Audio dropout on Comcast Digital

[Abecedaria]

I have a very odd and intermittent problem that I hope someone can help me with:

Every few days, I'll be watching or recording a show and, returning from a commercial, the audio will cut completely out. The show will stay silent for another 20 minutes or so, then, when returning from another commercial, the sound will cut back in. This happens ONLY when returning from a commercial. (If I was paranoid, I'd think it was a Comcast anti-PVR plot)

It seems to happen only on the analog channels and there is an audible "chirp" when cutting in and out. I've replaced the Motorola DCT-2000 and checked the cabling but nothing has changed. I can work around the problem by turning off and on the DCT2000, but this is of little help if I'm recording unattended. I've missed countless episodes of Heroes and Galactica due to this glitch so I'm hoping someone can help me.

I tried googling this problem endlessly but can't seem to find anyone with the same issue.

Ideas?

abc

[poobah]

I have the same issue - exactly the same symptoms, on BSG as well, using DCT2000.

B.

[Abecedaria]

Originally Posted by poobah

I have the same issue - exactly the same symptoms, on BSG as well, using DCT2000.

B.

Interesting. Well, it's good to know that I'm not the only person having this problem. It certainly sounds like a DCT2000 issue, though.

If anyone else is having these audio issues with their DCT-2000, please post. It would be good to have the issue further validated. Might even lead to a solution.

abc

[Joe The Dude]

I have a Motorola Cable Box that exibits that same problem from time to time.
I can't get to my cable box at the moment, but when I can, I'll let you know it's model number.

By the way, I have Time Warner Cable, not Comcast.
However, I do suspect that either:
A) It is an intentional anti-HTPC pulse, as it only seems to happen during a First Airing of a TV Series Episode, or a Movie.
B) CATV Companies, in general, suck.
C) The Motorola Boxes are defective...
D) It's a conspiracy by the CATV Providers and Hard Drive manafacurers to get you to buy more Hard Drives so you can have enough space to record Every Freaking Airing (Repeats) of your favorite shows in hopes that you can piece together enough 'Good Parts' so that when you archive them to DVD they'll be 'Watchable'...

Edited To add:
Sorry about that...
I didn't mean to go off on a rant...


I only have a few shows that do this to me, and it happens just often enough to irritate me.

Also, since I uninstalled the "AC3 Filter" that is reccomended to use at www.divx.com , the chirps that caused a recording to freak out are happening very rarely now.

The drawback is that I can no longer Convert video files with AC3 Audio into a DivX File without going through some other programs to split it out, convert it to something else, then remux it.
I also can't watch Divx files that have AC3 Audio in them.

For regular old DVD Playback I have the nVidia video Decoder and aparently, it did not play nice with that third-party AC3 Filter that the Divx gurus reccomend...

[Abecedaria]

I had this happen again last night while recording Heros and Threshold. I'll take advice anyone has on this subject! Is there set top box other than the DCT2000 I could ask for? Is there another forum on the net where they might have more answers specific to this problem. This community is great and helpful, , but I'm wondering if there is another site that might have more experience with this issue.

Thanks!
abc

[dbump]

No solution here, but I'll chime in with my similar experience (I was searching here before posting my issue, hoping to find just such a thread):
I have Comcast, and a DCT2000. I'm using a Hauppage PVR 250 to record, and I'm controlling the DCT2000 with a serial cable for channel changes.

I do not see the issue around commercials, but instead with channel changes. Tonight, I noticed for the first time, that there was a brief clip of audio at the very beginning of a recording, but as soon as the channel changed, the audio dropped. The entire show had no sound at all. Neither did the next show, but the third show, the sound was back. Those were all recorded yesterday. I didn't check until today, and when I went to live tv, the audio was dead again--even though the most recently recorded show had full sound.

Every time I've encountered this, and I go to live tv, the sound is still dead. The first time it happened, changing the channel several times fixed it. Two times ago, while troubleshooting, I started to remove the coax cable that runs from the DCT2000 to the PVR-250, and just at the point where it unthreaded, but was still in contact, the sound came back on. The picture quality was awful, as expected, but the sound was on. When I threaded it back on, the sound went dead again. I took it all the way off and connected it to my TV directly, and the sound there was fine. Definitely not the DCT2000. I unplugged the DCT2000, shut my media pc off, reconnected coax, powered everything back up, and the audio was back. Tonight was an exact repeat of that.

A couple of things that may be coincidental, but stand out: The past two times, the show/channel that records correctly just prior to the audio dropping is the same in both cases, and it's also the same exact show/channel that again records correctly after the audio being missing from recordings before it. Channel 72, The Daily Show (if there were a conspiracy, I think THAT would be the show that would have the missing audio ).
The other thing is that I do have my computer set to suspend on idle. Since 4.x, I haven't had troubles with this feature, but when I look at the logs, the system is definitely suspending in between the recordings with audio and those without.

I have previously googled for audio issues with the PVR-250, and found several folks reporting similar issues with different software. What video hardware do the rest of you use?

Edit:
Just found a similar thread, users of different Hauppage cards with the same problem:
Randomly Missing Audio On Recordings
No resolution, however.

[Abecedaria]

Originally Posted by dbump

I have previously googled for audio issues with the PVR-250, and found several folks reporting similar issues with different software. What video hardware do the rest of you use?

