Audio/Video glitches with football today

[jacksonian]

I'm recording football games today and getting A/V glitches every 15-30 seconds. The picture breaks up a little, pixelates, freezes and then corrects. Of course the audio drops out during that time too. I hadn't had any of this since I got the S3 Thursday and have recorded several other programs. I noticed it first today on the SD broadcast on CBS of the Auburn/Arkansas game. It was coming in via OTA antenna. It's also happening with the HD feed (OTA antenna) of LSU/Fla on CBS. And it's happening on the ESPN-HD feed via Time Warner on the Texas/Okla game.

During the first game, it was the only thing recording, it was SD, and I wasn't even home to use the UI, so it doesn't seem like there'd be any processor overload.

If I rewind, the pixelation/freeze up occurs in the exact same place. Any ideas?

PS--I read the audio dropout thread, but this seemed a little different.

[bkdtv]

If I rewind, the pixelation/freeze up occurs in the exact same place. Any ideas?
The off-air feed from your antenna is responsible.

Did you have a storm or heavy winds during either of these broadcasts? If not...

If you live in the city, an apartment building, or near tall building(s), the problem is likely reception related -- probably multipath. The ATSC tuner in the Series3 is a significant improvement over previous boxes, but it can't work miracles.

When you experience these dropouts, you should check the offending channel using the Tivo's signal strength meter. You may need to upgrade your antenna or change your existing antenna's orientation / direction.

[jacksonian]

But it's occurring on the ESPN-HD feed from TWC as well. Could they both be having signal problems?

[bkdtv]

But it's occurring on the ESPN-HD feed from TWC as well. Could they both be having signal problems?
A/V glitches every 30 seconds on TWC? Do you have another set-top box that you could compare for ESPN?

[jacksonian]

Yeah, I checked my other TV and it wasn't doing it at all on either channel.

Here's a weird thing. I stopped the recording of the Fla/LSU game OTA and kept the ESPN-HD via TWC going and now the glitches have stopped!

Is it having processing problems recording 2 - 720p games at the same time?

[jacksonian]

I could be wrong, but this certainly seemed to be related to trying to record these 2 things at once. Because as soon as I stopped the recordings, the glitches stopped on each of the channels.

[jacksonian]

Update: I'm now recording 2 different football games, this time ABC-HD via OTA antenna and ESPN-HD via TWC. It's only rarely doing it in a much much less severe manner on the antenna feed now. Not doing it at all on the TWC feed.

Of course, I couldn't check my signals while I was recording the other games, but as soon as I stopped the recordings and checked signals, they were in the 90+ range.

Can multipath interference occur even when you have a strong signal?

I'm confused, have no idea whether it was signal, interference, or a TiVo processing problem.

[rockhome]

I have RCN in Chicago and noticed the same problems on ESPN. I originally thought the problem was trying to force the signals to 1080i, but that didn't seem to be it. I figured that it was a problem with the ESPN feed.

[snathanb]

Update: I'm now recording 2 different football games, this time ABC-HD via OTA antenna and ESPN-HD via TWC. It's only rarely doing it in a much much less severe manner on the antenna feed now. Not doing it at all on the TWC feed.

Of course, I couldn't check my signals while I was recording the other games, but as soon as I stopped the recordings and checked signals, they were in the 90+ range.

Can multipath interference occur even when you have a strong signal?

I'm confused, have no idea whether it was signal, interference, or a TiVo processing problem.

Recording 2 720p feeds shouldn't cause a problem. Recording HD feeds requires very little processing power, it just dumps the data stream directly to disk. (On my PC with a tuner card, recording a 720p shows about 5% CPU utilization, playing a 720p takes about 60%)

Yes, multipath interference can definately occur when you have a strong signal, and often manifests itself as an unusually strong signal.

[jacksonian]

Thanks for the info guys. Maybe it was just an isolated interference situation with the weather.