# Video Stutter on TiVo HD



## kbohman (Jun 29, 2004)

When watching recorded HD shows, I have been noticing a lot of video stutter. (_This is not pixelation, which clearly has been discussed extensively in this forum_.) It is most noticeable during scenes where the camera is slowly panning left to right (or right to left). It is almost like frames are being dropped. I do not claim to be an expert on this type of stuff, but I would think a "busy" scene with rapid motion would be more likely to cause motion issues. I am confident it is not the broadcast, because I have not seen this on the same TV using the built-in QAM tuner. I have also compared to the crappy SA DVR from WOW (cable provider), which does not exhibit the issue at all. My TiVo HD has the latest software, 8.1.7c2, and has two SA cable cards. I have not had any issues with pixelation. Has anyone else seen this issue?


----------



## mulscully (May 31, 2003)

Noticed it too while watching the eagles game. I know its not the feed from FIOS ' because the game was also on on another TV still using their DVR and no Issue..

Also noticed it last night while watching my sunday recording of Star Trek from the CW.. I know another thread started about this, but I don't think it is related to just CBS 'cause I saw the issue with recorded shows from other channels..

It almost looks like the TIVO is very busy and dropping frames..

using 8.1.7c hopefully it is relate to the sw release cause I did not notice it with b. and we shall see if 9.1 fixes it...


----------



## kbohman (Jun 29, 2004)

I have definitely seen this issue on other HD channels besides CBS.

FYI: I am planning to call TiVo support, but I was hoping to get an idea of how wide-spread the issue is before calling.


----------



## Chimpware (Jan 30, 2002)

Just posted this morning about this issue. I only see it on CBS in my area, not other stations. Very odd issue.


----------



## normychas (May 10, 2007)

I also am getting this issue quite a lot. And oddly enough mostly while watching football. I am sure this is just a coincidence but i have gotten it mostly on cbs and espn. I hardly ever get it on fox. My tv is a 720p tv and i know cbs broadcasts in 1080i but i cant remember about espnhd. It is a major issue to me and fixes itself upon reboot but it occurs during pivotal times and causes me to miss shows. Anybody who has ever rebooted a tivo knows this is not a vital option. Please advise whether i need to call tivo as well.


----------



## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

normychas said:


> I also am getting this issue quite a lot. And oddly enough mostly while watching football. I am sure this is just a coincidence but i have gotten it mostly on cbs and espn. I hardly ever get it on fox. My tv is a 720p tv and i know cbs broadcasts in 1080i but i cant remember about espnhd. It is a major issue to me and fixes itself upon reboot but it occurs during pivotal times and causes me to miss shows. Anybody who has ever rebooted a tivo knows this is not a vital option. Please advise whether i need to call tivo as well.


Rather than rebooting, you might also try switching tuners a few times.

Someone reported that fixed the issue for them.


----------



## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

I've had the issue on my S3 off and on only on SD channels during "live" TV (not recorded). A quick hit of the pause button then resuming playback takes care of it, but it is annoying. And, it normally happens when I go from one tuner to another or jump to live TV from a menu. My problem doesn't seem to be the same as this one, though.


----------



## Langree (Apr 29, 2004)

I usually switch tuners and it fixes, first time i just rewound for a sec and played it. Seems to have just started in the last few days for me.


----------



## tcorning (Nov 14, 2001)

I've definitely seen this on my TiVoHD. Tuned my S3 to the same channel and it was fine, so it wasn't the signal. Just got 9.1-01-2-652 on the TiVoHD and 9.1.01-2-648 on the S3. Will keep an eye out for it to happen again.

Does anyone know if it's saved in the recorded shows, or just part of playback?

Ted


----------



## Langree (Apr 29, 2004)

tcorning said:


> I've definitely seen this on my TiVoHD. Tuned my S3 to the same channel and it was fine, so it wasn't the signal. Just got 9.1-01-2-652 on the TiVoHD and 9.1.01-2-648 on the S3. Will keep an eye out for it to happen again.
> 
> Does anyone know if it's saved in the recorded shows, or just part of playback?
> 
> Ted


seems to be just live feed and it doesn't buffer the stutter.

My Tivohd does not have the update yet, I put in a request for it, so should have it in the next day or so.


----------



## tcorning (Nov 14, 2001)

Oh, and I had actually rebooted my TiVoHD once to try to clear this. When it came back up I got the Green Screen, but it was able to recover after about 45 minutes. I have been worried that this has something to do with the upgrade to the 750GB drive. Anyone else having the problem on an upgraded unit?

Ted


----------



## mulscully (May 31, 2003)

well I did see it while watching a recorded Star Trek TOS .. didn't rewind to see if it was in the recorded version or just the playback.. but i bet it is just the playback of it..

And I first noticed it a week ago while Watching the eagles game 9/23


----------



## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

mulscully said:


> well I did see it while watching a recorded Star Trek TOS .. didn't rewind to see if it was in the recorded version or just the playback.. but i bet it is just the playback of it..
> 
> And I first noticed it a week ago while Watching the eagles game 9/23


Did you see this on playback or just REW/FFW on the Eagles game?


