# AM21 Slow response to OTA Fast Forwarding



## DeWolfe (Aug 22, 2007)

We were watching pre-recorded (OTA HD) American Idol last night, while at the same time recording both CSI NY (OTA HD) and Law and Order (OTA HD). When I pressed fast foward the screen would freeze for a couple of seconds, then the progress bar would appear at FF speed 1 and start the FF, pressed FF again slowly moves to 2. When Play is pressed to move back to normal screen it would freeze for a couple of second and then continue.

Is this normal behavior? 

The OTA HD is a lot better than Directv HD locals.

HR21-200 software version 22D
AM21
Washington DC locals


thanks
dave


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## mhayes70 (Mar 21, 2006)

No, that is not normal. It should be the same speed as everything else. My guess is that it was doing a lot of thing and that time and took time to process your request. With 2 programs recording and you watching a record probably bogged it down. I have seen this happen on regular sat recording before. If it keeps happening to you. I would report it in the issues thread for your software version you are on.


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## Mike Bertelson (Jan 24, 2007)

DeWolfe said:


> We were watching pre-recorded (OTA HD) American Idol last night, while at the same time recording both CSI NY (OTA HD) and Law and Order (OTA HD). When I pressed fast foward the screen would freeze for a couple of seconds, then the progress bar would appear at FF speed 1 and start the FF, pressed FF again slowly moves to 2. When Play is pressed to move back to normal screen it would freeze for a couple of second and then continue.
> 
> Is this normal behavior?
> 
> ...


This is not normal.

My AM21 responds to trickplay exactly the same. If I didn't know what channel I was I wouldn't be able to tell by how OTA responds to anything not just trickplay.

Go to an OTA channel, then change to another OTA channel.

Go to Info & Test(hold info button for 3 sec release and press again).

Run the test(press the up arrow to get to that tab and press select).

What are your OTA signal levels?

Mike


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## DeWolfe (Aug 22, 2007)

MicroBeta said:


> This is not normal.
> 
> My AM21 responds to trickplay exactly the same. If I didn't know what channel I was I wouldn't be able to tell by how OTA responds to anything not just trickplay.
> 
> ...


Thanks, I will try that when i get home tonight, but the last time I check, when I hooked it up Tuesday. All the OTA locals were at 100%.

Sat Channels seem to be ok.

dave


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## jwd45244 (Aug 18, 2006)

DeWolfe said:


> We were watching pre-recorded (OTA HD) American Idol last night, while at the same time recording both CSI NY (OTA HD) and Law and Order (OTA HD). When I pressed fast foward the screen would freeze for a couple of seconds, then the progress bar would appear at FF speed 1 and start the FF, pressed FF again slowly moves to 2. When Play is pressed to move back to normal screen it would freeze for a couple of second and then continue.
> 
> Is this normal behavior?
> 
> ...


There have been some issues with Idol. The problems have been coming from Fox itself. It has been flipping back and forth between HD and SD. You may have gotten caught there.

BTW, we you play a recording regardless of the source the AM21 is not involved. 
It is playing from your HR21.


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## DeWolfe (Aug 22, 2007)

jwd45244 said:


> There have been some issues with Idol. The problems have been coming from Fox itself. It has been flipping back and forth between HD and SD. You may have gotten caught there.
> 
> BTW, we you play a recording regardless of the source the AM21 is not involved.
> It is playing from your HR21.


Yes, I guess i was just wondering if with 2 OTA HD recording at probably a higher bit rate than Sat channel, while playing another have 
1. Over tasked the processor
2. Found a bug in the USB driver, that is causing the driver not to give up control to the processor.
3. Just some other bug.

dave
Software geek


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## MatL (Apr 28, 2008)

jwd45244 said:


> There have been some issues with Idol. The problems have been coming from Fox itself. It has been flipping back and forth between HD and SD. You may have gotten caught there.
> 
> BTW, we you play a recording regardless of the source the AM21 is not involved.
> It is playing from your HR21.


I've had this type of behavior from other shows as well. Survivor, Lost and other HD Locals from Satelline - pretty much any time we have a switch from HD to SD at a commercial and we hit the FF right at the 'break' (at least 1x a week) it displays >>1, but is a 'slo-mo' version of FF.

Imagine a frame by frame version almost of FF IF you hit the 'pause' button every 6 frames. The screen rolls a few frames I get a 'look' from the wife and hit 'play' on the remote again to get 'out' of this mode.

Of course the remote doesn't respond for up to a minute and then will attempt all the input that was cached during the 'freeze'. (I decided to test this out the last couple of times we had this occur.) So we can make a guess that that IR remote signal is being sent & received (and cached), it's just that somewhere the processer is really working hard on dealing with the HD to SD (and upconversion) at the exact same time as a FF request.

Wife is asking me to talk to the guys on the chat boards know how to get this fixed. ** Any idea if this HD to SD switching causing FF to freak-out into slo-mo will be fixed in an upcoming release.

Mat


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## Malibu13 (Sep 12, 2004)

DeWolfe said:


> We were watching pre-recorded (OTA HD) American Idol last night, while at the same time recording both CSI NY (OTA HD) and Law and Order (OTA HD). When I pressed fast foward the screen would freeze for a couple of seconds, then the progress bar would appear at FF speed 1 and start the FF, pressed FF again slowly moves to 2. When Play is pressed to move back to normal screen it would freeze for a couple of second and then continue.
> 
> Is this normal behavior?
> 
> ...


I have reported similar issues in all previous CE's and NR's. Being that i was involved in the field testing of the AM21, i have had this issue since day one.



> Quote:
> Press FFx1 and it took 7 seconds for the progress bar to appear. Once it did, the video and audio pauses for a few secs, starts fast forwarding, pauses again, starts fast forwarding, pauses. Press FFx2 and it took 13 secs for FFx2 to appear and when it did, the same issue repeated again. Pressing "play" at any point takes approx 7-15 seconds for it to kick in and video and audio "stutter" is apparent for another 7-15 seconds before stabilizing.
> 
> Programs via OTA record normally and play fine, as long as no trickplay functions are used, which render the recording useless.
> ...


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Donnie Byrd said:


> I have reported similar issues in all previous CE's and NR's. Being that i was involved in the field testing of the AM21, i have had this issue since day one.


I just hooked up my first AM21 on Wednesday, and the performance on my HR21-700 (0x022D) has been substandard. MPEG-2 OTA trick-play is at best "stuck in the mud", responding much slower on OTA recordings than on MPEG-4 recordings, often pausing before REPLAY or 30SKIP or 30SLIP and often being "herky jerky" when it is working.

The AM21 so far, for me, is not offering a comparable OTA experience to an HR20-700.

/steve


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## waynebtx (Dec 24, 2006)

DeWolfe said:


> We were watching pre-recorded (OTA HD) American Idol last night, while at the same time recording both CSI NY (OTA HD) and Law and Order (OTA HD). When I pressed fast foward the screen would freeze for a couple of seconds, then the progress bar would appear at FF speed 1 and start the FF, pressed FF again slowly moves to 2. When Play is pressed to move back to normal screen it would freeze for a couple of second and then continue.
> 
> Is this normal behavior?
> 
> ...


Have the same issue after installing the AM21. Trick play works fine on everthing except recording from OTA(AM21)


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## transfan (Feb 18, 2008)

Yes, I've noticed a very evident slow down using the AM21, especially when changing channels. It takes about the same time it used to take on the hr21 before the updates (when the blue light would rotate). Also 30secskip is paused a lot. Hopefully they'll fix this.


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## clotter (Apr 12, 2008)

I've been reluctant to mention anything before I read the above, but the responsiveness of my HR21-100 has gone to hell since I installed the AM21 on Saturday. I get normal, slow, or no response when scrolling through the program guide. Often I get double skips. Very annoying! 

On a probably unrelated note, my guide is not updating, it's showing "upcoming" or something to that effect for most channels. I tested the phone line and it failed so I need to check into that yet. I do have a phone line hooked up but would I loose my guide descriptions that fast or should I even loose them at all if my phone line failed?

American Idol through the national feed has been nearly unwatchable for me at times. The sound drop-outs are horrible. I can rewind and replay the same spots and the sound is normal or drop-outs are reduced. Very strange, my old HD Tivo would at least repeat the drop-outs... I'm hoping Fox is much better through the AM21.

So far this HR21-100 (and AM21) have been a very mixed bag.


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## kvandmx (Apr 22, 2008)

same problem here with HR21-200. Connected AM-21. All OTA channels recorded do not respond well to trick play. Most of the time it will cause a freeze and will have to start program over again. Very Frustrating. Trick play works fine on Satellite material.


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## TigersFanJJ (Feb 17, 2006)

kvandmx said:


> same problem here with HR21-200. Connected AM-21. All OTA channels recorded do not respond well to trick play. Most of the time it will cause a freeze and will have to start program over again. Very Frustrating. Trick play works fine on Satellite material.


Same here except I haven't had it completely freeze. Trick play is very sluggish on OTA recordings. Satellite recordings are fine.


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## clotter (Apr 12, 2008)

Quick update to my above post. I got my phone line problem taken care of and the guide is back & general operation seems much better. I recorded and watched American Idol using OTA via the AM21 and it was MUCH better than past recordings made using the national feed. I only had a couple of st-st-st-stutters.

I did a quick search but don't know what "trick play" is so I can't comment on it. Maybe I don't want to know.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

clotter said:


> Quick update to my above post. I got my phone line problem taken care of and the guide is back & general operation seems much better. I recorded and watched American Idol using OTA via the AM21 and it was MUCH better than past recordings made using the national feed. I only had a couple of st-st-st-stutters.
> 
> I did a quick search but don't know what "trick play" is so I can't comment on it. Maybe I don't want to know.


"Trickplay" is the catch-all term for FF, RW, REPLAY and SKIP. As the folks in this thread are reporting, these functions are not working as smoothly or as reliably on OTA recordings as they do on SAT recordings. /steve


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## TigersFanJJ (Feb 17, 2006)

TigersFanJJ said:


> Same here except I haven't had it completely freeze. Trick play is very sluggish on OTA recordings. Satellite recordings are fine.


I noticed it seemed to be doing much better last night with Idol and Shark. I checked the system info screen and saw that it downloaded 22D early yesterday morning. Hopefully that is all it needed.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

TigersFanJJ said:


> I noticed it seemed to be doing much better last night with Idol and Shark. I checked the system info screen and saw that it downloaded 22D early yesterday morning. Hopefully that is all it needed.


Actually I was running the 22D CE when I installed my AM21 last Wednesday, and trickplay/channel change performance has been very sluggish and erratic for me, so much so that I am now back to recording everything via SAT when I have a choice.

