brrrp issue, any advice what I should say to DirectTv?


What model receiver are you using?


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## steevew6 (Sep 21, 2007)

captcab_99 said:


> It was driving me crazy last night too. I thought it was just me until I opened this thread.


Dodgers/Astros on MLB Network last night had many brrriiip's..at least 3 to 4 per inning......some of them occurred just before breaking away for a commercial..


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## djrobx (Jan 27, 2009)

> That is my video, but is a "very extreme" example. Normally there isn't such a loss of video, just the brriiiipp sound and perhaps a slight video freeze or skip. Like the very end of the clip after the video comes back.


That's not an "extreme example" for us. When we "brrrip", it's almost always on the spot beam locals. The screen will black out for anywhere from 2-10 seconds until we get video back. For us, "minor" brriping is rare although we've never seen any green. Its either got picture or its black.

In LA we can use the national version of the same local channels and it is a LOT better. I tested recording FOX-11 and FOX-399 (both are KTTV-HD but 399 is coming from conus). 399 played on smooth while Fox 11 blacked out. Signal strength for the CONUS version is 88, signal strength from the spot beam is 100. I even went as far as to hook up a serial port and monitor the signal strength. It stays at 100. It's not a dish aiming or LNB issue.

The other locals don't seem to do it nearly as often, but we did get a good brrip on the Lost recap last night.


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## fliptheflop (Nov 18, 2006)

IndyMichael said:


> Grey's was on our ABC affiliate in Indianapolis, WRTV 6.
> 
> My wife is very easy going, but was pissed it effed up Greys. She's going to call today and ask why they can't fix it and if we can get out of our contract if they don't fix it soon.


The brrrip issue was horrible last night on just about all Indianapolis locals. WRTV6, WISH TV 8, WTHR 13. The Office was least affected just parts of it were bad but Grey Anatomy, Harper's Island, 30 Rock we're near unwatchable.


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## johnp292 (Mar 16, 2009)

bb37 said:


> Three of the last four posts seem to be talking about problems on local channels. It would be helpful if posters would identify the locals they are having problems with.
> 
> Also, as has been mentioned, complaining here won't fix the problem. You need to call DirecTV. Hopefully, the more calls they get, the greater incentive they will have to fix the problem.


Philadelphia ABC affiliate on channel 6.

I don't expect a fix from posting here....just sharing my experience with the group.


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## xmguy (Mar 27, 2008)

Noticed it like crazy while watching Smallville last night on my local (Nashville, TN) CW network.


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## perkolater (Sep 6, 2006)

fliptheflop said:


> The brrrip issue was horrible last night on just about all Indianapolis locals. WRTV6, WISH TV 8, WTHR 13. The Office was least affected just parts of it were bad but Grey Anatomy, Harper's Island, 30 Rock we're near unwatchable.


Add FOX 59 to the list last night. Hells Kitchen was almost unwatchable. I recorded Harpers Island, not sure I'll bother watching it now.


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## yminoh (Apr 16, 2009)

Jeremy W said:


> What model receiver are you using?


DirectTV just came out and checked my signal strength and replaced my hold HR-22. I now have a HD-DVR - HR23-700. And yes, I am still seeing the audio dropouts on Cartoon Network HD. Sigh.....I guess it is probably with the feed from Cartoon Network HD.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

yminoh said:


> DirectTV just came out and checked my signal strength and replaced my hold HR-22. I now have a HD-DVR - HR23-700. And yes, I am still seeing the audio dropouts on Cartoon Network HD. Sigh.....I guess it is probably with the feed from Cartoon Network HD.


That would seem to help further validate that this may be caused by the actual source content stream itself.

Honestly....I can't remember that last time I heard it here, nor can my wife...but I know it still continues to get reported.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> That would seem to help further validate that this may be caused by the actual source content stream itself.
> 
> Honestly....I can't remember that last time I heard it here, nor can my wife...but I know it still continues to get reported.


Except for the fact that when I go back and watch the same show on Comcast the problem doesn't occur. The problem may start with the content stream but whatever DirecTV is doing makes it worse.

Watch FoodTV, Discovery, or MLB Network and you're going to see it.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

Ken S said:


> Except for the fact that when I go back and watch the same show on Comcast the problem doesn't occur. The problem may start with the content stream but whatever DirecTV is doing makes it worse.
> 
> Watch FoodTV, Discovery, or MLB Network and you're going to see it.


That would indeed be true.

What's interesting is that I have also seen a couple (literally) of cases where the opposite has happened...not on DirecTV, but on Comcast - both times....on Fox.


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## wmj5 (Aug 26, 2007)

I came to D* 9/13/1995 and I didn't have any problem to steak of untill hd came out, then all hell broke loose, I have had about 6 or 8 receivers, I have never had one that something wasn't wrong with it, but each month they take MY money out of MY checking account just like everthing was perfect, now I'm not the one to say I'm going to do something and then not do it, but if nothing is done to fix these receivers by this comming sept. 13th they can kiss my a** goodby, I am not going to keep paying for something and not get it, period.


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## guffy1 (Apr 23, 2006)

Brrrpppp is awful today on TBS for the Phillies Marlins game. Brrrpps are long and very frequent. No video breakups, just audio......


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> That would indeed be true.
> 
> What's interesting is that I have also seen a couple (literally) of cases where the opposite has happened...not on DirecTV, but on Comcast - both times....on Fox.


I think that all digital broadcasts can suffer from the problem, but the DirecTV system of converting the signal to MPEG4 seems to be quite problematic. This would be one of the things DirecTV could put right at the top of the list of things to fix.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

guffy1 said:


> Brrrpppp is awful today on TBS for the Phillies Marlins game. Brrrpps are long and very frequent. No video breakups, just audio......


I just flipped over there now and the only weird sounds I hear are the TBS Baseball graphic transition sound effects. That is not the classic "Brrrriiip!" sound experienced on numerous other channels.


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## guffy1 (Apr 23, 2006)

LameLefty said:


> I just flipped over there now and the only weird sounds I hear are the TBS Baseball graphic transition sound effects. That is not the classic "Brrrriiip!" sound experienced on numerous other channels.


I know the transitional sound you are speaking of, and yes its very similar to brrrppp, but thats not what Im experiencing a problem with. Major Brrrrpppp going on here.... I know I dont have alot of posts, but I most definitely know the diff between Brrrpppp and the transitional sound


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

guffy1 said:


> I know the transitional sound you are speaking of, and yes its very similar to brrrppp, but thats not what Im experiencing a problem with. Major Brrrrpppp going on here.... I know I dont have alot of posts, but I most definitely know the diff between Brrrpppp and the transitional sound


 I tuned over to it after LameLefty's post. "To me" is seems muted and really only has happened one time during a commercial. All of the other sounds "close" are intentionally added it looks.
None of what I've been hearing is "the brriiiip" of this thread.


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## dubber deux (Mar 8, 2009)

This brrrrriiiiip, reminds me of how "Max Headroom" used to sound way back when. :eek2:


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Brrrpppp....I have come full circle, I'm watching the golf matches on channel 9 CBS in Washington DC and it's every 3-4 mins. It had almost completely gone away and now its back to the original state of sh--.

BTW Directv is sponsor of the damn golf tournament, you have to laugh.


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## ShrikeT (Jun 3, 2008)

It's been absolutely f**king terrible during the NBA games on ABC today in Raleigh, NC. I mean, like every 6 minutes the sound cuts, the picture goes black, and you get the briiiiiiiiip. Takes almost 15-20 seconds for it to end and get back to the game. It's never really bothered me too much before but this is retarded. First time I've thought about calling and *****ing about it.


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## ccsoftball7 (Apr 2, 2003)

ShrikeT said:


> It's been absolutely f**king terrible during the NBA games on ABC today in Raleigh, NC. I mean, like every 6 minutes the sound cuts, the picture goes black, and you get the briiiiiiiiip. Takes almost 15-20 seconds for it to end and get back to the game. It's never really bothered me too much before but this is retarded. First time I've thought about calling and *****ing about it.


I switched to OTA (in Cary). I am getting frequent dropouts...maybe it's not all DirecTV.


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## dubber deux (Mar 8, 2009)

Who woulda thought that art would immitate life so accurately.

Here's the TV series character Max Headroom....brrriiiippping away in 1986.

Enjoy.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Another night of consistent brrrrriiiiiipppps on MLB Network. Things certainly aren't getting any better. Called DirecTV and was once again told to format my DVR. My signals are all 95+ (dish was checked about 2 months ago).


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

I haven't watched the MLB Network at all, but things actually continue to improve in my local Big 4. I watched a couple hours of Fox and CBS network programming last night, both channels that have had a slew of problems and I did not pick up a single instance of audio brrrriiips or visual artifacting at all. This is serious progress from my point of view. I haven't watched a lot of national HD lately except for Showtime (The Tudors) and a few movies on HBO and such, but those channels have been flawless, not surprising since HBO, at least, apparently provides its signal to Directv in MPEG4 already and no transcoding is involved.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

LameLefty said:


> I haven't watched the MLB Network at all, but things actually continue to improve in my local Big 4.


And mine are actually getting worse. I used to have little to no brrrriiiipps on my locals, but now I can't get through a show without at least 5-6 of them.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Last two nights CBS has been going to hell. They end up/start out dumping the HD and switching over to the 4:3 SD. Then come back from commercial in HD and audio/video problems and finally back to the 4:3 feed. If I didn't see the change to 4:3, I wouldn't know it was the station with the problem.


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## Prince Oz (Jan 15, 2009)

Ken S said:


> Another night of consistent brrrrriiiiiipppps on MLB Network. Things certainly aren't getting any better. Called DirecTV and was once again told to format my DVR. My signals are all 95+ (dish was checked about 2 months ago).