You can see my setup listed in my signature. I'm still having major problems with this as stated in my first post. It's odd that we should be having the same problem with very similar hardware yet that the problem manifests itself somewhat differently. I wonder if things are different for you because you're using Coax and I'm using RCA for audio. It is all very baffling....

abc

[dbump]

Forgot to check the sigs. So far all of us except Poobah are confirmed on Hauppauge hardware.

It is interesting that we're seeing the same problem under different circumstances! I'd be curious if you can swap your RCA audio to a different device (TV/Receiver/etc.) when you run into the issue while watching live tv, to see if it really is just your PVR 150 not picking up the audio? I think my DCT2000 has an RCA audio out (no s-video, sadly), if so, I'll try connecting that to see if it is live the next time I have the problem.

I'm also puzzled that there aren't more people having this issue, since the Hauppauge cards are pretty common. Unless it's a specific driver/hardware revision? Seems less likely, since we all have different models.

Is anyone else letting their media pc suspend itself on idle? I'd love to rule that out.

[Abecedaria]

I never let my machine sleep/suspend/hibernate, whatever. It's always running ready to record or encode so you can rule that out. I wish I could get Comcast to send me a settop box with a Firewire output because I'd love to try and capture that way.

Beyond that, though, I'd love to hear if anyone is having this problem with anything but a DCT2000. To me, I would think that it is the source of the problem. My wife has had it cut out on her before when she was watching TV directly from the unit itself and not through BTV. (Although it was physically connected to the Hauppauge card, she wasn't watching it through that output.)

abc

[angelleye]

I'll add my woes. I've only recorded a couple of things so far...just got everything setup for the first time. I'm using Hauppauge 150 and I have Time Warner Cable with a Pioneer box.

I recorded an hour long show for testing today while I was at work and the first 20 min. were fine but then the audio cut out. I only watched for another 5 min or so and it never came back. It wasn't at a commerical, and it wasn't at a channel change. It was right in the middle of the show.

I was hoping it was a fluke...but this thread makes me worry.

[jeffmplsmn]

My audio will also drop out right in the middle of a recorded show. If I press fast forward for just a split second and then hit play, the audio will come back. If I rewind, the audio will drop out in the exact same spot in the recording. I have Comcast Digital, a DCT700 cable box, and an Adaptec Videoh USB video capture device. This has happened on all 4.x versions of Beyond TV.

[Abecedaria]

Hmm. I really don't think it is an issue with BTV. Jeff: I think you have a different issue. I can tell you that I was watching a show on Nickelodeon tonight with my kids and had the audio drop out in the middle of a commercial. I was watching direct from the DCT2000 and was not recording using BTV. I should also mention that this is my second DCT2000 and I had the exact same problem with the first. Does anyone even have an idea for how to troubleshoot this? Or if there is a way to make Comcast give me a different model STB?

abc

[dbump]

I just trolled google for any issues with the DCT2000 and audio, and came up with nothing. Lots of Tivo users who had similar issues with a particular upgrade version (with and without DCT2000 boxes), but not much else. That's not definitive, but I'd have expected at least one hit (aside from this very thread, that is) from several searches with different keywords. I was hoping that was it too, but I wonder if it is a combination of things.
Abecedaria, was the video from the DCT2000 going straight from the box to the TV, or does it go through your PVR-150, and then on to the TV? If the latter, it's still possible that BTV and/or the PVR-150 are responsible. And if so, if you can get it to happen again, try swapping the cable that feeds the PVR-150 to go straight to the TV instead and see if the audio is still dead. If it is, it's definitely the DCT2000.
However, when I try that, the sound returns instantly--and goes back away when I reconnect to my PVR-250. Can anyone else test that and see if they get the same symptoms?

[dbump]

Just got back to my PVR after an extended absence and found many recordings with missing audio. Again, the issue often seems to occur precisely at a channel change. This time, I started switching channels in live TV, and after only a few channels, the audio dropped. Perfect. I already had an RCA cable running from the back of the DCT2000 box (BTV gets combined audio video over coax cable connected to my PVR250). I plugged that RCA cable into the front panel audio in on my TV, switched to Video3, and I had audio. Switched back to Video1, where my computer is connected, and I had video, but still no audio.

So in my case at least, the DCT2000 is absolutely not the problem. It is feeding audio out, but the PVR250/BeyondTV combination is not listening to it.

With the audio still missing, I exited the snapstream interface, and right-clicked on the BTV system tray icon, and chose Exit. Waited for it to gracefully close, and then started it from start/programs, went to LiveTV, and still no audio. I rebooted, and the problem went away as soon as I could get back in to LiveTV. I was able to recreate the problem again fairly quickly in Live TV.

My next thought was to install the WinTV2000 app, try to recreate the problem, exit BTV, load WinTV, and see if it was the software or the card. First I installed the latest driver/middleware pair, rebooted, and launched LiveTV to make sure things were working--no problems, but now I can't recreate the audo dropout. Changed the channel hundreds of times, but nothing. It'd be nice if the latest drivers just fixed the issue. Time will tell.

Has anyone else updated their encoder card drivers?

Also, found another, current thread with similar symptoms:
Sound sometimes cuts out on recording

[dbump]

It wasn't the drivers--happened again. Also, I don't think it's anything but BTV. I have the WinTV2000 app from Hauppauge installed, and I can close out of BeyondTV--with no audio, open WinTV2000, hear audio fine, change the channel using my digital cable box remote, to verify that I am getting input from the same source, and then exit, go back to BeyondTV, and no audio there again. And, as before, an RCA audio out, coming from the cable box, has full audio. It's just BeyondTV that's ignoring the signal.

Time to open a support incident.