WISN (12-1) Audio Dropouts

[Joseph S]

When you loose audio does this light turn off? Or does the AC3 light stay on when you lose audio do you just loose one (or more) channels of audio?

Light goes off on my Denon and there's a screech or blip.

[Mark Strube]

Light goes off on my Denon and there's a screech or blip.

It does this even for the long 3-4 second audio dropouts on ABC?

[12engr]

Next question...  Do you _ever_ notice a video 'dropout' associated with the audio hit?

We're trying to narrow down between the Dolby encoder, or the transport stream to the transmitter site.

[Steve Mann]

Next question...  Do you _ever_ notice a video 'dropout' associated with the audio hit?

No. In the 8-10 times I've noticed the audio dropout, there has never been any video problems associated with it.

[kevbeck122]

I haven't seen any video drops with it.  My receiver goes from the DD logo to saying "No digital data" and my subwoofer sometimes pops whenever the audio drops.

[basshive]

OTA WISN audio drop outs continue here as well. As I noted in another thread I began to notice this when watching the MNF football games. No real problems with video, but sure enough every 20 mins or so there is a several second audio outage. I honestly cannot remember now if the dolby light on my reciever stays on because I am convinced I have seen it go off and on but cant remember if it was just the drops or when commercials were coming on etc.. in any event there IS a problem with audio drop outs and has been for months.

[StarvingForHDTV]

I confirm that video is never dropped with the audio at my house.  I don't get any pops or screeches.  Just silence.

[kjnorman]

Are the longer audio dropouts only when we're in true HD or do you hear the audio dropouts on upconverted SD as well?

We do not watch any SD upconverted shows on our HR10-250.  If we watch SD if is recorded and played from the regular channel 12 on the satelite feed from Directv on our regular TiVo (DVR2?).  So unfortunately I can not answer that question.  The SD version is always okay (as we still simultaneously record both SD and HD versions of most shows for safety).

Kerry

[kjnorman]

We haven't give up.

We have been monitoring base-band audio tonight and have received no 'Loss Of Audio' alarms.   So...  Some receivers have an AC3 indicator light on them.  When you loose audio does this light turn off?  Or does the AC3 light stay on when you lose audio do you just loose one (or more) channels of audio?

My receiver just displays "Dolby Digital" but does not indicate if it is mono, 5.1, or some combination inbetween.  When we have had drops I have not noticed it changing its display to Dolby Pro-Logic (which is what it goes to when it drops out of dolby digital - ie going to commercials), though the receiver is not in the most noticible part of the room so i may have missed it.  I get no pops or screeches, just silence.

Next time I get a sound drop I will double check.  I also intend to connect analog L-R leads from the Tivo to the reciever to see in the down converted analog audio is any different from the optical DD feed.

I'll let you know the outcome next time I get a drop.

[tazman]

Just an update to my earlier post.  I had emailed the engineer at TMJ and I had gotten a reply.  He acknowleges the problem and they are working to correct it.  I could not  post the contents, do to a discaimer of sorts at the bottom of the email reply.

[kjnorman]

Next question...  Do you _ever_ notice a video 'dropout' associated with the audio hit?

We're trying to narrow down between the Dolby encoder, or the transport stream to the transmitter site.

No, the video is rock solid, just the audio goes out.

This is how I tell it from a sudden lose of OTA signal - in that case I get pixelation of a momentary freeze, but I do not see that with the audio drops on WISN.

[kjnorman]

Soon as Leno started there has been audio drops every minute and a half or so. :guns:

Slightly off topic for a WISN thread but we finally watched the second episode of Surface on TMJ, and the beginning of that show was so bad (multiple times a minute) with the audio was dropping that we had we had to watched the SD broadcast.  I did go back to the HD version in the last 15 minutes and by that time it seems like they finally fixed the audio.

I hope the NBC engineer can fix this soon, as I got a lot of verbal from the wife on "why is HD so much better when we get all these sound problems...?"  Not fun....

[Joseph S]

Slightly off topic for a WISN thread but we finally watched the second episode of Surface on TMJ, and the biginning of that show was so bad (every multiple times a minute) the audio was dropping that we had to watched the SD broadcast. I did do back to the HD version in the last 15 minutes and by that time it seems like they finally fixed the audio.

Even the replays of the first two episodes had this. Seems to be something in the source on those two that NBC decided it wasn't "worth" it to fix.

[12engr]

Thanks for input so far. My conclusion based on your feedback is while watching OTA, audio dropouts of a couple of seconds occur randomly on true HD programming but do not occur on upconverted local SD (while watching 12-1, not watching analog ch12). When the dropouts happen, there seems to be no video dropout during that time. With no picture "glitch", my thought is somehow the Dolby metadata is being compromised somewhere causing the decoders in various receivers to "reset" with resulting loss of audio. I had a real time monitor/error logger on the raw decoded HD audio from ABC last night and had no alarms showing a loss of AES audio even though it was reported by members. Will continue to work on the problem. Out of curiosity, does anyone remember if there were these dropouts before August 26th of this year?

[caveman]

Just wanted to add that the AC3 light goes out on my Denon when there is an audio dropout.  I have had no associated video dropouts.  Also, my audio drops out on upconverted SD also but my receiver recognizes a multichannel mix for these programs also (only 12-1) whereas on all other stations' upconverted programming my receiver switches to pro logic.