Intermittent screen freezes and audio dropout

[markfink777]

I've had Ignite TV running for a month without issues but yesterday my TV signal has started random freezes on the screen and/or audio dropouts for a few seconds at a time. Sometimes a few times per hour and other times every minute or two on all stations I watch. I've rebooted the STB, done a reset, each a few times but it makes no difference. It's connected via ethernet cable to my modem/router (which I've also rebooted) and my Gigabit service itself seems fine.. all my speed tests indicate close to 800Mbit/sec all the time. No one else is on the network when I watch my one and only TV. I've also switched out the ethernet cable in case it was a problem but that made no difference.

I have not yet called Rogers tech support in case there's something else that I can try before I do.

TIA

[Peete22]

Sorry what do.i do after I press permalink?

[57]

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@Peete22 wrote:

Sorry what do.i do after I press permalink?

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Copy the resulting URL from the top of the browser into the PM or post you are creating.

For example, I copied the URL from one of @-G- 's earlier posts and it is below.  It takes you directly to that post:

https://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/Ignite-TV/Intermittent-screen-freezes-and-audio-dropout/m-p/50...

[Peete22]

I can't get it work. It won't let me copy the URL for some reason.  Oh well I messaged them anyway.

[mebe]

@G: I watched W East (now in free preview) a few days ago, and noticed a few quick, but jarring glitches while watching the movie: "Marry Me in Yosemite."

Since W is in free preview for the rest of the month, if the glitches are not exclusive to just a few movies, there should be more W complaints on the way.

W Network ... Made for women, but some men like it too (but I'll never admit it).

[Peete22]

So this is a widespread problem on a few channels, great.   Paying good money for a service that doesn't work properly is awesome.  I never had this problem with bell satellite years ago. Seems the technology has gotten worse.  I don't even remember these problems with Rogers cable in 80s 90s and 2000s

[mebe]

Nothing is perfect, but as a perfectionist myself, it is my job to complain about at least some of the imperfections I witness.

I've had many, many different kinds of TV tech, but none of them were perfect.

IPTV tech (like Ignite TV) uses the Internet, but even my digital legacy tv service receives many channels (like TSN 1, 3, and 5) from the same source that Ignite TV does. However, many of my channels (like TSN 2 and TSN 4) use a different source, so if Ignite TV has a problem with certain channels, I might not (as long as it's not a broadcaster issue).

Many of the channels on Digital Legacy are in SD only (like CMT, as was mentioned earlier), so even if the SD version of CMT was virtually perfect, I'd rather have the glitchy, but clearer Ignite TV version (even for 4 by 3 content).

If the only frequent problems you have with Ignite TV are the same ones that the Resident Experts have, well then, in most cases, that makes you a winner ... even though you still may lose a few channels, whenever "perfection" decides to take a nap, or even hibernate for several months.

I used to wear a shirt that said: "I'm so perfect ... it overlaps."

[Peete22]

I've honestly never had cable tv or satellite that cuts out and pixelates until the last 4 years or so with Rogers legacy and now ignite and I don't think it's something we should accept.  I guess I have been lucky, I didn't think it would be a big deal to.provide consistent service in these days of higher technology and higher prices.  I guess the streaming services have their stuff together as we never have issues with them,  maybe Rogers  should hire their engineers.

[57]

I'm not sure if it's related to location or what, but I watch about 20-30 hours of recorded TV per week and the occasional live programme like the news at 11PM on various channels, including City.  I just checked my IgniteTV app and see about 80 scheduled recordings for the next two weeks on about 25 different channels.  I FF through all commercials and some of the programming that is not of interest, hence 80 recordings can be watched in two weeks.

I can't claim that I've never seen a screen freeze or an audio glitch, however, I'm pretty sure it's less than once per month.  I guess I'm lucky in my location and the programming I watch.

P.S. A few months back, City TV had an issue with Green screen and other glitches on their 11PM news, but I have not seen that lately.  

[mebe]

I'm not saying that it's wise to ACCEPT failure, but rather to EXPECT it.

If you fast-forward through recorded content, you won't always see or hear the brief glitches.

If Rogers gave me all the channels for free and paid me $5 for every glitch I witnessed, I certainly wouldn't spend my time watching CTV Toronto or TV Ontario. If I watched those channels for 365 hours each, I might make $10. No thanks, my time is more valuable to me than that.

Global Toronto and CityTV are not glitching frequently enough to make the big bucks, and when Global glitches, it's usually in the afternoon, but since it also happened on my antenna, I know it's a broadcaster issue, that was most likely fixed many months ago.