----------



## normychas (May 10, 2007)

Bierboy said:


> I've had the issue on my S3 off and on only on SD channels during "live" TV (not recorded). A quick hit of the pause button then resuming playback takes care of it, but it is annoying. And, it normally happens when I go from one tuner to another or jump to live TV from a menu. My problem doesn't seem to be the same as this one, though.


Using the pause button used to work but it now doesnt. Also i should say that my issue is specific to live feeds as far as i can tell so far i havent checked recorded as its mostly happened during football games i am not recording. Does anybody know if tivo is aware of this issue?

I should also add that i believe this isnt an issue of the signal coming in but rather a bug within tivo hd


----------



## Chimpware (Jan 30, 2002)

I have seen this in recorded feeds as well as Live. It is most obvious in Football (on CBS for me) as there is a lot of motion.


----------



## normychas (May 10, 2007)

i have been bug free up to this point. this is a major bummer does anybody think this issue will be resolved or should i just suffer through it. This pretty much makes football unwatchable which is not cool. Will tivo take my box back do you think or exchange it for an s3?


----------



## Langree (Apr 29, 2004)

it's annoying but seems to be easy enough to correct on the fly.


----------



## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

normychas said:


> i have been bug free up to this point. this is a major bummer does anybody think this issue will be resolved or should i just suffer through it. This pretty much makes football unwatchable which is not cool. Will tivo take my box back do you think or exchange it for an s3?


Tivo will definitely resolve the issue.

With the new 9.1 software, the Series3 and TivoHD are functionally identical so I don't think you'd see a difference.


----------



## hastypete (Oct 2, 2007)

We started noticing this "stuttering" a couple days ago. It is really annoying.
I've had the unit for 2 weeks and it was fine up to now.
I upgraded to 500gig Seagate drive just after purchase, but like I said, no problems for first couple weeks.

Here is another oddity. Hard to describe. We watched the Star Wars Family Guy episode last week, no problems. This week Family Guy was unwatchable. It is not so much a frame rate stutter, but a "flickery" stutter. You see it most prominently on all the sharp horizontal lines in the animation (still scenes). I went back to check the Star wars episode and it did it too. It's definitely something funky in the TivoHD unit, not the broadcast. 

Will try a reboot tonight (although I may have 9.1 before I get home).

I'm sorry to hear others have this problem, but glad at the same time that it's not just me. I hope TiVo is paying attention to this.


----------



## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

Sometimes we forget that cable company and broadcast network configurations are not static. They upgrade the firmware on their equipment just like Tivo upgrades theirs.

It is entirely possible that a major equipment vendor recently issued a new firmware for their encoders that causes stutter with the current Tivo software. In this case, more and more users would see the problem as more and more cable companies upgrade to this new firmware on their equipment.


----------



## mulscully (May 31, 2003)

I see it in Playback... I was watching Big Bang Theory in Playback and saw it.. pausing, FF/ REW did not help.. just stopped though after a couple of minutes


----------



## hastypete (Oct 2, 2007)

I don't have cable. Strictly OTA broadcast.
the reboot seems to have stopped the stutter.
The jiggly problem with Family Guy still there. Aparently that's normal. It must be badly encoded.


----------



## kbohman (Jun 29, 2004)

I recently replaced the stock WD Hard Drive in my TiVo HD with a Seagate DB35 Series Hard Drive. Since then I have not seen the stutter issue. Unfortunately I did not have the new hard drive in long enough prior to receiving the Fall 2007 Update to determine which change may have fixed the issue.

For those of you having the stutter issue, do you have an upgraded hard drive?

Has the Fall 2007 Update made any difference?


----------



## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

kbohman said:


> I recently replaced the stock WD Hard Drive in my TiVo HD with a Seagate DB35 Series Hard Drive. Since then I have not seen the stutter issue. Unfortunately I did not have the new hard drive in long enough prior to receiving the Fall 2007 Update to determine which change may have fixed the issue.
> 
> For those of you having the stutter issue, do you have an upgraded hard drive?
> 
> Has the Fall 2007 Update made any difference?


A simple reboot will eliminate the stutter issue. It's not clear what triggers it, but is probably problem in a live or recorded TV signal that the software can't handle.


----------



## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

If you are still seeing stutter, can you list (1) the area / market, (2) the name of your provider, and (3) the name of the affiliate or channel where you see the problem?

I've called Tivo and they suggested they were trying to gather as much information as possible about this problem.


----------



## normychas (May 10, 2007)

awesome.
My market is Arlington Comcast
my problem occurs only on the hd channels and is sporadic in nature. At times I am able to fix it by fast forward and rewinding and at times i need to restart. The problem occurs on espn and cbs so far but i dont think thats a determining factor. It is made worse on shows that have a lot of movement such as football games as has been discussed earlier. Thus to recap

1. Arlington
2. Comcast
2. HD ESPN (252) and HD CBS (212) mostly but any show with a ton of movement is prone to it is seems


----------



## Kev639 (Mar 15, 2006)

I also had this problem and started another thread about it - I saw the stutter on both live and recorded shows. I rebooted the TiVoHD and everything has been fine since - I am on Comcast outside philadelphia with a single Motorola M-card. Latest Software.


