No Audio Recorded on HD channel

[Darthnice]

Has anybody else noticed HD recordings with video (no breakups, good signal strength) but no audio? This has happened to me twice while recording Lost.

I had heard that toggling the tuner to a analog station and back would fix it, and others said that the audio really was there when played back later, but my most recent experience contradicts that.

One of the 'catch-up' episodes aired a week ago, and the audio was silent, I could not get it to come back while the episode was recording, so I cancelled it, changed the channel, then the audio came back, and I resumed recording. So I had the show split in 2 parts: the first 15 minutes had no audio, the last 45 minutes had perfect audio. So it seems to me TiVo was not recording the audio at all. Didn't matter to me much, because it was just a catch-up episode. Even now, if I replay the first section, it has no audio, but the second section does. It is improbable that ABC wasn't transmitting audio until the precise moment I stopped the first recording.

This past week's episode also recorded with no audio, but perfect picture (no breakups). I wasn't around to monitor it, so wasn't able to fix it part way through. My S2 also recorded the episode, so I played it back on both (with audio from the S2, video from the S3) simultaneously and got the A/V synced up (but had to sit through the commercials :eek: , because FF would have knocked them out of whack again).

This doesn't make any sense to me because when recording HD, the TiVo is just supposed to write the digital A/V stream to the disk, but in both these cases, it seems like the audio stream was just being discarded. My receiver reported that no audio stream was present at all.

[hookbill]

Has anybody else noticed HD recordings with video (no breakups, good signal strength) but no audio? This has happened to me twice while recording Lost.

I had heard that toggling the tuner to a analog station and back would fix it, and others said that the audio really was there when played back later, but my most recent experience contradicts that.

One of the 'catch-up' episodes aired a week ago, and the audio was silent, I could not get it to come back while the episode was recording, so I cancelled it, changed the channel, then the audio came back, and I resumed recording. So I had the show split in 2 parts: the first 15 minutes had no audio, the last 45 minutes had perfect audio. So it seems to me TiVo was not recording the audio at all. Didn't matter to me much, because it was just a catch-up episode. Even now, if I replay the first section, it has no audio, but the second section does. It is improbable that ABC wasn't transmitting audio until the precise moment I stopped the first recording.


This past week's episode also recorded with no audio, but perfect picture (no breakups). I wasn't around to monitor it, so wasn't able to fix it part way through. My S2 also recorded the episode, so I played it back on both (with audio from the S2, video from the S3) simultaneously and got the A/V synced up (but had to sit through the commercials :eek: , because FF would have knocked them out of whack again).

This doesn't make any sense to me because when recording HD, the TiVo is just supposed to write the digital A/V stream to the disk, but in both these cases, it seems like the audio stream was just being discarded. My receiver reported that no audio stream was present at all.

Sounds like a transmission problem, probably from the network or local station. It's odd that it came on 15 minutes, which was probably after a break. I've seen other circumstances on HD with no audio. At no time was it my dvr's fault.

Call your local ABC affiliate and see if the acknowledge problems. And don't forget when these things happen you can turn on close caption as opposed to going through the trouble of linking up your S2.

[gastrof]

Sounds like a transmission problem, probably from the network or local station. It's odd that it came on 15 minutes, which was probably after a break. I've seen other circumstances on HD with no audio. At no time was it my dvr's fault.

Call your local ABC affiliate and see if the acknowledge problems. And don't forget when these things happen you can turn on close caption as opposed to going through the trouble of linking up your S2.


He said stopping the recording, changing the channel, and changing it back brought the sound up.

That sounds like a recorder/tuner problem. Apparently the sound was there all along.

If it'd been a broadcast problem, why would it have come back due to a channel change? (And since others have apparently noted the same method as working, it's obviously more than coincidence that the audio came back after the channel change.)

[gastrof]

Has anybody else noticed HD recordings with video (no breakups, good signal strength) but no audio? This has happened to me twice while recording Lost....

How is your Series 3 set up?

OTA? Cable with cable cards?

[Darthnice]

How is your Series 3 set up?

OTA? Cable with cable cards?
Cable with cable cards courtesy of Time Warner Austin

[FlippedBit]

I had this problem also last night. Went to check on an HD recording in progress and only partial audio. I was getting some channels but not all. For examples, I could hear the person shuffling papers on the desk but their speeck was missing. I switched tuners and jumped around, audio was OK on the other tuner. Switched back to recording in progress and audio was now fine. The audio dropout was recorded on the disk so recording captured the audio issue. Just happened once so far but I also just got my second cablecard working for the first time last night.

