AMC 6 @72.0°W — No Audio

[Babadem]

Since this Feed transponder is listed on Lyngsat, I believe it will be ok for me to post my question here:

Using the AZBox (firmware 0.9.4219) on AMC 6 @ 72.0°w; 120301 V, 12401 SR, for some reason the Video freezes very often and there is no audio, but the NBC MUX and other feeds' Audio and Video come in fine. It should be noted however, that I can hear the Audio fine on my Coolsat 5000, but no video due to the coolsat 5K is not 4.2.0 compliant. Has anyone experienced this and how did you fix it?

 

[B.J.]

Since this Feed transponder is listed on Lyngsat, I believe it will be ok for me to post my question here:

Using the AZBox (firmware 0.9.4219) on AMC 6 @ 72.0°w; 120301 V, 12401 SR, for some reason the Video freezes very often and there is no audio, but the NBC MUX and other feeds' Audio and Video come in fine. It should be noted however, that I can hear the Audio fine on my Coolsat 5000, but no video due to the coolsat 5K is not 4.2.0 compliant. Has anyone experienced this and how did you fix it?

This transponder isn't on right now, so I can't check out the audio, however ALL FTA receivers are 4.2.0 compliant. You might be thinking about 4.2.2 or perhaps mpeg4.

 

[vanalex]

I had the same problem with this feed the other night too, Wednesday I believe. I never resolved the problem, and I also had audio but no picture on the CoolSat 6000. I tried all four of the audio tracks on the AZBox (4219 firmware) and none produced sound. I have not had this problems on this transponder in the past.

 

[Babadem]

This transponder isn't on right now, so I can't check out the audio, however ALL FTA receivers are 4.2.0 compliant. You might be thinking about 4.2.2 or perhaps mpeg4.

Can you check out 12301 V 12401 SR on your AZBox later in the evening when that transponder lights up ?

 

[Babadem]

I had the same problem with this feed the other night too, Wednesday I believe. I never resolved the problem, and I also had audio but no picture on the CoolSat 6000. I tried all four of the audio tracks on the AZBox (4219 firmware) and none produced sound. I have not had this problems on this transponder in the past.

I'm really puzzled by this problem.

 

[vanalex]

I really didn't think to much of it the other night but now it has my interest. AZBox has new firmware out this afternoon, version azbox-0.9.4283-patch.bin and am downloading but will have to try later tonight. I will see if anything on that transponder tonight. Maybe it was just that feed or firmware version. I have never had problems before with that transponder.

 

[AcWxRadar]

Can you check out 120301 V 12401 SR on your AZBox later in the evening when that transponder lights up ?

Babadem,

You keep typing it in as 120301 V SR 12401... Isn't it 12031 V?

I have been checking for a signal from this TP since you posted the question and haven't detected a carrier yet. I guess I am missing the times that it is active.

However, I found something that I was not aware of... I changed channels to KFTL on 72.0W AMC 6 to get started looking for a signal from the TP you indicated. I was rather confused at first, I thought that my dish had not moved to the 72 sat and was still on 83 RTN.

Why was I confused, you ask... Because the Cisco Kid was in progress on KFTL (2 a.m. CST) Saturday! The Beverly Hillbillies came on right after at 2:30 a.m. I thought that this channel was all shopping and/or religious broadcasts and only that. According to their program guide, there is a segment of CLASSIC TV shown at MIDNIGHT (PST ?) Tuesday through Saturday.

Hmmm, I am going to have to keep a closer eye on this station from now on.

KFTL 72.0 W AMC 6 11891 H SR 1666 VPID 4197 APID 4198

RADAR

 

[B.J.]

Back to the no audio problem on 12031, I had my Diamond monitoring it most of the afternoon, and it lit up just before 8PM est with a slate, then a while later, maybe 8:30, it came up with the nightly news. Must be for mountain time or something. It was 4.2.0 HD.
But just as indicated above, no audio. Pulled it up on my TT3200 with TSREADER, and there were 4 mpeg audio channels, but none seemed to have anything on them most of the time. Some times they all had a sort of dotted line sin curve type audio display shown, but nothing that looked like real audio, and I couldn't hear anything when I tried to play it with VLC or by streaming to my ROKU.
So anyway, it's not an Azbox problem, they just don't seem to be running any audio there for some reason. I thought that maybe even though the audio had an mpeg descriptor, that it might be AC3, so I tried making a manual channel with AC3 audio, but that didn't work. And the bitrate of the audio streams didn't seem to have enough content to be that Dolby-e stuff. So it's strange.
I did record some of it.
I got up around 3:30 AM EST, and the signal was gone. In fact I think it was gone before 10 PM.