----------



## greggt007 (Dec 9, 2005)

i've just noticed this issue. i'm in NoVa/Fios. i havent noticed it on live tv, only recorded, it's also only with hd, not sd. it was very bad watching on wbhd. my wife remarked "it's making me feel sick watching it". it sometimes goes away and comes back with a pause/etc, a reboot made it go away last night, we'll see if it comes back. and this right after i updated the firmware on my samsung tv to get rid of judder.

and yes family guy was unbearable to watch/ gonna have to record it in sd from now on.


----------



## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

The problem here is that "stutter" means so many different things to so many people, that we're getting all sorts of varying problem reports and solutions in this thread.

Here are some of the things discussed in this thread so far:

1) When watching live TV, if you are at the very end of the live buffer, you can sometimes get stutter. Hitting pause, or instant replay a couple of times (and not LiveTV again) will usually fix this. It's almost like it needs a little more MPEG signal to come through to decode every once in a while, so you get stutters.

2) The standard/various macroblocking problems, accompanied by sound stutters.

3) Hard drive problems, resulting in picture and sound hiccups

4) A new picture stutter (new with 9.1?) only on live TV, but that goes away when you hit instant replay (i.e. it's not in the recording). However the solution like with #1 doesn't fix the problem, even though it's not in the recording. Almost like a strobe-light effect on the motion, with no effect on the sound.

And I'm sure there are others.

I guess my point is, saying "this will fix it" or trying to do any diagnostics here without a lot more detail on each problem, is probably pointless.


----------



## greggt007 (Dec 9, 2005)

AbMagFab said:


> The problem here is that "stutter" means so many different things to so many people, that we're getting all sorts of varying problem reports and solutions in this thread.
> 
> Here are some of the things discussed in this thread so far:
> 
> ...


well in my post above yours, it is neither 1-4, i guess #5.
it is like the OP remarked, like there is missing frames (no sound issue/def not pixelation). if the video is mostly static you cant tell, but once there is some movement it's as if it is playing at 15fps or something. hitting IR or pause a couple times will occasionally fix it but it comes back once a lot of motion is on screen again.


----------



## flyboytyler (Sep 6, 2002)

I am on Metrocast in Barrington NH. Most noticeable during live sports with lots of movement. It doesn't drop audio, it just suddenly skips a few frames which makes the action jump every half second or so. It ends up making me feel sick.

It did not happen with my Metrocast PVR, and I have only had this tivo a couple of weeks so it may be going back if not resolved in the next week or so.


----------



## RodEllison (Jan 29, 2005)

Sorry to post re: my S2 box in this S3 HDTV thread...but was just monitoring since my box is having the same issue - stuttering some shows to the point of being unwatchable. We're having numerous issues with this new 9.1 update...most annoying is the fact that all our 16:9 prerecorded content is now being forced into 4:3...The Stuttering problem, though just started happening..


----------



## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

Does your Tivo have the 8.x or 9.1 software?

A Settings -> Reboot should fix the problem.

Based on forum reports, it seems to reappear periodically with 9.1. Hopefully Tivo will eliminate it for good with 9.1.1 or whatever version of the software is next.


----------



## mulscully (May 31, 2003)

My studders seems to have stopped with 9.1, but I now get pixilation here and there... More so then with 8.3.. 

tivo HD
Fios
Motorola Cable cards


----------



## Powder_Burn (Aug 14, 2007)

I'm noticed video stuttering as well recently - mainly while watching football when the camera is panning....

1. Austin
2. Time-Warner
2. HD ESPN and HD CBS


----------



## normychas (May 10, 2007)

more issues to report. 
The stuttering occured for me again last night during both the red sox game and the monday night football game. For some reason my recording of heroes was unaffected. At any rate i have also noticed oddly that the commercials are not affected regardless of whether they are in hd or not which is truely odd. I do admit that its possible i may have acidently switched non hd content to stretch but i do not think that is what it is. Very odd, any thoughts on y the main program parts of both the football game last night ESPN HD and the baseball game FOX HD would be so stuttery. I should note that this was fixed after a restart which would be fine if the tivo didnt take 10 minutes to restart. The tivo is clearly not designed to have to restart very often and I am sick of doing it. Aside from rewinding which doesnt work for me anymore does anybody have any tips?


----------



## RavenFan (Oct 3, 2002)

It just started for me this week, naturally when I had a party full of people watching college football at my house last night. Family was at the house today to watch the Ravens get spanked by Buffalo, but I digress.

I had never seen the stuttering/strobe problem before, but it was definitely present for HD football games on CBS, ESPN and FOX. Again, it was very apparent when the camera panned quickly left and right.

The crawl at the bottom of the screen really highlighted the problem. It would move across the bottom of the screen in small "ticks".

Today, we started watching the Ravens game live, and then paused it and set the game to record while we ate, and came back to watch it after eating. The strobe efect was present both the "live" feed and in the recorded version. We were 40 minutes behind, so we had a lot of fast-forward opportunities to try to correct the problem, but it persisted.

I've had SW version 9.1 on my TiVo HD since 9/21 but never saw the problem before last night.

I just restarted the TiVo about 30 minutes ago and it is doing better now.


----------



## Graymalkin (Mar 20, 2001)

I had some video stutter for the first time on my first new TiVo HD (about a month old), which is still running 9.1 -- it was recording Dexter last night. I was watching it live at the same time, and it seemed to drop frames every three seconds or so, although the audio ran smoothly. In addition, I could change the second tuner to other channels, but the picture would be frozen. After Dexter finished recording, I restarted the THD, and it seemed to work normally after that. I haven't watched Dexter yet to see if the video stutter is in the recording.