I too was watching the MLB network last night and did not have any brrrriiiiipppp. I have been following this thread just incase I start to experience it. But to this day, have not. There has got to be a reason why some get it and some do not. I have an HR23-700, has anyone had the brrrriiiiiippppp issue with those? Is it location? Cabling? Dish setup? Splitters? Maybe someone should start a poll to identify equipment, types of cabling and location, what have they hooked up inbetween that could cause this issue and see if it can not be narrowed down to something in paticular. If it was D* fault, would not everyone have this issue?


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

h21/100
hr21/100

Been going on with me since before Feb. Have 5 brothers and sisters, relatives, etc in the DC area and they have the same Brp......at the same time and on the same stations, usually Fox and CBS in the DC area.

Anyone else in the DC area ahving issues? BTW... if you watch TV an hour or 2 a day , like my wife , you probably will not see the BRp....This ia an important fact 

Having it today , at 11:03 , Price is Right, BRPPPP, lost of audio, blank screen and then back to normal picture.

No issue at all with SD period.


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## ub1934 (Dec 30, 2005)

_ Same thing on CSI NY & Fringe , it's getting really bad now _


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## Dave (Jan 29, 2003)

Having Brrrrriiiippppps on my HR20. They were real bad on 24 monday night. I think DirectV is not going to fix this problem anytime soon. Am ready to get on the phone and call Dish so I can get a working HD DVR.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Is the there any Federal ( FCC ) or any agency you can talk with to get this fixed. If they say they're providing a service , charging for it and the end consumer isn't getting it, seems to be a no brainer.

Again, they have to know this is going on , with me it's been at least 6 months. They are great at hiding behind the phone. I think I'm going to see if Virginia has anybody I can report this to and look into it. Maybe also call Consumer Reports, they rate them every year! lol


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

hoos51 said:


> Is the there any Federal ( FCC ) or any agency you can talk with to get this fixed. If they say they're providing a service , charging for it and the end consumer isn't getting it, seems to be a no brainer.


You're getting the service. DirecTV doesn't have any sort of SLA (service-level agreement) with you, so trying to get a federal agency to go after them because their encoders produce random audio glitches isn't going to fly.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

I disagree, they're suppose to provide me Audio and Video for 150 bucks a month.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Watched a couple of episodes of Deadliest Catch with no problems...but FoodTV and MLB Network are still quite bad.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

hoos51 said:


> I disagree, they're suppose to provide me Audio and Video for 150 bucks a month.


And you're getting audio and video. Is it perfect? No, but the contract that you agreed to says that it doesn't have to be.

It's just like Internet service. Paying $50-$60 per month gets you pretty good residential service. But it will slow down and be unavailable occasionally. When a business is paying $1000+ per month for Internet service, you better believe it's going to work flawlessly, and there will be real repercussions if it doesn't.

The bottom line is that you're paying for residential TV service, and there are going to be glitches. I'm not saying you have to accept them, I'm just saying that no federal agency is going to come in and do anything about it.


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## rey_1178 (Dec 12, 2007)

lots of bbrrrrriiiiipppp last night for both my HR21 and H21  tnt,espn,cne....


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## thestaton (Aug 14, 2008)

grrrrrrrrr. for some reason my receivers got updated yesterday, and now both of them have started this annoying glitch. 

it's happening about every 20 to 25 minutes!


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

I heard my first brrrrrrrrrrp in about a month last night. Was a recording of Bones from last week. Other then that I have not heard it at all in about a month. Dozens of programs on CBS, Fox, NBC, USA, FSNs, SciFi and many others. Sorry that some of you keep having it.


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

gilviv said:


> Much less, alot less, but still happening on different channels. All HD.
> 
> I could go hours without experiencing a *Brrriiipp* and then....... 1,2 even 3 quick ones.


Natgeo, FOX, DisneyXD, ABC, CartoonHD, NickHD, HistoryHD, etc.
Different times and much shorter Brrriiippps, the video goes black for a second and then all normal, but mostly the audio Brrriiippp


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## weaver6 (Nov 3, 2005)

hoos51 said:


> h21/100
> hr21/100
> 
> Been going on with me since before Feb. Have 5 brothers and sisters, relatives, etc in the DC area and they have the same Brp......at the same time and on the same stations, usually Fox and CBS in the DC area.
> ...


I watched the 7 PM news on CBS tonight for about 10 minutes, and had about 1 Brrrrip/minute,with video interruptions.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Watching TV's side by side....Recording , monitoring , why can't frickin Directv do a little trouble shooting, this is really p----ing me off !

Seems to me it's CBS and FOX , anyone else agree....as far as local HD is concerned?


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

hoos51 said:


> Seems to me it's CBS and FOX , anyone else agree....as far as local HD is concerned?


As of a few weeks ago through about 10 days ago, those two had gotten very bad in the Nashville market. However, since then there has been a very sharp decrease in incidents, at least on the programs I've been watching (American Idol, Bones, Dollhouse, CSI:, CSI: NY) I haven't heard or seen nearly anything anomalous at all.

EDITED TO ADD: And as soon as I write that, there was a short brrriiip on CSI: recorded earlier tonight. :nono:


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

hoos51 said:


> Watching TV's side by side....Recording , monitoring , why can't frickin Directv do a little trouble shooting, this is really p----ing me off !
> 
> Seems to me it's CBS and FOX , anyone else agree....as far as local HD is concerned?


Well, last half of CSI tonight was really bad for me. First time in a long time. However, exact same issue occurred OTA via my TV directly (no DirecTV equipment involved). So I get to once again blame my crappy local CBS station for their once again going on 8 years bad signal.


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## Sk33t3r (Feb 11, 2008)

The noise you are referring to is technically called *HEAD SLAP*, but my HR21-700 did nto start this until I swap the drive from a 320 to a 1.5tb seagate baracuda ST315005N1A1AS-RK, I think I will swap it tomorrow and see what happens, this didnt happen with the original drive. 2 possible things this could be, 1 obvious one bad drive, 2nd possiblity could be power issue, with the ways the heads are slapping, thats what appears to be whats happening.


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## celticpride (Sep 6, 2006)

I continue to have this problem on my local cw ktla5 and kcal9 sice LAST YEAR!!!! last week it was real bad on kttv 11 out of los angeles its gotten to the point where i dont watch the local news anymore because of the stuttering and breakup on video.


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## Sk33t3r (Feb 11, 2008)

I put the original drive back in and no problems now, I am going to swap the 1,5tb drive tomorrow.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

Sk33t3r said:


> The noise you are referring to is technically called *HEAD SLAP*, but my HR21-700 did nto start this until I swap the drive from a 320 to a 1.5tb seagate baracuda ST315005N1A1AS-RK, I think I will swap it tomorrow and see what happens, this didnt happen with the original drive. 2 possible things this could be, 1 obvious one bad drive, 2nd possiblity could be power issue, with the ways the heads are slapping, thats what appears to be whats happening.


It happens on non-dvr receivers as well, so that is not the issue.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

Sk33t3r said:


> The noise you are referring to is technically called *HEAD SLAP*, but my HR21-700 did nto start this until I swap the drive from a 320 to a 1.5tb seagate baracuda ST315005N1A1AS-RK, I think I will swap it tomorrow and see what happens, this didnt happen with the original drive. 2 possible things this could be, 1 obvious one bad drive, 2nd possiblity could be power issue, with the ways the heads are slapping, thats what appears to be whats happening.


I think you posted in the wrong thread. The noises we're talking about have nothing whatsoever to do with the hard drives in DVRs.


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

Last night all over different channels. They are short, quick Brrriiipps. Annouying as hell!!!!!! 
NickelodeonHD and FOX NewsHD were LIVE when I heard them, the other times were off recorded programs(ABC, NBC)


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Just got off the phone with Directv Customer Advocacy Group. The kid tell be shes even having issues with this on her locals,holy god, give me strength.

Says its been escalated to the engineers. Well, I say , can you call me back and let me know when its fixed? Oh no, they just fix it and never get back to us, the problem just goes away.

I thought Comcast was bad.Well long story short its ripping every 2 mins on DC channel 9, CBS.


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## jjohns (Sep 15, 2007)

After last version upgrade this is happening repeatedly. If they're not going to test this software before they install it then they should figure out a way we can get back to the version before the upgrade that has problems. Just sayin. . .


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Its not the SW, I have had this issue on and off since before Feb. of this year.


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## Jon J (Apr 22, 2002)

For me, Rules of Engagement this week was virtually unwatchable. Thirty minutes of video blocking, black screen and brrrrrrrrrrrrrping audio. The local CBS station says their discrepancy log shows no problems so they say it must have been DirecTV. Did this only happen to me.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Nope, going on all over the country buddy


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

I'll keep you all updated, just got off the phone with the local network engineer , he has contacted some people also. It's every 30 secs now with my channels. Now the audio itself sounds ike S---. Repeat , this is not a local channel only problem.

Got a call an hour ago and they said all was fixed, right. My wife is going to seek help for me Monday on this new/old obsession of trying to get this fixed. 

Wait till tomorrows K-Derby and she cant watch it in HD and see who's obsessed.


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## guffy1 (Apr 23, 2006)

Lately I have been getting absolutely zero brrrpppp on my non DVR set up (H21-100). I barely ever watch the tv that this box is set up on, but for the last 3 days I have been sick in bed and watched it pretty much non stop. There is no brrrrpppp going on at all, on any channel.

On my DVR setup (HR21-100) I can go turn that on to just about any channel and have brrrppp within a few minutes.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

I just got tied in with the help group and engineering, they are analyzing my issue from top to bottom. 

I work in the Space world so maybe that's why they tied me in lol....I really do think they know there are issues


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

BTW my h21/100 has the same issues here in DC.


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## guffy1 (Apr 23, 2006)

hoos51 said:


> BTW my h21/100 has the same issues here in DC.