To make the big bucks, I would check the channels with lower viewership, that may have obvious and frequent glitching that people notice, but don't care enough to bother complaining about.
I think it was last year or farther back, MUCH had a free preview filled with major glitching that went on for weeks. I could have made a fortune with just that one channel.

WPIX during its CW broadcast hours often goes through some mild to bad glitching or audio hiccups, so although it recently just went through a minor audio hiccup phase, that's still a channel I never fully trust, so it's always worth taking a look at, if I were to be paid for finding glitches.

Oh, and if I had ALL the Sports pack baseball channels, many of those Bally affiliates often get smashed with black screens or glitching. I assume it's not as bad as it used to be, but since Rogers leaves those channels on auto pilot, they generally don't notice the problems unless somebody complains about them.

I think Discovery sometimes has an audio volume lowering problem with specific content from months ago, just like all the channels airing that Cop show based in New York had. Not sure why the content itself had audio issues, especially since the pirates recording the CTV HDTV feed, had no audio problems.

My point is that if you know where and when to look, and expect to find failure, you will be successful.

[Peete22]

If I noticed all the problems you have listed above I would cut the cable for tv in an instant and spend my money on streaming services that actually work with better quality.  

[mebe]

When you say streaming services, I assume you are referring to Disney+, etc., rather than SlingTV and other online services that offer MSNBC, ESPN, etc.

I found so many annoying recording bugs with SlingTV, as compared to DirecTV online services, that I quickly realized how lucky I was to have the Rogers PVR (even with some of its silly recording bugs or oddities).

I still loved DirecTV and SlingTv (but the brutal exchange rate made it expensive) because I could record exclusive American content that Rogers didn't carry, nor did the pirates.

Other than the silly ways that Rogers handles its Sportspack sports broadcasts, I still can't believe how well my PVR works. It's so convenient and addictive, that I'm glad it's going to be killed off, so I can quit cold turkey, and save between $40 to $100 each month, and instead look over what I already have (but was too busy with Rogers to enjoy any of it). It's not as if I can't get most of the content for free over free WiFi, but that's not as convenient as letting the Rogers PVR do the dirty work for me.

I won't be missing out on my favourite content when legacy tv is killed off, but I will miss the convenience of simply tuning to CNN, Sportsnet, etc., and then RWing up to 2 hours back to see what I missed (as long as I had the box on one of the channels I wanted to randomly keep track of.

A truly amazing service that even a perfectionist like me, is more than satisfied with.

IgniteTV with Internet, lets you stream Disney+ and other streaming services, but it's just too easy to see that content with free WiFi.

As for watching the regular tv channels with IgniteTV (and its cloud recording), it's just not something that I let myself become addicted to, so it's much easier to simply stick with my other media-content sources.

Unless IPTV gives me access to loads of exclusive American content that I can't peek at elsewhere, it just won't get me curious enough to explore the convenience of IgniteTV.

I'm so close to finally escaping my desire to pay for exclusive content, that it's the inconveniences of free WiFi, OTA (even if I used a DVR with it), etc., that are more appealing to me than Ignite TV (even with the convenience of cloud recording).

Free at last ... or at least within perhaps 6 or 7 months.

RIP Digital Legacy TV ...Thanks for the memories!

[-G-]

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@Peete22 wrote:

If I noticed all the problems you have listed above I would cut the cable for tv in an instant and spend my money on streaming services that actually work with better quality.  

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The streaming services have it easy because most of their content is archived, not live.  They can pre-encode their content with high quality, optimize it for delivery on-demand at multiple bit rates, and the streaming client can buffer as much content locally as computer memory allows.

By contrast, with live TV channels, the source content needs to be de-interlaced, transcoded, encoded for streaming on-the-fly, on multiple encoding pipelines at multiple bitrates, and streamed with minimal delay.  That requires a lot of compute power, and it also means that some content encodes better than others.

Watch Everybody Loves Raymond on CMT, then watch the same episode on Prime Video.  Prime delivers that content with MUCH higher quality and with no commercials.

My pet peeve with Ignite TV is that that their de-interlacing stinks.  With any channel that originates as a 1080i signal, whenever a scene pans, you will see a lot of combing and judder.  To see this at its worst, watch a space movie as the scene pans with a star field in the background, or a home improvement show when the camera pans across the room when they do the final reveal.  Things can also be pretty bad with Digital TV but it has the advantage that de-interlacing does not need to be done at the source.