----------



## ic316 (Oct 10, 2007)

RavenFan said:


> It just started for me this week, naturally when I had a party full of people watching college football at my house last night. Family was at the house today to watch the Ravens get spanked by Buffalo, but I digress.
> 
> I had never seen the stuttering/strobe problem before, but it was definitely present for HD football games on CBS, ESPN and FOX. Again, it was very apparent when the camera panned quickly left and right.
> 
> ...


I'm having same problem here. the "crawl" text at the bottom of the screen is a great indicator of this issue. It does "tick" instead of move slow. This problem started last week for me, and seems to be happening to me on a nearly daily basis.

The stuttering is both on live tv and recorded programming. 
Restart always fixes the problem. I have yet to find any other tricks to work.

I'm running 9.1 on a TivoHD.

Has anyone called Tivo about this? What is their response?


----------



## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

Yeah, we've notice some weird stuttering and video freezing as well on my TiVo HD. Only reboots seem to clear it. It almost seems like I could have a bad drive. Though these other reports make me wonder.

My TiVo HD is using analog cable and OTA for now, while my Series3 is using two CableCARDs and has no issues. Comcast in Maryland.


----------



## fadam (Mar 26, 2007)

greggt007 said:


> ...once there is some movement it's as if it is playing at 15fps or something...


Thought I'd add my 2-cents, I set up my TivoHD over the weekend and last night noticed what I believe greggt007 is describing on ABC's "Sons & Daughters" (OTA). Definitely noticable during pans, it was as if the frame rate was lower. Not 15fps necessarily, but just low enough that the image lacked "smoothness" during motion. "Strobe-like" might be a way to describe it. I didn't try a reboot, nor did I really investigate other channels. I was watching live, NOT recording the show... We are having Heroes night tonight, so I'll definitely be on the lookout for this issue.


----------



## TerryTT (Aug 8, 2007)

I had stutter, on live tv, hd, sd and playback or recorded hd content. I power cycled the box and it hasnt done it since.


----------



## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

As mentioned sometimes above, the Tivo sometimes develops a glitch and you see stutter until you reboot. After you reboot, the stutter is gone.

It's not clear what causes this stutter to begin, but I'm sure Tivo is investigating that issue.


----------



## fadam (Mar 26, 2007)

To follow up, I had a recorded "Desparate Housewives" that exhibited the same stutter I noticed on "Sons and Daughters", and I noticed the TiVo introduction and usage videos (w/ Shannan) also were stuttering.
I reset the TiVo and that seems to have fixed all the stuttering issues on live and recorded content from ABC as well as the welcome videos. I'll check in again if the problem resurfaces.


----------



## gregggreg (Jan 10, 2002)

I saw my first stuttering on the Sharks/Dallas hockey game on Versus HD last night. 

I just received the 9.1 software a week ago and I've never seen it before even though I've watched several HD football and hockey games previously, although not on this particular channel.

It is definitely a video stuttering problem with no audio dropouts. It appears that frames are being dropped and looks like olde time B&W video from the turn of the century where everything looks sort of strangely sped up, but it's in real time.

This was a recorded show, not live, and when I hit the left arrow to go back to the Now Playing screen and then hit play again and resumed watching the stuttering went away. This happened twice and both times it went away when I exited and restarted watching. 

Didn't try pausing and restarting the program, but I will try that if it happens again. Also if the problem persists more, I will try rebooting the Tivo to see if that makes it go away for any noticeable amount of time. I'm hoping this was a freak occurrence.

My setup is:

TivoHD 9.1 software
San Francisco Comcast
Versus HD


----------



## cmaeditor (Jun 5, 2003)

Noticed the stuttering on my new TiVoHD this weekend. Haven't had a chance to see if the reboot will fix it. Seeing it on all shows recorded from OTA antenna which is all I am recording right now until my CC get installed on the 9th. Signal strength is 90% or better on all but CBS which is about 65-70. I live in Hollywood and the software version is 9.1-01-2-652


----------



## cmaeditor (Jun 5, 2003)

Restarted my TivoHD last night about 11:15pm and the stuttering stopped. I will be interested to see if it comes back and how long it takes for it to show back up. If it does come back I might suspect is some kind of memory leak of the TiVo software.


----------



## Dr_Diablo (Nov 24, 2003)

is this going to be another reoccurring problem? having to restart the Tivo shouldn't be the solution/reason for this problem


----------



## scottsol (Oct 9, 2001)

TivoHD running 9.2 with OTA stations all at 90% or better signal strength: Terrible stutter even on Jeopardy when they zoom in on a question (answer). 

The good thing is that it is a playback problem so after a reboot you can watch stored shows without stutter.


----------



## thczv (Dec 21, 2001)

greggt007 said:


> well in my post above yours, it is neither 1-4, i guess #5.
> it is like the OP remarked, like there is missing frames (no sound issue/def not pixelation). if the video is mostly static you cant tell, but once there is some movement it's as if it is playing at 15fps or something. hitting IR or pause a couple times will occasionally fix it but it comes back once a lot of motion is on screen again.


