Nextbox 3.0 audio drop

[lawson1]

What did reconnecting your AVR equipment consist of?

[Square]

I use a Dolby Atmos sound bar now.  I just listen to the 2 surround speakers to tell if I receive surround on my recordings.  Yesterday, I hooked my old AVR that shows what sound is coming out, like DD or Pro Logic, etc on the front of the AVR to test out all the channels on Ignite.  Most of the live channels are DD 5.1, CP24, TVO, CBC, etc are still not true DD or are Pro logic.

[lawson1]

Believe it or not, they escalated my case and then reported that it was an outage issue which was fixed and that case was closed.

Of course, nothing is fixed on my end.

Thanks Rogers for continuing to amaze me with no real answers or results.

[57]

Since we haven't heard anything from @CommunityHelps , I sent the following just now to:

https://www.rogers.com/consumer/contactus/share-a-concern

Hello: I’m a Rogers digital cable customer in Toronto. For the past few days many of the channels that used to be DD5.1 (proper surround sound) have been changed to 2-channel PCM. This downgrade of the audio causes a poorer audio experience for those with Surround Sound systems.

Here’s a thread on the topic on your forum:

https://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/TV/Nextbox-3-0-audio-drop/m-p/460939#M52186

Here’s a list of some of the channels affected (Toronto) – there are probably more, but I scanned the 200 channels from 2-100 and 500-599.

11, 12, 13, 15, 19, 35, 36, 48, 54, 55, 58, 64, 67, 68, 69, 74, 75, 76, 77, 82, 83, 86, 89, 92, 95, 96, 97,500, 504-508, 511, 515, 516, 521, 537-541, 549, 551, 552, 554-566, 579, 584, 585, 591, 599, also 486-494.

You can test this yourself by going into the diagnostics of a set top box (you probably need to be in Ontario).

Tune to a channel and go into the STB diagnostics - Hold Exit key until power light blinks, click down arrow twice in quick succession, followed by the number 2. Audio information is under:  Manufacturing Diagnostics - Platform Status - Audio Channel Info.   The "Audio Format" will show LPCM for the PCM channels.  It will show AC3 for the DD channels. You can change channels by clicking the Ch+/- buttons. Click Exit to exit.

Please fix this. This represents a degradation in your service to your customers.

---

I encourage others to do the same.

[57]

I got a call back today from OOTP, but I'm not sure he totally understood the situation. He mentioned the fact that the audio is "variable" and that Rogers is aware of audio problems, which it certainly is on Global.  I explained to him that our particular issue is not regarding variable audio, but rather PCM instead of DD5.1. Perhaps they have switched to PCM instead of DD5.1 as an attempted workaround for variable audio.  

He said he'd call back next week...  I'll advise if I hear any more.

[lawson1]

Appreciate your help!

[HughR]

Old NextBox has some silent patches in recordings of some channels

I have a NextBox Explorer 8642hd.

I mostly record two channels: TCM and MSNBC.

TCM recordings are fine.  Also watching it live is fine.

MSNBC recordings have silent spots once in a while (perhaps 10 or 20 times in an hour).  The silence is at most a few seconds.  The video looks fine.

When I've listened to MSNBC live for about half an hour.  I haven't heard any silent spots.  Perhaps that's too short a test.

I've rebooted the PVR and the problem remains.

What could this be?  What should I do to fix it?

I think I understand the architecture of the system but I have trouble imagining a model that explains this.  Grasping at straws: perhaps the MSNBC signal has higher bandwidth than the recording part of the PVR can handle and it is being driven into misbehaviour.

[HughR]

Is a NextBox Explorer 8642hd a NextBox 3?  I don't think so.  That's why I started a different thread.  But my posting was moved to this thread.

I should have mentioned that the PCR sends the combined audio and video signal to the TV through an HDMI connection.  The TV is FullHD.

[57]

In April of this year many of the channels that normally have DD5.1 audio changed to two-channel PCM, as discussed in post 154 of this thread, link below:

https://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/TV/Nextbox-3-0-audio-drop/m-p/461070#M52209

I noticed this evening that this issue seems to be resolved.  All of the DD5.1 channels are now DD5.1 again. As a matter of fact CNNHD (ch 33) is even DD6.1, which I have seen on very rare occasions years ago when Corner Gas aired in DD6.1.  Obviously the channels that were DD2.0 before are still DD2.0.  I haven't had a chance to see if this has resolved the issue of significant volume difference between some channels.  I'll do some testing in the next few days to see.

Thanks Rogers for giving us back DD5.1, which was especially missed on TCM, Crave, HBO, etc.