I guess it's possible 22D is an improvement over the prior release, but even if so, they still have a lot of tweaking to do, IMO. /steve


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## pdxsam (Jun 20, 2004)

Trying not to be Manny MeToo here but ME TOO 

I recorded Shark OTA and tried watching a bit of it this morning. The response to the recording is incredibly slow. Pressing 30skip shows 1 30skip on the progress bar and then it's 3-5 seconds before the skip hits.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

pdxsam said:


> Trying not to be Manny MeToo here but ME TOO
> 
> I recorded Shark OTA and tried watching a bit of it this morning. The response to the recording is incredibly slow. Pressing 30skip shows 1 30skip on the progress bar and then it's 3-5 seconds before the skip hits.


Actually, "Me Too's" (along with the show's information) in this thread probably wouldn't hurt. It might give DirecTV an idea of just how widespread this performance issue is. /steve


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## qwsxz (May 12, 2008)

Steve said:


> Actually, "Me Too's" (along with the show's information) in this thread probably wouldn't hurt. It might give DirecTV an idea of just how widespread this performance issue is. /steve


Fine then. Me TOO, (OTA NBC last Thursday night 5/8 all primetime shows.)


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## spaldingclan (Jan 22, 2008)

Me too, my wife asked me to disconnect the AM21 because she'd rather watch in SD than have the stuttering and slow remote response.


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## stillcreek (Mar 18, 2008)

My hr21-700 with am-21 did the same thing. When I turn"native On" and activate all resolutions in the HDTV menu, it does not exhibit those symptoms any longer.

Jim


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## kenbr (Jun 28, 2007)

Steve said:


> Actually, "Me Too's" (along with the show's information) in this thread probably wouldn't hurt. It might give DirecTV an idea of just how widespread this performance issue is. /steve


Add me to the list. I was watching Reaper recorded OTA and 30skip was almost unusable. Trying to backup using the skip backwords was even worse.


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## spaldingclan (Jan 22, 2008)

the thing is, when i first set up the HR21, I had to hard set it at either 720p or 1080i, because my TV didn't like the native mode...I'll have to check mine and see if something changed.


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## evan_s (Mar 4, 2008)

I didn't have any problems using trick play on HR-21 with the AM21 recorded OTA NCIS last night. I had a couple signal break ups but I'm just using an old indoor antenna and haven't spent much time trying to tweak the positioning so that didn't surprise me.


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## kvandmx (Apr 22, 2008)

stillcreek said:


> My hr21-700 with am-21 did the same thing. When I turn"native On" and activate all resolutions in the HDTV menu, it does not exhibit those symptoms any longer.
> 
> Jim


On my HR21-200 The Native mode is turned on and all of the resolutions are set to on and trick play is still very slow on all programs recorded OTA. Channel or program makes no difference. I do however notice on NBC programs that if the screen turns black to display text only for example, on Law and Order they display a black screen and white text near the bottom. The top half of the screen will display the last image before the black. sometimes it flickers between black and the last image. It does not exibit this behavior Through the tuner on the television but it does through the AM-21. It does not matter if the program is live or playing back a recorded OTA program.


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## Cobra (Aug 9, 2006)

waynebtx said:


> Have the same issue after installing the AM21. Trick play works fine on everthing except recording from OTA(AM21)


Same issue here


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

kvandmx said:


> On my HR21-200 The Native mode is turned on and all of the resolutions are set to on and trick play is still very slow on all programs recorded OTA. Channel or program makes no difference. I do however notice on NBC programs that if the screen turns black to display text only for example, on Law and Order they display a black screen and white text near the bottom. The top half of the screen will display the last image before the black. sometimes it flickers between black and the last image. It does not exibit this behavior Through the tuner on the television but it does through the AM-21. It does not matter if the program is live or playing back a recorded OTA program.


I'm pretty much the same as you. Native On, all resolutions checked except 480i and I still have the poor trick play performance as well.

I also get the same odd video display as you. I see half of the old frame, half of the new frame, with a sort of jagged line separating them in the middle. I especially notice it in that brief interval when the screen turns black before going to commercial. Sorry it's happening to both of us, but glad it's not just me!  /steve


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## spaldingclan (Jan 22, 2008)

Steve said:


> I'm pretty much the same as you. Native On, all resolutions checked except 480i and I still have the poor trick play performance as well.
> 
> I also get the same odd video display as you. I see half of the old frame, half of the new frame, with a sort of jagged line separating them in the middle. I especially notice it in that brief interval when the screen turns black before going to commercial. Sorry it's happening to both of us, but glad it's not just me!  /steve


even though it was only $50, for me it was not worth it just to get two stations in HD (CBS and PBS)


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

spaldingclan said:


> even though it was only $50, for me it was not worth it just to get two stations in HD (CBS and PBS)


Actually I only need it for PBS, which I record fairly often, but I have 5 DVR's, and I like to mirror some of my recordings on OTA as back-up in case of SAT problems, especially when there are heavy rain or snow storms.

Also, OTA trickplay on my HR20-700's is much smoother than on SAT recordings for sporting events, so I record games OTA whenever I can. That's why I'm so disappointed with the AM21 (so far), because I was expecting comparable "silky smooth" trick-play performance to my HR20's OTA. /steve


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## TigersFanJJ (Feb 17, 2006)

Steve said:


> Actually I was running the 22D CE when I installed my AM21 last Wednesday, and trickplay/channel change performance has been very sluggish and erratic for me, so much so that I am now back to recording everything via SAT when I have a choice.
> 
> I guess it's possible 22D is an improvement over the prior release, but even if so, they still have a lot of tweaking to do, IMO. /steve


Yeah, I think I spoke a little too soon. While it is better than it was, it is still hit or miss. Sometimes it works great. Other times, not very good at all.


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## GTLYON (May 5, 2008)

Put me into this sluggish trick play category. "Back to You" delayed for about ten seconds before acknowledging any command.


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## webhype (Dec 28, 2007)

I am having a problem with recordings from OTA Raleigh PBS HD having no audio when using the AM-21. I even changed audio options with the yellow button and in setup without any change. I need to check this live but local PBS only transmits HD 3 hours a day


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## robn77 (Dec 7, 2006)

Another Me Too!

Although the wife said that she could deal with that rather than the Satellite HD local issues we were having prior to the AM21...


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## shemp2000 (Mar 6, 2008)

I installed my AM-21 last night.

First thing I notice is that when I access a OTA channel it takes at least 5 seconds for the picture to come on. The sat channels are much faster.

Then after about 15 minutes the picture froze but the audio did not. The frozen picture had some ugly noise bands near the top.

If I switched channels the audio would change but the picture remained frozen. The menus worked fine, so I tried to play something that I recorded. Again the picture remained frozen but the sound worked fine, even when I did a rewind or ff.

In the end I unpluged the USB cable from the AM-21 and pushed the red button on the HR-21 to clear the problem.

I will keep the AM-21 unplugged until I see on these forums that some of these initial issues have been resolved


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

What's odd about all of this is that I can understand sluggish performance if watching LIVE TV through the AM21. E.g., there could be some USB throughput issues that need to be fine-tuned.

But once the OTA recording's data has been captured to disk, the AM21 itself should be "out of the loop", and smoothness of playback shouldn't be any different than playback of the same data captured and stored on an HR20 by it's internal ATSC tuner, should it?

For those that don't own an HR20, there are no OTA trickplay or smoothness issues at all. Playback is generally superb.

/steve


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## tsanga (Jul 26, 2007)

kvandmx said:


> On my HR21-200 The Native mode is turned on and all of the resolutions are set to on and trick play is still very slow on all programs recorded OTA. Channel or program makes no difference. I do however notice on NBC programs that if the screen turns black to display text only for example, on Law and Order they display a black screen and white text near the bottom. The top half of the screen will display the last image before the black. sometimes it flickers between black and the last image. It does not exibit this behavior Through the tuner on the television but it does through the AM-21. It does not matter if the program is live or playing back a recorded OTA program.


Me too, with the NBC stuff.

The trickplay responsiveness issues are worst with FOX for me. NBC, not too bad, but still there.

But I'm convinced that I see a better picture with OTA bitstreams than MPEG4.


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## spaldingclan (Jan 22, 2008)

yes I only need this box for CBS and PBS, but I am with him, I'd much rather watch my locals via OTA than Sat.


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## kvandmx (Apr 22, 2008)

OTA trick play problems persist. I have determined that the FF works much better than the 30 second skip which I use a lion share of the time. The "Black frame flicker" Still exists and is quite annoying. Hopefully a software update in the near future will correct these issues. One can only hope.

Kevin


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## kvandmx (Apr 22, 2008)

In spite of all the frustration I am so glad to be able to record in HD off OTA. I was tired of watching SD sat networks.


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## robn77 (Dec 7, 2006)

Not sure if this makes a difference...

Last night watching ABC (Greys Anatomy) FF and 30sec skip worked fine.

Supernatural (UPN) had the issues.

Could there be a difference in the stream? I know that our local ABC has not been delivering true 5.1 lately...


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## Malibu13 (Sep 12, 2004)

evan_s said:


> I didn't have any problems using trick play on HR-21 with the AM21 recorded OTA NCIS last night. I had a couple signal break ups but I'm just using an old indoor antenna and haven't spent much time trying to tweak the positioning so that didn't surprise me.


There does not seem to be any definite time or reason it happens. I recorded "Lost" last night on ota 13-1 and trickplay was useless. Tonight i recorded "Ghost Whisperer" on ota 3-1 and trickplay was fine. Usually my box has a problem with "Ghost Whisperer" on 3-1, so go figure. As others have suggested, i'm wondering about a USB issue here.


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## CATCRAW (Mar 27, 2008)

I recorded my first program using from OTA (AM21). It appeared fine at first, but froze when using FF. Only recorded about 16 minutes of an hour program and then the "delete showing" pop up appeared and I could not get past it. Also noticed how slow the Guide is since installing the AM 21.


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## robn77 (Dec 7, 2006)

robn77 said:


> Not sure if this makes a difference...
> 
> Last night watching ABC (Greys Anatomy) FF and 30sec skip worked fine.
> 
> ...


Take that back...

Watched Lost last night that was recorded and trick play was useless.

No rhyme or reason.


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## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

I installed last nights CE and response to just about everything is MUCH better then the prior CE.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

RAD said:


> I installed last nights CE and response to just about everything is MUCH better then the prior CE.


Curious if you're noticing better playback of older AM21 OTA recordings, which previously didn't play back well, or just on new ones, and the old ones still play back poorly?

I'm wondering if the problem was simply a matter of tweaking HR21 OTA playback, or with the original AM21 capture of the OTA data? TIA. /steve


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## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

Sorry, all I have are new OTA recordings on this CE to check.


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## jwd45244 (Aug 18, 2006)

I recorded some OTA to check out the trick play issues that have been reported. I was unable to reproduce the issues. That does not dismiss that issues that people are having. I wonder what is causing the problems. 

So far my HR21+AM21 perform the same or better than my HR20s with OTA recording.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

RAD said:


> Sorry, all I have are new OTA recordings on this CE to check.


I found I still had a couple of older (than the current CE) AM21 OTA recordings on my HR21-700. Trickplay was still poor on them, even played back under 0x022F. Trickplay appears to be much better on AM21 recordings I tested today.