This is the problem I had. I noticed it during sporting events. I switched my TivoHD video output resolution to 1080i Fixed, and I haven't noticed the problem since. My hypothesis right now is that the scalers in my Tivo and my TV weren't getting along. But then again, maybe it was a reboot that did it.


----------



## ic316 (Oct 10, 2007)

Memory leak sounds like a strong possibility. It seems like I can often reproduce this issue "at will "by doing a lot of network based tivo activity, such as streaming music and viewing pictures from my computer. 

Maybe this activity is causing the TIvo software to get bogged down somehow.

I don't believe output format/scales is the culprit. I have tried changing from native/720p fixed/1080i fixed and have seen the same stuttering problem. Reboot always fixes regardles of output.


----------



## leiff (Aug 24, 2005)

Same sttutter issues on my tivo HD. Iv'e also only had this tivo hd a couple of weeks. Are there No seies 3 reports of stuttering? Mabey I should swap for series 3? Will tivo allow me to transfer my liifetime free of charge?


----------



## Langree (Apr 29, 2004)

leiff said:


> Same sttutter issues on my tivo HD. Iv'e also only had this tivo hd a couple of weeks. Are there No seies 3 reports of stuttering? Mabey I should swap for series 3? Will tivo allow me to transfer my liifetime free of charge?


Have you tried a reboot? It seems to clear it, and no stuttering has returned, at least in my case.


----------



## leiff (Aug 24, 2005)

overall poor framerate since 9.1 update here. Reboots only help severe cases. Playback of recorded shows improved smooth picture when live tunners on placed on dead channels, indicating to me a major engineering or software failure. If others are not reporting this I feel compeled to replace 2 week old unit with a new one. Are chances I would fare better with original series 3? I aplied for 9.2 update. Could this improve smooth picture?


----------



## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

leiff said:


> overall poor framerate since 9.1 update here. Reboots only help severe cases. Playback of recorded shows improved smooth picture when live tunners on placed on dead channels, indicating to me a major engineering or software failure. If others are not reporting this I feel compeled to replace 2 week old unit with a new one. Are chances I would fare better with original series 3? I aplied for 9.2 update. Could this improve smooth picture?


It may.

I'm sure Tivo is working on this issue. Tivo spends about 40% of your monthly fee on software development, so you would expect common issues to be fixed in a relatively short period of time.


----------



## KJW (Sep 27, 2003)

Had the stutter problem last night for the first time. As described here, it looks like there are missing frames in the video, but no audio problems. It happened on a replay of the amazing race (CBS), and then on live TV watching the Philly/NE game. Definitely a Tivo issue, because there was no problem watching the HD feed directly through the TV. A reboot fixed the issue, but between this and the fact that my Tivo reboots itself sometimes while flipping channels, I am spending most of my time watching the "Just a few more minutes" screen.

come on Tivo, let's get our act together!


----------



## Langree (Apr 29, 2004)

KJW said:


> Had the stutter problem last night for the first time. As described here, it looks like there are missing frames in the video, but no audio problems. It happened on a replay of the amazing race (CBS), and then on live TV watching the Philly/NE game. Definitely a Tivo issue, because there was no problem watching the HD feed directly through the TV. A reboot fixed the issue, but between this and the fact that my Tivo reboots itself sometimes while flipping channels, I am spending most of my time watching the "Just a few more minutes" screen.
> 
> come on Tivo, let's get our act together!


The two are probably not related. I have not had a repeat of the stutter issue since I did a reboot months ago. I don't know that anyone has. (to lazy to search).

Your TiVo rebooting itself while flipping channels is not normal and could be signs of a bigger problem developing with your unit.


----------



## KJW (Sep 27, 2003)

Langree said:


> The two are probably not related. I have not had a repeat of the stutter issue since I did a reboot months ago. I don't know that anyone has. (to lazy to search).
> 
> Your TiVo rebooting itself while flipping channels is not normal and could be signs of a bigger problem developing with your unit.


Thanks, Langree. I was about to ask if anyone experienced the stuttering problem after rebooting.

I figured the rebooting while flipping channels is not normal, but Tivo won't give me an answer on whether its the tivo, the cable card, my powerstrip or my wireless adapter. Tech support suggested a phased analysis that requires me to disconnect each component and live with the machine for a while to see if the problem re-occurs. so basically, I'm supposed to do without wireless connectivity for a few weeks, then one cable card for a few weeks, then another cable card for a few weeks. . . .

I think I will just exchange my unit and see if that helps, but then I have to re-register my cable cards, and I can only imagine what problems that will raise.

Tivo is great, but I never had any of these problems with my cablevision DVR!


----------



## Langree (Apr 29, 2004)

If it does the same on the new machine then you know it's not the tivo


----------



## driverseven (Oct 11, 2007)

I'm wondering if the stutters went away for others on this thread? 

i am seeing it occasionally only during live sports. Yesterday, I got it on the Fox Giants-Bears game but not during the CBS Dolphins-Jets game. I also notice it on Knicks basketball games on MSG. I'm with Cablevision.

I just got the THD in mid-October, and the issue has only started to appear in the last couple of weeks.

Does the re-boot help?

I'm a little wary of re-booting since when I set it up, the unit hung for many hours.

If you did re-boot, did you remove the power for 30 seconds? Anything else I should do?