Yeah Ive always had brrrppp on the H21-100. I have no idea why its not doing it now. FS Detroit HD has always been one of the worst brrrppp offenders for me. Watched the Tigers games on Tuesday and Wednesday nights in their entirety and there was no brrrrppp at all. Same thing with MLB Net last night (again one the worst brrrppp channels). Watched TB Bos for 5 innings and no brrrppp. Decided to go downstairs and watch the last few innings on my DVR setup for comparison, dozens of brrrppps in the last 4 innings..Weird....


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Last update today, I need to drink some beer. I just got off the phone with a couple of the engineers. Really great guys who want to get this issue resolved.

They are working as I type, Cross your fingers and I will update later tonight!


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## fortnerw (May 7, 2006)

In the past I have had very little Brrrrriiiip but over the last week have had much brrriiiiping on my Atlanta local channels especially NBC which nightly news tonight was interupted many times. I have a h20-600 which has operated very good for the last 2 years. I have a pancake pan blowing on it at all times so have skirted the heat issue. Very little Brrriiiping on the cable channels.


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## Spit (Dec 7, 2006)

weaver6 said:


> I watched the 7 PM news on CBS tonight for about 10 minutes, and had about 1 Brrrrip/minute,with video interruptions.


I'm, too, am seeing this problem on CBS in the DC area (WUSA). Had the same problem on CBS last February and March. It was apparently resolved, and has been okay for the last two months, but reappeared the last couple of days. I've noted audio glitch interruptions about every 1-2 minutes, most times of the day.


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## Brennok (Dec 23, 2005)

I just started getting this on my Directivos. It is definitely annoying. I was concerned it was my hard drive going bad but it is on all of my Tivos. I think it has happened about 6 times in Amazing Race alone.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

Brennok said:


> I just started getting this on my Directivos.


It would have to be a different problem. Your DirecTivos are not receiving MPEG4 content, which is where the specific problem talked about in this thread lies.


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## IndyMichael (Jan 25, 2003)

Are popping and clicking sounds replacing the brrriiips? If so, is that a sign they're getting close to having the issue completely fixed?


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## Brennok (Dec 23, 2005)

Jeremy W said:


> It would have to be a different problem. Your DirecTivos are not receiving MPEG4 content, which is where the specific problem talked about in this thread lies.


hmm didn't realize it was Mpeg 4 only. All I know it is only on the locals so far in SD and I keep getting black screens, artifacts in recordings/live tv and weird audio pops. This only started in the last week or so and it is across several machines.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

IndyMichael said:


> Are popping and clicking sounds replacing the brrriiips?


No.


Brennok said:


> hmm didn't realize it was Mpeg 4 only. All I know it is only on the locals so far in SD and I keep getting black screens, artifacts in recordings/live tv and weird audio pops. This only started in the last week or so and it is across several machines.


Even though you're viewing the SD channel, it's being sourced from the station's digital channel. It's possible that the station and/or DirecTV is having trouble with their digital channel. Is it on all of your locals, or just one in particular?


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## Brennok (Dec 23, 2005)

Jeremy W said:


> No.
> 
> Even though you're viewing the SD channel, it's being sourced from the station's digital channel. It's possible that the station and/or DirecTV is having trouble with their digital channel. Is it on all of your locals, or just one in particular?


Multiple locals so far, mainly NBC and CBS.


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## IndyMichael (Jan 25, 2003)

Jeremy W said:


> No.


I watched 30 Rock last night from 4-23 and 4-30. The 4-23 episode has a lot of brrrrriiiiips, the 4-30 episode had no brrrrriiiiips but did have a few pops and clicking noises.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

IndyMichael said:


> I watched 30 Rock last night from 4-23 and 4-30. The 4-23 episode has a lot of brrrrriiiiips, the 4-30 episode had no brrrrriiiiips but did have a few pops and clicking noises.


OK? My answer still stands.


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## IndyMichael (Jan 25, 2003)

I don't and didn't doubt your answer, was just hoping it was part of the fix and when they were done, the popping and clicking would be gone too. Just wishful thinking I guess.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

IndyMichael said:


> I don't and didn't doubt your answer, was just hoping it was part of the fix and when they were done, the popping and clicking would be gone too. Just wishful thinking I guess.


The popping and clicking is usually related to signal issues somewhere in the chain.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Im still having it guys....going on the 4th day...every 2 mins and only CBS. Still in contact with engineering  Had to switch over to SD.


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## jjohns (Sep 15, 2007)

Maybe they should test these things before they upgrade them.


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## jollygrunt (Apr 13, 2005)

After having given up on the HD locals because of the bripping, last night I recorded How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory in HD and experienced no problems at all. I had been recording in SD exclusivly for the last few weeks after having experienced bripping that made the shows I recorded unwatchable.

Tonight I'm going to record NCIS and The Mentalist as another test.


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## bb37 (Dec 27, 2007)

IndyMichael said:


> ...but did have a few pops and clicking noises.


FWIW, I get pops and clicks on the Indy HD locals, especially WTHR 13 (NBC). And this is over Brighthouse cable, not DirecTV. Lends credence to the point that some of the problems may be elsewhere in the chain.


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## dsexton (May 2, 2007)

Finally got around to watching House last night. It was horrible. Multiple bbbrrriiippp's, black screen 3 or 4 times. Dammit!


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Something weird BRPPPp have gone away, but Mon<Tues,Wed of this week a blank screen followed by a major brrrpppp at or between 8:00 and 8:01 on CBS in DC and nothing else the rest of the night...Just weird.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

Back again ever 3 to 4


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

No relief from the problem on MLB Network yet. Discovery during Deadliest Catch was good last week.


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## ziggy29 (Nov 18, 2004)

dsexton said:


> Finally got around to watching House last night. It was horrible. Multiple bbbrrriiippp's, black screen 3 or 4 times. Dammit!


Yes, same here -- wow, it was terrible. Ours was actually recorded OTA, not from satellite. So either the source signal from KTBC (Austin FOX) was terrible or else there's something the DVR hardware didn't like about replaying it...


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Discovery during Deadliest Catch was good last week.


I had just one brrriiiippp during MythBusters last week.


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## seern (Jan 13, 2007)

This morning while watching CNN, it was not only the Brrrriiiip with the sound but the picture stuttering was back. I had not seen that for a while even though the sound still did it's thing on a lot of channels.


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## hbkbiggestfan (May 25, 2007)

I notice it on USA HD alot. Seems to usually happen at the very top of the hour. I notice it more so when watching sportinf events or anything televised that can over run it's schedule.


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## FlBillsfan (Apr 23, 2008)

I am getting it on locals & premium channels. If not fixed soon, I will go to fios.


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## profbobo (Jan 22, 2006)

FlBillsfan said:


> I am getting it on locals & premium channels. If not fixed soon, I will go to fios.


I've been looking at FiOS TV lately as well. The briippps are bad on NBC33 HD here in Fort Wayne. Missing 5 seconds of a show from the wife's DVR is not good.

Good thing America has been conditioned to accept issues like these in our electronics as the norm.

I've had FiOS Internet for almost 3 years and it's been great. Only ever had one issue when the supplied Actiontec router failed. I called Verizon and they had me plug the laptop directly into the cable. It worked. So my connection never really went down. A tech. dropped off a new router the next day.

I've looked at the FiOS TV packages off and on over the past few months. I hate how they price their receivers. $20 per month for a Multi-room DVR and $10 for a stand along HD receiver.

I would be more expensive to replicate my DirecTV setup with FiOS TV. However, it's still tempting. I have the legacy TOTAL CHOICE package, grandfathered DVR from TiVo lifetime days, HD Access Fee and 2 HD receivers.

Anyway, I'll stay with DirecTV since cost is such a major factor in decisions. Although DirecTV's price advantage isn't what it used to be. Also, the FiOS receives don't look like they are there yet either. The hard drive is super small.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

profbobo said:


> Good thing America has been conditioned to accept issues like these in our electronics as the norm.


What does this have to do with America?


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## Kenkong586 (Apr 3, 2007)

NBC and CBS affiliates here in Detroit are just getting REALLY annoying with this problem. I'm finally out of contract and exploring options as I write this. It's a shame that something hasn't been done about this. If I can't weasel my way into a free HDDVR, I don't see any reason to stay with Directv at this point.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

Kenkong586 said:


> NBC and CBS affiliates here in Detroit are just getting REALLY annoying with this problem.


FOX and ABC aren't any better.


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## Kenkong586 (Apr 3, 2007)

Jeremy W said:


> FOX and ABC aren't any better.


I haven't noticed it on either of those. That being said, I only watch the news of FOX2 and Lost on WXYZ, so that could be why.


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## teebeebee1 (Dec 11, 2006)

Jeremy W said:


> What does this have to do with America?


None of this happens in Canada!


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## techntrek (Apr 26, 2007)

I've had them all over the place lately. Especially big ones 2-3 minutes into a program with a long 5 second blackout. This is getting really old.


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## AZTracker (Mar 14, 2008)

Somebody make it stop! It has been horrible the past few nights! I'm watching KSAZ Phoenix and it is non-stop. Earlier it was horrible on KPNX too.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Last night's Orioles/KC game had several incidents. MLB Network today has been horrid.
It's pretty clear that IF DirecTV is even working on this they're not making much headway.


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## gnahc79 (Jan 12, 2008)

It's occurring more often now, yesterday it occurred in the last 2 minutes of CSI:NY during a key scene. It also occurred with the season finale of Ugly Betty. And House too. All of these for season finale episodes. The wife is not happy. duck and cover!


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## gnahc79 (Jan 12, 2008)

How do I troubleshoot this? It's occurring often enough across different channels to become quite bothersome.