This tells me that prior to this latest CE, the AM21 OTA trick play problems were probably with the actual recorded data, and not playback tuning, which would have been my first guess. Interesting.

/steve


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## darekd (Oct 11, 2006)

RAD said:


> I installed last nights CE and response to just about everything is MUCH better then the prior CE.


I have new CE too but I'm still having slowness problem.


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## CATCRAW (Mar 27, 2008)

I am on CE x022D - is there a more current version that addresses the OTA recording issues?


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

CATCRAW said:


> I am on CE x022D - is there a more current version that addresses the OTA recording issues?


There is some test s/w out there that, among other things, apparently addresses some of the AM21 issues we've reported.

If you're not familiar with the "Cutting Edge" (CE) program, here's how you can participate in the testing. Remember, there is some risk involved, because it is test s/w and there are no stability guarantees. /steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

UPDATE: AM21 performance under the latest CE seems worse today than it was yesterday. Not sure what's happening, but AM21 recordings that appeared to have smooth trick-play yesterday no longer do this morning. In addition, I'm seeing this odd "frame break-up" again when transitioning to and from commercial blocks. /steve


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## spaldingclan (Jan 22, 2008)

I'm calling Directv and getting my money back tomorrow.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

spaldingclan said:


> I'm calling Directv and getting my money back tomorrow.


I too am frustrated, but the good news is that this is apparently a s/w issue, since AM21 OTA recordings can apparently be made to play back and "trick play" properly, under certain circumstances.

My plan for now is to keep the AM21 but to record SAT when I have a choice, and periodically record OTA just to keep track of DirecTV's progress as they iron out the AM21 bugs, which I'm pretty sure they'll be able to. /steve


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## spaldingclan (Jan 22, 2008)

I plan on keeping it because I am sure they'll eventually fix it but there's no way I should have to pay for a function I was promised in the receiver that I never got and then had to pay for later which doesn't work.


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## kvandmx (Apr 22, 2008)

Steve said:


> I too am frustrated, but the good news is that this is apparently a s/w issue, since AM21 OTA recordings can apparently be made to play back and "trick play" properly, under certain circumstances.
> 
> My plan for now is to keep the AM21 but to record SAT when I have a choice, and periodically record OTA just to keep track of DirecTV's progress as they iron out the AM21 bugs, which I'm pretty sure they'll be able to. /steve


It seems to me steve that the trickplay gets worse as the recorded program progresses? The double frame issues however are always there from the beginning. I recorded SNL Last night on NBC, and it was just awful. even affected the audio with drop outs at times. I sure hope they work on a S/W fix for this ASAP!


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

kvandmx said:


> It seems to me steve that the trickplay gets worse as the recorded program progresses?


I've noticed that too, but because the trick play issues are not consistent, I'm not sure if problems are cumulative (based on how much time I've actually been watching OTA playback) or dependent on where in the recording I am?

IOW, is trick play worse if you jump tot he 40 minute mark in a recording and start PLAYBACK from there? Or is it only worse after the recording has actually been playing for 40 minutes? /steve


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## kvandmx (Apr 22, 2008)

Steve said:


> I've noticed that too, but because the trick play issues are not consistent, I'm not sure if problems are cumulative (based on how much time I've actually been watching OTA playback) or dependent on where in the recording I am?
> 
> IOW, is trick play worse if you jump tot he 40 minute mark in a recording and start PLAYBACK from there? Or is it only worse after the recording has actually been playing for 40 minutes? /steve


Whatever happens, Once the trick play goes south it does not matter where in the program you go, It will all be slow! :eek2:


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## ysiamrich (Feb 22, 2008)

I've been having the same issues that have been reported in here. The stuttering picture frames when show transistions from the episode to commercials or back and slow trick play response. I have played with setting the Native on and off and also limiting the resolutions but that hasn't seemed to help. 

The slow response happens more often when I have a show recording and I am watching a different recorded show. But I have had it happen watching 'live' shows delayed and with or without recording a show

Also, during my viewing of Smallville OTA the system reset which is the first time I have had that happen. The show was playing normally and I was recording the NASCAR All-Star on Speed at the same time. We were able to watch the show later with no issues. 

I have a 750 GB Calgary External HD via e-sata and I have the current national 022-D release.

I did occationally have the slow response before adding the AM21 especially on shows recorded from Discovery HD but they have grown more frequent since adding the AM21. 

Overall, the positives of getting my locals on HD outweighs the issues but thought I would just add my experience so far with the AM21


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## evan_s (Mar 4, 2008)

Trick play initially worked well for me with little delay compared to Sat channels but I have to say my luck didn't hold. I'm not sure if it's related to the specific recording or something else going on or what but my recordings of CSI and Numb3rs where so bad I had to give up on trick play entirely and just watch it through like it was live. Couldn't slip forward 30 seconds or even fast forward. Would just pause there and not respond for a long time. I don't know if it would have eventually done something because I always ended up stopping the recording and having to restart over. I did notice that in these situations the Current Time Indicator seemed way off and was displaying something weird like -9 hours.

Not exactly a perfect implementation and I'm curious as to why none of the testers seem to have seen this or reported this. I can't imagine them not using trick play at all so there has to be either something about particular shows or maybe something that changed in the software.


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## DMX512 (Mar 5, 2008)

evan_s said:


> Trick play initially worked well for me with little delay compared to Sat channels but I have to say my luck didn't hold. I'm not sure if it's related to the specific recording or something else going on or what but my recordings of CSI and Numb3rs where so bad I had to give up on trick play entirely and just watch it through like it was live. Couldn't slip forward 30 seconds or even fast forward. Would just pause there and not respond for a long time. I don't know if it would have eventually done something because I always ended up stopping the recording and having to restart over. I did notice that in these situations the Current Time Indicator seemed way off and was displaying something weird like -9 hours.
> 
> Not exactly a perfect implementation and I'm curious as to why none of the testers seem to have seen this or reported this. I can't imagine them not using trick play at all so there has to be either something about particular shows or maybe something that changed in the software.


I had the same problem with CSI and Numb3rs! FF Seemed to work okay however 30 second skip would cause the freeze like you described and I would have to start over.

I have noticed that there is a marginal improvement with trickplay on shows recorded on my NBC affiliate. It is not much of an improvement but it does work a little better. However I get more of the "Frame hold over" going in to commercial or when a mostly black screen is presented on the NBC affiliate recordings. I rarely see this watching a CBS program.

I haven't experienced the "Freeze" effect when watching NBC programs. I do get quite a bit of audio drop out on DD it is usually paired with the "Frame hold over" Phenomena.

I guess the big question is: "How many users with the AM-21 are actually experiencing these issues?" Is it many? Or just a few of us unlucky subscribers?
Is it worth calling D* Tech support or is that just a waste of time?

I think I will just wait and see what happens in the next several NR's It is annoying but at least watchable for the most part. Besides everything is about to go in to repeats and my network watching will be minimal at best.:grin:

Kevin


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

DMX512 said:


> I guess the big question is: "How many users with the AM-21 are actually experiencing these issues?" Is it many? Or just a few of us unlucky subscribers?
> Is it worth calling D* Tech support or is that just a waste of time?


Since 0x022D is the current national release, I can't imagine 100% of the AM21 users are not experiencing these problems as well. /steve


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## evan_s (Mar 4, 2008)

DMX512 said:


> I guess the big question is: "How many users with the AM-21 are actually experiencing these issues?" Is it many? Or just a few of us unlucky subscribers?
> Is it worth calling D* Tech support or is that just a waste of time?


At this point my guess is that it is related to the robustness of the Mpeg2 decoding in the HR21 which is why it seems to be at least some what show specific. If that is the case there is nothing that could really be done about it at technical support. At best you might bring some more attention to the issue but I'm fairly sure DirecTV is already aware of the issues from this thread.

I mean what could they really have you do? Reboot the receiver? Do a reset and erase everything? Make sure all the cables are plugged in correctly? The fact that the recording exists at all is pretty good indication that most everything with the AM21 has to be working right or you wouldn't have gotten the recording.


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## darekd (Oct 11, 2006)

evan_s said:


> At this point my guess is that it is related to the robustness of the Mpeg2 decoding in the HR21 which is why it seems to be at least some what show specific. If that is the case there is nothing that could really be done about it at technical support. At best you might bring some more attention to the issue but I'm fairly sure DirecTV is already aware of the issues from this thread.
> 
> I mean what could they really have you do? Reboot the receiver? Do a reset and erase everything? Make sure all the cables are plugged in correctly? The fact that the recording exists at all is pretty good indication that most everything with the AM21 has to be working right or you wouldn't have gotten the recording.


I can guarantee you that Mpeg2 decoding in HR21 has nothing to do with the problem. HR21 and HR20 have the same hardware (minus OTA tuner in HR21) and HR20 doesn't have any problems with OTA mpeg2 streams.

Two things are possibly happening. Either OTA streams written to HD is somehow corrupted or receiver is busy doing something else. Since this problem is not consistent, I think it can be fixed though software updates.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

darekd said:


> I can guarantee you that Mpeg2 decoding in HR21 has nothing to do with the problem. HR21 and HR20 have the same hardware (minus OTA tuner in HR21) and HR20 doesn't have any problems with OTA mpeg2 streams.
> [...]Since this problem is not consistent, I think it can be fixed though software updates.


In fact, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the HR21 has a slightly faster Broadcom CPU than the HR20, so (at least in theory) it should be able to handle the decoding and trickplay functions more efficiently. I agree that this is probably an issue that is fix-able through s/w tweaking. /steve


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## Just Ask (Mar 4, 2008)

Installed my first AM21 on Sat. Had trouble getting the unit to accept my local zip as the primary local. Had to reset three times before it finally accepted it. OK, it would let me type in my zip. But, when it tried to get the guide info I would get an error message that stated that my zip was not vaild as a primary (or something like that) 

After reading all of the posts about the AM21, I have not as yet been brave enough to record anything OTA. Maybe I will test on a few things that I don't really want to watch to see how it goes. I guess in the end, given all of my troubles with the HR2X series DVRs (Loved my HR10-250 TiVo) I can just chock this up as PAR for the DIRECTV DVR course.


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## kvandmx (Apr 22, 2008)

Yay! trying to playback "Rules of engagement" I recorded on CBS about an hour ago. It has frozen with no response to remote commands 3 times so far. 

The picture freezes as if I had pressed the pause button. Pressing any trick play button has no effect. I can press list and return to the program menu. If I select resume it starts back at the beginning of the program. The last time I restarted it I did not use any trick play and it still froze about 5 min's in. Just for the record it does not freeze at the same program point each time. It is always at a different location.

Thanks.
Kevin


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

kvandmx said:


> Yay! trying to playback "Rules of engagement" I recorded on CBS about an hour ago. It has frozen with no response to remote commands 3 times so far.


