Dish receivers not compatible with OTA station - how to resolve? (WHUT-DT Wash DC)

[SaltiDawg]

...

Going to record 032-01 right now... will be back in a few.

OK, strange result. I receive 032-00 from the Sat and 032-01 and also 032-02 OTA. 032-01 is HD and 032-02 is SD.

I have absolutely no problem with 032-00 and also 032-02. They look just fine and record and play back just fine. (As I said earlier, I routinely record This Old House on 032-00 and view the recordings without any problem.)

At first blush, I could see no problem with 032-01, however...

Viewed live, 032-01 is just fine. Recorded and played back however is yielding brief video pixilation accompanied by loss of audio every 5-15 seconds.

Here is the strange finding. If I am watching 032-01 live and simply hit the skip back button the brief video pixilation accompanied by loss of audio issue starts on the slightly delayed programming. Additionally, while watching a recording made of Ch 032-01, I see this same brief video pixilation accompanied by loss of audio problem.

This phenomenon is 100% repeatable! I have not seen this problem on any other OTA channel that I routinely view. I just went to a half dozen other DC area OTA channels that I do not routinely view and could not duplicate the issue.

EDIT: The above is being seen on my 722k. I'll fire up my 622 and see if it is repeated there.

EDIT II: Didn't take long - the problem presents itself identically on my 622.

 

[Hall]

If the issue is specific to recordings (sounds like that's the case), the station will be of little help if you try contacting them. They'll simply point the finger at Dish. If Dish contacts the station, they might help the Dish engineers .... so, wait for one of the Dish "IRT" people to see this thread or, PM them and direct them here.

 

[Hall]

Anyone looked over at AVS Forum in the "Washington DC HD locals" thread ? I'll bet it's been discussed over there already...

Found a post from Jan of this year, http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=19780425&highlight=dvr#post19780425

There is definitely something wrong with WHUT-DT's codec and/or PSIP. I have two DishNetwork ATSC receivers (a 622 and 722) and both have major problems with WHUT-DT. On the 722, I receive good audio, but the video consists of a series of freeze frames. On the 622, live viewing is generally OK, but any attempt to watch in DVR mode (with any delay involved) results in video and audio breakups about every five seconds.

He's responding to someone else using Windows XP MCE that is having a similar problem. Reading on from there to see if anyone has posted anything. Of course, I really don't think there's anything end-users can do.

 

[Tampa8]

Adding up everything in this thread, and a quick look elsewhere, nothing has changed my opinion. It is something unique to whut. I believe it has nothing to do with Dish receivers. And unfortunately if they are not getting complaints from people, unless the engineer is on top of things, they will tell you it must be a problem with the Dish receiver. In the case I had (in my first post) I was lucky because I knew when my problem started, and it coincided with a change they made, so they did follow up. On the other hand, perhaps they are aware of it, know it does not affect many, so aren't going to spend money to fix it.

 

[Hall]

Ask someone over in the DirecTV forum to record something from WHUT (OTA) to their D* DVR. I did search "WHUT" in the D* forum and got (2) hits from 2005...

 

[Peter Parker]

Home now. I have no problem with 32-00 or 32.01 but I do get fluttering audio on short recordings on 32-02 (SD). no explantion on this. I seldom look at that channel for obvious reasons.

 

[Peter Parker]

Anyone looked over at AVS Forum in the "Washington DC HD locals" thread ? I'll bet it's been discussed over there already...

Found a post from Jan of this year, Washington, DC / Baltimore, MD - HDTV - Page 419 - AVS Forum

He's responding to someone else using Windows XP MCE that is having a similar problem. Reading on from there to see if anyone has posted anything. Of course, I really don't think there's anything end-users can do.

IIRC right after the transition they had all kinds of problems with the PSIP Data. They were all but unreceivable for a few weeks back then. But I have not had probl

 

[SaltiDawg]

Home now. I have no problem with 32-00 or 32.01 but I do get fluttering audio on short recordings on 32-02 (SD). no explantion on this. I seldom look at that channel for obvious reasons.

Did you try to view 032-01 "live" and then push the skip back once and then simply continue viewing with ~6second delay? On my receivers this yields the pixilation and audio loss every 5-10 seconds.

 

[Peter Parker]

Yes I tried that. -01 seem to work fine for me only -02 has the audio problem on playback . I am not sure how long it has been that way. I have no real use for the SD version.

BTW I doubt that this is related but the wikipedia article mentions a PSIP data problem back in 2007. WHUT-TV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That likely predates the problems I remember at the time of the transition. Either that or I simply do not correctly recall the timing.

I have no idea what is going on. Maybe the problem is intermittent and I just hit it at a good time. Maybe something is affecting signal in some areas but not others. At this point I am just speculating so I will shut up and let someone else come up with a rational answer.

 

[navychop]

At home, testing on one of my ViP722 units. Under "All Subscribed" I only saw 32-1. So I rescanned, and 32-2 popped up. Audio on both is just fine, but the video is jerk-motion. Get a freeze frame, maybe a second or a bit less passes, and another freeze frame. Just in case it was some stylistic thing, I watched a few minutes of program and commer- er, "sponsorship spots." All were jerky. Did not try to record. -1 & -2 are the same program right now.

 

[navychop]

OK, just did the same on the other ViP722. EXACTLY the same as above. Signal is between 78 & 81, pretty close to most other OTA channels here. -1 is "HD" and -2 is SD. I did not try to record due to a scheduling conflict. Maybe tomorrow.

