Video Dropouts since 3.0

What I have seen is that this happens when I'm watching something and using the special effects. Like if I use the replay or 30 second skip buttons while watching delayed TV I sometimes get those 'lost time' dropouts. It never seems to happen when I set it to record something when I'm not home. I never noticed it before 3.0 but then I only had my system for a week before that so who knows. Some people think it has to do with errors on the hard drive and there is a thread around here talking about that. It might be, but someone else suggested what I just told you about using the 'special effects', and since then I've noticed that they are probably right. Someone else thought it might be limited to the 3060. I have one. I'm not sure if it's happening on other machines. Someone else noticed that it happened with 2.1.


I know this is not that helpful to you, sorry, but you're not alone with this and I don't think you have a defective unit.


Ed Leiken

I see this occasionally (maybe once or twice a week in recorded programs) on my 2020 with 3.0. I also had the problem on 2.1... BUT, on 2.1 it resulted in audio and video out of sync. in 3.0 it's just a blip.


Personally, I write it up to momentary signal weakness, either on the cable, or from the broadcaster.


Not really a problem, I don't consider it a problem with the Replay or I would think it would happen with more consistency.


I don't do a lot of fiddling with "stuff" while a program is recording in the background, although I admit that there _may_ me a connection between this phenomenon and doing things like a search while a show is recording... But, since it happens on programs that I record when I'm nowhere near the box, I can't say that's what's doing it for sure.


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"The two most abundant substances in the universe are Hydrogen and Stupidity. Not necessarily in that order"

Quote:
While watching a channel on the RF input last night I saw this happen

as the local station got ready to put a crawl up with lottery numbers, the screen actually flashed to the blue no signal screen for a second. Rewound the ReplayTV and where the blue screen had occurred in real time, there was just a skip in the recording. Another skip occurred after the numbers scrolled.


I've also seen it happen on cable channels when the local system inserts local commercials.


In both instances, there is apparently a slight change in the video level and the ReplayTV box interprets it as a loss of signal.


-Gary

Several forum topics have been opened to describe the video skip problem affecting the recordings.


I've experienced it with my two models - 2004 (under 2.1 and 3.0) and 3060 (again, under 2.1 and 3.0).


As several others have reported, I have found it to be intermittant (can stay away for weeks at a time, then return for days at a time), and I have found that it is most frequently observed while the unit is powered up for viewing - either while watching in live mode (in which case the video and audio may be briefly interrupted by a blue "video signal" message) and when recording while viewing that program or a previously recorded program.


One forum's discussion regarding degraded sections of the drive, appeared inconclusive or ruled out by other commentators in the forum.


My cable TV signal is strong - using a high quality (and expensive!) splitter and cable system. At tech support's request, I also removed the splitter temporarily to rule it out as a trouble source, and that did not make the problem go away. My "PIP" feature also demonstrates there was no visible degradation of the signal when I observed the dropouts and blue screens occurring in live mode.


I am currently experiencing these only rarely with my model 2004. I had a terrible problem with this with my new 3060, but the unit ultimately proved to be defective (eventually stopped recording from any input and from all sources including home video) so it shipped back and I can't continue observations with that model till I decide to repurchase.


I'm hoping the next models will incorporate additional system resources or a design correction that eliminates this problem entirely. If you don't experience it, or see it only very rarely, it's a non-issue. However both my systems have dropped large sections out of recorded shows when they experienced this problem, and I would very much love to see it corrected. I absolutely revere the ReplayTV technology and think it's an outstanding product with tremendous features and design, and I want to see ReplayTV thrive and make a tremendous dent in the consumer video market. Curing this small glitch would increase my own confidence in recommending ReplayTV to others.

Gary...You may have hit on something.


If you have a momentary(or not so momentary) loss of signal during a recording it appears that Replay will pause the recording until the signal returns. That's good and I can understand that. If you have a hiccup in the sync, such as when untimed VTR's are used for local commercial insertion on cable it would make sense that Replay might interpret that as a momentary loss of signal and pause. But...


Last night I watched the X-Files premiere live through Replay, and inadvertantly recorded it at the same time. While there were absolutely no visible problems with the incoming signal (Fox NYC through DISH), when I played back the recorded program it skipped three times in a 10 minute period. I was not doing any FF/RWD or pausing during the live recording.


Possibly the mechanism that pauses during signal disturbances has its sensitivity set too high, or maybe it should be set to only ignore signal fluctuations that are greater than a second or two. I wish ReplayMike or someone else from Replay would chime in on this...it's very disturbing. I didn't experience this until 3.0, but it looks like that may be coincidental.

Just to clarify, if you get the blue screen for any reason while a program is being recorded, recording is suspended for as long as the blue screen is up there, so on playback you will get a skip rather than a recording of the blue screen.


I have seen the occassional blue screen on the few rare occassions that I have watched live TV, and this was on 2.1.


The lip sync problem is fairly common and can usually be cured with a quick press on the "Instant Replay" button, but occassionally there is a more serious glitch in the recording itself, where you can easily isolate the exact point in the program that causes the video and sound to go out of sync, if you hit IR too quickly it will take you back to before the glitch and therefore the problem will still exist. The PAUSE button also works to re-sync things sometimes.


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Later,

Rob.
http://www.hifi-remote.com/