There's no guarantee that DirecTV is reading this thread, but they do monitor the s/w issues threads daily, AFAIK, so if you haven't already, please be sure to post your experience in the appropriate "issues" thread for your s/w release.

Issue threads can be found here if you're on a national release (like 0x022d) or here if you're running a CE release. And for those not sure what release they're on, either "press/hold" the remote INFO button or go to "Info & Test" under "System settings".

It's been my observation that the more we complain about issues in the "bug" threads, the sooner they get addressed. I guess it's the "squeaky wheel" theory in action.  TIA. /steve


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## 50+ (May 1, 2008)

DeWolfe said:


> We were watching pre-recorded (OTA HD) American Idol last night, while at the same time recording both CSI NY (OTA HD) and Law and Order (OTA HD). When I pressed fast foward the screen would freeze for a couple of seconds, then the progress bar would appear at FF speed 1 and start the FF, pressed FF again slowly moves to 2. When Play is pressed to move back to normal screen it would freeze for a couple of second and then continue.
> 
> Is this normal behavior?
> 
> ...


I am having the exact same problems. I have read through this thread your problems are mine. When I got my am21 the hr21 was in the NR 22B the trick play worked perfectly. 22D fixed some things but I do think it messed this up. It does seem it is only in the over the air recordings. Sometimes it workes just right then goes back to the slow remote. It could be certain channels but it seems randum. Hope they address these issus in the next NR. I have not had the pixalation problems of others, just the stutter when play is pressed after a FF. It seems it is always OTA, I am not sure.


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## ferule (Feb 12, 2008)

AM21
HDMI Cable
1080i setting; all others disabled
network connected

Have all the same issues as others reported.
Posted in software release threads.


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## Maruuk (Dec 5, 2007)

Yep, prerecorded AM21 shows respond hideously to FF and :30 skip and other remote moves. I just chalk it up to more D* hardware garbage. So what else is new? These clowns couldn't make a toaster without the bread catching on fire.


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## bpratt (Nov 24, 2005)

Maruuk said:


> Yep, prerecorded AM21 shows respond hideously to FF and :30 skip and other remote moves. I just chalk it up to more D* hardware garbage. So what else is new? These clowns couldn't make a toaster without the bread catching on fire.


If they want to make a product that doesn't suck, they should try making a vacuum cleaner.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

bpratt said:


> If they want to make a product that doesn't suck, they should try making a vacuum cleaner.


I happen to be a DirecTV fan, but that was one brilliant line!!rolling /steve


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## kvandmx (Apr 22, 2008)

Well I am just glad that all the programs I watch on Network tv OTA are now in repeats! Maybe D* Will have the problem solved by the time the Season Premieres begin. Bets anyone? The Odds are against you if you are betting on a fix by then! But then again, We can dream can't we?:lol:


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## bpratt (Nov 24, 2005)

Steve said:


> I happen to be a DirecTV fan, but that was one brilliant line!!rolling /steve


Actually I happen to be a DirecTV fan too, but I couldn't resist.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Probably a little too soon to report, but preliminary testing with last night's HR21 CE (0x0230) is promising. I've just spot-checked the first 90 minutes of today's OTA FOX game of the week (Mets @ Rockies), and trick play seems comparable to SAT trick play. I didn't see any distorted transitions to commercials either. Fingers-crossed. /steve


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## Malibu13 (Sep 12, 2004)

Steve said:


> Probably a little too soon to report, but preliminary testing with last night's HR21 CE (0x0230) is promising. I've just spot-checked the first 90 minutes of today's OTA FOX game of the week (Mets @ Rockies), and trick play seems comparable to SAT trick play. I didn't see any distorted transitions to commercials either. Fingers-crossed. /steve


I have only checked one ota recording since friday night's CE and didn't see any improvement at all. Trickplay on ota is still as bad as ever on my 21-100 but there is hope that in time, it will improve.


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## dyker (Feb 27, 2008)

Steve said:


> Since 0x022D is the current national release, I can't imagine 100% of the AM21 users are not experiencing these problems as well. /steve


Yeah, add me to the list and Wife is PO'd. Wondering why I "broke her TV". I think most people are like me... ordered and let it sit in the box a while.


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## tsanga (Jul 26, 2007)

I have a big time issue with OTA channel setup.

See here.

Couple that with the bad trick play performance and I feel like I'm beta testing AM21 for DIRECTV.


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## kvandmx (Apr 22, 2008)

Trick play remains as slow as ever. Sometimes better than others with no real reason. all OTA channels and programs.


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## kvandmx (Apr 22, 2008)

I have given up on trying to use trickplay on any program I record via AM21 OTA. As long as I don't FF through commercials all is well. Progress! Ya got to love it!


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

kvandmx said:


> I have given up on trying to use trickplay on any program I record via AM21 OTA. As long as I don't FF through commercials all is well. Progress! Ya got to love it!


I know. It's very discouraging. Apparently OTA performance on an AM21/HR21 combo is just not comparable to owning an HR20-700... at least at this time.

In retrospect, I wonder if the AM21 needed to be developed at all? It's possible there are more HR20-700's out there not being used for OTA than there are HR21's looking for AM21 add-ons, so maybe DirecTV could somehow have just arranged a way to swap units, perhaps via some free programming incentives? /steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Thought I'd give this thread a bump, because it seems like this issue may be resolved? I've been quite busy lately and I've had limited time to test, so I have been recording most of my shows MPEG-4 in the meantime.

Last OTA recording I made over the week-end (under 0x0233) still suffered from the "jagged" transitions from show to commercials. Are others still seeing this?

And what about sluggish or erratic trick play? Still an issue?

/steve


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## jhc13 (Dec 11, 2007)

I had the "jagged" transitions when I first hooked it up (early May), but cleared up at some point. Right now, I can't really tell the difference between trickplay or channel changes between SAT and OTA channels, but the overall performance (menu, one-line guide, channel changes) of the box is noticably slower than my HR21 without the AM21 (both on 0x241). I hadn't really noticed that there was a difference between the two because we rarely use the one in the other room.


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## kvandmx (Apr 22, 2008)

Steve said:


> Thought I'd give this thread a bump, because it seems like this issue may be resolved? I've been quite busy lately and I've had limited time to test, so I have been recording most of my shows MPEG-4 in the meantime.
> 
> Last OTA recording I made over the week-end (under 0x0233) still suffered from the "jagged" transitions from show to commercials. Are others still seeing this?
> 
> ...


Jagged transitions remain. Trickplay is better but not like sat by no means. Trickplay seems to be better on channels that experience the jagged transitions. On channels that do not exibit the jagged transitions the trick play is painfully slow. NBC affilliate trickplay works very well but exibits jagged transitions. Fox affiliated does not suffer from jagged transitions but has painfully slow trickplay.

Kevin


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

kvandmx said:


> Jagged transitions remain. Trickplay is better but not like sat by no means. Trickplay seems to be better on channels that experience the jagged transitions. On channels that do not exibit the jagged transitions the trick play is painfully slow. NBC affilliate trickplay works very well but exibits jagged transitions. Fox affiliated does not suffer from jagged transitions but has painfully slow trickplay.
> 
> Kevin


Thanks for the update, Kevin. Which s/w release are you on at the moment?

By the way, I am getting the jagged transitions on FOX, and my "affiliate", WNYW in NY, is really the source of the FOX East Coast HD feed to DirecTV, broadcast from the Empire State Building. /steve


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## kvandmx (Apr 22, 2008)

Steve said:


> Thanks for the update, Kevin. Which s/w release are you on at the moment?
> 
> By the way, I am getting the jagged transitions on FOX, and my "affiliate", WNYW in NY, is really the source of the FOX East Coast HD feed to DirecTV, broadcast from the Empire State Building. /steve


I am currently running version 0x0230 HR21-200. Also if the recording is really long...Over 2 hours, The trickplay is worse. IE: Nascar race on fox 4+ Hours exibited very slow trickplay. shows of 1 hour or less seem to be better.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

kvandmx said:


> I am currently running version 0x0230 HR21-200. Also if the recording is really long...Over 2 hours, The trickplay is worse. IE: Nascar race on fox 4+ Hours exibited very slow trickplay. shows of 1 hour or less seem to be better.


I noticed that as well with the FOX game of the week on Saturday. About 2 hours into the game, trick-play performance seemed to degrade. Possible memory leak? /steve


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## RandCfilm (Aug 17, 2006)

<bump>
HR-21 SW version 0x0255

Trick play slows to slower than a snails pace within 5-7 minutes of a 30 min show recorded during prime time Sunday. Friday I recorded two 30 minute shows during the day and trick play was slick and smooth thru both recordings. Will see how todays recording's in the afternoon work out. I got the AM21's for the OTA channels not delivered via satellite and not to miss anything during rain storms since the satellite tends to go out easily. Which is worse, having to suffer thru the commercials or missing part of a show?


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## kaysersoze (Feb 28, 2006)

I have the same trickplay issues, but the severity seems to be directly proportional to the signal strength of the channel. A couple of my OTA channels get signal somewhere in the 90's that are just fine with trickplay, but the ones in the 70's are a complete pain. The lower signal channels have a fine picture when watched live. 

My wife is threatening to take a hammer to the tv if I do not put the HR20 back, so hopefully it will be fixed soon. 

FYI --- Directv's engineers know about the issue, but the info has not been passed on to the csr's, so calling them will help about as much as punding your head against the wall.


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## RandCfilm (Aug 17, 2006)

kaysersoze said:


> I have the same trickplay issues, but the severity seems to be directly proportional to the signal strength of the channel. A couple of my OTA channels get signal somewhere in the 90's that are just fine with trickplay, but the ones in the 70's are a complete pain. The lower signal channels have a fine picture when watched live.


I guess I better go turn my antenna slightly away from the stations since all strengths are 100% except for one. 



> FYI --- Directv's engineers know about the issue, but the info has not been passed on to the csr's, so calling them will help about as much as punding your head against the wall.


I will be calling technical tomorrow.

I had this problem once, rebooted and thought that was the problem. Recorded two shows and everything was fine. Then Sunday night it happened again. One thing I will try to track back is I remember using the play key on the folder so all shows play automatically. I just can't remember if it was on the OTA or SAT feed. Oh well, I will start to keep notes on what I have done and try to find a link.


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## darekd (Oct 11, 2006)

atigod said:


> I also have the am21 connected to the hr21-700 and replaced the usb cable that came with the am21 with this http://www.cyberguys.com/templates/SearchDetail.asp?productID=10027&ta=prod_info because of poor playback quality, and when viewing recorded OTA shows the playback improved, most trickplay issues went away, must be cause its a shorter higher quality cable, and its cheap to!! I guess mpeg2 OTA is demanding from usb for the hr21, and poorly written linux code don't help ether.


