# Ask Dbstalk:thin Blue Verticle Line



## Eagles (Dec 31, 2003)

Mark, I received my replacement 921 on 03/30/04. The "BLUE LINE PROBLEM" that displayed itself as many thick vertical lines while viewing dark scenes in HD seems to have been rectified. However I noticed that "single thin blue line" reappear again about a week ago. It seems this line always presents itself as a result of a bright red background while watching an SD program via component video. This line does not appear that often. It's almost as if it has something to do with signal compression. The reason I say this is because with my TV (51" Sony), the amount of compression becomes obvious. The two channels I noticed this line appearing on were FOXNEWS# 205 and SPEED# 150. Do you have any info on this from Dish? Should I be concerned about this? Thanks. !pride


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## ggw2000 (Dec 22, 2003)

Eagles said:


> Mark, I received my replacement 921 on 03/30/04. The "BLUE LINE PROBLEM" that displayed itself as many thick vertical lines while viewing dark scenes in HD seems to have been rectified. However I noticed that "single thin blue line" reappear again about a week ago. It seems this line always presents itself as a result of a bright red background while watching an SD program via component video. This line does not appear that often. It's almost as if it has something to do with signal compression. The reason I say this is because with my TV (51" Sony), the amount of compression becomes obvious. The two channels I noticed this line appearing on were FOXNEWS# 205 and SPEED# 150. Do you have any info on this from Dish? Should I be concerned about this? Thanks. !pride


Eagles, I have had my 921 about 6-8 weeks now (2nd one). Over the course of that time I have had a thin line show up exactly in the middle of the screen that changes color depending on the picture color. I get this only on SD. In both cases I did a smartcard reboot and the problem went away. For what's it worth department  . Gerry


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Unfortunately, I think you need to be concerned, and keep calling Dish until one of the engineers calls you back. I believe that the thin vertical line is a symptom of something else that will require another receiver swapout. Not positive of that, but I seem to recall a couple of people getting replacements because of this problem.


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## FarNorth (Nov 27, 2003)

FWIW, when I first got my replacement 921, I noticed the blue line on a couple of SD broadcasts. I got very nervous because I had waited almost a month for the unit and I didn't want to go through that again but the problem went away. It came loaded with 149 but it did seem to have some software glitches and rebooted a couple of times. Maybe one of the reboots or downloads fixed something. I dunno......but it's gone.


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## ggw2000 (Dec 22, 2003)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Unfortunately, I think you need to be concerned, and keep calling Dish until one of the engineers calls you back. I believe that the thin vertical line is a symptom of something else that will require another receiver swapout. Not positive of that, but I seem to recall a couple of people getting replacements because of this problem.


Mark, were you talking to Eagles or Me on this reply? If it's me, I am hesitant to do anything at this point and time. The availability of replacements has been terrible and I would rather wait until some of the other problems have been addressed and put to bed.. Gerry


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Sorry Gerry - typing too fast there. I was replying to Eagles.


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## ggw2000 (Dec 22, 2003)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Sorry Gerry - typing too fast there. I was replying to Eagles.


Thanks for the quick reply. I am keeping an eye on this and if it gets continuous I will call them. But the things been running (knock on wood) with normal reboots/problems for quite awhile now and I don't want to do anything stupid :lol: . ps: I also kept my 501 and keep it in the closet for backup (just in case of course  ).


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

I still have my 2 508s that I do all of my SD recording on myself...


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## Eagles (Dec 31, 2003)

ggw2000 said:


> Thanks for the quick reply. I am keeping an eye on this and if it gets continuous I will call them. But the things been running (knock on wood) with normal reboots/problems for quite awhile now and I don't want to do anything stupid :lol: . ps: I also kept my 501 and keep it in the closet for backup (just in case of course  ).


Finally got to speak with a Dish supervisor and an engineer familiar with the the 921. It was nice to actually speak to someone who was more familiar with the unit than I was, and didn't pause after a question to look for an answer on a cheat sheet. Anyway, concerning the "THIN BLUE LINE" problem they are going to replace my unit.(Third Time) I wanted to be sure the engineer understood the exact "BLUE LINE" problem I was referring to. I told him this was the single thin blue vertical line which appears while viewing SD content via component video, not the thicker blue lines that appears during dark scenes while viewing HD. I also told him since 03/30/04 when I received my first replacement, I only saw this blue line a couple of times. Basically I told him I really didn't want to relplace the unit if he didn't feel it was necessary. He insisted I replace the unit. He went on to say there were some lingering hardware problems which were creating these various blue line issues, and a motherboard replacement will rectify the problems. He said they are in the process of swapping these old boards out with the new ones. Based on the date I received my first replacement, he concluded mine must have been one of the last to slip out the door without this updated motherboard. Anybody out there with the same problem may want to consider a replacement. I also got some unrelated info from the engineer. He said L180 is scheduled for release next Wednesday 04/21/04 provided no more problems arise. He echoed what Mark has been saying, that it should have been out already but they ran into some problems which have since been fixed and they are now beta testing prior to release. He also said they are working to make the OTA tuner much more robust as far as locking onto weaker signals. He said this will happen via future software upgrades. !pride


