522 DVR Video Issues

[Mike_H]

Just thought I would see if anyone else notices this.

In the various recordings I've watched on the 522 (really haven't watched hardly any Live TV since I've received it) I have found various "glitches" appear in the video output everyonce and a while.

I have my receiver put in single mode and during playback I will notice the following items occur once or twice per recording.

Sound/Video Glitch: I'll see someone's mouth moving, but no sound, then the screen will jump as though the decoder for the stream had to resync itself due to falling out of sync.

Video Glitch: Every once and a while I"ll see a "tear" occur on the image for a split second. Just a strip a couple inches high and wide will become disturbed within the entire frame of the screen showing a blocky display, almost like what you might see if signal quality drops slowly. The first time I saw it I thought something was about to fail, but it just appeared for about a second, then went away.

The interesting point of these items is that it appears that the glitches were recorded. At least I can duplicate them by going back to the same point in the video and replaying.

I have over 100 in signal strength on 110 and 119 so I'm pretty sure it's something unrelated to that. I'd try resetting the 522, but I'm not sure of the procedure for them. I know the 50x models have you hold down the power button until it shuts off, but not sure about the 522.

Anyone else see similar issues?

 

[GunnerJoe]

I see the exact same thing, about just as often (if not more). I also have great signal strength and so I expect not to see those types of things. But there it is, all the time. I try not to let it bother me. I find the amount of compression they use to be much more irritating, especially in peoples faces when I see some parts of a face move, then other parts 'catch up'. But that's another topic.

 

[JohnL]

Just thought I would see if anyone else notices this.

In the various recordings I've watched on the 522 (really haven't watched hardly any Live TV since I've received it) I have found various "glitches" appear in the video output everyonce and a while.

I have my receiver put in single mode and during playback I will notice the following items occur once or twice per recording.

Sound/Video Glitch: I'll see someone's mouth moving, but no sound, then the screen will jump as though the decoder for the stream had to resync itself due to falling out of sync.

Video Glitch: Every once and a while I"ll see a "tear" occur on the image for a split second. Just a strip a couple inches high and wide will become disturbed within the entire frame of the screen showing a blocky display, almost like what you might see if signal quality drops slowly. The first time I saw it I thought something was about to fail, but it just appeared for about a second, then went away.

The interesting point of these items is that it appears that the glitches were recorded. At least I can duplicate them by going back to the same point in the video and replaying.

I have over 100 in signal strength on 110 and 119 so I'm pretty sure it's something unrelated to that. I'd try resetting the 522, but I'm not sure of the procedure for them. I know the 50x models have you hold down the power button until it shuts off, but not sure about the 522.

Anyone else see similar issues?

Rebooting the 522 is the same as rebooting a 501, 508, or 510. Press the Power button and hold it for about 5 seconds.

Yes my 522 does exhibit similar behavior. The 522 is MUCH more stable now than it was months ago, that is not to say there are not still some bugs in the firmware. I have seen a number of digital artifacts on several of my receivers I believe this is system wide and NOT unique to the 522. Dish has been playing around with Bitrates and compression schemes as well as each transponders channel load for the last few weeks. The result has been more apparent digital artifacts. I would think these issues are likely to get better in the long term.

John

 

[jtravel]

I have the same issues on my 522.
Some recordings or maybe its the specific channels seems to be worse than others.

 

[Bizzach]

Same here... Although I think it may be a certian part of the HD. About a week ago, I recorded 4 hour-long shows back-to-back. The third one was VERY BAD with the 'blocky-ness' and the audio dropouts. I mean, so bad, they were constantly happening... made the show pretty much unwatchable. It was recorded on disc like that, and once I deleted it, I haven't seen any other shows doing that. Bad sector on the drive?

Anyway, you'll get used to the occasional audio dropout and that pixelation for a second or two....

 

[Mike_H]

A bad sector should cause an system failure unless they are using spare sector mapping. More likely is some sort of fragmentation of the stream causing additional latency in reading the data.

As far as compression, I don't think that's what's causing the 522 to display these odd things. My 501 and 510 exibit none of the same behavior. (They have their own unique issues, but not related to video quality)

 

[nickso]

Having same issue here, replaced my 4 month old 522 yesterday because of same video/audio issues. They did not want to replace it because they said many units were having the SW issues. I still had them send me a replacement unit.
That unit was running 233.