1) reset dvr
2) check signals
3) call dtv for a replacement dvr? if so how do I word the request to get one? I have the protection plan.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

gnahc79 said:


> How do I troubleshoot this? It's occurring often enough across different channels to become quite bothersome.
> 
> 1) reset dvr
> 2) check signals
> 3) call dtv for a replacement dvr? if so how do I word the request to get one? I have the protection plan.


4: call and complain about the problem, if they want to replace the receiver to verify then go for it, but it's been pretty well established it's in the signal and changing DVR's isn't going to fix the problem.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

gnahc79 said:


> How do I troubleshoot this? It's occurring often enough across different channels to become quite bothersome.
> 
> 1) reset dvr
> 2) check signals
> 3) call dtv for a replacement dvr? if so how do I word the request to get one? I have the protection plan.


Probably none of the above. VoS has posted a description of the issue. While it is possible something local to your setup could cause a similar issue...there is a nationwide problem with the way DirecTV encodes the MPEG2 signal to MPEG4.

Best thing you can do is keep calling DirecTV and reporting the issue. Hopefully, enough complaints will cause someone to take this problem seriously and get it fixed...it's gone on for way, way too long.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Add NickelodeonHD to the list. My son was watching a cartoon which had several incidents in just a few minutes.

Called DirecTV and was told it was the weather in our area (It's sunny and 84 degrees here) and we're in the middle of a severe drought.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Email: [email protected]

"Level 1,2,etc. CSRs" can't do anything but "log it".


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## gnahc79 (Jan 12, 2008)

ok, I'll do the email the 'escalated' email address route instead of messing with level 1/2 CSRs that would just do the same thing.

in addition to the interrupts on other shows, today Oprah blanked out for a good 5 seconds multiple times today for the wife. Angry remote almost got tossed at my head. Good thing she loves our Harmony One too dang much to do so .


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## johnnyroq (Sep 20, 2006)

Just got off the phone and the CSR's solution is to send a tech over for a service call. What's he gonna do, bring the satellite with him?


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## seern (Jan 13, 2007)

What is getting me now is the addition of black outs in the middle of programs that I have recorded. I was just watching this week's NCIS and had one 10 second loss of sound and picture. I do not know if this is D* or the pick up from the local CBS station because it has happened before with recordings of several of the CIS variants.


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## hoos51 (Feb 1, 2009)

I have this Horizontal line running left to right across my screen since yesterday. Channel 7 Washington DC. HD only, no other channels effected.


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## gnahc79 (Jan 12, 2008)

Is there any chance of a miracle when the digital transition is 100% complete in June for locals? I usually see briiips on TLC, USA, etc. and 5-10 second blank outs on locals.
edit: our local ABC won't do the transition until June 12


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

gnahc79 said:


> Is there any chance of a miracle when the digital transition is 100% complete in June for locals? I usually see briiips on TLC, USA, etc. and 5-10 second blank outs on locals.
> edit: our local ABC won't do the transition until June 12


The miraculous part is that things seem to just be getting worse the longer into the digital transition we get, my HD locals have had more problems/glitches in the past 6 months than they did in the previous 2 years, and I'm speaking of satellite,cable and OTA.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

gnahc79 said:


> Is there any chance of a miracle when the digital transition is 100% complete in June for locals?


It would have to be a miracle, because the two things are completely unrelated.


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## seern (Jan 13, 2007)

I have been with D* since the middle 90's, but if this is not solved in a decent time frame, FiOS is looking real good. The most recent line up I have of theirs in the Richmond, VA area has just as many HD stations as D* has.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

seern said:


> I have been with D* since the middle 90's, but if this is not solved in a decent time frame, FiOS is looking real good. The most recent line up I have of theirs in the Richmond, VA area has just as many HD stations as D* has.


You should really Email: [email protected] about it.


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## gnahc79 (Jan 12, 2008)

I got a voicemail from emailing [email protected]. I'm guessing they'll roll out a truck to see if all of the equipment is functioning properly before logging it as a source issue. Do I need to have a blank out behavior recorded? We deleted all of the shows that did that after viewing them .


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gnahc79 said:


> I got a voicemail from emailing [email protected]. I'm guessing they'll roll out a truck to see if all of the equipment is functioning properly before logging it as a source issue. Do I need to have a blank out behavior recorded? We deleted all of the shows that did that after viewing them .


 They did this to/for me also. They went over everything with a fine tooth comb and then contacted the broadcast center.
I did have some recording saved for they to see.
"A Picture is worth...."
Maybe you will find another recording by the time they come out.
If not then the next time you have the problem, you can call them [you should get an inside phone number to call] and since the service call has happened, it can then go to the broadcast center.


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## seern (Jan 13, 2007)

Well I just sent her an email. With all the people who are having this issue and the number of times they have rolled a truck, you would think they would just log it into the national center as another instance of the problem. I do not have the time to take off from work to await a tech to get here, so I do not plan to let them come by. So, bottom line, I just wasted my time. Guess I will wait a month or so, then switch if they don't figure it out. By then I will have caught up on my recording so I will not lose anything when I sent the boxes back.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

seern said:


> Well I just sent her an email. With all the people who are having this issue and the number of times they have rolled a truck, you would think they would just log it into the national center as another instance of the problem. I do not have the time to take off from work to await a tech to get here, so I do not plan to let them come by. So, bottom line, I just wasted my time. Guess I will wait a month or so, then switch if they don't figure it out. By then I will have caught up on my recording so I will not lose anything when I sent the boxes back.


 "option #2"
Try to explain through email that this is a known problem that needs to be passed on to the network broadcast center and that you know it's not on your end. Send them a link to this thread also.

"One night" I got pissed and called the "inside number" to complain [again]. It was late and whoever picked up the phone was a "seat filler", who gave the "normal line" [yada, yada, yada], yet 45 min later the screen when to "don't call us, we know....." and then it was "fixed".


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## seern (Jan 13, 2007)

Well my email to them got a phone response within 45 minutes. I discussed the issues I was having with the CSA and was told that they have a report from the National Service center that the picture loss issue with CBS in Richmond was 100% fixed as of 14 May. The Brrrrriiiiip, issue she is going to forward to them along with the email. I referenced this thread as something they need to look at. She never said anything about rolling a truck. Now we wait to see if there is any improvement. :grin: Considering this thread was started in February, I am not holding my breath as I wait.


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## techntrek (Apr 26, 2007)

Lately _every _CBS program gets a brrrip 1 minute in, along with 5 seconds of black screen (and no audio at all). Always 1 minute in. I'm in the Baltimore area, not Richmond...


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

_Survivor_ was horrible last night on the Nashville CBS affiliate (WTVF channel 5). Audio brrriiips and dropouts at least once ever 3 - 5 minutes, with quite a few instances of several upsets in a two minute span. This is in marked contrast to other programming from that station lately where the brrriiips have definitely decreased in severity and frequency.

However, setting aside last night's experience here locally, I have observed that as brrriiips have generally decreased in frequency and severity, audio dropouts and what I have been thinking of as "partial dropouts" have been increasing. Instead of the audible distortion, the sound either cuts out completely, or (it seems) like audio levels on one or more of the front three main channels in the 5.1 mix seem to be compressed or limited for a moment (perhaps attempting to compensate for or otherwise cover up the processing glitch that results in the brrriiip in the first place). It's hard to describe. I may have to make a videotape recording of the programming some night to post a clip or something.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

Observed this problem 5-6 times while watching In Plain Sight on USA Net last night.


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## Mike Bertelson (Jan 24, 2007)

While I do notice this once and a while it is pretty rare.

Others seem to have a lot of problems with it.

I wonder if there is some "regionality" to the issue.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

MicroBeta said:


> While I do notice this once and a while it is pretty rare.
> 
> Others seem to have a lot of problems with it.
> 
> I wonder if there is some "regionality" to the issue.


There would be for local HD, since the MPEG-4 encoders would be the same for that market.
National MPEG-4 would come down to which channel/program was being viewed. 
keenan posted Plain Sight off USAHD, and I too heard at least one [near the beginning] during playback. I may have "blanked out" the others as my brain had already gone "oh, that again".


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## Mike Bertelson (Jan 24, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> There would be for local HD, since the MPEG-4 encoders would be the same for that market.
> National MPEG-4 would come down to which channel/program was being viewed.
> keenan posted Plain Sight off USAHD, and I too heard at least one [near the beginning] during playback. I may have "blanked out" the others as my brain had already gone "oh, that again".


I have noticed it only occasionally on the nationals.

For me it's a problem with my local Fox network.

Mike


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## dreadlk (Sep 18, 2007)

The Survivor Party show was a complete disaster for me, it had Brrriiips from start to finish, there was not one second of the show that was not brrrriiiped. I had a hard time hearing any of what was said.



LameLefty said:


> _Survivor_ was horrible last night on the Nashville CBS affiliate (WTVF channel 5). Audio brrriiips and dropouts at least once ever 3 - 5 minutes, with quite a few instances of several upsets in a two minute span. This is in marked contrast to other programming from that station lately where the brrriiips have definitely decreased in severity and frequency.
> 
> However, setting aside last night's experience here locally, I have observed that as brrriiips have generally decreased in frequency and severity, audio dropouts and what I have been thinking of as "partial dropouts" have been increasing. Instead of the audible distortion, the sound either cuts out completely, or (it seems) like audio levels on one or more of the front three main channels in the 5.1 mix seem to be compressed or limited for a moment (perhaps attempting to compensate for or otherwise cover up the processing glitch that results in the brrriiip in the first place). It's hard to describe. I may have to make a videotape recording of the programming some night to post a clip or something.


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## seern (Jan 13, 2007)

techntrek said:


> Lately _every _CBS program gets a brrrip 1 minute in, along with 5 seconds of black screen (and no audio at all). Always 1 minute in. I'm in the Baltimore area, not Richmond...