I very much doubt that a cable is a culprit. First of all the problem is not consistent. Some channels (OTA) are affected more than others. If you haven't noticed, trickplay works well while a program is still being recorded. Even with one minute left to record you can play a show from the very beginning and everything works fine. Once the recording is done, trickplay sucks. It seems that Directv is more determined to bring new useless features than fix basic problems since it has not been fixed for months now.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

I've actually given up on using my AM21 due to the performance issues listed above. I'm very disappointed that DirecTV considers this product ready for mass-distribution. The only OTA I now record is my local PBS station, which is otherwise unavailable in HD.

I've stopped complaining about it because I have bigger issues with the HR21 that I'm hopeful will be addressed. Just my .02. /steve


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## Maruuk (Dec 5, 2007)

Yeah, there seems to be some correlation to trickplay meltdown with the length of the AM21 recording. On a long sports show like golf trickplay including especially the :30 skip, for instance, devolves down to being basically useless it's so slow and buggy. Skip to markers mostly doesn't work, either. And of course, they don't even give us a dedicated slo-mo.

Even my 1980 Sanyo VHS machine had a dedicated slo-mo button.

It's criminal that D* has allowed this to go on without a recall or restitution. If these POS were automobiles, there's be lawsuits and D* would be falling all over themselves to fix the issues. As it is, D* is allowed to sell crap that doesn't work, and they don't need to replace the devices because everybody knows they ALL suck and it won't make any difference to get a new one.

Now with the Olympics on mostly OTA NBC (for me since I have no HD LILs) the inability to use trick play ruins the experience. D* is totally faking it as a company. The Enron of digital television.


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## dbilski (Nov 2, 2006)

spaldingclan said:


> Me too, my wife asked me to disconnect the AM21 because she'd rather watch in SD than have the stuttering and slow remote response.


A hearty "me too" here - right down to the wife expressing frustration with "your cool new gadget!"


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## Sandy (Apr 23, 2002)

Another Me too. Same problems as everyone else. We don't get locals SD or HD from Directv, so the AM21 would be a great solution, if it worked the way it should. The way it works now just makes me mad and frustrated. I went from being a happy 10 year customer to being an unhappy and angry customer.


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## Crunchy (Jul 22, 2008)

I have a number of local channels I required that are not offered via D*, so I bought the AM21 for one system. I have now had five or six lock-up's in three weeks of "lease" , where the receiver would not respond anymore to any commands until it was sent through a reset cycle. 

Various functions are buggy. At times, channel up-down does a double entry for on button press, skipping two channels for one button press. I don't know if the issues are software or hadware issues. It's an HR21-200. I've just swapped the other HR21-100 with the 200 to see if the issue relates to the receiver or the AM21. So the AM21 is attached to the HR21-100 now. It will be another few days to see if the AM21 is causing the issues or the receiver itself. I've encountered a lot unexpected behavior from the -200 with the AM21 attached.
I have only a day or two use without the AM21 connected, so it's difficult to say what caused what. I think the installer did a decent job getting sited on the bird, so I don't think it's a pointing issue. 

I don't know if I should call CRS and set up a service call or wait for complete failure. I'm not even at the 30 day point, and while the gear has impressive features, it seems to have lots of bugs. When the remote failed and I was put on telephone hold with negligent service. At five days old and the remote lost many buttons, CSR asked if I got the remote wet. What is the chance the TV, remote and the toilet are in the same room? I was ready for D* to come collect all this crap two weeks ago. 

When it's working, it works nice. When it's not working, we wait for another reset cycle. These lock-up happen when we change channel or when we come back to use the receiver after a few hours. 

I hope they fix the AM21 issues if that is what is causing this, because the picture is sharper on OTA than on the satelite version. The other system without an AM21 functions better. The channel change takes ten times longer than it should on both systems.

edit/additional info. When I swapped the two receivers, I found the installer left all the coaxial connectors loose. By hand, they would all take another 1/8 to 1/4th turn. They should have been tightened with a wrench to a low torque setting.


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## anubys (Jan 19, 2006)

I also have the same problem...only on the HR-21 connected to an AM21...and only when watching OTA recordings...

ever since I connected it to the AM21, I've also have had the HR21 freeze on me (picture simply freezes...the todo list is almost empty as if the guide data needs to re-populate)...something that never happened before and started happening immediately after the AM21 was hooked up...


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## Paul E Fox II (Jul 6, 2008)

Same boat here...

Trick play is usable but not pretty. Bad transitions to commercials, slowness to get to the :30 skip...everything everyone else is experiencing.

Still, I'm glad to have it now that the shows are back...NO MORE STAYING UP LATE TO WATCH LOST!!! Even if it's painful to use, it's better than having to watch something in SD!


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## anubys (Jan 19, 2006)

I don't mind the slow response...it's the freezing of the HR21 that is a problem...if I can't depend on the thing recording my shows, it defeats the purpose of a DVR...

I'm unplugging the AM21 until this problem is fixed...I'll record OTA on the HR20 (connected to same TV)...

sigh...getting behind my equipment and re-configuring things is a huge PITA...thanks to this forum, at least I now know the problem isn't with the HR21...


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Now that folks realize the AM21 is the culprit, perhaps we can get DirecTV to make the necessary tweaks by alerting them to the problems in the respective "Issues" thread for whatever software release you're running.

I've already reported my issues in the thread for the current CE. /steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

I posted this over in the issues thread today:

20080920-2F77

As a test, I manually recorded 4 hours of the Ryder Cup this morning on WNBC-DT OTA, my local channel 4-1. After FF'ing to about the 1 HR mark, remote response was extremely sluggish, taking up to 2 seconds to finally respond to PLAY, REPLAY or FF commands. When REPLAY or FF eventually engaged, there was stuttering for a second or two before it appeared to settle down. Even then, FFx1 or FFx2 playback was similar to MPEG-4 FF playback, meaning it wasn't as smooth as MPEG-2 HD on an HR20-700, similarly playing back MPEG-2 OTA.

At about the 3 hour mark, if left in FFx1, the video would pause at will every 2 seconds or so for about 2 seconds. I watched this behavior for about 2 minutes before I finally hit PLAY and put the HR out of it's misery. 

Checked bit-error rate on WNBC-DT before I started the recording and it was 98 on both tuners.

/steve


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## jessshaun (Sep 14, 2005)

I have this problem ALOT recording WTHI-DT 10.1. Trickplay does not function correctly at all.

I don't know what was changed though, BUT **knock on wood** ever since the CE released September 12, I've not had those problems. The AM21 has been working solidly ever since. So far no problems after this latest CE either.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

jessshaun said:


> I don't know what was changed though, BUT **knock on wood** ever since the CE released September 12, I've not had those problems. The AM21 has been working solidly ever since. So far no problems after this latest CE either.


I tested this morning on last night's CE, but also had problems with the 9/12 CE. Mind if I ask how long your recordings were? TIA (and "wood knocked" ). /steve


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## jwd45244 (Aug 18, 2006)

I don't know this for a fact but I suspect that your issues with OTA recordings are problems associated with the signal that actually got to the AM21 vs. the AM21 itself. I have no problems with OTA recordings. I have really worked hard to peak my antenna and use an amplifier and have not a a problem with any OTA recordings.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

jwd45244 said:


> I don't know this for a fact but I suspect that your issues with OTA recordings are problems associated with the signal that actually got to the AM21 vs. the AM21 itself. I have no problems with OTA recordings. I have really worked hard to peak my antenna and use an amplifier and have not a a problem with any OTA recordings.


You may be right, but it doesn't make sense to me that I can capture a digital data stream to disk with an extremely low (98%) bit error rate and play it back normally, but just have problems with trick-play 30 minutes to an hour into a longer recording. If there is some corruption in the data I'm acquring, why are there no issues with normal playback and why only trickplay issues after 45 minutes or so?

This appears more to me more like a memory management issue inside the HR21, where the unit may be running out of memory after 30-45 minutes due to the volume of MPEG-2 data being buffered and the slow response to trickplay is a result of having to swap memory out to disk. At about 8-9 gigs per hour, these MPEG-2 OTA files are the largest and least-compressed broadcasts the HR21 is being asked to process, AFAIK.

/steve


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## JAYPB (May 8, 2002)

....but figured I'd chime in anyway.

I added an AM-21 to my HR21 back in July after I did an HR10-250 replacement. I recorded the HOF game via WNBC-DT in NYC...and didn't get a chance to sit down and watch the game until this past weekend. First time I'd tried to watch recorded OTA content off the AM-21 and was perplexed as to WTF was going on with the FFWd/skips/pauses/slo mo after 1 FFW'D button push.....but, as usual, if I'm suffering there are usually others who are suffering as well...and they all come here.....:grin: 

Had the same issue with my recording off of WCBS-DT in NYC on Saturday of the UT-UF game....

Not sure what version SW I'm running....but suffice to say it sure is an annoyance....so much so that I haven't hooked up the other two AM-21's I got D* to send me on the arm......


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

I'm completely at a loss why some are reporting no issues. One possible explanation is that their recordings are all one hour or less and since the trickplay issues don't appear to surface for a while after playback begins, the recordings aren't long enough for folks to notice any issues.

/steve


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## anubys (Jan 19, 2006)

Steve said:


> I'm completely at a loss why some are reporting no issues. One possible explanation is that their recordings are all one hour or less and since the trickplay issues don't appear to surface for a while after playback begins, the recordings aren't long enough for folks to notice any issues.
> 
> /steve


it's possible...I don't get the problem every time...in fact, I say it only happens on 20% of the shows (or less)...

btw: I think I figured out a way around the freezing problem (ever since I plugged the AM21, my HR21 will freeze after a day or so or no use and require a reboot)...I leave the HR21 on pause in the middle of playback (I usually would exit out to live TV before turning things off)...so far, I've been able to come back a couple of days later and find all the recordings done (no freezing) and the todo list populated (guide data was not lost due to freezing)...so if anyone is having the same problem as I have, this may be a workaround until DirecTV fixes the problem with the AM21...


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## pjdavep (Aug 26, 2008)

jwd45244 said:


> I don't know this for a fact but I suspect that your issues with OTA recordings are problems associated with the signal that actually got to the AM21 vs. the AM21 itself. I have no problems with OTA recordings. I have really worked hard to peak my antenna and use an amplifier and have not a a problem with any OTA recordings.


This is not the case. I have the same issue with the AM-21, on channels that I am getting 95-100 signal strength. These same OTA channels had absolutely no problems when I was using the HR10-250.

I posted about one of my problems a while back - see post #1761920 - I can't post URLs.

From what I have noticed, it is longer OTA recordings that have the problem (as Steve has already stated). Every OTA recording of mine that has gone well over an hour has exhibited a problem. It should be very easy for the DTV bug-fix team to reproduce the issues. There's some kind of memory leak that just gets worse and worse.

jwd45244, can you try recording a 1-2 hour long show off your OTA and padding it 2-3 hours? Once you get past the two hour mark, you do not have trick play issues?

Later,
pjdavep


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## darekd (Oct 11, 2006)

I've been posting about this problem in CE forum for months. Since nothing has been done, I stopped doing it.