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## ggw2000 (Dec 22, 2003)

Eagles said:


> Finally got to speak with a Dish supervisor and an engineer familiar with the the 921. It was nice to actually speak to someone who was more familiar with the unit than I was, and didn't pause after a question to look for an answer on a cheat sheet. Anyway, concerning the "THIN BLUE LINE" problem they are going to replace my unit.(Third Time) I wanted to be sure the engineer understood the exact "BLUE LINE" problem I was referring to. I told him this was the single thin blue vertical line which appears while viewing SD content via component video, not the thicker blue lines that appears during dark scenes while viewing HD. I also told him since 03/30/04 when I received my first replacement, I only saw this blue line a couple of times. Basically I told him I really didn't want to relplace the unit if he didn't feel it was necessary. He insisted I replace the unit. He went on to say there were some lingering hardware problems which were creating these various blue line issues, and a motherboard replacement will rectify the problems. He said they are in the process of swapping these old boards out with the new ones. Based on the date I received my first replacement, he concluded mine must have been one of the last to slip out the door without this updated motherboard. Anybody out there with the same problem may want to consider a replacement. I also got some unrelated info from the engineer. He said L180 is scheduled for release next Wednesday 04/21/04 provided no more problems arise. He echoed what Mark has been saying, that it should have been out already but they ran into some problems which have since been fixed and they are now beta testing prior to release. He also said they are working to make the OTA tuner much more robust as far as locking onto weaker signals. He said this will happen via future software upgrades. !pride


Eagles, could you tell me where on your set was the thin vertical line? I knew after posting above it would show up again and sure enough it was there that night! Mine is just about exactly in the middle of the display on the horizonal and sometimes moves up or down on the vertical (in other words it is not running all the way from top to bottom on the set). I am also using component outputs and only see it with SD material.. I have a 60" Hitachi LCD. Thanks gerry


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## Eagles (Dec 31, 2003)

ggw2000 said:


> Eagles, could you tell me where on your set was the thin vertical line? I knew after posting above it would show up again and sure enough it was there that night! Mine is just about exactly in the middle of the display on the horizonal and sometimes moves up or down on the vertical (in other words it is not running all the way from top to bottom on the set). I am also using component outputs and only see it with SD material.. I have a 60" Hitachi LCD. Thanks gerry


Gerry, Go to the 921 support forum on this website and look for the thread started by Mark Lamutt (5th from the top) called "FROM DISHlease read if you have the "blue line problem". Click on and go to the second post. Click onto the thumbnail for a good example of the single blue line I described. !pride


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## John Quaglino (Aug 5, 2003)

I've got the same thin blue line problem and have had it for a couple of months. It only appears on SD material. I eventually plan to swap out my unit but I'll wait until the quality of the new units being shipped is confirmed.


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## CAL7 (Dec 16, 2003)

John Quaglino said:


> I've got the same thin blue line problem and have had it for a couple of months. It only appears on SD material. I eventually plan to swap out my unit but I'll wait until the quality of the new units being shipped is confirmed.


Same plan here, complicated by the fact that I want to dump DISH for Direct as soon as I can get an HR10-250. Which prompts my question concerning warranties: They state it is a one-year non-transferrable warranty, so will they really balk at fixing the problem if I re-sell the unit to another DISH customer?


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## John Quaglino (Aug 5, 2003)

CAL7 said:


> Same plan here, complicated by the fact that I want to dump DISH for Direct as soon as I can get an HR10-250. Which prompts my question concerning warranties: They state it is a one-year non-transferrable warranty, so will they really balk at fixing the problem if I re-sell the unit to another DISH customer?


Return it to Dish and sell the replacement in the unopened box. That way you don't have to answer to the buyer about the problem.


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## ggw2000 (Dec 22, 2003)

John Quaglino said:


> Return it to Dish and sell the replacement in the unopened box. That way you don't have to answer to the buyer about the problem.


Tough to do since replacements don't come with manual, cables, or remote  .


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## John Quaglino (Aug 5, 2003)

My thin line problem has surfaced with a vengence in 180.


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## Interprises (Feb 12, 2004)

John Quaglino said:


> My thin line problem has surfaced with a vengence in 180.


