4 seconds of black when changing channels

[Annie2005]

I have Dish 3700, 301 and 510 DVR--they all have about 4 seconds of black screen whenever I change channels. Is there any of the boxes that don;t do this? This never happened with cable or rabbit ears antenna so its not my TV.
Very annoying especially when I am late tuning into a show I want to see.

Also channel 402 NBA TV does not show up on any of the program channel guides. I have the Everything Pak. ANybody know what is the lowest package I can buy that still has that channel included? 120? 60?

 

[Hall]

Looks like you can order the "Multi-Sports" add-on for $5.99/month on top of AT120 or AT180: http://www.dishnetwork.com/content/...port/index.asp?viewby=1&packid=10161&sortby=1

Otherwise, you need the Everything Pak as you already have....

 

[korsjs]

i could see the 3700 and 501 being slow changing channels, but i think the 301 is one of the newer receivers and should not have that problem.

 

[nsafreak]

Well I had the same problem I don't know if this will work for you or not but I might as well post what I did. Which is nothing more than running a check switch test. It seems that the switch matrix that my 510 uses for talking with my DP34 got corrupt or something which was causing a channel change delay and the check switch fixed it. That or the check switch did something else that I cannot explain. Doesn't hurt to give it a shot and the worst that could happen is that nothing improves. My channel change times are down to a reasonable half a second between channel changes.

 

[long_time_DNC]

I get about 3 seconds of black during channel changes with my 811...it's always been that way. The channel banner appears immediately, but the channel takes about 3 seconds to appear. I didn't recall my 5000 doing that and figured it was just the way it is with the 811.

I'll try the check switch thing too, just out of curiosity, but I doubt it'll do anything to fix it.

Testing it now.

7 minutes later... No, no difference. Oh well...

 

[Stargazer]

I have noticed that all Dish Network receivers have a delay in them but the DVR's have an even longer delay. DirecTv receivers have less of a delay with them and its a surprisable difference.

 

[OoTLink]

Blah.. you mean the delay isn't normal O_O I thought it was! Both of ours have anywhere from a 4 to say.. 8 second delay.. depending, at late night it seems to get really bad sometimes and take as long as 20 seconds to get..

 

[SimpleSimon]

No, I don't think the delay is normal.

Check switch, and check signal strength.

It may be a good idea to reset the switch matrix (certainly won't hurt if the hardware is all OK).

1. Pull satellite feeds
2. Run Check Switch
3. Pull power plug
4. Run Check Switch AGAIN
5. Hook up satellite feeds
6. Run Check Switch for the third time

 

[TNGTony]

A two to four second delay is normal, not only for Dish, but for Digital Cable (when tuning a truly digital channel) and DirecTV. Anything longer than that could be a problem. My 721 takes three seconds or so.

The reason for this delay is that the box not only has to tune to the channel, but it has to reconstruct the bit stream into picture and sound and synchronyze everything. The old analog signals were all there the instant the channel was changed so you didn't have to wait with analog Cable or regular TV.

A receiver cannot reconstruct the whole thing and synchronize the sound properly until there is a reference frame or full frame. The audio could come a lot sooner than the picture and that is what some cable companies do when you change the channel on their digital boxes. The audio pops up within a second and the picture reconstructs itself from little squares until there is a reference frame and bang, the whole picture shows up.

Dish tried something like this a long time ago where the sould and picture would pop up as soon a it was possible with MPEG and then synchronizes the sound and pucture. However this lead to the complaint of the "frog voice" for the second or two it took to slide the audio in sync with the picture.

DirecTV's boxes seem to be a little quicker at putting up sound and picture and they more seamlessly slide the audio to match the picture. The difference is that with Dish the boxes now "wait" until the have everything then put up a pucture while DirecTV and some cable companies contruct the signal while you wait. The perception of time is an important factor here. Even though it takes a frew seconds, watching a picture construct itself before your eyes is "okay"...a blank screen for the same period of time is unacceptable to some and perceved to take longer.

Anything longer than a 2 to 4 second delay is a sign of other problems perhaps switch or signal related.

See ya
Tony

 

[ScottChez]

I have the HD Direct TIvo, the delay is 6 seconds.

 

[sprintcarcrazy]

I have a 921, 4 811's and 2 311's, running off 2 Dish 500's Legacy with Quad Lnb's, virtually no delay in changing channels.

 

[Hall]

A two to four second delay is normal, not only for Dish, but for Digital Cable (when tuning a truly digital channel)...

I don't want this to sound like a "cable is better" post, but here goes...

We had analog cable for the longest time and then switched to DirecTV. When we did that, we got the "long" delay between switching channels. I looked into it and was told it's "normal" for the reasons you stated. We later switched to Dish (and a DVR) and the delay was worse... Was the D* receiver simpler and more efficient ?? Maybe, it was just a basic Hughes (5th gen).

We're back with cable (leasable HD-DVR) and I just checked what delay there is now... Switching between true digital channels it's less than a second. Maybe close to a second, but not more. Why ?? Personally, I'd guess it's the hardware and it being more powerful and capable of putting the bits back together. My set-top is the SA 8000HD and I understand their newer model, the 8300HD, is even quicker. I do know it's got more RAM and CPU power.

 

[TNGTony]

Some receives are faster than others. However the cable box with a 1 second delay on trew didital channels...complete picture with sound synchronized in less than a second? I'd have to see it to believe it. I've see cable boxes that put up the sound within a half a second and then construct the picture over the next two seconds or so, but never one that puts up the picture and sound synchronized in less than a second.

See ya
Tony

 

[Stargazer]

Perhaps the Dish delay in waiting for both the audio and video to be up before displaying the picture can be compared to web browsers where you watch as a webpage loads up vs. waiting then it popping up all of a sudden with everything there.

 

[Ceas2182]

my 311 has a delay and sometimes cant find the signal quickly darn sat. 119 doh. If you have cable thats differant its fast.