What's more interesting is the fact that as long as a show is recorded, trick play works fine. I tested that during the Olympics (6hr recordings). With minutes left to record, trickplay would work normally for the length of the recorded show. As soon as show stop being record, the performance of trickplay suffers.


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## stewdog1 (Sep 6, 2007)

I know I'm late to the party, but I am having the same issues with OTA. None at all with SAT. recordings.

If this is an issue with recordings over an hour, that sucks as I normally timeshift my recordings by one or two minutes as my locals are about a minute or two off from the DVR time.

So I record an hour show for 62 minutes in order to get the beginning and end.


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

Steve said:


> I'm completely at a loss why some are reporting no issues. One possible explanation is that their recordings are all one hour or less and since the trickplay issues don't appear to surface for a while after playback begins, the recordings aren't long enough for folks to notice any issues.
> 
> /steve


I checked things out with two football games recorded over the weekend and it was 100% reproducible on both games:

30 sec skip took 2 to 3 sec to be recognized from the remote, then engaged, stacking skips was very erratic, hitting the play button did interrupt the skip as required (and fairly quickly). I use skip to go between plays. One push immediately at the end of the play usually takes me to the snap of the next play....on games that I'm not all the interested in, it makes for a very fast game view.

This is very pleasant on my HR20-700 and HR20-100, but is plagued by the slow response and some stuttering on the HR21-200/AM21 on OTA recordings only. The SAT recordings on the same machine are perfectly normal when using skip.

Signal level has absolutely nothing to do with it.


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## jwd45244 (Aug 18, 2006)

pjdavep said:


> This is not the case. I have the same issue with the AM-21, on channels that I am getting 95-100 signal strength. These same OTA channels had absolutely no problems when I was using the HR10-250.
> 
> I posted about one of my problems a while back - see post #1761920 - I can't post URLs.
> 
> ...


My good results do not diminish the poor results others are having. Again, I am not sure what I did that made it work so well for me. I know that I just have no problems.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

jwd45244 said:


> My good results do not diminish the poor results others are having. Again, I am not sure what I did that made it work so well for me. I know that I just have no problems.


Forgive me for asking what may seem like an impertinent question, because I don't mean it to sound that way!  Have you ever recorded a two-hour movie or sporting event and then tried trickplay after an hour or more of playback? /steve


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## rstone003 (Jul 11, 2008)

This is definitely an issue that needs to be resolved. I'm at the point of not recording via the OTA channel when D* has a corresponding channel that I receive because it is painful fast forwarding through commericials, etc. via the OTA recording. Of course, the picture quality suffers when recording D*'s channel vs. the OTA and many OTA channels do not have a D* equivalent. I have 2 HR21-200's and 2 AM21's with 100% signal strength on my local NBC, FOX, ABC, and CBS stations and both units exhibit the same SLOW performance. I had no issues with the HR10-250s that I replaced. My wife is ready to throw these new units out (or throw me out if this issue does not get resolved).


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## jwd45244 (Aug 18, 2006)

Steve said:


> Forgive me for asking what may seem like an impertinent question, because I don't mean it to sound that way!  Have you ever recorded a two-hour movie or sporting event and then tried trickplay after an hour or more of playback? /steve


I recorded the Steelers game over OTA and it was not a problem with the recording ( the game: that was another matter).


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Sorry about the game outcome. (Now that the Yanks are officially eliminated, I need to dust off my "Giants" avatar. )

I wish I knew what was different about your HR21-200/AM-21 combo and my HR21-700/AM-21 combo. I see others with -200's are having issues as well, so I don't think that's it. And it's not reasonable to me to assume it's the antenna (even though I too use a pre-amp'd Winegard). My bit error rates are 97-100, and I have no issues with the same OTA feeds to my HR20-700. Seems to me like it's a memory overflow problem on playback, but that's just a guess. I have no way to know this for a fact.

If that is true, however, perhaps your OTA feed in Ohio is somehow different than mine in NY, i.e., more "compressed", so less data to deal with? I know... I'm really reaching now. 

/steve


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## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

Steve said:


> Sorry about the game outcome. (Now that the Yanks are officially eliminated, I need to dust off my "Giants" avatar. )
> 
> I wish I knew what was different about your HR21-200/AM-21 combo and my HR21-700/AM-21 combo. I see others with -200's are having issues as well, so I don't think that's it. And it's not reasonable to me to assume it's the antenna (even though I too use a pre-amp'd Winegard). My bit error rates are 97-100, and I have no issues with the same OTA feeds to my HR20-700. Seems to me like it's a memory overflow problem on playback, but that's just a guess. I have no way to know this for a fact.
> 
> ...


I'd also like to know since I had a HR21-200 with this AM21 which was replaced by a HR21-100 and both HR's had the issue on two different TV's, cable connections, etc. My guess is something driving the processor utilization. When I generate a problem report for D* when I see this I can cause the progress bar on the report screen crawl to a halt or even stop by pressing the 30sec skip while it's generating the report.


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## Cmnore (Sep 22, 2008)

SO, could we generalize that this 'seems' to be problematic when the AM-21 is mated with the HR21-200, but NOT when it is matched up with an HR21-700? Why would this be? Maybe the two units use different MPEG2 decoders? The AM-21 IS an MPEG 2 tuner - is it not?


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## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

If it was something with the MPEG2 decode in the HR21-X00's then you would expect people to say that channels 70-99 also were showing slow trick play performance since they're MPEG2 also.


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## jwd45244 (Aug 18, 2006)

Again, I don't have a clue.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

RAD said:


> If it was something with the MPEG2 decode in the HR21-X00's then you would expect people to say that channels 70-99 also were showing slow trick play performance since they're MPEG2 also.


They are, but remember they're HD 'lite". Not the same bandwidth as the broadcast OTA, which presumably are compressed as little as possible, at least here in NY. They're the source of the East Coast feeds to most cable and sat providers.

That's why I wonder if jwd's Ohio OTA might be somehow more compressed? Even still, why don't I have the same issue on HR20-700 OTA? Different Broadcom decoder architecture, able to handle more data? The AM21's are "out of the picture" once the file is written to disk, which is why I suspect something in the HR21 memory pipeline architecture may need some tuning. /steve


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## Cmnore (Sep 22, 2008)

Steve said:


> That's why I wonder if jwd's Ohio OTA might be somehow more compressed? Even still, why don't I have the same issue on HR20-700 OTA? Different Broadcom decoder architecture, able to handle more data? The AM21's are "out of the picture" once the file is written to disk, which is why I suspect something in the HR21 memory pipeline architecture may need some tuning. /steve


I agree. Maybe the decoder chipset in the HR21-700's is identical to those in the HR20, and they were changed in the HR21-200? The HR21-200 may have a problem with some timecode metadata recorded from the MPEG2 TS via the AM-21 that doesn't occur with the first-gen version of the HR21?


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## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

Steve said:


> They are, but remember they're HD 'lite". Not the same bandwidth as the broadcast OTA, which presumably are compressed as little as possible, at least here in NY. They're the source of the East Coast feeds to most cable and sat providers.
> 
> That's why I wonder if jwd's Ohio OTA might be somehow more compressed? Even still, why don't I have the same issue on HR20-700 OTA? Different Broadcom decoder architecture, able to handle more data? The AM21's are "out of the picture" once the file is written to disk, which is why I suspect something in the HR21 memory pipeline architecture may need some tuning. /steve


Don't know if bandwidth plays much into it since I see it on all ATSC stations here, including a 720p and two 1080i's with no subchannels and three 1080i's with subchannels. I agree that the AM21 itself is probably out of the picture since the data has already been passed to the HR21 at this point. What I'm wondering is how is the trick play functions being done, is there an index file to point to every place in the program file and the search is being done different for ATSC vs DBS recordings which might be why the farther you get into the program the slower trick play works?


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Cmnore said:


> I agree. Maybe the decoder chipset in the HR21-700's is identical to those in the HR20, and they were changed in the HR21-200? The HR21-200 may have a problem with some timecode metadata recorded from the MPEG2 TS via the AM-21 that doesn't occur with the first-gen version of the HR21?


Actually I'm having my issues on an HR21-700. The decoder chipset is definitely different, tho. In the HR20's, there is a 2-chip Broadcom solution that has been replaced by a "next-gen" single Broadcom chip in the HR21 series. /steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

RAD said:


> What I'm wondering is how is the trick play functions being done, is there an index file to point to every place in the program file and the search is being done different for ATSC vs DBS recordings which might be why the farther you get into the program the slower trick play works?


Could be, but that wouldn't explain why some of us are having issues and others aren't using the same h/w and s/w. That's why I was looking at the source data bandwidth... grasping at straws, I know.  /steve


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## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

Cmnore said:


> I agree. Maybe the decoder chipset in the HR21-700's is identical to those in the HR20, and they were changed in the HR21-200? The HR21-200 may have a problem with some timecode metadata recorded from the MPEG2 TS via the AM-21 that doesn't occur with the first-gen version of the HR21?


Don't forget the -100 also has this problem.

Check the 1st looks for the -700 and -200

http://hr20.dbstalk.com/docs/hr21_firstlook.pdf
http://hr20.dbstalk.com/hr21_200_first_look.pdf

I don't see on the -200 what the CPU chip is, looks like heat sinks on what they could be


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## Cmnore (Sep 22, 2008)

Makes sense though. I would assume that the TS would be different for almost every transmission though, that is unless - the OTA signals were all transmitted from a single repeater tower. This might explain the symptoms being across the board when it comes to which channels are affected.


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## pjdavep (Aug 26, 2008)

Cmnore said:


> SO, could we generalize that this 'seems' to be problematic when the AM-21 is mated with the HR21-200, but NOT when it is matched up with an HR21-700? Why would this be? Maybe the two units use different MPEG2 decoders? The AM-21 IS an MPEG 2 tuner - is it not?


I have problems with my HR21-700 / AM-21 combo, just like Steve does. This weekend I'll try to do another test recording of Saturday Night Live since that's a 1.5 hour long show, or Sunday Night Football, since it's three hours long.

Actually, I'll be recording Survivor tonight and that's two hours, so we'll see how that fares...

Later,
pjdavep


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## 50+ (May 1, 2008)

I am having the same problems as everyone else. I have 2 HR21-700 and 1 HR22-100 all with AM21. They all behave similar to the posts here. In the first 15 minutes of playback no problems later in the show the same trick play problems. My siglals on 2 of the OTA channels are 100% The other 2 are in the 70% range. Playback seems to be the same an all channels. It seems to be with the AM21 but I agree it is all in playback. So the AM21 picks up the OTA signal sends it to the HR2x then some how misinterprets the signal, but not right at first it takes it a little while to start messing up the trick play. What a deal, will take some one smarter than me to figure that out. I am sure d* knows of this hoping for a solution soon.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Since there seem to be many of us with AM21 issues, please be vocal about reporting problems in the appropriate "issues" threads for whatever software release you're running.