I connected the new unit last night and recorded some shows. Reviewed shows this morning and recordings are in black and white!!
Also noticed that if I rewind while watching live TV, the picture goes to B&W again and will stay B&W until I fast forward to live TV, then after playing live TV for about 3 seconds the picture will flicker from B&W to color and then stay color.
This only happens on TV1 and not TV2.

Again they did not want to replace the unit and stated I needed to keep the unit and they would submit a "uncommon failure report".
I told them they needed to send me a replacement unit and take my second bad unit and look at it there.
The "expert tech support" person tried to tell me that it was an issue with the way I was turning on my TV before I turned on the receiver, after I told him that was crap he tried to convince me that it was an issue with my TV.

2nd unit in 4 months and bad tech support/attitudes is starting to get under my skin.

They clearly have some SW issues and need to get it in gear soon. I told the tech support person that if the issues don't clear up soon I want out of my contract, they said "no way"

If this keeps up, we might want to consider a class action law suite to keep them in line.

Anyone else seen the B&W issue?
Anyone else consider a class action law suite?

Thanks,
Nick

 

[maximum]

Replacing your 522 because of the video/audio glitches is a futile effort. I've had six of them and every single one had the same problem. As you can see from reading these posts, almost every 522 user has these problems. If audio/video hickups are the only problem with your original receiver hang on to it and consider yourself lucky. As you've seen, replacement receivers often come with even more problems.

 

[nickso]

I here ya, but my first 522 did not have minor issues, it had severe freezing issues(6-7 secs) and many issues with audio/video time sync that a "rewind" would not fix.
Sometimes skipping during a 30 min show would happen every 10 secs or so and the show was not watchable.

They need to fix soon or let me out of my contract so I can try Direct TV.

As I see it, I am honoring my part of the contract by using the unit and paying monthly bill.
They are not honoring the contract, they have provided me with bad equipment and service.

I will see if it gets better, if not, it will be breach of contract by Dish Network.

Anyone else feel this way or am I wrong.
Companies have to be forced to be responsible.

Nick

 

[Stargazer]

You probably wont be able to get out of your contract with Dish Network if you signed one with them. You would also need to check with your retailer to see if you signed a contract through him as well.

Is the problem only happening at certain parts of the day or while another show is recording or is it happening all of the time?

 

[Randy_B]

Has this (all of these?) problem been phoned into Dish Tech reps? It is good to find advice/work arounds here, but in the end they will never be addressed if we do not let Dish know of the problems we see.

 

[nickso]

TO Stargazer: This was happening to me a lot, and from shows that were recorded during the day or at night. Also ran tests to see if problems were worse from TV1 or TV2, no difference with video issues.

If they are not providing service as stated in contract, then legally they are at breach of contract and can be forced to terminate contract and pay for damages. This is where a class action law suite is needed.



To Randy_B: Yes, all issues have been reported to Dish Network. Some tech support reps were good to deal with, but some had a very bad attitude and the only way for me to get a response and action was to "get mean".

Thanks for the input.

Nick

 

[Mike_H]

I've been working ungodly hours and now I'm sick. As soon as I have some time to review some more of my recordings I'll call Dish and report in.

It's easy to see that the problems I'm seeing are intrinsic to the machine, either due to driver issues in communicating with the hard drive, a bad formating of the hard drive (since I've seen the problem across many recordings, I'm not thinking it's a bad cluster), or simply software issues. That others are seeing the issues basically removes the concern that it's my coax, switch, or LNB.

For those ready to just throw the machine away and wanting to breach a contract... obviously you haven't had to deal with other hardware or software support agencies.

If they say it's a problem with how your TV is started up, then hook it up to a different TV and document the issue. Regardless of how stupid their idea is, all you can do is eliminate their excuses until they come clean. If they say it's because you don't have the felder carb connected to the tugger flack with the gerri brick. Then you just hook up the felder carb to the tugger flack using the gerri brick, document that it still happens, and then call them back.

If you go through the effort to get things hooked up, who really wants to go back through ripping it all out and replacing it with something else. It's not that everyone should just suck it up and live with it. But to have the first solution be throwing it all away, seems a bit rash.