I have to go with this, so much for what they said to me about fixing it. I just started watching the final episode of NCIS that I had recorded earlier the evening. One minute in and Brrrrriiiiip and black screen for about 60 seconds. Completely cut off what the Rafkin character was trying to tell Ziva. FiOS is starting to look real good now. I would even have my local PBS in HD.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

seern said:


> I have to go with this, so much for what they said to me about fixing it. I just started watching the final episode of NCIS that I had recorded earlier the evening. One minute in and Brrrrriiiiip and black screen for about 60 seconds. Completely cut off what the Rafkin character was trying to tell Ziva. FiOS is starting to look real good now. I would even have my local PBS in HD.


Time to use your "special number" and rub their noses in it.
I had to "explain" that when the broadcast center "cleared" my local problems, by monitoring it for 45 mins., that it wasn't enough time to know sh.. [anything].
If you "squeak" enough they will do something.
Another path to take also is if your CBS station is responsive, email their engineering about it. They have a vested interest in this and can use their "number" to get things addressed faster sometimes.
My local CBS is very responsive, while my NBC doesn't even reply.


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## seern (Jan 13, 2007)

She didn't give me a number, but I just shot them another email at that address you posted Saturday.


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## celticpride (Sep 6, 2006)

I had this problem on my local kttv fox network during the simpsons and 24hrs,this is so frustrating!!!


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Perhaps what we need to do is put together a bit of a thread project.
If we all started saving a few of the brrrriiippps we experience and then consolidate them into one large video file we'd be able to make a point. I'm not great at splicing together video clips, but I bet if we all settle on a format we can find a way to easily compile a 10 minute video featuring our favorite issue.

What do you think?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Perhaps what we need to do is put together a bit of a thread project.
> If we all started saving a few of the brrrriiippps we experience and then consolidate them into one large video file we'd be able to make a point. I'm not great at splicing together video clips, but I bet if we all settle on a format we can find a way to easily compile a 10 minute video featuring our favorite issue.
> 
> What do you think?


 I'm in favor of any [and all] thing that can help "shine a light" on the problem.

"What I think": put together a short clip of "the problem". Have it show the few variations from "real bad" to "minor", so everyone is "on the same page".
Next work on a list [database] of channels, shows [times] that have this problem.
With all of this in a new thread and I'll PM/email links to "who I can". I don't know if I'll get any replies, "but at least" they'll have a list of them.
It may be foolish of me, but "I think" [from what I've gathered] that they [DirecTV's network broadcast center] simply don't/can't monitor all of the channels 24/7 to know when there is a problem.


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## seern (Jan 13, 2007)

I will go for that. I got a call this morning from last night's email. They again told me the problem was fixed last Thursday and maybe this was a one off as my reciever corrected itself. I allowed as how there was another user in Northern Va who is having the same one minute in issue. So to please them I have set up several test recording on the local CBS station to see if it happens again. VOS, I now have the keys.


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## bb37 (Dec 27, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Next work on a list [database] of channels, shows [times] that have this problem.


My opinion is that this is the first task. Before you go to the trouble of compiling video clips, start building the database. I would think that DirecTV will need to know what channel (by number so there's no confusion), the exact time (to the minute, use the time from the guide), the user's ZIP code, what receiver, what dish, and any special cabling (multiswitch, SWM, etc.). The last three need to be there to eliminate that as a possible cause of the problem.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

bb37 said:


> My opinion is that this is the first task. Before you go to the trouble of compiling video clips, start building the database. I would think that DirecTV will need to know what channel (by number so there's no confusion), the exact time (to the minute, use the time from the guide), the user's ZIP code, what receiver, what dish, and any special cabling (multiswitch, SWM, etc.). The last three need to be there to eliminate that as a possible cause of the problem.


"but" before "we" get a list, "we" should agree on what it is [hence the video clip], since I'm figuring there will be new posters that need to know.
Now if "we're on the same page", this is about the problems with the MPEG-4 encoders, so receiver, dish, switches, etc. aren't the issue.
Channels, [local market station letters should point this out], time/show should be enough.
[IE] KCRA, Law & Order, May 20 [then maybe some type of discription]
USAHD, In Plain Sight, May 17, 7:00 PDT airing [since these are national].

[just kicking this around]. 
Trim it down to the basics, so there isn't "too much" to weed through to get to the facts.


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## Hutchinshouse (Sep 28, 2006)

This issue happened two times to me last night.

Both times when watching American Idol (Los Angeles HD feed ch. 11). Both times in the middle of songs. :bang


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Perhaps what we need to do is put together a bit of a thread project.
> If we all started saving a few of the brrrriiippps we experience and then consolidate them into one large video file we'd be able to make a point.


I like this idea. Also, as a part of the video, we should have at least three people agree to record the same national programming, and show that a brrrrriiiiipppp affects all three at the exact same time.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

Jeremy W said:


> I like this idea. Also, as a part of the video, we should have at least three people agree to record the same national programming, and show that a brrrrriiiiipppp affects all three at the exact same time.


As a short-cut, perhaps the next time someone sees a good example of this on a national, they announce it here along with the name of the program, date/time the program was recorded and the point in time the brrriiip manifested itself. That way others who may have recorded the same program can see if it shows there.

For instance, I know a good deal of the programming I get from TNT (CSI: and CSI:NY in syndication mostly) seems to be affected to a greater or lesser degree. If anyone else records TNT programming, we can compare glitches.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

LameLefty said:


> we can compare glitches.


My glitches are bigger than yours are.... [sorry, one of those: I just had to, and yes I'm 5 years old]


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## sdirv (Dec 14, 2008)

seern said:


> I will go for that. I got a call this morning from last night's email. They again told me the problem was fixed last Thursday and maybe this was a one off as my reciever corrected itself. I allowed as how there was another user in Northern Va who is having the same one minute in issue. So to please them I have set up several test recording on the local CBS station to see if it happens again. VOS, I now have the keys.


I sent an email last night (5/19) and got a call from "Customer Advocacy" this morning. Guy took a lot of info, he was particularly interested in my software version. He said he didn't need to know my signal strength readings.

He collected "info" and said he was turning it over to engineering. Said he'd give me a call back in the next week or so to let me know the result.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

LameLefty said:


> As a short-cut, perhaps the next time someone sees a good example of this on a national, they announce it here along with the name of the program, date/time the program was recorded and the point in time the brrriiip manifested itself.


Even better idea. I'm recording MythBusters and Pitchmen on Discovery Channel tonight, and between them there is always at least one good brrrrriiip. I'll report back on what I see.


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## gnahc79 (Jan 12, 2008)

great, now that several people actually want a brrriip or blank out to occur you know what will happen....everything will run smoothly just long enough to lull us into a false sense of "hey, it's fixed" before it starts back up. Just in time for season premieres in the fall probably .


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

Jeremy W said:


> Even better idea. I'm recording MythBusters and Pitchmen on Discovery Channel tonight, and between them there is always at least one good brrrrriiip. I'll report back on what I see.


I just set my HR21-700 to catch both of them (Mythbusters at 8:00 CDT, Pitchmen at 9:00). We'll compare notes.


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## micster5 (Mar 25, 2008)

Jeremy W said:


> Even better idea. I'm recording MythBusters and Pitchmen on Discovery Channel tonight, and between them there is always at least one good brrrrriiip. I'll report back on what I see.


Anymore I seem to get a brrrriiip in between any show on Discovery, affecting video and audio. It's like at the hour change they flip a switch.

Incidentally I just (7:40p) had a brrrriiiip on FOX (KPEJ) during American Idol. Didn't affect video, only audio.


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## Wildgift (Nov 19, 2006)

Hutchinshouse said:


> This issue happened two times to me last night.
> 
> Both times when watching American Idol (Los Angeles HD feed ch. 11). Both times in the middle of songs. :bang


+1


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## seern (Jan 13, 2007)

I just got through watching tonight's Mythbusters and no Brrrrriiiiip's noted.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

LameLefty said:


> I just set my HR21-700 to catch both of them (Mythbusters at 8:00 CDT, Pitchmen at 9:00). We'll compare notes.


Due to a meddling family member, only Mythbusters recorded, but as noted:


seern said:


> I just got through watching tonight's Mythbusters and no Brrrrriiiiip's noted.


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## Hdhead (Jul 30, 2007)

I have never posted about this issue before but it is now becoming extremely annoying. Is happening very, very often. I would guess 10 times per evening. It really bothered me the other night during "24" when it happened during conversations and the content of the sentence became incomprehensible. How can this issue get worse?


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## BubblePuppy (Nov 3, 2006)

I have been having this issue for several months and thru many firmware downloads.
It is in almost every show that I record, not sure about live tv as I don't watch live tv anymore, except the morning news. The Brrriiip only lasts a second or two so not a great annoyance, but it just shouldn't be there.:nono2:


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## sat4r (Aug 27, 2006)

I just sent an E-Mail ,last night on our local NBC station channel 5 was nothing but constant bripppps. I do have it recorded on the DVR so it can be replayed.


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## seern (Jan 13, 2007)

It is my thought that if we all use that email address to voice our concerns to the office of the president at D*, then maybe they will get the idea that there is an issue they need to put more priority on. It is so across the board as to channels, location of receiver and time that they should be throwing as much of the tech resources at it as they can. ViOS is out there and expanding, up till now there service has been consistent and quality is same or better then D*. Soon they will even come equal as far as their DVR is concerned.


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## Hutchinshouse (Sep 28, 2006)

Happy to report, not a single "Brrrrriiiiip" during AI last night. I would have been :new_cussi:flaiming if we got a "Brrrrriiiiip" right when they were announcing the winner.


