Sound dropping..........

[Parlyle]

I just got 2 new Hoppers with Sling a couple of days ago. I have been having trouble with the sound dropping out when I am watching regular broadcast and recorded programs. I have Opti-Audio cable from Hopper to a JoyTech Control Center 240C to an Onkyo AV receiver. I had no trouble before I had the Hopper installed. I replaced all of the opti cables with new ones and it still happens. When I am watching a recorded program and want to skip forward over commercials, it tends to drop sound for the 1st skip, sound comes back for 2nd skip, and drops the 3rd. And so forth. It does the same thing in backward skips too. I am having trouble with the other Hopper too, but not as bad. That one is connected to a Denon 2310 CI receiver.
I was just wondering if anybody else has had any sound problems with these new Hoppers. I can say I like the new Hoppers performance, if it just didn't have this sound problem, it would be great. I have a Joey for each of the Hoppers too, and they are working perfectly.
Thank you for any responses:
Lyle

 

[lucky86]

You aren't the only person experiencing this exact issue. Dish is working on it. Does your av system allow for hdmi pass through?

 

[Parlyle]

You aren't the only person experiencing this exact issue. Dish is working on it. Does your av system allow for hdmi pass through?

Until I get a confirmation from Dish tech reps, I think I have gotten somewhat of a fix for this problem, at least a fix for what I was experiencing. With the help of the Dish people, I tried some things they suggested and came up with something that seems to be working. I went into the "Audio" selection from the "Settings" grouping and chose "PCM" instead of "Dolby/PCM" for the Audio output with the "Volume Leveling" selection "Enabled". I believe I still have surround sound from my speakers, regardless of what the manual says that I should just have only ''Stereo" from all speakers. I think I will leave it this way until I get an answer from Dish. No sound dropping, and I am cautiously optimistic that this should be, although temporary, a fix for the dropped sound. I am anxious to find out if anybody else has the same conclusions.
Good Luck to everyone with this problem.

Lyle
My system does allow for HDMI pass through, and I did try that in the trial and error portion of the procedure. It did nothing to stop the dropping sound problem.

 

[KAB]

Sure, you will have stereo surround with PCM only, but you won't have DD 5.1.

 

[Parlyle]

Sure, you will have stereo surround with PCM only, but you won't have DD 5.1.

That is true, but the dropping sound is nil. Until there is a better fix, it's a lot better actually listening to virtual surround, with no dropping, than to listen to nothing and trying to skip around for the sound to come back on. Either way, I'm sure there will be a fix in the near future. I'm just noting the progress I was having to get at the heart of the problem, and what I found out when I experimented with different options.

 

[gqmagic]

I am having intermittent audio dropouts, for example watching ESPN, UCLA wins the CWS, the announcer says

1st base___ championship in school his___

things like that on every channel now and again.

Is this supposed to be an improvement from earlier problems?

its very annoying!

F

 

[sourdough]

I am having intermittent audio dropouts, for example watching ESPN, UCLA wins the CWS, the announcer says

1st base___ championship in school his___

things like that on every channel now and again.

Is this supposed to be an improvement from earlier problems?

its very annoying!

F

Hit the red key on the remote to see the tuner status. Make sure the 'Watching PIP' tuner is set to a HD channel. If the PIP is on a SD channel this causes audio skips at least on SD recording playback. I have been able to reproduce this issue quite consistently and fix it quite consistently using this method.

 

[gqmagic]

Hit the red key on the remote to see the tuner status. Make sure the 'Watching PIP' tuner is set to a HD channel. If the PIP is on a SD channel this causes audio skips at least on SD recording playback. I have been able to reproduce this issue quite consistently and fix it quite consistently using this method.

I'm HD on all channels all the time

 

[Morr]

I'm also having the problem with audio drop outs even when watching HD while HD is on the PIP. The best way I've found to fix the issue is to watch the show using a different tuner. To be specific, if the audio is dropping out, I turn on PIP, swap programs, and then switch to the channel I wanted to watch in the first place or restart a recorded program. I can then close the PIP and audio drop outs will have stopped. This makes me wonder if it's a hardware problem.

Michael

 

[odbrv]

Last night I lost sound on all OTA channels on my hopper. Had to do a reboot and all came back.

 

[sourdough]

I'm also having the problem with audio drop outs even when watching HD while HD is on the PIP. The best way I've found to fix the issue is to watch the show using a different tuner. To be specific, if the audio is dropping out, I turn on PIP, swap programs, and then switch to the channel I wanted to watch in the first place or restart a recorded program. I can then close the PIP and audio drop outs will have stopped. This makes me wonder if it's a hardware problem.

Michael

What also appears to work is pause your current (skipping) tuner. Open PIP, change the channel, then swap back and resume your paused tuner, close PIP. That also usually solves the audio problem.

It isn't a hardware problem, in my case it didn't start until S311. It is also never limited to a specific tuner, and always correctable via software fiddling. I have yet to see this occur on HD.

 

[Tron2012]

Agree that it is most likely a software problem. I have a similar problem that combines audio and video. Been like this since I got the Hoppers in April.

From my Hopper w/Sling, if I try to watch a saved recording from my other regular Hopper it sometimes (not always) will fail (the selected recording will not play). The TV will have audio from one tuner on the HWS and the video is from another. And at times the video is the SD version of an HD channel. But the recording I wanted to see does not display. Even get a weird 'do not' icon and if I remember correctly, the banner will show the info for the recording I was trying to watch.

Found out recently that if I switch the tuner on the HWS to the channel that displays when this fails and try watching the other Hopper´s recording again that it works. Mostly. Sometimes it just will not solve the problem and I need to do a red button reset. Very buggy with no repeatable solution.

Seems to happen a lot during PTAT when a tuner is being used for recordings, but wife has complained it happens during the day as well. If I was from DISH and read this I would have the developers look at tuner management and how PIP is being used. (PTAT is only enabled on the regular Hopper, HWS is not using PTAT.)

A little odd that the same type of tuner changing seems to fix both problems. Sometimes.


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[Grandude]

Last night I tried to watch "Under the Dome" which I had recorded the day before on my 2nd hopper using my first hopper. No sound at all. Tried stopping and starting it, pause, back space, etc. but no luck.
I switch inputs to the TV to watch directly from hopper 2 and sound was good. First time this has happened to me.