[ChuckyBox]

I had this problem also last night. Went to check on an HD recording in progress and only partial audio. I was getting some channels but not all. For examples, I could hear the person shuffling papers on the desk but their speeck was missing. I switched tuners and jumped around, audio was OK on the other tuner. Switched back to recording in progress and audio was now fine. The audio dropout was recorded on the disk so recording captured the audio issue. Just happened once so far but I also just got my second cablecard working for the first time last night.
That sounds more like a mixing or Dolby problem than anything to do with the TiVo. (But it could be a problem with the way the TiVo decodes the Dolby stream.) If the center channel were lost somewhere in the process, you'd hear sound effects and music, but not voices (even if the 5.1 is recombined into stereo on your system).

[jdmass]

I had this problem also last night. Went to check on an HD recording in progress and only partial audio. I was getting some channels but not all. For examples, I could hear the person shuffling papers on the desk but their speeck was missing. The audio dropout was recorded on the disk so recording captured the audio issue.

I experienced this exact problem (along with many others) with the SA8300 dvr, but haven't experienced it yet with the Tivo.

[geekboy]

I had this problem also last night. Went to check on an HD recording in progress and only partial audio. I was getting some channels but not all. For examples, I could hear the person shuffling papers on the desk but their speeck was missing. I switched tuners and jumped around, audio was OK on the other tuner. Switched back to recording in progress and audio was now fine. The audio dropout was recorded on the disk so recording captured the audio issue. Just happened once so far but I also just got my second cablecard working for the first time last night.

Studio 60, by any chance? I'm 90% certain it was a problem at the station.

For me, the show started with no center channel -- which matches your description, since dialogue generall is center channel.

Commercials were fine (which is a clear sign to me it was a problem at the station).

Occasionally I'd get a half second of center channel. After about 10 minutes, it all came in fine.... and the HD picture dropped to SD quality (though it was still an HD signal). After a few more minutes, it went back to HD quality... and the center channel cut out, and then came back a few seconds later.

[woodie]

Once, I noticed I had no sound with HDMI, mute-on mute-off had no effect.
I turned on my audio receiver, and heard audio, so not a problem with signal.
I recall changing TV inputs, which indicated other inputs (to my TV) had audio.

Turing the power to my TV off and on brought the audio back.
I think the digital audio decoder in my TV was in a bad state.

[JanS]

I had my first audio dropout problem last night. I was watching the late rebroadcast of Leno (HD) from the buffer (i.e. I was behind realtime) and then when the program switched over to the rebroadcast of Conan (HD) and a few minutes in, I decided to record Conan with the first chunk coming out of the live buffer and the rest as it got delivered.

I noticed part way through that the audio was completely gone. No picture problems at all. Any movement back and forth in the live buffer or from the now playing screen had the audio only at the beginning few minutes. I even waited until the recording was done.

And even when the recording was complete, playback still had the audio go missing in the same spot. And my guess is that the spot where the audio went missing is the "realtime" spot in the buffer where I initiated the recording from the buffer.

Oh and I haven't had any audio problems with scheduled recordings. At least not yet. I will experiment more to see if it reproduces or I find a pattern.

Cheers,
--jans

[Darthnice]

It has done it twice more. Once with Grey's Anatomy, the entire episode was recorded with no audio, and just now with Brothers and Sisters. This is definitely a TiVo bug, it is not a problem with the stream. I'm calling support on 10/16 to see if this is a known problem, and if not get a replacement box.

[PatMcNJ]

I lost audio on channel 702 only tonight for a couple of hours (HD-CBS). I know it was Tivo. because I still have my HD box set up on another input (same TV) and it was working...... So I watched on regular channel for CBS. It was the first time I could not get it to come back by changing channels or inputs back and forth.

These audio bugs are annoying. I hope it is a Tivo software glitch, not a hardware issue.

[FlippedBit]

Studio 60, by any chance? I'm 90% certain it was a problem at the station.

For me, the show started with no center channel -- which matches your description, since dialogue generall is center channel.

Commercials were fine (which is a clear sign to me it was a problem at the station).

Occasionally I'd get a half second of center channel. After about 10 minutes, it all came in fine.... and the HD picture dropped to SD quality (though it was still an HD signal). After a few more minutes, it went back to HD quality... and the center channel cut out, and then came back a few seconds later.


Yes, it was Studio 60! Thanks for letting me know. Good to know this wasn't an S3 problem.