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## ShrikeT (Jun 3, 2008)

So I'd been getting the "Brriiiiiiiiiip" (can we call it something else? I feel like an idiot typing that) pretty frequently for the past few months. A couple weeks ago, after my signal went out completely due to my dish being knocked off alignment somehow, DTV sent a technician out to realign the dish. Since then, I haven't gotten a single one. I'm sure it's not the case for all of you, but it seems like it's at least partially related to not having a fully peaked dish.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

ShrikeT said:


> So I'd been getting the "Brriiiiiiiiiip" (can we call it something else? )


For awhile back in the "early days" of late '06/'07 before it became more wide-spread, when it occurred there were often usually greater volume fluctuations and it seemed to last a bit longer. It was then referred to by some people as "The Woody Woodpecker Effect" or something like that. I'm not sure that's better. :lol:


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

[I kind of hate sounding like this]
Last night NBC was doing this most of prime time.
So I started "playing around" with the feeds to see what/where the problems was.
DirecTV MPEG-4, brriipped almost constantly.
Shifted over to my AM-21 and the MPEG-2 OTA didn't have the "brriipps" BUT had audio drops with the same frequency.
Next I changed over to my Sony TV [no DirecTV in the loop anywhere]. Same thing. I could track the crap coming from the broadcaster and see how the MPEG-4 encoder would "brriipp" with each.
Sent an email off to KCRA this morning and it's still doing this as I type this.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

LameLefty said:


> It was then referred to by some people as "The Woody Woodpecker Effect" or something like that. I'm not sure that's better. :lol:


 I think "zipper effect" has been used also.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> I think "zipper effect" has been used also.


Yeah, I remember that too now that you mention it.


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## bb37 (Dec 27, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> I could track the crap coming from the broadcaster and see how the MPEG-4 encoder would "brriipp" with each.


VOS, I don't know a darn thing about how these encoders work, but that won't stop me from espousing a theory. 

Since you seem to have identified that the audio drop-outs on the MPEG2 feed coincide with brripps on the MPEG4 feed, I wonder if this is a synchronization issue. In other words, MPEG4 encoder sees no data on its audio inputs and takes a few clock cycles to get back in sync when the data returns.

Just a thought.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

bb37 said:


> VOS, I don't know a darn thing about how these encoders work, but that won't stop me from espousing a theory.
> 
> Since you seem to have identified that the audio drop-outs on the MPEG2 feed coincide with brripps on the MPEG4 feed, I wonder if this is a synchronization issue. In other words, MPEG4 encoder sees no data on its audio inputs and takes a few clock cycles to get back in sync when the data returns.
> 
> Just a thought.


 If you were to go back 700 posts [arrgh] you might find a post of mine about how the MPEG-4 encoders try to "phase-lock" [maybe not a PLL, but a system/circuit like that] on the MPEG-2 audio.
When there is "a glitch" in the MPEG-2, it causes the encoder to "take a dump", regroup and then restart. This can be just the audio [and the brriipp], but it can also "take down" the video for a moment.
I'm not sure if it's "no data" but I have been told that it is from corrupt data [bits] in the feed to the encoder.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

For those with problems with their locals, besides emailing DirecTV, I would also email the local station engineering.
This is the reply I just got to my post/problem above: 


> You are correct the hits you have been seeing the last few days have been our issue. We have located the cause today and have bypassed it for now. Please let me know if you are still having the issue.
> Unfortunately we have many pieces of equipment in our air chain and all can cause the problems you were seeing. Today it was located down to our Nielsen encoder which was introducing the problem you were seeing.
> The other night when DirecTV had the Technical Problems Slide up it was on their end. We have a great relationship with them and contacted them regarding the issue.


Some local station are responsive and some don't seem to be. This is the first time this station has replied, where another local station was much more responsive and I haven't seen any problems from them lately.


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## seern (Jan 13, 2007)

Something I have not mentioned, I am getting sound distortions on XM/Sirius. I mostly listen to 864 which is Symphony Hall, but it probably is happening on other stations as well.


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## djrobx (Jan 27, 2009)

seern said:


> Something I have not mentioned, I am getting sound distortions on XM/Sirius. I mostly listen to 864 which is Symphony Hall, but it probably is happening on other stations as well.


Me too. Very annoying. Happens on all channels I listen to.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

veryoldschool said:


> For those with problems with their locals, besides emailing DirecTV, I would also email the local station engineering.
> This is the reply I just got to my post/problem above:
> 
> Some local station are responsive and some don't seem to be. This is the first time this station has replied, where another local station was much more responsive and I haven't seen any problems from them lately.


Yea know, I don't know why so many people here are so resistant to contacting their local station with problems. In the end they need to know and they certainly have a lot more "pull" to get things fixed then anyone here does.

Last year our local ABC was having all sorts of audio dropouts. The station engineer posts on AVS so he saw our complaints. After working on it for a week it ended up being a bad cable at the stations broadcast facility that was going to their output box which sent the signal via microwave to the tower. So what appeared to be a "DirecTV problem" to many people ended up being a bad cable at the station.

Now certainly there is some sort of DirecTV issue with so many stations including national ones, but contacting the local station engineer should be at the top of anyone's list here because:
1) The problem may indeed be a local issue
2) If not then the station engineer has contacts a lot higher up then we do at DirecTV (outside of maybe Tom and Doug).

Even with a national channel, contact them as well. Shouldn't they be interested in fixing a problem that effects 19 million potential viewers? And again, they have a lot higher contacts then we do.

I don't buy the argument that "I pay DirecTV thus it's their problem". While that may be true, you'll rarely get anything done with that attitude.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

^ this has actually turned into a fairly positive means of communication. My local NBC has now replied twice, passed my emails on to their transmitter engineer, and we've seemed to now have established a direct feedback loop, since yesterday's fix, looks to be only part of the problem. Jay Leno still had problems last night, but their other shows don't.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

bonscott87 said:


> Yea know, I don't know why so many people here are so resistant to contacting their local station with problems. In the end they need to know and they certainly have a lot more "pull" to get things fixed then anyone here does.


I don't get that either...I have done it perhaps 2-3 times in the past 5 years, and gotten good results each time (and thanked, by the way).

Haven't seen Brrrrpppp now for about 6 weeks here....but could just be luck of the draw, as some others still get it on occasion.

I'm convinced that 90% of it is local-retransmission-based. In my market, they seem to have their act together better than most, so its pretty rare here these days.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> I'm convinced that 90% of it is local-retransmission-based.


 I can't "put a number on it", BUT they have a direct phone number to the broadcast center, that we don't.
Emails to the address I've posted aren't the most direct path, but beat the crap out of any other paths at DirecTV.
If the problems is with your locals, please go straight to [the horse's mouth] them for the fastest "service".


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

veryoldschool said:


> ...If the problems is with your locals, please go straight to [the horse's mouth] them for the fastest "service".


I agree..and ahve done it myself several times. I ask for the engineering department, and honestly, they generally appreciate the reporting of problems.


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## runner26 (Apr 8, 2007)

I could not agree more. Everything I see tells me this problem is at the network end rather than D* end. I live in L.A. and get brrrrops on the local Fox channel the other channels are fine. This sounds to me like a Fox problem. On the other hand Directv has renamed ppv "Directv cinema" and you must admit that is a huge step forward.


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## IndyMichael (Jan 25, 2003)

Here's the reply and my wife's email to Miss Filipiak. I don't think any of the suggestions have much to do with the brrrriiiiip issue. Only surprise, after they got the email, we received a phone call, then he offered to email the below suggestions since we were at our kids soccer matches and didn't have pen or paper.



> Discussion Thread
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> Response (DIRECTV) - 05/16/2009 09:13 AM
> Dear Mrs. *******,
> ...


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## runner26 (Apr 8, 2007)

IndyMichael said:


> Here's the reply and my wife's email to Miss Filipiak. I don't think any of the suggestions have much to do with the brrrriiiiip issue. Only surprise, after they got the email, we received a phone call, then he offered to email the below suggestions since we were at our kids soccer matches and didn't have pen or paper.


 Standard D* b.s. boilerplate. In the Directv world the problem is ALWAYS something that is not the responsibility Directv. ALWAYS!


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

^ and with "some tact" you can push through the standard line and finally get someone to look at it.


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## mhayes70 (Mar 21, 2006)

I have seen this issue alot on my locals the last 3 days here in the St. Louis area.


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## runner26 (Apr 8, 2007)

You are dealing with people who will cheerfully tell some poor soul that the problem is in his setup when they know for a fact that thousands of people are having the exact same problem. I can assure you tact is not what is called for. These people respond to a sledge hammer never, never the subtle touch of the diplomat.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

runner26 said:


> You are dealing with people who will cheerfully tell some poor soul that the problem is in his setup when they know for a fact that thousands of people are having the exact same problem. I can assure you tact is not what is called for. These people respond to a sledge hammer never, never the subtle touch of the diplomat.


I'll leave you to your "tools" if you will also let me use mine.
During my "first round" they told me that my locals had been monitored by the broadcast center for 45 mins and there was no problem.
I used "tact" to explain this was too short of a time to know much of anything.
Along the way to actually get something done, they sent out a group to verify my setup [for free] and then they finally got down to where I'd know the problem was.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

runner26 said:


> Everything I see tells me this problem is at the network end rather than D* end.


Sure, for some of the local issues. It's absolutely DirecTV's problem on the national channels.


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## runner26 (Apr 8, 2007)

Hey use any tools you want, if you think you can bail out the ocean using a sand pail have at it, no skin off my backside, but I know what works with these people and what gets ignored.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

runner26 said:


> Hey use any tools you want


The Quote button is a pretty cool tool. You might want to use that one.


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## runner26 (Apr 8, 2007)

"Quote button"? I thought you were just making them up.


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## alv (Aug 13, 2002)

I seem to get them at the beginning of the daily show almost every day.


