Re: NOTE: Audio Alerts Killing Dolby 5.1 Sound -- Workaround
UnnDunn
Contributor - Level 3

@PJL wrote:

@tns wrote:

They haven't recently added the audio alert feature.  Its been there a long time already.

Probably something went wrong on some boxes, perhaps triggered by something verizon did with the streams, and these two problems are the result.


This feature was indeed enabled last week.  Although the audio alert menu item was added with the 1.9 upgrade, it was never functional until last week.  What is it that Verizon could have done to the "streams" that would cause this problem?  The 5.1 stream works just fine, as it always has, but the decoding on the STB was impacted when the audio alert function was enabled.  And the reports on this and other forums are across all STB models.  Something "going wrong on some boxes" doesn't just happen at the same time on many STBs.  It happens because something in the functionality of the STB has changed.


The problem isn't the decoding, it's the reencoding. Whenever you have a dolby digital signal that a device such as an STB has to mess with (eg. in order to introduce audio pings or beeps or other sounds), it has to decode the dolby digital stream, mix in the new sounds and then re-encode the whole thing into a new dolby digital stream.

That sort of thing requires dedicated hardware which your average garden-variety STB does not have. Most boxes get around this by temporarily dropping to 2-channel PCM mode long enough to play the alert, then switch back to dolby digital. Verizon apparently decided it's better to simply disable dolby digital permanently. That's not good.

0 Likes
Re: NOTE: Audio Alerts Killing Dolby 5.1 Sound -- Workaround
Larry_L
Newbie

Just had a dinner conversation with a friend this weekend about his HT system.  I asked if he had FIOS - yes. I asked if he had full Surround Sound. He said NO, he had just had the local tech guy who installed the system come to the house and he could not figure it out. 

After dinner I stopped in and applied the fix.  He was a happy man. 

It would be nice if Verizon would let people know.  The average guy does not even know about these forums.  Verizon has the technology to send out messages.

0 Likes
Re: NOTE: Audio Alerts Killing Dolby 5.1 Sound -- Workaround
PJL
Master - Level 3

@Larry_L wrote:

Just had a dinner conversation with a friend this weekend about his HT system.  I asked if he had FIOS - yes. I asked if he had full Surround Sound. He said NO, he had just had the local tech guy who installed the system come to the house and he could not figure it out. 

After dinner I stopped in and applied the fix.  He was a happy man. 

It would be nice if Verizon would let people know.  The average guy does not even know about these forums.  Verizon has the technology to send out messages.


I suspect they would not send a notification because they don't want to admit that there is a problem to begin with. 

Glad your friend is happy.

0 Likes
Re: NOTE: Audio Alerts Killing Dolby 5.1 Sound -- Workaround
PJL
Master - Level 3

@PJL wrote:

There are a couple of threads that walk around this issue, but I've created this new one to indicate what appears to be the cause and effect of a recent Verizon change to the STB functionality, and to offer a workaround until Verizon gets its act together and fixes the bug that was introduced.

The week of 8/27 some of us began getting an audio alert beep on the STB when starting to delete a DVR recording, a reminder appearing, etc.  This is actually a nice feature until it was discovered that that Dolby 5.1 sound was no longer presenton on any channel.  The workaround to this problem is to disable audio alerts in the STB menu, and then reboot the STB.  If you re-enable the alerts or don't disable them in the first place, a reboot may temporarily fix the problem but it will come back.

Verizon has now broken a key audio functionality (Dolby 5.1 sound) because, apparently, they missed this when they tested the added audio alert functionality.  I presume they tested -- but maybe not.  Not that I did not use the word "assume" for obvious reasons.

Sigh.



I'm bumping this thread up since people are still posting about this problem and Verizon has apparently not yet addressed it.

0 Likes