[Darthnice]

In each of the cases I'm referring to, the audio doesn't drop out partway through the recording. It is just never there. If I catch it in this situation, I can force several channel changes to other stations (digital and analog) and the audio will start coming in again and be fine for the rest of the episode. The episode will be broken into two separate recording: First part has no audio, the second part has audio.

The same tuner is being used in the audio/no audio recordings because a second recording was being made at the time, so all of my channel changes were just with the one tuner.

[Darthnice]

I just spoke to a TiVo rep and all they wanted me to do was make sure my audio cables were connected and that I have a Dolby Digital capable receiver. I realize they have to go through the motions for the unwashed masses, but does anyone know the "safe word" to get through to a real tech, and not front line support?

[The_Bear]

Ok, had this problem the last two nights with 'House'. No audio, good video. HDMI cable and cable cards. TW.

[joecm874]

I've had this problem as well except not in HD. Recording a Basketball Game in SD and went to start watching 15 minutes in, no audio. Fast forwarded to live, no audio. Stop the recording, changed channel and then right back and there was audio. No recording fine with audio. If you can't count on the thing to record your shows, it is no better than the cable DVR.

Is tivo denying this is a problem?

[mikev63]

I have the same problem. I reported this with tivo over 1 month ago. My open case is 11148341. They are telling me no one else has this issue except me. I told them they are full of crap.

My issue has been with the engineers for over 1 month without resolution.

[SWG255]

I am having intermittent audio problems with some recordings on a SD channel in my FIOS channel lineup. So far it appears to be only with this channel and no others so I am guessing it's a "broadcasting" issue. The audio cuts out for 20 seconds to about 2 minuts. No video problems at all.

Now that I've found this thread I'll keep monitoring the issue to report if either my symptoms change, or if there's any more information about others having problems here.

Thanks.

[bkdtv]

I have the same problem. I reported this with tivo over 1 month ago. My open case is 11148341. They are telling me no one else has this issue except me. I told them they are full of crap.

My issue has been with the engineers for over 1 month without resolution.Did you all set the TiVo to output PCM under Settings -> Audio -> Dolby Digital to PCM? That fixes 95% of audio problems for those using their TV speakers.

For surround systems, some older A/V receivers cannot handle the breaks in the Dolby Digital signal on channel changes and trickplay functions. They respond by losing audio lock. TiVo never stops sending audio, it is the receiver that stops "accepting" the audio after a signal break lasting fractions of a second.

You can usually get these receivers to lock back onto the Dolby Digital signal by hitting instant replay a few times. There is no solution at this time, aside from upgrading your A/V receiver or surround system to one that was designed to handle breaks in the Dolby Digital signal.

I am having intermittent audio problems with some recordings on a SD channel in my FIOS channel lineup. So far it appears to be only with this channel and no others so I am guessing it's a "broadcasting" issue. The audio cuts out for 20 seconds to about 2 minuts. No video problems at all. Audio dropouts on FiOS are usually the result of a [too strong] signal issue. The fix is typically a -10dB attenuator screwed on to the end of the cable.

[JFKLS1]

So are all of the affected users using hdmi audio? I am using component video with optical audio and have not had any issues on either my S3 or HD XL. I have heard that occasionally hdmi can lose it's authentication, requiring a new handshake. Is anyone having problems using anything other than hdmi? But if the audio is not actually being recorded, it could be a tivo or a network problem.

[bkdtv]

So are all of the affected users using hdmi audio? I am using component video with optical audio and have not had any issues on either my S3 or HD XL. I have heard that occasionally hdmi can lose it's authentication, requiring a new handshake. Is anyone having problems using anything other than hdmi?Audio problems with TV speakers -- using HDMI -- typically result because (a) Dolby Digital is selected instead of PCM under Settings -> Audio -> Dolby Digital, and (b) HDMI sync issues.

By default, Dolby Digital is enabled. But most TVs cannot accept Dolby Digital audio. They require PCM audio. The TV communicates with the TiVo over HDMI (using EDID) that it needs PCM, and that overrides the setting on the TiVo. However, due to HDMI sync issues, sometimes a TV may get the Dolby Digital signal for a brief period (fractions of a second), and this causes havoc, including high-frequency sounds and/or loss of audio. The solution for these TV speakers is to set the default audio output to PCM.

For Dolby Digital output to surround systems, some systems -- especially pre-2006 models -- cannot handle breaks in the Dolby Digital signal, which is what happens when you change the channel and/or use trickplay functions on the TiVo and a few DVD players. The TiVo never stops sending audio (at least, not for more than fractions of a second); these surround systems just aren't able to regain signal lock.