 

[JWKessler]

Reading through this I didn't see anyone mentioning actually trying to contact the station. I contacted my local PBS station last year when I was attempting to pick it up over the air and got a nice reply from their chief engineer. We even chatted over the phone. He offered some antenna gain suggestions for my location and a height. I never was able to get a signal from them (I'm on the wrong side of a big hill which blocks all UHF reception at my location), but at least they tried to help.

It can't hurt to send them an e-mail at least. It might help to mention that other people are having the same problems, and that not all were using a Dish receiver.

 

[TheKrell]

I have to correct my statement above about my 612 handling OTA WHUT just fine... My 612 does exactly as SaltiDawg stated for his 622 and 722k, namely periodic pixelization or skipping around when using trick play or a recording. Live playback is fine.

My 722 is much much worse, even on live playback. It shows 32-1 as a series of freeze frames at about 1Hz. The freeze frame rate for 32-2 is about 2Hz. Audio is fine. Is this bizarre or what?

BTW - Why do stations in the digital age broadcast an SD version along with the HD version? WHUT must have started doing this recently, because I had to rescan to get 32-2. If it were a 2nd program, I can see the reasoning. But even CECBs could handle downconversion of all 18 ATSC modes, so why waste bandwidth like this?

 

[topcat5]

Agree that it's full powered (100kW ERP), which is more than the "main" PBS station around here: WETA. Another bizarre datum is that a our TVs and the Dish 612 pull it in just fine. It's only our 722/622's that can't hack the signal.

Actually full powered would be 1000KW, not 100KW. It should be noted that Howard University, the owner of this station, has a construction permit issued by the FCC to build a new transmitter to increase the power to 1000KW. It expires in July 2012, so they may not have finished the work. This could mean they are currently transmitting a marginal signal and the 622/722 is having issues with it. They do seem to be less forgiving of marginal OTA signals than the tuners found in the TVs. I chalk this extra sensitivity up to the fact the receiver is attempting to buffer the signal for the DVR.

 

[Peter Parker]

I tried again on my 622 this Am and this time I had both audio and video problems on 32-1 and 32-2 pretty much as others have described. Either it is intermittent or I just got lucky when i tried it last night.

Howard University in general and WHUT in particular have been strapped fro funds. they were among the last in the DC area to provide a digital signal and i understand that they at least considered not providing one at all till after the analog shutdown. Given that and their glitches when they did start providing a digital signal my guess is that the problem is theirs.

I wonder if anyone has the problem on other DVRs. I have no problem with the live signal this only seems to be noticeable in playback of a recorded (or buffered) signal.

Contacting the Chief engineer sounds like a good idea. i did that when they had their earlier problems but it took months (literally) to get a response. the station is shortstaffed and depends on student volunteers fora lot of functions.

 

[TheKrell]

Actually full powered would be 1000KW, not 100KW.

I stand corrected. What I should have said was WHUT is not a low-powered TV station.

 

[mmcl26554]

I had a similar problem with a local station here in north central WV. WDTV would not record on my 622's. I contacted the station and the engineer told me they were aware of the problem as several people there had Dish and could not record. In the end the fix was included in a firmware update. It would be worth your while to contact both dish and WHUT about it.

 

[navychop]

Can't get 32 at work now at all.

 

[hankster211]

Don't know if this is related to the OP's problem, but it sounds similar since the problem seems to be recording the local PBS channels.

Here's my scenario:

I have 2 VIP 612's with a OTA winegard antenna connected to them. For a year, all has been well with recording OTA
until about 4 months ago (at about the same time that a new software version was downloaded to VIP 612's according to my Dish Tech)

when both receivers started doing the following:

I program to record my OTA PBS channel (15-01 WKOP Knoxville TN) or my other OTA PBS channel (02-01 WETP Sneedville TN) and at the time specified the red record light comes on.

If I go to the guide and view the listing it will show the record icon, However the program doesn't show up in "My Recordings".

This problem is the same on both receivers, and it started at the same time.

I presented this scenario to Dish Technical Support, and they sent me a new VIP 612 to see if it fixed the problem.


The new receiver acted exactly the same, so I called Dish and they put me in touch with Advanced Technical Support.

This rep appears to be very interested in this problem and has been working with me for about a couple of months now to to solve this.

He sent me a wireless adapter so I could upload data to Dish's engineers, and said he has called my local PBS stations who say
they are not broadcasting any signal that would keep dish dvr's from recording.

Other Info:

I have re-booted many times.


I have an 85+ signal level, so that is not the problemand I can watch these ota channels, but cannot record.

BUT When I am watching live and the receiver record light indicates it's recording, (but actually it is not)....then...

....the live viewing is interruped every minute or so, by a blank screen that lasts for 3 or 4 seconds.

It doesn't matter whether I program to record, or I press record while watching Live OTA PBS, the same problem occurs.

If I try to pause while watching live OTA PBS I get a big red pause icon with a slash through it.

If I try to record or pause these PBS stations, then it will cause the receiver to reboot or not allow me to record any OTA
channel unless I reboot.

 

[Massmur]

It sounds like this station is playing catchup. In the first year or so of OTA ATSC, a lot of stations had data stream troubles that they weren't away of since there weren't many OTA customers. I had a lot of e-mail and phone correspondence with a couple of them. All were resolved by changes at the stations. This is essentially a software incompatibility glitch. There are some small anomalies in the OTA signal that the Dish receivers software doesn't like. The station engineer needs to have a conference with senior Dish technical people. How you accomplish that, I don't know.