John, do your lines look like the ones posted at the thread, below?

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=26500http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=226401#post226401


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## John Quaglino (Aug 5, 2003)

Yes, that is the same problem that I've described as the "thin blue" line. When I first noticed it, it was blue. However, now it can be either blue, red or sometimes green. It only happens on 1080 upconversion of SD material. It happens on live as well as DVR material. I've even noticed it showing in the pip window in the guide. It is always in the same area of the screen. On occasion, I 've seen 2 lines.


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## Interprises (Feb 12, 2004)

Thanks, John. All I know; everything was fine until L180 came down, so it is a software issue.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

I saw this prior to L180. Haven't noticed it for quite a while, tho.


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## Interprises (Feb 12, 2004)

Hey guys, I just did an SC reboot (see other thread) and that seems to have cleared up the artifacting. Will be interested to see if John has the same _luck_.


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## jcd4878 (Feb 26, 2004)

CAL7 said:


> Same plan here, complicated by the fact that I want to dump DISH for Direct as soon as I can get an HR10-250. Which prompts my question concerning warranties: They state it is a one-year non-transferrable warranty, so will they really balk at fixing the problem if I re-sell the unit to another DISH customer?


Funny, I was thinking the same thing! :lol: I'm gonna wait as long as I can for the HD TiVo to become available and give Dish a chance to finally fix as the hardware issues so when I get my replacement unit from Dish, I can sell it on ebay hardware glitch free. Regardless what Dish does, I have allready decided to switch to HD TiVo. I don't like the 921's software, its a huge step back to the days of the VCR timers. I don't have time to babysit the timers. TiVos are great because I don't have to do anything other than the initial setup of season passes. The only thing Dish can do to keep me as a customer is to put TiVo software on the 921 box.

I am a long term TiVo user and just absolutely hate the user interface, lack of features, and contant problems the 921 has that they can't seem to fix in a quick manner. Its a damn prototype and is no where close to production ready. It should have never been released. As soon as that HD TiVo hits the market and is not a boat anchor like this thing is, I'm regretably ditching Dish network. I don't hate Dish, they got great programming choices at good prices and there older 4700 (now 4900) receiver gave me many years of reliable service paired with my trusty standalone TiVo. But unfortunately, the lack of a HD TiVo solution for Dish is what is ultimately going to make me switch. Not counting the fact that the 921 is a real POS box. I did my 2 cents worth and gave the 921 a chance, but I just don't think a $1000 box should be so painful to use.

Hopefully they get that HD TiVo out soon so I can start drooling over all the good reviews. I also hope the waiting line isn't too big for it.


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## CAL7 (Dec 16, 2003)

Yup. I have been a long time DISH customer, and I bought in to the 921 early (late January) knowing full well that I would be an uncompensated beta tester. I wanted an HD PVR and was willing to take it in any form.

But.... the $5.00 DVR fee for this capability is really galling. How can Charlie think he has a competitive PVR feature that justifies the fee? Having said that, the main reason I am leaving is programming. To justify his hardball negotiations, Charlie always tries to wear the mantle of fighting for us little guys by demanding lower programming provider prices. But the argument falls flat when compared to the competition - not being a DirecTV subscriber, maybe I am out of the loop, but I never hear Murdoch or his minions complaining - they just negotiate and deliver. Correct me if I am wrong. Viacom, Turner, YES, the list goes on; and I am sick of it.


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## jventre (Apr 29, 2004)

Eagles said:


> Mark, I received my replacement 921 on 03/30/04. The "BLUE LINE PROBLEM" that displayed itself as many thick vertical lines while viewing dark scenes in HD seems to have been rectified. However I noticed that "single thin blue line" reappear again about a week ago. It seems this line always presents itself as a result of a bright red background while watching an SD program via component video. This line does not appear that often. It's almost as if it has something to do with signal compression. The reason I say this is because with my TV (51" Sony), the amount of compression becomes obvious. The two channels I noticed this line appearing on were FOXNEWS# 205 and SPEED# 150. Do you have any info on this from Dish? Should I be concerned about this? Thanks. !pride


I had this problem when I first got my 921 in January, then it went away. On Monday I accidently hit the button that switches from SD to HD (I normally leave it in HD all the time). when I switched back to HD, there was the line, appearing from time-to time on SD channels. It does not appear when watching an HD channel (OTA or Dish provided).


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## lujan (Feb 10, 2004)

John Quaglino said:


> My thin line problem has surfaced with a vengence in 180.


I had not noticed the thin blue line until 180 where it is very evident now. I hope the next software release corrects this problem since Mark said that it was a software issue.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

The next one isn't going to fix this one. The one after that, maybe.