 

[Stargazer]

Thats exactly it, it may take a class action lawsuit to get out of your contract without costing you money or at least a personal suit and you know how much it costs for a lawyer to fight a big corporation. Try emailing ceo@dishnetwork.com with your account information to see what they tell you.

 

[max-wang]

Dish know about these problems however the more people that tell them about it the higher the chance you'll get something done about it.

I cancelled last week because of the 522 issues (Was the straw that broke the camels back) The CSR explained that there's bound to be issues with newer hardware and they're aware of the glitches people are having.

I thanked her for allowing me to pay to be a beta tester and for keeping paying customers in the dark about it and she offered to waive the reconnection fee which more than made up for the dropouts over the past few months.

My 522 is boxed up along with my 301 ready to ship back.
Good luck to its next owner.

 

[Stargazer]

I just hope they fix the delayed video (where you hear the audio before the video is being displayed) and delayed DVR functionalities in the near future. Its a little annoying.

The 721 is nearly flawless except for a bug that has been present for many months, heck maybe even a year now. It will only let me bring up EPG or press view or power on and off but wont do anything else until I do a hard reboot by pressing the power button in for five seconds. That is VERY annoying but the only problem I can think of that I have with the 721 and it dont happen too oftne.

 

[lanman]

DVR 522 Audio Sync - Dish is not aware of the issue!!

I just called Dish and they are only aware of an issue with the audio being out of sync when a timer kicks off in the background. I am experiencing the audio sync issue VERY often and not when timers are kicking off in the background. It happens when I am watching a pre-recorded program and I skip forward or when I do nothing at all the audio drops out for a second and comes back out of sync! A reboot makes the issue go away for a while only to return later.

In other words they are not working on a fix for this issue!!!

If you are experiencing audio sync problems PLEASE help all of us by calling 1-800-333-DISH and asking tech support to open an "Uncommon Trend Report". If they receive enough of them they will realize how common the issue really is. I have 4 friends that have received their 522's in the last 2 weeks and everyone of them experience the audio sync issue daily.

Please call them as soon as possible, you will have to be in front of your receiver for the boot strap version and other information.

Thank you for your help,

Dan

 

[snowie]

Dish know about these problems however the more people that tell them about it the higher the chance you'll get something done about it.

I cancelled last week because of the 522 issues (Was the straw that broke the camels back) The CSR explained that there's bound to be issues with newer hardware and they're aware of the glitches people are having.

I thanked her for allowing me to pay to be a beta tester and for keeping paying customers in the dark about it and she offered to waive the reconnection fee which more than made up for the dropouts over the past few months.

My 522 is boxed up along with my 301 ready to ship back.
Good luck to its next owner.

Bravo, Bravo! I'm soon to be with you brother!

I just sent this to Dish, after a few brush offs by the techs:

Dish NBR does not work in my experience. Just tonight all of the timer schedules dumped prior to the nightly update!

ALL OF THEM! I know it's just t.v. but that's not the source of my angst. I'm not independently wealthy, and I'm paying for this junk. I'm angry over the misrepresented sale of said product.

I grow tired of paying for the privilege of innovating on my dime... NBR is NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME ESPECIALLY if you're asking your customer base to PAY for it. Let alone the infrastructure the pass through of any said overhead and taxes, and a reasonable profit. Why on gods green earth are they sending out defective products and charging their customers for it?

NBR on the 522, it does not work AND it's in production AND they're charging for it! It's a LED Zepplin!

(I have a feeling this is probably just another flame in a long history of flames on this topic, but I feel slightly better)

Though the idea of the 522 rocks on paper, in "reality" --outside the marketing world that most corps now days reserve the right to market, "anything!"-- this paper weight doesn't work.

What is the most rock solid DVR product out their, that you actually get what you pay for? Is the grass greener at Direct TV? I could care less about the feature set comparison, as the feature set of the 522 is a mere fantasy!

 

[Stargazer]

Vote with your wallet. Some people have more of an acceptance factor than others and Dish Network rolls these products out to their customers thinking that it will be good enough to be accepted by most people.

I personally think they need to spend more money for more and better software engineers to get the job done right the first time.

 

[Thor263]

This is probably a little OT, but whatever happened with the people who were "official" betatesters (not just the rest of us) of the 522 software? Are people still getting pushed newer releases to test?