 

[phlatwound]

........Why was I confused, you ask... Because the Cisco Kid was in progress on KFTL (2 a.m. CST) Saturday! The Beverly Hillbillies came on right after at 2:30 a.m. I thought that this channel was all shopping and/or religious broadcasts and only that. According to their program guide, there is a segment of CLASSIC TV shown at MIDNIGHT (PST ?) Tuesday through Saturday.

Hmmm, I am going to have to keep a closer eye on this station from now on.

KFTL 72.0 W AMC 6 11891 H SR 1666 VPID 4197 APID 4198

RADAR

I have no input on the audio issue but thanks for the Hillbillies headsup, me and the other denizens of Hillbillistan have been missing that show since it dropped off of RTN, long ago.

Sounds like I may have to finally learn how to record something. :up

 

[Babadem]

Babadem,

You keep typing it in as 120301 V SR 12401... Isn't it 12031 V?

I have been checking for a signal from this TP since you posted the question and haven't detected a carrier yet. I guess I am missing the times that it is active.

However, I found something that I was not aware of... I changed channels to KFTL on 72.0W AMC 6 to get started looking for a signal from the TP you indicated. I was rather confused at first, I thought that my dish had not moved to the 72 sat and was still on 83 RTN.

Why was I confused, you ask... Because the Cisco Kid was in progress on KFTL (2 a.m. CST) Saturday! The Beverly Hillbillies came on right after at 2:30 a.m. I thought that this channel was all shopping and/or religious broadcasts and only that. According to their program guide, there is a segment of CLASSIC TV shown at MIDNIGHT (PST ?) Tuesday through Saturday.

Hmmm, I am going to have to keep a closer eye on this station from now on.

KFTL 72.0 W AMC 6 11891 H SR 1666 VPID 4197 APID 4198

RADAR

@ the highlighted: RADAR, it was a typo. I meant to say 12031V. o: It is usually active around 8:30Pm or later.

 

[Babadem]

Back to the no audio problem on 12031, I had my Diamond monitoring it most of the afternoon, and it lit up just before 8PM est with a slate, then a while later, maybe 8:30, it came up with the nightly news. Must be for mountain time or something. It was 4.2.0 HD.
But just as indicated above, no audio. Pulled it up on my TT3200 with TSREADER, and there were 4 mpeg audio channels, but none seemed to have anything on them most of the time. Some times they all had a sort of dotted line sin curve type audio display shown, but nothing that looked like real audio, and I couldn't hear anything when I tried to play it with VLC or by streaming to my ROKU.
So anyway, it's not an Azbox problem, they just don't seem to be running any audio there for some reason. I thought that maybe even though the audio had an mpeg descriptor, that it might be AC3, so I tried making a manual channel with AC3 audio, but that didn't work. And the bitrate of the audio streams didn't seem to have enough content to be that Dolby-e stuff. So it's strange.
I did record some of it.
I got up around 3:30 AM EST, and the signal was gone. In fact I think it was gone before 10 PM.

.......I get audio on my Coolsat 5000, but video is all green, so there most be audio there.

 

[AcWxRadar]

@ the highlighted: RADAR, it was a typo. I meant to say 12031V. o: It is usually active around 8:30Pm or later.

I am working at that time for the next few days, but when I get some time off, I will check it out with my AZBox as well. I already had the TP listed in my lineup so I can just zing right there and check it.

RADAR

 

[vanalex]

This transponder, 12031 V SR 12401 went active about 8pm tonight. I had no audio. I rescanned it and no audio. I went to the audio section of the AZBox and moved down to the second audio selection and now have tone (Sound) with the AZBox with this transponder. The audio is now the same as the CoolSat. I am using the 0.9.4283 firmware as I have not had the chance to load the new 4295 firmware out yesterday.

Edit: Now showing NBC Video from Haiti and still have audio on channel two, 1,3,4 are no audio.

Dan.

 

[B.J.]

Well, I am completely confused now!?!?!