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## ggw2000 (Dec 22, 2003)

Mark Lamutt said:


> The next one isn't going to fix this one. The one after that, maybe.


Mark, your right, it is not fixed yet. Came back again last nite after L182 upgrade a couple of days ago. So it is still a problem that needs to be fixed. I have not done a S/C reboot yet as I was also recording programs. Will do one tonight. Oh well... Gerry


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## ggw2000 (Dec 22, 2003)

ggw2000 said:


> Mark, your right, it is not fixed yet. Came back again last nite after L182 upgrade a couple of days ago. So it is still a problem that needs to be fixed. I have not done a S/C reboot yet as I was also recording programs. Will do one tonight. Oh well... Gerry


Line came back again yesterday.. That means 2 days  between problems. It used to be around 4 weeks before it came back. Looks to me that L182 has aggravated the situation and it better be in the process of being fixed. I will not put up with a line down the center of the TV.... gerry


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## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

Ditto..... Same problem started hitting me two weeks ago. I'll try the Smart Card pull solution for now.....

Is this software or hardware caused? Should I wait for a software fix or is an RA the only way to kill this bug? Also, how long is the turnaround if I overnight my 921 back to them. I'll live with the blue line for a while if it means losing my receiver for 2 weeks.....


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## Eagles (Dec 31, 2003)

BobMurdoch said:


> Also, how long is the turnaround if I overnight my 921 back to them. I'll live with the blue line for a while if it means losing my receiver for 2 weeks.....


Bob,
It' just the opposite, there is no turnaround time. If Dish decides to RA the unit they will send one out to you first. The new unit will come with a prepaid UPS shipping label in it. Pack the old unit in the box and find the nearest UPS authorized shipper. I''ve had two 921's RA'd so far. I would recommend using a UPS agent that will give you a receipt showing the unit was dropped off. I do know that Dish is not allowing CSR's to RA 921's anymore. 921's are RA'd at a higher level. Good luck
!pride


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## ggw2000 (Dec 22, 2003)

BobMurdoch said:


> Ditto..... Same problem started hitting me two weeks ago. I'll try the Smart Card pull solution for now.....
> 
> Is this software or hardware caused? Should I wait for a software fix or is an RA the only way to kill this bug? Also, how long is the turnaround if I overnight my 921 back to them. I'll live with the blue line for a while if it means losing my receiver for 2 weeks.....


They say that it is a S/W issue. If so, why didn't they fix it in last nights D/L? I beginning to think that someone is getting jerked around here and it's at the household level  . I have been patiently waiting for this to get fixed before calling them and requesting a new unit. But patience is like a roll of toilet paper- eventually it runs out and your sh*t out of luck..


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## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

Actually, this is a problem in that I now have to watch all of the shows I have recorded up to this point before I can return it, soit will be a month or so until I catch up to all the shows I have recorded (I've got about 120 hrs. to get through...... I haven't watched Alias or NYPD Blue since February. My kid is gonna be miffed when his Star Wars: Clone Wars goes away (he still watches those occassionally.... oh well... I'll have to dump them to VHS (blecch).

As for last night's download it was just a minor fix which fixed last weeks minor update from the Sirius channel adds. According to Chris some of the bigger more complex issues are still being wrestled with.... I agree though.... the thing has been out for 6 months and this thing STILL has major issues. They need to throw more resources at this thing to get it stable. They can't blame it on Microsoft this time like they did the original Dishplayer. They DID finally manage to get the original Dishplayer stable but it took until 6 months AFTER it was discontinued that they did fulfill the promise of THAT receiver (I still have two working fairly well, with only occasional burps due to bad EPG downloads about twice a year)


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## Jason (Aug 8, 2002)

I've had my 921 for a little over a week now and just tonight I noticed the thin blue vertical line going right up the center of the screen. I noticed it on recorded SD material using the component output.

Mark,

What is the official word on this problem? Does Eldon know what is causing this and is it officially a software problem. If so, do you have an ETA on the fix right now?

Do I need to RA the receiver or should I wait for a software update to fix this problem?


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Yes, Eldon knows what is causing this problem. Yes, it is software. No ETA on a fix. You don't need to RA your receiver at this point. Swapping it out most likely won't make any difference. Wait for a software upgrade (although I don't think this will be fixed in the next version).


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## Clarkjwc (Mar 8, 2004)

Mark, 

can you help us understand the process. It seams that this problem has been known for a long time and should be a ease item to test. Why will this repair not be in the next update? Are there not sufficent people to deliver the fix? What is the holdup?

JC


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Sorry JC, I'd tell you more than that if I could, but the answer falls into NDA territory. I can tell you that from everything that I've been told, it is fixable, but there are a lot of issues for which I can't comment on timing.


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