From what I understand, there is no guarantee that DirecTV is monitoring any DBSTalk threads except the "issues" threads, which they apparently look at daily. If only one or two of us weigh in on those threads with AM21 problems, they may not realize the issue is as widespread as it is, and fixing it may not get a high priority within engineering.

The national release issues threads may be found here: http://dbstalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=112. Those running CE's already know where to find those issues threads. 

TIA. /steve


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## mhaines1 (Feb 6, 2008)

I have an HR21-700 and an AM-21. I have the same issues when recording OTA. I have noticed that the higher quality the channel (ie bigger file sizes) the worse the trickplay is. For instance NBC4 here in DC does not have that great of HD picture OTA. They have 2 subchannels which affect their main channel. 80% of the time when I record something on NBC4 OTA it is fine. It is a little slower than if I record something from D* but not a lot. Then if I record something from FOX5 in DC which has no subs and an extremely amazing HD picture we can't even fast forward through commercials at all. Maybe once in an hour program you can get past a couple of commercials. It is extremely annoying and I hope that D* fixes it soon (or gets a better feed from our locals).


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## thestaton (Aug 14, 2008)

Same issue as everyone else. HR-21 100 & 200 both w/ AM-21... It's pretty frustrating.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Just posted this over in the issues thread for the latest CE, which I downloaded last night. I'm very encouraged by my early testing, and I want to thank all of you that made DirecTV aware of your AM21 issues last week. Clearly the "squeaky wheel gets the grease" theory still has some life to it! :lol:

For those running CE software, please continue to post any bad AM21 results in the appropriate CE threads. I've passed this by the mods, and as long as we confine our discussion to AM21 performance only, I believe it's OK to discuss any new encouraging test results here for the edification of those with AM21 issues who are running the NR software. TIA for walking this tightrope with me. 

_*ISSUE: HR21/AM21 performance on long recordings*

I recorded 3 hours of Fox baseball today. Unlike last week's AM21 testing, the first 2.75 hours of playback were flawless. Absolutely no trickplay complaints at all.

Within the last 15 minutes, I started to experience some pokey remote response, along with hesitations and stuttering before trickplay fully engaged. Not perfect, but still better than before, because once trickplay "kicked-in", it was fine. I also began to once again notice those black pixelated bars within the transitions to and from commercials, but only in the last 5 minutes or so.

Looks like whatever tweaks the engineers made, they are on the right track. Assuming what I saw today holds throughout the week, I would just ask that DirecTV take a look at longer recordings (3-4 hours) next week to be sure that the issue has been fully resolved, as opposed to "postponed".  TIA._

/steve


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## norneslo (Jul 19, 2008)

Thank you Steve for your effort. 

I just got the AM21 last week so I could get my local PBS stations in HD. The tuner on the AM21 is excellent, I made no changes to my antenna setup (roof mounted 4228) and I get excellent reception on all my locals. (not true for the older tuners in my old HD Tivo). I see the issues with playback same as everyone else, even on 30 minute recordings. It's just slow and painful. Hopefully the updates forthcoming will help. In the meantime, I'm only recording very select shows from OTA.

RonO


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Recorded four hour of the Jets-Cardinals trackmeet today on my local FOX 5-1. Trickplay performance was 1000% better, even during the last half-hour. There was still some less than perfect remote response towards the end of the recording. It took a second for my FF, ADVANCE or REPLAY command to register, but once it did, subsequent commands registered normally. Upon PLAY after FF, about 2 seconds after PLAY resumed, there would be a brief stutter (no audio/video for a split second), but then all was fine.

All throughout the recording there were still black blotches on fadeouts and fade-ins to commercials.

The one really odd thing is that in the last hour, if I hit PLAY to bring up the PROGRESS BAR to see where I was, it would cause a brief audio/video dropout. That's definitely an issue.

While not yet completetly fixed, this latest CE has at least made my AM21 usable for the first time in several months. I'm reporting my findings in the CE's "issues" thread with the hopes that DirecTV will continue to tweak next week.

/steve


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## jwd45244 (Aug 18, 2006)

Steve:

I forgot to say that I have my HR21 / AM21 running on the latest CE. Maybe be that is why I have no issues.


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## pikespeakhiker (Jul 27, 2008)

We have been suffering from the same problem. Interestingly, I tried a suggesting from earlier in the thread - namely swapping out the USB cable. It didn't fix everything, but like the op said, it did improve things 70-80% of the time. I am running the NR.


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## stewdog1 (Sep 6, 2007)

I've had recorded Sarah Connor Chronicles on Fox and Biggest Loser on NBC the past two days.

I'm happy to say that I did not have any issues with fast forwarding and playback until the last 10 minutes or so of each show. It was very snappy up until then which is a huge improvement from before.


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## pikespeakhiker (Jul 27, 2008)

stewdog - did you change anything to achieve your improvement?

Unfortunately for us, it is very hit and miss, just like Steve reported earlier.


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## Paul E Fox II (Jul 6, 2008)

My AM21 is HORRIBLE on anything recorded on Fox (my affiliate). Recordings made from NBC don't seem to be nearly as problematic. Could it have something to do with 720p Native versus 1080i Native Material?


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## stewdog1 (Sep 6, 2007)

pikespeakhiker said:


> stewdog - did you change anything to achieve your improvement?
> 
> Unfortunately for us, it is very hit and miss, just like Steve reported earlier.


Nope, I have not changed a thing.

Even a recording from last week on ABC was much better.

However, I will say that it is still not as snappy as a recording from the satellite, meaning there is a short delay still when pressing fwd on OTA. But much much better than before.


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## TiVoFreak (Mar 1, 2007)

I would like to add a "me too" to this thread. Trickplay sits for at least 10 seconds before it does the action. Sometimes it freezes and I have to click the button again. Also, once it is finished fast forwarding, it will start to play, then "stutter" a few times. How does the DVR differentiate between a DTV recorded program and one recorded using the tuner/antenna? I do not have this problem with programs I record on other channels.


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## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

TiVoFreak said:


> I would like to add a "me too" to this thread. Trickplay sits for at least 10 seconds before it does the action. Sometimes it freezes and I have to click the button again. Also, once it is finished fast forwarding, it will start to play, then "stutter" a few times. How does the DVR differentiate between a DTV recorded program and one recorded using the tuner/antenna? I do not have this problem with programs I record on other channels.


Are you using the default 30 second SLIP or the optional SKIP? If you're doing slip you might want to try skip, it's still slow but when I compared the two skip was better. To enable skip do a search for shows, keyword, enter 30skip and all for the category. The box won't find anything but skip should now be enabled, to go back to slip do the same thing but search for 30slip.


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## Razorback747 (Aug 24, 2008)

Same problems here. I did notice FF & RW work better on the inset picture when you pull up the Guide screen. Of course by the time you do all that the commercial is probably over. Maybe we could add that to the other great workarounds like the dual tuner one (which of course is just to record on the other tuner). I kind of miss the Tivo days when FF & RW worked right out of the box. 

I also wonder why FF & RW are called "Trick Plays". Don't all DVR's Have FF & RW? On my old HR10-250 I pulled the hard drive and installed Elseed, Tivoweb, Tytools etc. I would consider these "Trick Plays". They weren't part of the original software and if they didn't work exactly right it wasn't a surprise. I would expect the buttons on the remote to do what the manual says they will on an unmodified DVR.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Razorback747 said:


> I also wonder why FF & RW are called "Trick Plays".


I would't read too much into that expression.  "Trickplay" is just a catch-all phrase a lot of us use to describe any playback functions other than "PLAY". And "Cruise Controls" is another. /steve


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## TiVoFreak (Mar 1, 2007)

RAD said:


> Are you using the default 30 second SLIP or the optional SKIP? If you're doing slip you might want to try skip, it's still slow but when I compared the two skip was better. To enable skip do a search for shows, keyword, enter 30skip and all for the category. The box won't find anything but skip should now be enabled, to go back to slip do the same thing but search for 30slip.


Thanks for the tip. I will give it a try and see if it works any better. I have this same issue, however, for fast forward, rewind and the "back skip" button. Like I said I just don't understand why this only happens on shows recorded from the am21 tuner and antenna. You would think it would be a dvr issue and would do it on all shows.

I have a hr21-100 with the latest CE release BTW.


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## pikespeakhiker (Jul 27, 2008)

Okay, getting worse. Tonight, we couldn't record from two channels OTA at the same time. Went into OTA antenna signal level and wasn't able to see tuner 2. Moved through the channels and was able to see tuner 2. Still couldnt record. Resetting right now to see if that will clear it up. Good thing 80920 is getting DTV hi def locals this month so we don't have to deal with this any more. Very frustrated with the complete lack of QC on the hr21 and am21.


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## darekd (Oct 11, 2006)

My co-worker got HR-22 with AM-21 last week. He complained to me that FF and skip takes forever. It seems that all HD HRs are affected by this problem.


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## David MacLeod (Jan 29, 2008)

RAD said:


> Are you using the default 30 second SLIP or the optional SKIP? If you're doing slip you might want to try skip, it's still slow but when I compared the two skip was better. To enable skip do a search for shows, keyword, enter 30skip and all for the category. The box won't find anything but skip should now be enabled, to go back to slip do the same thing but search for 30slip.


I must have missed this one, just tried it and mine works now, as quick as hr20 is to respond. not saying its a great response time, but at least both units act the same now.
thanks for reiterating that.


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## David MacLeod (Jan 29, 2008)

David MacLeod said:


> I must have missed this one, just tried it and mine works now, as quick as hr20 is to respond. not saying its a great response time, but at least both units act the same now.
> thanks for reiterating that.


I don't know why, but changing from 30slip to 30skip greatly increased my guide scrolling speeds on hr21-100 with am21 attached.
going back to 30slip slowed it down, enabling 30skip again speeded it up immediately.
its actually speeded up ALL reponses to remote inputs.
odd, but it worked for me.


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

atigod said:


> I cant stand the pixelation, on fade ins and fade outs, iv even seen the pixelation on the shows before. Watching Fringe on FOX I had the worst trickplay ever, my signal is 100% outdoor antenna. the picture kept freezing, then I watched Mythbusters recorded on the dvr and it was perfect. After they removed OTA on there new dvr's its all gone to crap. The hr21's and hr22's wernt designed to output OTA MPEG 2 over a usb cable, I evan replaced the usb cable with a shorter higher quality one, and with the latest CE update it has gotten worse. I know the am21 tuner is more sensitive than the hr20's, so it must be the usb interface its going through or its just bad software code, I think its both. Directv does not provide all my OTA locals, like My Network, who will carry WWE Smackdown in HD, and my CBS and more. with out OTA I would have to watch them in sd, and it would be horrible. Evan if directv provided all my OTA witch they never would, I would still only use OTA MPEG 2 and not Directv's compressed MPEG 4 locals. the highest quality, thats whats so great about OTA the quality. I can put up with the terrible trickplay of the am21, but not the pixelation on the channels, it is unexceptable. Iv had enough and bought a HD Tivo, and couldnt be happier, no pixelation on any of the OTA channels including FOX, trickplay is the best iv ever seen it. Sorry it was so long, you can see I dont post much, but thats my story. Ill be one to get the new Directv HD tivo's in 2009
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/TiVo-TCD652160-Digital-Video-Recorder/dp/B000RZDBM2/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1223043269&sr=8-1
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/TiVo-TCD658000-HD-XL-DVR/dp/B001EWEIOW/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1223043269&sr=8-16


Patience.

