Bad hardware or Bad Software?

[proudx]

I just purchased a S3 and on the first night I was recording two shows at one time ota. When viewing the recordings at exactly 9:21PM both recordings had pixelation in them. Now if that is coming from the source how could it be that two different ota channels had drop outs at exactly the same time in the recording at 921pm Monday night? My signal strength is 94 to 100 on both of those channels.

So my quesiton is could 1 recording pixelate so bad as to cause the other recording to pixelate?

Its also worth noting that my S3 drops audio for up to the first 30seconds of first tuning some HD over the air 5.1 broadcasts over the air. Hit pause and rewind and dropouts are not there. It does not drop audio for 5.1 sources over QAM.

Not a single problem other than the audio drop outs "which tivo tells me is known and normal when first tuning a channel".

So bad tivo, bad hard drive or bad software, or just a fluke that the reboot fixed.

[steve614]

I would think that if something caused enough interference to cause problems on one channel, it could happen to others.
Atmospheric conditions can affect an OTA digital signal.
If it happens on a regular predictable basis, then I would be concerned.

[bicker]

Do you have an eSATA drive?

[proudx]

nope.

my guess is it was either atmospheric,or since it was new the system was working overtime indexing or something in the background choking out cpu or that I hit some place on the hard disk on one of the streams that choked the system I/O that caused that pixelation on both recorded streams at the same time.

This was just purchased last week and I am a bit concerned about the audio drop outs when first tuning to some ota 5.1 broadcasts but this seems to be a common and known "little bug" with the S3.

[proudx]

nope, no esata.

my guess is it was either atmospheric or since it was new the system was working overtime indexing or something in the background choking out cpu or that I hit some bad place on the hard disk on one of the streams that choked the system I/O that caused that pixelation on both recorded streams at the same time.

This was just purchased last week and I am a bit concerned about the audio drop outs when first tuning to some ota 5.1 broadcasts but this seems to be a common and known "little bug" with the S3. I wish tivo would fix it, seems like its been happening since sw 8.3+. One reported he had his exchanged and sw8.0 didn't exhibit this problem, then when it got upgraded to 9.2 the problem returned. post 26 of this thread.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=382626

[worachj]

Have you updated your software? What version of software do you have? The latest version is 9.4. There have been some fixes for your problem.

[proudx]

Have you updated your software? What version of software do you have? The latest version is 9.4. There have been some fixes for your problem.


Ive got 9.4 and a Series3 THX.

The drop outs do not happen on QAM256 when changing channels or first tuning or tuning analog cable but rather happen when first tuning some OTA digital channels in Atlanta that have a 5.1DD stream in them. If I hit pause after first tuning the channel and then hit play no drop outs or if I rewind and go into buffer drop outs not there.

I can reproduce the issue by ensuring dolby digital is selected as output on the series3, then tune to a Hd over the air channel (ATSC)broadcasting in 5.1, hitting left arrow to go into tivo menu, then hit exit exit back to hd over the air channel, for up to the first 30seconds or so it will drop the audio at times, hit left to go back into tivo menus then come back again again drops audio. Hit pause or go 8seconds back into buffer then play again, no drop outs.

I remember my tivohds I tested did not have this bug, but the series3 does with some over the air digital channels.

I can disable DD output and select DD to pcm and get no drop outs, this is a work around but not a perm solution in my book.

seems like they may have fixed some issues in 9.4 with DD on the QAM side, but this channel changing drop out issue on the AtSC side doesn't appear to be fixed.

I certainly hope this is a software bug and not a hardware problem with my brand new Series3 (:

My thinking is if they can fix it for qam sources, and fix other audio issues why can't they fix it for OTA ATSC digital source channel changing bug.