----------



## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

driverseven said:


> I'm wondering if the stutters went away for others on this thread?


For me it's mostly gone. I did see some brief weirdness last night on Dexter, but it could have been Comcast or something else. Of course now Plasma is clicking which is actually more annoying! I'm told there's a kit to fix it. Guess I know what I'll be doing when I get home from Canada later this week.


----------



## uforia (Jul 30, 2004)

KJW said:


> I think I will just exchange my unit and see if that helps, but then I have to re-register my cable cards, and I can only imagine what problems that will raise.


You shouldn't have to re-register your cable cards. You just move them to the new Tivo. The registration is between the card and the cable company, and not specific to the Tivo. I've swapped cards successfully between Tivo HDs on 2 occassions now, without any reactivation required.


----------



## KJW (Sep 27, 2003)

uforia said:


> You shouldn't have to re-register your cable cards. You just move them to the new Tivo. The registration is between the card and the cable company, and not specific to the Tivo. I've swapped cards successfully between Tivo HDs on 2 occassions now, without any reactivation required.


That's great, uforia, thanks for the info. I don't know why I thought the cards were bound to the machine's individual id no.


----------



## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

uforia said:


> You shouldn't have to re-register your cable cards. You just move them to the new Tivo. The registration is between the card and the cable company, and not specific to the Tivo. I've swapped cards successfully between Tivo HDs on 2 occassions now, without any reactivation required.


It's very franchise dependent. Some places you have to re-register, and some places you don't.


----------



## KJW (Sep 27, 2003)

CrispyCritter said:


> It's very franchise dependent. Some places you have to re-register, and some places you don't.


I have Cabelvision in NJ. Anyone know if I need to re-register the cards if I put them in a new Tivo?


----------



## lukin11 (Sep 20, 2007)

RavenFan said:


> I had never seen the stuttering/strobe problem before


That is the perfect description: "strobe".

I noticed that this started happening with the 9.2 update. I've since rebooted, as suggested by others, and haven't seen the problem since.


----------



## gdomeier (Nov 6, 2001)

I have been noticing the same problem here for the past few weeks. It was on the NFL Vikings game last week and tonight when I was watch Ben Harper on HDnet. It did'nt start until a ff or rewind something. Jumping 8 seconds back seems to fix it.

The effect looks to me like some old film playback. Kind of like some of the frames are missing, with no obvious pixelation on the screen.


----------



## ghken (Jun 4, 2007)

Two week S3 owner here. Very simple setup right now - analog cable only - and I have seen the dropped frame rate problem 4 or 5 times and I'm pretty sure it started after the update to 9.2 (box came shipped with 8.0). 

It usually appears when I first turn on the television as opposed to the middle of a viewing session. Almost like the live buffer playback has lost its bearings with an extended period of time with no user interaction. If I FF/RW/pause/replay or switch to the other tuner and back it comes back to the normal playback frame rate. It is definitely not in the recording.


----------



## gdomeier (Nov 6, 2001)

I would like to update my experience. Instant replay reduces some of the jerky video, but the HD video resolution is horrible. I rebooted and HD was back as it should. IT was very noticeable.


----------



## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

I've had this stutter issue develop two or three times since July. A reboot fixed it each time. For me, it seems to occur about once every 6-8 weeks, necessitating a reboot.

It's not clear what the cause is, but I expect Tivo to eliminate it for good in the next software update.


----------



## Luke M (Nov 5, 2002)

I've seen stutter occasionally on my TivoHD (analog recordings).


----------



## fishtank22 (Jan 4, 2004)

I'm seeing this as well when watching something live. Seems to be NBC and ESPN the most but have seen it on others. restart usually does the trick. Veryy annoying however. Tivo got a fix comin?


----------



## BMoreE (Mar 27, 2007)

Same strobe/stuttering thing (and jerky text crawls at the bottom of screen.) Live and recorded. HD only, not on SD. FiOS in MD w/cablecards. Reboot cleared it.

I was so totally devoted to Tivo that I fought tooth and nail to get it for my new FiOS (6 weeks of cablecard battles) But now that I'm on TWO of these god-awful "me too" lists, I'm highly questioning my choice (and significant $ investment in lifetime service.)

C'mon Tivo, live up you your reputation!!! Fix this sh** and stop leaving us in the dark!


----------



## coreyt (Jul 30, 2007)

Problem keeps creeping up.. Getting annoying.


----------



## madscientist (Nov 12, 2003)

I'm getting this too on my new TiVo HD + external drive; we got it for Christmas. It's running 9.2a. During HD playback the screen "jerks" like a strobe; as with the others it doesn't affect the sound at all. In my case, it's not live (I _never_ watch TV live; even sporting events I watch delayed) nor does it seem limited to a specific channel: any HD program is susceptible. When it happens I can usually get rid of it temporarily by doing a reverse then play. Sometimes I have to do it a couple of times: it seems to be slowly getting worse. Also, it can re-occur every time I fast forward, so that's annoying.

I hadn't thought of rebooting: I'm trying that now. Hopefully it will resolve the problem.