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## volkl (Jun 17, 2007)

Just spent some vacation time where there was comcast feeding a tivo 3 using cable cards. While watching an hd channel, i saw something very similar to the brrripppp, on several occasions, usually occurring near the top or bottom of the hour. It was more of a stutter, and less of a ripping sound.

This makes me think that the problem is not specific exclusively to direct.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

volkl said:


> Just spent some vacation time where there was comcast feeding a tivo 3 using cable cards. While watching an hd channel, i saw something very similar to the brrripppp, on several occasions, usually occurring near the top or bottom of the hour. It was more of a stutter, and less of a ripping sound.
> 
> This makes me think that the problem is not specific exclusively to direct.


Yep. Been saying that for months.


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## techntrek (Apr 26, 2007)

I finally got tired of the CBS briips followed by 5 seconds of blackout, always 1 minute into their primetime programs (others in various markets have reported the same problem on this thread). I emailed my local station last night, so far no response...


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

In addition to, or along with the brrrppp issue, which I see with some frequency, I am also getting periodic pixellation on my CBS HD-LIL. These are not usually accompanied by the brrrppp, but are more frequent and annoying.

This may be a network issue (I haven't caught it on live OTA on the TV itself yet). My guess is encoder/decoder issues on the HD-LIL for this particular manifestation, and it may also be the cause for the brrrp.

In any case, it hasn't been solved for either (HD-LIL or regular sat channels)

It is my sense that it has gotten worse since my initial post (post #2 in this thread, quite a while ago)


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## seern (Jan 13, 2007)

I am in the process of watching the PGA match on CBS and at about 1610 I got a brrrrriiiiip followed by 60 seconds of black screen then a brrrrriiiiip as it came back. It affected both of my receivers. I have gotten several brrrrriiiiip's since but the picture has remained on but it has pixelated several times. This was the HD feed off the satellite.


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## jimmyv2000 (Feb 15, 2007)

lots of BRRRRRIIIIIP'S on the Science Channel HD (284) today on Build It Bigger.
Plus FNC Hd has been getting worse of late too

My nephew thinks the brrrrriiiiips are cool 
although he's 4 years old.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Went a whole day without brrriiiiips on CBS local

Then I realized I was watching it on Comcast. Switched back to DirecTV (what we normally use) and the problem occurred again.


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## hawksprite (May 31, 2009)

my local NBC and Fox stations have already made the switch to all digital.
I have had no problems. I have directv HD DVR.


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## sdirv (Dec 14, 2008)

Week or so ago I was having so much trouble with the brriiippppp thing that TV was nearly unwatchable.

I noticed here that others in the Phoenix area were having the same problem, sent off an email to ellen fillipiak (however it's spelled), got a phonecall from one of her "assistants" within 12 hours. Explained the problem to the guy at length, told him about the discussions here. He told me he'd look into it and turn it over to "engineering".

I was promised a callback to let me know what the solution was, but haven't heard from them....

Within a few hours the brrriiiiippppp was gone and has stayed gone since.


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Went a whole day without brrriiiiips on CBS local
> 
> Then I realized I was watching it on Comcast. Switched back to DirecTV (what we normally use) and the problem occurred again.


I have noticed that mostly on espn one can observe an "aspect" of the brrrp stuff by watching the news crawl...it "jitters" frequently, even when there is no burp. That should never happen. (assuming espn isn't the source of the problem. I'm getting relatively frequent brrrps of very short duration on espn that I don't think I ever see on MSNBC.

Overall, the problem has gotten worse (across the board) since the start of this thread.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

hasan said:


> I have noticed that mostly on espn one can observe an "aspect" of the brrrp stuff by watching the news crawl...it "jitters" frequently, even when there is no burp. That should never happen. (assuming espn isn't the source of the problem. I'm getting relatively frequent brrrps of very short duration on espn that I don't think I ever see on MSNBC.
> 
> Overall, the problem has gotten worse (across the board) since the start of this thread.


It seemed to get better, on the nationals, in the last week or so it seems to be getting more frequent. I've been catching all the Burn Notice shows this week and they have started brrriiippping again, and the ESPN coverage of the Women's College World Series has had a ton of them. I've noticed several on SciFi in the last week also. I will say that since this thread, the brrripps are shorter in duration, but the frequency seems to be on the rise again, at least on the nationals.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

hasan said:


> I have noticed that mostly on espn one can observe an "aspect" of the brrrp stuff by watching the news crawl...it "jitters" frequently, even when there is no burp. That should never happen. (assuming espn isn't the source of the problem.


Although there are problems with DirecTV's ESPN transmission, a lot of the BottomLine jitters are coming from ESPN.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

Had this problem again on the season premier of Burn Notice tonight. This is getting old, it would really be nice if they would get it fixed sometime in the near future.


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## Valve1138 (Apr 26, 2008)

keenan said:


> Had this problem again on the season premier of Burn Notice tonight. This is getting old, it would really be nice if they would get it fixed sometime in the near future.


I noticed that as well last night.

Been getting the briiips on Sci-Fi HD as well.

Haven't noticed them up until a few days ago.


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## CrazyforYeshua (Feb 23, 2008)

volkl said:


> Just spent some vacation time where there was comcast feeding a tivo 3 using cable cards. While watching an hd channel, i saw something very similar to the brrripppp, on several occasions, usually occurring near the top or bottom of the hour. It was more of a stutter, and less of a ripping sound.
> 
> This makes me think that the problem is not specific exclusively to direct.


My daughter has Time Warner, and when I was over there, it was the same exact thing we get with D*. Guess it's just an MPEG4 thing.....


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

CrazyforYeshua said:


> My daughter has Time Warner, and when I was over there, it was the same exact thing we get with D*. Guess it's just an MPEG4 thing.....


Time Warner doesn't use MPEG4.


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## c9house (Sep 18, 2007)

Jeremy W said:


> Sure, for some of the local issues. It's absolutely DirecTV's problem on the national channels.


Absolutely. I was watching the Cubs game on Comcast last night and it was happening. Happened during Family Jewels on A&E the other night.

By the way, it's getting worse.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

So I'm guessing this is just not ever going to be fixed? Just chalk it up to acceptable collateral damage due to the MPEG2>MPEG4 conversion? If you want DirecTV you'll just have to deal with it?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> So I'm guessing this is just not ever going to be fixed? Just chalk it up to acceptable collateral damage due to the MPEG2>MPEG4 conversion? If you want DirecTV you'll just have to deal with it?


"To some degree".
Horrible brrriippps from my locals have subsided.
Minor brriipps still seem to be around on various channels though.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

No sign of the problem on Comcast HD in Edgartown MA...at least on the local HDs here.


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## ecutchins (Jun 1, 2007)

I'd been noticing the brppp's for a some time and they were starting to get annoying. Well, two weeks ago I changed out my old AVR and the strange thing is the brpppp's went away. They didn't completely go away but the noise is considerably lessened, now it only sounds like mild glitch. The new AVR is a Pioneer VSX-1019 hooked up with HDMI from HD-DVR to AVR and HDMI from AVR to TV.

The receiver must be doing something with these brppp's. I thought D* must have fixed the problem.


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

At first this was just a minor annoyance. But, now the playback is stalling for a few seconds and then continues. As long as it doesn't cause loss of content, I can live with it. Hopefully, the next software download will fix it.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

jdspencer said:


> At first this was just a minor annoyance. But, now the playback is stalling for a few seconds and then continues. As long as it doesn't cause loss of content, I can live with it. Hopefully, the next software download will fix it.


 Don't look for software on your receivers to fix this, since it isn't related to the receivers.


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## HEE HAW (Jun 24, 2009)

i have been getting the brrrppppp thing as well as massive picture breakup with it but only when i record something on my dtv hr20/700 box. i have never had it hapen while watching a broadcast/live show.

this started up about two months ago. about 1 in every 3 shows i record is like that and it is so bad you cant watch it.

any ideas as to what that is about?


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

I still get an occasional Brrriipp on the LOCALS and even on the Nationals but I have to say they have improved since the problem really got bad for me during the first part of this year(Feb thru April).

I played their game, I sent them an E-mail, I complained and they replied. They/ D* called me with concerns about my service being interuppted, they rolled out a truck even after I told them that it didn't appear to be a problem here on my end. They "inspected" my set-up....and all was perfect! They didn't do anything, yet after mid May the Brriiipps have all but disappeared, at least for me. A couple times a week I'll hear the Brrriiipps now.

Many conversations later with different levels of D* personnel have indicated to me, that some new this was a problem and other were clueless. What ever the case, at least for now the Brriipps have "almost" vanished.

Hey *VOS* thanks for your insight!!!!!


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

HEE HAW said:


> i have been getting the brrrppppp thing as well as massive picture breakup with it but only when i record something on my dtv hr20/700 box. i have never had it hapen while watching a broadcast/live show.


I would be concerned about a marginal hard drive mechanism. You might set up the long hard drive diagnostic while you're gone at some point.

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=2022584#post2022584


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gilviv said:


> Hey *VOS* thanks for your insight!!!!!


 Sounds like you went through the same "drill".

Get someone interested in your problem.
Verify there is nothing on your end that is the cause.
Get the Network Broadcast Center to improve their end.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

harsh said:


> I would be concerned about a marginal hard drive mechanism. You might set up the long hard drive diagnostic while you're gone at some point.
> 
> http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=2022584#post2022584


I don't know, but I suspect he's been running into the jump that is happening again frequently between shows on USA and TNT, I've noticed it several times this week, Hawthorne -> Saving Grace had one of those freeze stop stutter and I've seen it on a couple of other transitions. It's basically the same thing recycling again. These brrrippps and stutters seemed to go in cycles.

