Ender519's profile

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51 Messages

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011 3:07 AM

Confirmed: vip2250 fixes surround sound audio dropouts!

I had a vip1225 hooked up via HDMI to an Onkyo receiver (HT-S8400 to be specific) and I had problems with audio dropouts on surround.  Every few seconds, for a fraction of a second, the audio would drop.  It drove me nuts and I tried everything to fix it.. I tried different (new) HDMI cables, and even a different home theater system!   In the end, I had to keep it on stereo.

 

I went over and over this with UVerse support.  They kept wanting to send me to the paid support line for help configuring my home theater system and out of four techs I spoke to, none ackowledged hearing anything about audio dropouts over HDMI with surround.  In fact, they kept insisting that I plug the HDMI straight to the TV and I kept having to explain my TV is a stereo device, not a surround device so it's not a good test.  They also immediately started jumping on the bandwagen saying surround sound is out of scope.  I saw a couple of posts about the vip2250 fixing this issue but none of the techs would entertain that idea.

 

Finally I pled my case to a very nice agent in billing who had to go WAY out of her way to get me a vip2250.  Hooked it up and sure enough all audio dropout problems are resolved!

Expert

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23.3K Messages

12 years ago

If that is the case you just pointed to a solution that a lot of people have been looking for.  I hope you are right.

Mentor

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51 Messages

12 years ago

Trust me I looked forever for a solution, and I am very tech savvy  🙂   

 

What I found was it took me over 3 hours of effort and exhausting every avenue with support.  Normally to get your hands on a vip2250 you have to pay an upgrade fee of $105, but I had to convince them I wasn't after the extra space, I just wanted the newer box because as I correctly surmised, the chipsets in the 2250 are newer and the sound processing does not seem to have the same problems as the older models.  Obviously, YMMV but I am listening to awesome 5.1 stereo now for the first time without dropouts  🙂 

Expert

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23.3K Messages

12 years ago

Very cool. Hopefully others will be able to get that box.

ACE - Expert

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34.6K Messages

12 years ago

A word of caution: I believe there were several different technical problems lumped into the "surround sound audio dropouts" bucket.  I am glad to hear that the VIP2250 fixes your issue.  It may not fix everyone's, just as the Phase III update fixed it for others, and apparently not for you.

 

 

 

Scholar

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122 Messages

12 years ago

Motorola VIP1225 and VIP2250, I believe use media processing chipsets from different manufactures - can anybody confirm?

 

I see two Sigma Designs chips on the VIP2250 board - the entertainment network controllers; the symbols match the icon of the front page (it's early morning)

 

the speed of the 2250 box helps...

Expert

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9.4K Messages

12 years ago

The main CPU in the VIP2250 is supposed to be the Broadcom 7405C. This is a much faster chip than the Sigma Designs 8634 in the previous STB generation.

Mentor

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51 Messages

12 years ago

I was under the impression that the reason the 2250 fixes the problem had to do with a different sound processing chipset, rather than a faster overall CPU, but I suppose that could be it too.  If the 2250 DOES have a faster CPU, I can tell you that it doesn't show in the UI.  The menus aren't any faster, starting a recording isn't any faster, on demand isn't any faster loading up, in fact there is no perceivable difference in my experience except that there is more HDD space and that I can FINALLY use surround sound on everything.

Expert

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24.3K Messages

12 years ago

If this is the fix, I wonder if ATT will willingly send out these new boxes to customers (who were having dropouts)?

Expert

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9.4K Messages

12 years ago

I was not implying that the faster CPU was the reason for your audio issue being fixed. The previous poster was commenting on the speed of the box, I posted why these boxes are faster.

As far as your audio issue, there could be many reasons why you're no longer having the problem, including changes upstream at AT&T, changes in the TV2 Client firmware, and possible different hardware in the VIP2250.

However, I would not generalize that the VIP2250 fixes the audio dropout problem for everyone. It fixed it for you, in your particular configuration, but that is not necessarily true for everyone. We simply don't have enough data to draw that conclusion.

Mentor

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51 Messages

12 years ago

For all I know that could be it, but in any case, I wasn't the first person to note that the vip 2250 fixed that issue.  There were at least a couple others which is why I pursued that solution through AT&T.  Problem is, someone would post "Oh hey it's fixed after I got my vip2250" buried in one of the dozens of audio dropout threads without any context, and I felt this needed more direct attention.

 

I made this thread mostly because it fixed my issue, yes, but I suspect that it will fix others.  The vip2250 is a different design, different size, different internal configuration, and my money says different chipset.

 

I'm not implying it will fix everyone but what I'd like to see is a couple of confirmations from others, and then if it fixes other people with the same general config  (hdmi to receiver + surround sound)  then maybe we have a fix for something that has plagued people for the last.. what.. 3 years?

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