----------



## rockymountaind (Sep 10, 2007)

madscientist said:


> I'm getting this too on my new TiVo HD + external drive; we got it for Christmas. It's running 9.2a. During HD playback the screen "jerks" like a strobe; as with the others it doesn't affect the sound at all. In my case, it's not live (I _never_ watch TV live; even sporting events I watch delayed) nor does it seem limited to a specific channel: any HD program is susceptible. When it happens I can usually get rid of it temporarily by doing a reverse then play. Sometimes I have to do it a couple of times: it seems to be slowly getting worse. Also, it can re-occur every time I fast forward, so that's annoying.
> 
> I hadn't thought of rebooting: I'm trying that now. Hopefully it will resolve the problem.


Me too. Sigh.

I've had it since Christmas, added the external drive soon thereafter and the stutter started a couple of weeks ago.


----------



## KJW (Sep 27, 2003)

I have had this happen a couple of times since I got the machine in December and the external drive in January. Now I am also getting blocking and some sound drop. Not good, TIVO.

Where is that update that was supposed to be out by Superbowl?? And where is the dongle to let me get switch video channels? How about you stop concentrating on adding new features and try to get your current boxes to work!


----------



## wagnerone (Mar 29, 2008)

Chiming in to say I have the same issue from time-to-time while watching live and recorded shows. I've seen it mostly in HD, but am fairly sure I have also in digital non-HD (though not nearly as common or obvious). I am running a 9.2a TivoHD.

The ticker in sporting events, as described already, makes the issue very obvious. It kind of jumps/hops across the screen rather than scrolling smoothly. During auto races especially it is quite obvious (as the cars move across the screen). Looks like stop-motion claymation or something. Very annoying and pretty much unwatchable.

The situation comes up for me pretty rarely thankfully. I rebooted my Tivo today in hopes it remedy the issue. I'll defintely be able to tell tomorrow during the race.

RCN Cable, Chicago area, any given HD channel.


----------



## BMoreE (Mar 27, 2007)

Well, I finally called TiVo support on this one since it continues to happen to my box every 2 weeks or so. (i.e. after a reboot, everything is fine for about 2 weeks.) Of course, immediately the support person starts in with "oh, this sounds like a cable card problem." which just served to infuriate me. They must just be trained to pass-the-buck as soon as possible.

Nonetheless, I calmly used some basic logic on him...

Me: OK, if I have an HD recording that stutters now, but after I reboot looks fine, it cannot be the cablecard, correct?
Support: <thinking, thinking> Yeah, that sounds right.
Me: OK, rebooting and we'll take a look.
<10 minutes later>
Me: I now have that same recording playing smoothly.
Support: Hmmm... must not be cable card. Would you like us to swap out your unit for a $50 service fee?
Me: No, I'd like you to acknowledge and fix your problems!

Anyway, it didn't sound like the tech had heard of this before, but after consulting someone off the phone, he said a new software drop is coming in the next few days and "hopefully that should fix it." I don't think they do a good job of tracking this stuff, and it sounded like they have no idea what "fixes" might be in a software drop (which should be basic software configuration management and communication.) Regardless, I now have a ticket number, and if new software doesn't help, they've offered to swap my hardware.

Question for others that had this problem: have you swapped hardware, and has it helped? Getting new hardware scares me, since there's myriad other glitches and problems seemingly out there that could be next to bite my ass. Rebooting every 2 weeks might be the lesser of evils for this formerly great piece of technology that I cannot now in good conscience recommend to neighbors (which saddens me so...)


----------



## brianlees (Apr 16, 2007)

This is good news. I have had the same problems but I haven't had time to call.


----------



## b_scott (Nov 27, 2006)

i'm starting to get stutter. i've only had it for 2-3 weeks now, bought the woot special.

i have the external MyDVR. seems like it happens on only certain HD channels but it's hard to pinpoint. sometimes i'll pause and then play it and it'll be fine.

also, i'll get audio out of sync sometimes on HD and then pausing/playing will resolve it.

any ideas?


----------



## tils0011 (Apr 1, 2008)

I am having the same stutter issue. My Tivo HD is only two weeks old and it has ver 9.2a. I'm only using local OTA channels in the Austin, TX area. It sounds like my Tivo is having the exact same symptoms as people that are using cable, so you can assure tech support that you are not having an issue with your cable-cards. 

Symptoms include:
-Images seem to jump vertically (This is especially evident when looking at the horizontal edge of a ticker bar)
-Scrolling text seems to jerk rather than scroll smoothly
-No audio problems
-Any attempt to watch a live sporting event makes you feel sick and embarrassed that you were just bragging to your brother-in-law about how great your new Tivo HD is.

I will try rebooting since many people say that helps but I'm not too excited about that fix. Needing to reboot on a weekly schedule sounds familiar...perhaps the new Tivo boxes are using a Windows operating system?? 

I'll be calling tech support soon and I'll let everyone know if they recognize it as a known problem or if they tell me they've never heard of the issue. This is disappointing, I used a Tivo Series 2 box for years and absolutely loved the thing. The hard drive finally crapped out after many years of loyal service and I decided to buy a new box. I did not expect to have any problems and am sad to see how old this thread is. Hopefully Tivo fixes this problem soon, otherwise I may have to return it. I don't like any of the other DVR options, so I don't know what I'd do without a Tivo...maybe I'd have to start reading books for entertainment...


----------



## KJW (Sep 27, 2003)

You may have to actually unplug your unit to reboot. A soft reset does not work for me.