I hardly noticed any for a couple of months, lately seems like they are creeping back in more often. Seems like progress and then we regress a bit, I don't think the problem has ever been completely cured.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

rebkell said:


> I don't know, but I suspect he's been running into the jump that is happening again frequently between shows on USA and TNT, I've noticed it several times this week, Hawthorne -> Saving Grace had one of those freeze stop stutter and I've seen it on a couple of other transitions. It's basically the same thing recycling again. These brrrippps and stutters seemed to go in cycles.
> 
> I hardly noticed any for a couple of months, lately seems like they are creeping back in more often. Seems like progress and then we regress a bit, I don't think the problem has ever been completely cured.


I've seen these for quite awhile, I've come to accept that that's just the way DirecTV's product works.


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

veryoldschool said:


> Don't look for software on your receivers to fix this, since it isn't related to the receivers.


Yeah I knew that. What was I thinking? Why did I know that? Because the problem has gotten worse with the same software.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

rebkell said:


> I don't know, but I suspect he's been running into the jump that is happening again frequently between shows on USA and TNT, I've noticed it several times this week, Hawthorne -> Saving Grace had one of those freeze stop stutter and I've seen it on a couple of other transitions. It's basically the same thing recycling again.


Are you sure you're talking about the same thing? HEE HAW's problems are unique to recorded content.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

harsh said:


> Are you sure you're talking about the same thing? HEE HAW's problems are unique to recorded content.


Maybe not, I assumed it was since he said something about as long as it doesn't affect the program. Most of those freeze brrippp stutter jump thingies happen in between program changes. There's just so many weird things that happen and some are difficult to describe, so I may well have misinterpreted what he was saying.

Edit: yeah, you're right I just reread his post, I don't have problems with playback, I actually have better playback from recorded stuff than live. I record with the HDPVR and recording live there will almost always be a slight audio dropout which interrupts recording, but if I play back a recording, I hardly if ever have any problems with the HDPVR.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Well, this falls under the "be careful what you ask for" department. We have been waiting for 1.5 years to get West Palm PBS (WXEL) in HD. I happened to notice today that it was actually in HD! Now the problem, the brrrrriiiipppps were so bad and so numerous we had to turn back to the SD version to watch programming.

The picture quality is also very soft, but that could be the content.


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

Things seemed to have been getting better on my end, both nationals like Discovery HD and especially my locals. But today my Fox local (WZTV channel 17) is bripping every 3 - 10 seconds. It's the worst I've ever seen (heard?) it. :nono:


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## mklimek (Nov 2, 2008)

LameLefty said:


> Things seemed to have been getting better on my end, both nationals like Discovery HD and especially my locals. But today my Fox local (WZTV channel 17) is bripping every 3 - 10 seconds. It's the worst I've ever seen (heard?) it. :nono:


Same here. I live in the same market as you (Mt. Juliet), and Fox is REALLY bad. Our local CBS is acting up as well, but not quite as bad as Fox. And you're right, it did seem to be getting better there for awhile, but Fox is unwatchable at the moment.


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## sooner02 (Feb 21, 2009)

Is this mostly a problem with local channels or any HD channel? I used to have Dish and it also had this problem from time to time.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

sooner02 said:


> Is this mostly a problem with local channels or any HD channel? I used to have Dish and it also had this problem from time to time.


I've heard it mostly on the national channels like MLB and Food, but others report it quite a bit on the locals.


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## gilviv (Sep 18, 2007)

Since Monday, I have heard Brriiiipps on the Golf channel HD and DisneyXD as well as FOXNews HD. At least 1 or 2 short Brriiiipps every hour or so.:nono2:

A lot better, but not gone.:nono:


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## jimmyv2000 (Feb 15, 2007)

Fox News Channel has been bad today, worse than ever.

My Local CBS has been better ironically they were off the air a bit this am due to a lighning stike and some major equipment got destroyed and replaced
see here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=16759509&postcount=9318
NOT a briiiiiip within the last 2 hours


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## Jotas (Jan 5, 2006)

Brrriips were really bad on the broadcast of A Capitol Fourth. Felt like switching back to SD.


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## weaver6 (Nov 3, 2005)

Jotas said:


> Brrriips were really bad on the broadcast of A Capitol Fourth. Felt like switching back to SD.


I saw this too (about 15 seconds after I tuned to it). I switched to OTA, which, of course, was fine.


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## alv (Aug 13, 2002)

I often get them in the first few seconds of the daily show (original 11pm ET broadcast).


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## gp4rts (Aug 19, 2006)

The problem has reached unwatchable level on Fox local in the SF Bay Area. Not nearly as bad on other stations, and not at all on HBO. The last 10 minutes of "Mental" was nearly unintelligible. Is this a DirecTV problem? Perhaps related to MPEG-4 encoding? Is it absent on OTA? Should switch my recordings to OTA?


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## seern (Jan 13, 2007)

Overall, its better then it was a month ago, but I still get brief bursts of brrrrriiiiips on many channels. CNN is a prime culprit. Weaver6's comment about A Capital Forth being brrrrriiiiip free on OTA shows that the issue is somewhere in the chain through D*.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Since I doubt anyone will wade through the 800+ posts here to read the "what/why", here a short version:
MPEG-2 feeds from the stations may have corrupted bits that don't seem to affect the viewing. During the re-encoding to MPEG-4, these cause the encoder to "break lock" [for the lack of a better term] and brriiipps/frame loss happens.
So there are two places that this could be coming from or corrected. One is directly from the station and the other is at the uplink encoder. If the station won't clear up there problem, then DirecTV can't do much, and if the station does improve then DirecTV needs to look at their uplink.

I've had this and worked with both to improve my locals. It sometimes has been the DirecTV encoder and other times is really the station feed. I'd email the station engineering about it and see if they're responsive. Some are in my area and others aren't. If they are, it can be improved much faster than working through DirecTV, as it needs to be addressed by the network broadcast center and they're hard to get to.


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## tgycagel (May 9, 2009)

gp4rts said:


> The problem has reached unwatchable level on Fox local in the SF Bay Area. Not nearly as bad on other stations, and not at all on HBO. The last 10 minutes of "Mental" was nearly unintelligible. Is this a DirecTV problem? Perhaps related to MPEG-4 encoding? Is it absent on OTA? Should switch my recordings to OTA?


Glad I wasn't the only one and glad I found this thread. I noticed Fox HD audio here in the SF Bay Area gets garbled from time to time and thought something was wrong with my equipment.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

veryoldschool said:


> Since I doubt anyone will wade through the 800+ posts here to read the "what/why", here a short version:
> MPEG-2 feeds from the stations may have corrupted bits that don't seem to affect the viewing. During the re-encoding to MPEG-4, these cause the encoder to "break lock" [for the lack of a better term] and brriiipps/frame loss happens.
> So there are two places that this could be coming from or corrected. One is directly from the station and the other is at the uplink encoder. If the station won't clear up there problem, then DirecTV can't do much, and if the station does improve then DirecTV needs to look at their uplink.
> 
> I've had this and worked with both to improve my locals. It sometimes has been the DirecTV encoder and other times is really the station feed. I'd email the station engineering about it and see if they're responsive. Some are in my area and others aren't. If they are, it can be improved much faster than working through DirecTV, as it needs to be addressed by the network broadcast center and they're hard to get to.


Thanks for your excellent summary VOS...as many here likely would not wade through the thread to understand all that.

Like you, I have seen my local stations address improvements in their encoders and uplink, and now...I can't even remember the last time I burped here...uh...brrrrpppped here.


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## cheezeboy (Aug 28, 2008)

tgycagel said:


> Glad I wasn't the only one and glad I found this thread. I noticed Fox HD audio here in the SF Bay Area gets garbled from time to time and thought something was wrong with my equipment.


In the same boat.. FOX is unwatchable now.


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## gp4rts (Aug 19, 2006)

Tonight the last part of "So You Think You Can Dance" was totally garbled, almost continuous "brrps", and total loss of a audio sync. I tried recording OTA but I'm having reception problems with KTVU. I will try to contact KTVU to complain, but it may be D* problem. Also, thanks to VOS for your post with explanation.


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## bb37 (Dec 27, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Since I doubt anyone will wade through the 800+ posts here to read the "what/why"...


VOS, I'll make the suggestion that you start a new thread with your informative post as the first message. Title the thread "Brrrriippp, what it is and how to fix it" or something like that. Maybe the moderators will make it a sticky. If we can keep the posts limited to symptoms and solutions, without all of the whining, the thread might be useful to folks who are just now digging into the problem.


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## Barmat (Aug 27, 2006)

gp4rts said:


> Tonight the last part of "So You Think You Can Dance" was totally garbled, almost continuous "brrps", and total loss of a audio sync. I tried recording OTA but I'm having reception problems with KTVU. I will try to contact KTVU to complain, but it may be D* problem. Also, thanks to VOS for your post with explanation.


I sent an email to the engineering dept. I'll post back if I get any reply.

" Please try to fix your feed to DirecTV. Your HD feed is making an audio Brippp(garbled) sound every 5-10 seconds. This is making your channel unwatchable.

Link to Forum describing the problem from other viewers with the same issue. http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=2151098#post2151098
"


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

cheezeboy said:


> In the same boat.. FOX is unwatchable now.





gp4rts said:


> Tonight the last part of "So You Think You Can Dance" was totally garbled, almost continuous "brrps", and total loss of a audio sync. I tried recording OTA but I'm having reception problems with KTVU. I will try to contact KTVU to complain, but it may be D* problem. Also, thanks to VOS for your post with explanation.


Since both you gents are in the same area...likely there's a FOX affiliate problem...you may want to call them and let them know. As VOS shared, there is nothing DirecTV can do about the quality of their uplink.

Coincidentally, my wife watched the entire show here (S.E. US), and there was no trace of that problem in this location.


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

Folks, I'm closing this one as it's gotten a bit long in the tooth. Veryoldschool has written an excellent post about the state of this issue here: http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=161262 and as such this thread is closed.


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