Do you think D* finds the current issues with OTA acceptable? Of course not. They are working on it. The most recent CE releases perform better for OTA on the AM21, so progress is being made. This is not the right forum for that (CE) discussion, so that is all I'll say here.

The AM21 performance as a tuner is excellent. The integration with the HR21 is not....yet. Give it time, it will surely get better.

I don't think it's a bandwidth over USB problem...it's most likely coding, and there is no reason to expect it won't improve (it already has in the CE versions). It isn't where it should be yet, but it is getting there.

You have 3 choices:

1. Be patient, and continue to provide feedback.
2. Be impatient and ruin your own day.
3. Find another provider and/or hardware (as you have indicated)

You won't get any argument from me on the value of OTA, and the ability to record it reliably in good quality. I do 90% of my recording OTA. If we continue to work with D*, without the histrionics, we will end up with the best the hardware can do. It's just a matter of providing timely, accurate feedback, sans emotional outbursts, and a bit of patience.

If you have to have perfection right now, the HR21/AM21 combo isn't for you, and your alternate hardware preference may work out better for you. I just don't share your "all is lost", "all is hopeless", "they can't/won't fix it", "it's unusable", assessment. It needs work, to be sure, but that work is being done.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

atigod said:


> yes but the OTA support for directv is not a big priority...


No longer true. Since a few of us have been very vocal about it in the past few weeks, it is being addressed, as *Hasan *said. /steve


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## darekd (Oct 11, 2006)

hasan said:


> Patience.
> 
> Do you think D* finds the current issues with OTA acceptable? Of course not. They are working on it. The most recent CE releases perform better for OTA on the AM21, so progress is being made. This is not the right forum for that (CE) discussion, so that is all I'll say here.
> 
> ...


First of all there is no improvements with the most recent CE. As a matter of fact it's as bad as it's ever been.

Secondly, this is not a new problem. I've had my AM21 since May and I've been filing reports and complaining every time new CE or NR came out. So, five month and no resolution. My patience already run out.

See my post in CE forum:

http://www.dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=1768800&postcount=42

Sorry, I don't have alternatives since I'm stuck with a contract for another year.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

darekd said:


> First of all there is no improvements with the most recent CE. As a matter of fact it's as bad as it's ever been.


Interesting you say that. I noticed improvements Saturday and Sunday on very long recordings. Not on the commercial transition pixelization issue, but on the trick play. Haven't tried it since, tho, so perhaps it's regressed. /steve


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## darekd (Oct 11, 2006)

Steve said:


> Interesting you say that. I noticed improvements Saturday and Sunday on very long recordings. Not on the commercial transition pixelization issue, but on the trick play. Haven't tried it since, tho, so perhaps it's regressed. /steve


I watched CSI Miami on Monday and it took 5-7 sec to go from 1x FF to 3x FF (or from 1x skip to 4x skip). It took 10-20 second to delete the recording. Are you calling this an improvement because I don't.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

darekd said:


> I watched CSI Miami on Monday and it took 5-7 sec to go from 1x FF to 3x FF (or from 1x skip to 4x skip). It took 10-20 second to delete the recording. Are you calling this an improvement because I don't.


I share your frustration. Not sure why I saw an improvement and you haven't. Hopefully they're still continuing to address it in this week's CE. /steve


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## louiss3000 (Jan 26, 2008)

Ordinarily, I won't do a MeToo. 

This AM21 thing has seriously frustrated me though. My HR21-700 / AM21 has been relegated to the patio TV because of this unwatchability. All the scheduled recordings are from the D locals, not OTA..


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## tacob (Feb 3, 2006)

If I could have gotten my cw in hd from D, I would have stuck with D for my locals


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## bpratt (Nov 24, 2005)

I really don't understand this problem. Trick play works great on some of the OTA shows I record and others take 5 to 10 seconds to do a 30 second skip. Originally I thought the problem was with a particular channel, but later found that not to be the case. I have two identical HR21-700s and one of them has the problem much more often. 
Last night I was watching a recorded OTA program and was impressed with the speed of trick play even though two shows were being recorded. At 9:22 trick play slowed to a crawl. The same two shows were still being recorded and nothing else changed, but a 30 second skip went from instantaneously to 7 or 8 seconds. Also, at that point, if I hit play to bring up the status bar, the picture and sound would freeze for a few seconds and then continue. There is also a lot of pixelization.
I am now in the process of moving all the OTA shows back on my HR10-250 which works great. My wife wants me to re-connect our second HR10-250 and get rid of one of the HR21s since 90% of what we watch is local. If this problem is not fixed in a couple more weeks, I think that is what I will do.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

louiss3000 said:


> Ordinarily, I won't do a MeToo.
> 
> This AM21 thing has seriously frustrated me though. My HR21-700 / AM21 has been relegated to the patio TV because of this unwatchability. All the scheduled recordings are from the D locals, not OTA..


So you're saying that just hooking up the AM21 affected your SAT recordings? If so, have you tried disconnecting it, to see if everything goes back to normal? /steve


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## mschoaf (Oct 6, 2008)

FWIW...I've been having the same slow trick play on my OTA recordings that has been mentioned here. I have an HR21-100/AM21 combo. However, one interesting note, after all that reboot nonsense on 10/6, I watched an OTA recording from last week and trick play performed what I would call "normal". Basically immediate response to keypress. I'll see if performance degrades going forward, but I'm wondering if anybody else noticed this.


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## Sandy (Apr 23, 2002)

I noticed an improvement in trick play on 2 shows that were recorded OTA last night. Heroes and Terminator:Sarah Conner were great to watch all the way through. Trickplay continued to work well right up to the end of the program. 

However, on earlier recordings, trick play hasn't improved.

I hope that this is a permanent fix for the AM21 trickplay problems.


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## mschoaf (Oct 6, 2008)

I think it was a temporary situation immediately after the reboot, but I'm back to slow trick play again, no matter when they recorded.


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## MRM (Sep 10, 2008)

I am disappointed with playback on the DVR from something recorded from the AM21. It skips and cuts out like it's a bad signal. But the signal is fine. Hope they get that bug worked out.


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## robn77 (Dec 7, 2006)

How are people's performance after 0x0290? I think DirecTV might have finally fixed it. Previous recordings and new recordings seem to FF just fine for me.


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## David MacLeod (Jan 29, 2008)

robn77 said:


> How are people's performance after 0x0290? I think DirecTV might have finally fixed it. Previous recordings and new recordings seem to FF just fine for me.


it was a dramatic increase for me on 2 units.



> I am disappointed with playback on the DVR from something recorded from the AM21. It skips and cuts out like it's a bad signal. But the signal is fine. Hope they get that bug worked out.


this is unusual, how is your ota run?


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## RoyGBiv (Jul 24, 2007)

A brief improvement after the download, then it's back to more of the same. As others have said, some shows are fine and others aren't for unknown reasons. I have an HR22 and AM21.

SMK


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Just a reminder to all those still experiencing AM21 problems. Be sure to report what you are seeing in the appropriate ISSUES threads, so DirecTV knows that more AM21 tweaking may be needed. If they don't see any bug reports, they may think you are all satisfied with the last round of fixes.

The 0x0290 issues thread may be found here: http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=143187

/steve


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## RandCfilm (Aug 17, 2006)

robn77 said:


> How are people's performance after 0x0290? I think DirecTV might have finally fixed it. Previous recordings and new recordings seem to FF just fine for me.


I have recorded five shows OTA since the new roll-out. *Steve* was right in the CE forum, I have had no major issues with the trickplay. The only issue I have had was last night, I had one show that 30 Skip did delay for half a second before skipping. I did have two OTA HD recording at that time, so that could have something to do with it.

Also on the 30 Skip with OTA recordings, the picture and audio start to play almost simultaneously, rare occasions I have even had video before audio. Unlike recordings from the satellite, the audio always start to play first for about 1 - 2 seconds before the video starts to play.


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## scottchez (Feb 4, 2003)

So is the slowness problem fixed with the AM21? I have the HR21-100 and the AM21.

I stopped using it as it was so bad so I move that recevier with the AM21 to the basement where we dont watch it much.

I like the Black color compared to the older HR20 silver color (black matches my new HDTV).

Should I try it again, is the slowness when recording OTA fixed now?

I last tried it in December.


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## kenbr (Jun 28, 2007)

I have an AM21 with an HR21-700. I haven't had the sloweness problem in quite a while. I'm just curious, if you have an AM21 in the basement where you don't watch it much, couldn't you test it still to see if the speed is unacceptable to you?


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## scottchez (Feb 4, 2003)

No antenna feed going to basement.


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## anubys (Jan 19, 2006)

scottchez said:


> So is the slowness problem fixed with the AM21? I have the HR21-100 and the AM21.
> 
> I stopped using it as it was so bad so I move that recevier with the AM21 to the basement where we dont watch it much.
> 
> ...


still a problem for me...


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## scottchez (Feb 4, 2003)

It just seems slow. I wonder if its related to the slowness of USB in genreal?. The other model I have has the tuner built in (no USB).

Would a better quality USB cable help. Anyone try that?


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## scottchez (Feb 4, 2003)

I connected it up. Seems slower than it was in December. Is it related to the Digital TV conversion? One of my channels when from UHF back to there VHF for digital last week.


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## robn77 (Dec 7, 2006)

While trick-play is not as fast as I would like, it is still much better than when it was at it's worst. Only about a second delay. Not like the 10 second delay I was experiencing earlier.

I need to try the DirecTV remote with the cabinet door open to see if the slowness I am having is because of my MX-600 remote through the closed door.


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

scottchez said:


> It just seems slow. I wonder if its related to the slowness of USB in genreal?. The other model I have has the tuner built in (no USB).
> 
> Would a better quality USB cable help. Anyone try that?


No it won't help.


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

scottchez said:


> I connected it up. Seems slower than it was in December. Is it related to the Digital TV conversion? One of my channels when from UHF back to there VHF for digital last week.


I don't think it is related at all to the switch. We have had the same digital stations here for over a year. Only one dropped analog, which would have zero effect on the tuners in the HR series or the AM21.


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

kenbr said:


> I have an AM21 with an HR21-700. I haven't had the sloweness problem in quite a while. I'm just curious, if you have an AM21 in the basement where you don't watch it much, couldn't you test it still to see if the speed is unacceptable to you?


The problem is particularly bad with the HR21-200/AM21 combo.


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## scottchez (Feb 4, 2003)

Still a problem even with the latest national release of the software.


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