When I tuned this transponder and responded, in addition to my Diamond 9000, above, I used TSREADER, and those who use TSREADER are probably familiar with the feature it has to give little oscilloscope like displays of each audio stream, and for the most part, it was showing flat-lines for all 4 audio streams, except for occasionally it was showing what I referred to as sort of dotted line traces, instead of what I normally see.
I also had tried all 4 audio streams on the Diamond, and I think I tried all 4 streams when I tried streaming the channel to my Roku.
As I mentioned, I recorded a portion of the transmission. I also tried playing this recording with VLC, and I got no audio from any of the 4 audio streams.

When I read the Babadem response above, that the Coolsat was giving audio, I just assumed that NBC had fixed whatever problem existed.

But upon seeing another post about no audio, I decided to look again at the recording I had made the other night. THIS time I decided to play it back with VideoReDo. BINGO, THIS time, video and audio played fine!?!?!?!?!
Again, tried playing it with VLC.... no audio.
Tried running the recording through TSREADER, streaming to Roku... NO AUDIO.

Anyway, I find this VERY STRANGE. VideoReDo acts like there is nothing wrong with the video, and yet playing back by multiple methods gives no audio.
The only thing I can think of is that there is some defect in the PCR info that has receivers and players kind of waiting for the audio at the wrong time or something, whereas perhaps the Coolsat and VideoReDo are just playing whatever audio it encounters. I'm half wondering what might happen if people would make manual PID channels, but use the bogus 8192 PCR PID. It probably won't help, as most receivers will probably default to the video PID for the PCR, but it's worth a try.

But in a space of a few minutes, I've gone from being convinced that there simply was no audio on these streams to a situation where I'm convinced that there IS audio, but having NO IDEA of why the receivers and players that I use just cannot play this audio.

VERY STRANGE

 

[Babadem]

Well, I am completely confused now!?!?!

When I tuned this transponder and responded, in addition to my Diamond 9000, above, I used TSREADER, and those who use TSREADER are probably familiar with the feature it has to give little oscilloscope like displays of each audio stream, and for the most part, it was showing flat-lines for all 4 audio streams, except for occasionally it was showing what I referred to as sort of dotted line traces, instead of what I normally see.
I also had tried all 4 audio streams on the Diamond, and I think I tried all 4 streams when I tried streaming the channel to my Roku.
As I mentioned, I recorded a portion of the transmission. I also tried playing this recording with VLC, and I got no audio from any of the 4 audio streams.

When I read the Babadem response above, that the Coolsat was giving audio, I just assumed that NBC had fixed whatever problem existed.

But upon seeing another post about no audio, I decided to look again at the recording I had made the other night. THIS time I decided to play it back with VideoReDo. BINGO, THIS time, video and audio played fine!?!?!?!?!
Again, tried playing it with VLC.... no audio.
Tried running the recording through TSREADER, streaming to Roku... NO AUDIO.

Anyway, I find this VERY STRANGE. VideoReDo acts like there is nothing wrong with the video, and yet playing back by multiple methods gives no audio.
The only thing I can think of is that there is some defect in the PCR info that has receivers and players kind of waiting for the audio at the wrong time or something, whereas perhaps the Coolsat and VideoReDo are just playing whatever audio it encounters. I'm half wondering what might happen if people would make manual PID channels, but use the bogus 8192 PCR PID. It probably won't help, as most receivers will probably default to the video PID for the PCR, but it's worth a try.

But in a space of a few minutes, I've gone from being convinced that there simply was no audio on these streams to a situation where I'm convinced that there IS audio, but having NO IDEA of why the receivers and players that I use just cannot play this audio.

VERY STRANGE

Thanks for doing an indepth research on this issue. I even tried inputing the PIDs that were present on the Coolsat 5000, but no success. I will try the "bogus 8192 PCR PID" idea when time permits.

 

[B.J.]

Well, to add a bit more to the confusion, I tried another experiment. I ran the recording of the channel back in TSREADER, and created an audio only channel, ie I thought that since the Coolsat in question isn't capable of playing HD, that this was a situation of not being able to play both video AND audio, and if video wasn't playing, then the audio might play OK.
This didn't work. Created the channel, and tried to play the audio both by my ROKU and via VLC on another computer. Both came up with no audio.

I had assumed that no audio was being sent, however I ran ethereal, which is a network packet sniffer, and I'm able to see the audio data being streamed across my network. So it IS being sent. It's just that everything I have to receive the streams is unable to play it.