The best TV quality comes with receiving channels over-the-air with an antenna.  Any signal that needs to be processed on-the-fly before being streamed or rebroadcast will have its quality compromised in some way.

[mebe]

@G: I also shudder at any sign of judder, or any other type of frame-rate issue. Combing is annoying, but since my hair is thinning, I no longer need a comb.

Judder and other framerate issues is not something that I generally run into with digital legacy tv, since as you mentioned: "de-interlacing does not need to be done at the source"for what I have.

Other than the difficulties you mentioned with on-the-fly live streaming, I don't know why Rogers and other IPTV streamers have so many frequent framerate issues.

But if we briefly move to the world of piracy, and start with any broadcaster tv website (from any country), that offers On Demand content that has no framerate issues ... A pirate stops by to copy that content (without the commercial breaks), using inferior software (and/or bad settings) to copy that virtually perfect content, but the end result is a file that has judder and other framerate issues, that initially go unnoticed.

Another pirate comes along and uses superior software (and settings) to capture a virtually perfect copy with ho framerate issues.

If we think of Rogers as the pirate, are the framerate issues that Ignite TV may display for certain content, the result of inferior software, settings, bad management, or is the live, on-the-fly, original stream the problem?

About 2 years ago, somebody on the Xfinity forums mentioned that he was having framerate issues with his Samsung 4K TV and the Xfinity cable box (even after replacing it with another one).
Since he mentioned cable box, and nothing about the modem or tv box, this doesn't apply to the kind of framerate issues discussed above, but since he used the 4K Roku streaming stick with success, perhaps there's hope for some devices over others.

He had framerate problems with the best option on the cable box of 4K 60 fps, and 1080p 60 fps. However, when he used 4K 30 fps, the various content was nice and smooth.

He also tried his 4K Roku streaming stick with the Xfinity App, at 4K 60 fps and it was also perfectly smooth.

Television viewing can be addicting and frustrating, but when it all works smoothly, it's easier to focus on the informative and entertaining aspects of it.

[mebe]

@G: Now you got me curious with your statement that Rogers stinks at 1080i de-interlacing.

Mr. Google mentions that the dreaded 24p frame rate is often the culprit for the kind of panning Judder you mentioned. However, it also mentions that some streaming set-top boxes can be better at removing or reducing Judder than others .. so does that mean I can assume that the Ignite TV box is one of the weaker ones?

You can also blame some types of judder on the TV itself.

So could you get rid of your quick-panning judder if you had a 120 Hz TV (displays 5 frames at a time ... 5:5 pulldown), or a 60 Hz TV that automatically lowered the frame rate to 48 Hz or slightly raised it to to 72 Hz for 24p cinematic content (48 and 72 are evenly divisible by 24)?

Or perhaps using a Roku with the Ignite TV app, might improve things?

I assumed that the IPTV judder you described, and that I have witnessed elsewhere with my own eyes, was much harder to get rid of, than simply switching TVs or streaming devices.

Since IPTV is prone to several different frame rate issues, would the "right" TV or streaming device, make IPTV a more enjoyable experience?

Judder, Judder, Judder ... sorry I have a stutter.

[bobbyz9]

Have been having issues with picture freezing and loss of sound for months. Sometimes the TV just appears to shut off. Rogers has been told about this numerous times. Modem, wires and TV boxes have been replaced. Pods have been relocated. Everyone says it's not the fault of the TV. Nothing seems to solve the problem. Last Rogers tekkie on the phone said my house was to blame for poor FIFI signals. This is pathetic.

[Peete22]

I can guarantee that it is not your signal. Rogers either does not know how to fix the issue or what the source of the issue is or does not care.  I still have random drops on a few channels and they cannot find the source of the issue in their system/back end. The cable from the backyard all the way to source was replaced in the spring, we don't use splitters as it is just one box and cable box  is hooked up using cat 6 ethernet not wifi.  Wifi signal is perfect and when they installed the system 2 months ago the techs confirmed our Signal is really good.  They want to send another tech to the house lol don't waste my time. Many people are having the same issue on the forums.  When Bell fibe is available here I will be switching service.  Switch if you can or it will drive you nuts as they won't admit to a problem in their network or live with it. Sad company.

[Constitution]

The same issue for over 2 month. The technicians blame the issue on the box outside the house, but upon complains sometimes the problem is resolved from head office. The courtesy on our calls is superb, exactly the opposite of the quality of the TV signal. What a disgrace!!!