5-second stall when resuming playback

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I've been seeing a weird issue on my refurb Roamio now that I'm on Comcrap service (Middletown, CT if that matters). I was on Cox before and didn't see this issue, but now I do, so I'm wondering if this is just a Comcrap "feature" or if there's something wrong in the Tivo.

The issue is, if I fast forward or rewind, and then resume playback, about half the time the video playback stalls for about 5 seconds before continuing. Other times, there is no "stall" in this manner... and playback resumes with no issues. This happens on live programming and recorded programs as well.

Again, I didn't have this issue with the previous provider. This Tivo has had some other weird issues in the past: One is that the "bloop" sounds would stop for no reason after a week or so - no specific timing pattern. That hasn't happened in a while now. The other issue is that if I use the Roamio's remote (in RF or IR mode) it often double-clicks buttons very often. Some days are good, others are not as finicky. When I switched to my older IR remote (from a Premiere) this doesn't happen. It's probably not relevant, but just wondering since it's "yet another" problem on this device, which may indicate overall issues or something with this particular unit?

If anyone can give any ideas or troubleshooting, I'd appreciate it. None of these are huge problems, but it would be nice to get them figured out or fixed.

 

Not exaggerating. I guess I just don't think it's that bad, overall. Part of it is because Tivo's refurb process seems to be quite lacking. Specifically, this was a Tivo supplied replacement, the 3rd unit actually. The first unit was the wrong kind (2 tuner instead of 4), the second had a bad tuner #3, and this is the 3rd which has the remote weirdness and the dropping out of the "bloops" before (hasn't happened for a while now). I also hate having to replace units when you end up losing all the previously recorded content because of it.

I have rebooted a few times since moving here, but those may have all been during initial setup, so I will be sure to try again today if it happens (which it likely will).

The reason I thought it was cable-co related is because, in the earlier days of HD Tivos, fast forwarding was affected on some channels because of new encoding methods being done on certain channels. For example, I remember specifically that NBC had changed the way they encoded, which cause fast forwarding at 1X to fail to work... it wouldn't forward "smoothly" and would stutter all the time... and it would end up not being 1x because of this. 2x and 3x were unaffected. I figured the same thing may be happening here. (Eg TiVO fast forward is not smooth anymore ) I believe the issue with NBC back then was that they encoded fewer P-frames and did many more I-frames, which cause this problem. I figured something like that may be happening here, too? After all, fewer P-frames means you get more for your bandwidth... and Comcrap just changed over to all digital (without a tuning adapter) here, so I imagine they must be struggling for bandwidth. I know they dropped some programming down to 720p from 1080p, presumably for this reason as well (one of the many reasons I still call them Comcrap...)

EDIT: I tested the problem a bit further. This is a 720p stream on Syfy's show Face Off. When I 1x fast-forward, it forwards... then when I resume playback, about half the time it does this pause thing... which takes about 3-5 seconds to resume playback. I took a video of it with my phone, and will try to see how I can post it (or a link) here.

I then rebooted, came back... same thing happens. No, it's not a stall in the video stream (I tested the problem at different places in the video, for example).

Again, I'm wondering if it's just me, if it's just Comcrap CT, or something else. I would consider swapping it out again, but given this is the 3rd unit, I'm hesitate to repeat that replacement-cycle again...

 

I don't want to get off-track from the original topic, but just to clarify, the first unit was a 2-tuner Premiere... it was supposed to be a 4-tuner which was later replaced with the Roamio 4-tuner I have now.

JoeKustra - I'm not sure what I'm looking for on that thread. I do know that Comcrap is down-rezzing, but the issue at hand is the weird pause when resuming. Just to be clear, this pause issue happens on other channels, too... this was just one of the more recent ones I recalled, so I tried it.

As mentioned above, I did try rebooting... I normally do that, but I wasn't sure if I did it for this issue specifically... so I did it today, and it didn't solve the problem.

In the end, it sounds like this is a device-level problem, since no one else is seeing it?

 

Aha, thank you for the info that it's not just me.

I would consider doing the channel list/catalog of behavior, but I'm not sure how to find the MPEG2/MPEG4 and other detailed info. I can tell 720/1080 since that shows in the description. If you can show me how to dig deeper, I can certainly do so.

 

davidscarter: Thanks for the info. I did some looking today and found that I'm seeing the issue on at least 3 channels (FX, Nick, and Syfy). Based on your 1.5GB/hr, they are all MPEG4 streams. I noticed the issue on various programs on these channels (not just a single show per channel)... probably about 6-8 shows so far.

slowbuscuit: Agreed, seems to be MPEG4 as noted from my quick findings here. Another workaround I found was to use the 8-second skip-back button (aka "Instant Replay" button). This gets the playback working immediately as well.

Further testing - I need to see if this pause-issue happens on my Premiere unit in the bedroom... I don't think it does, which would imply it's a Roamio specific issue. I'll check it out later today and report back.

Again, glad to see it's not just me. But, now the question is, how do we get Tivo on board with fixing it?

EDIT: Just tested with my (2-tuner) Premiere... this issue is not present there, as I suspected. Same channels (I tested the same shows, too)... doesn't have this problem. So, it seems to be Roamio specific.

EDIT2: Saw the issue again on another channel - Comedy Central, which shows H.264 (presumably, MPEG4)... so, again seems to be MPEG4/H.264 specific.