----------



## douglar (Apr 2, 2008)

Had the tivo HD for three months. I've had to reboot 4 times because of the "old film" stutter. It really looks like the Tivo is only doing about 15 FPS and flashing each frame twice. No tearing, interlacing, pixelization, or audio issues. Just low true frame rates and bad judder that is very noticable on sports, dancing, or scrollies. Soft reboot fixes it.


----------



## douglar (Apr 2, 2008)

OK, I see the posts now about the 9.2a software bug. Hope this goes away with the next release.


----------



## thczv (Dec 21, 2001)

douglar said:


> Had the tivo HD for three months. I've had to reboot 4 times because of the "old film" stutter. It really looks like the Tivo is only doing about 15 FPS and flashing each frame twice. No tearing, interlacing, pixelization, or audio issues. Just low true frame rates and bad judder that is very noticable on sports, dancing, or scrollies. Soft reboot fixes it.


Do you guys REALLY have to reboot to fix this problem? I get it fairly often, but it usually goes away after a couple instant replays or 30-second skips. Still, it is irritating. I too hope the next update fixes it (and the screwy FF problem).


----------



## BMoreE (Mar 27, 2007)

Yes, nothing I try gets it out of this stuttering mode. FF, REW, skip, changing channels (to a non-HD channel.) I should clarify: the problem I have is on HD channels ONLY, analog is fine, digital non-HD is fine. HD recordings do this as well. Once my box is in stutter mode, only the reboot (soft reboot for me) will stop it from happening.

I have a bunch of friends converting to FiOS lately, and 3 months ago I was telling them "get TiVO!". Now I just keep my mouth shut as they're better off with FiOS DVR. This stuff will kill this company; it's always the details. Maybe the comcast co-branded will perform better...


----------



## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

BMore,

I also had to reboot to eliminate the stuttering bug with 9.2a. TiVo is now rolling out the new 9.3 software, so hopefully that eliminates this issue for good.


----------



## jvinsepa (Feb 29, 2008)

What do you have your video scaling set to? I found that the TivoHD doesn't do 480i->480p very well... I can see a lot of the interlacing lines when there is motion. 

so, I just let my TV do the de-interlacing and set the tivo scaling to "native", which doesn't do any conversion. I'm thinking maybe the tivo is buffering the frames and then not displaying them correctly if trying to do i to p conversion in the tivo.


----------



## thczv (Dec 21, 2001)

jvinsepa said:


> What do you have your video scaling set to? I found that the TivoHD doesn't do 480i->480p very well... I can see a lot of the interlacing lines when there is motion.
> 
> so, I just let my TV do the de-interlacing and set the tivo scaling to "native", which doesn't do any conversion. I'm thinking maybe the tivo is buffering the frames and then not displaying them correctly if trying to do i to p conversion in the tivo.


Mine is set to 1080i fixed. Maybe that has helped my stuttering to be fairly managable.


----------



## rob.williams (Oct 15, 2002)

I'll jump in and say that I've been getting this stuttering issue for about the last month. I had the TiVo HD for about 2 months, with an upgraded drive to 1TB. I use the box with FIOS TV.

For me, it appears to most resemble dropped or skipped frames. Power cycling the TiVo clears up the problems for about a week or so.

I changed out the drive right when I got the box, so I don't know if it is related to the hard drive. 

I believe I have my scaling set to native.


----------



## jkalnin (Jan 8, 2003)

I am having a ton of problems with my TivoHD as well. I get the dropped frames, and I also get the poor frame rate / stop motion / stobe effect from time to time. To fix the latter issue, I have to change channels and come back. THat usually fixes it. For the skipped frames, I have rewound and the issues are still there, so that may be a signal problem. I wasn't sure if the issue is with Comcast, Cable cards, or the Tivo. 

Hopefully 9.3 will be out soon, because this is very frustrating.

Oh yeah:
Comcast Digital cable (motorolla m-cable card)
PA

And my Tivo also reboots itself for no good reason from time to time.


----------



## ilh (Dec 21, 2007)

jkalnin said:


> I am having a ton of problems with my TivoHD as well. I get the dropped frames, and I also get the poor frame rate / stop motion / stobe effect from time to time. To fix the latter issue, I have to change channels and come back. THat usually fixes it. For the skipped frames, I have rewound and the issues are still there, so that may be a signal problem. I wasn't sure if the issue is with Comcast, Cable cards, or the Tivo.


If you reboot and then watched a recorded program that was having problems, does it still have problems? If not, that would not be a signal problem (the recording is fine), but instead a problem with video decoding/output.


----------



## daveminker (Oct 31, 2005)

This thread hasn't been updated in a while, but i'm wondering if anyone has a definitive answer to this problem? I've moved twice since having this TiVo Series 3 and the problem has followed me - so it's very unlikely that it's the signal strength at my locatoin. It seems to only be particular programs that do it - every 10 - 15 seconds, video drops several frames and appears to 'jump' by 1/4 or 1/2 second ... only lasts a few seconds, but it definitely visually unpleasant. Audio stays consistent and after the few seconds pass, everything is right in synch again. ABC seems to be the worst, and on some channels it never happens, but it's easily reproducible with particular broadcasts. 

Any prognosis?


----------



## BMoreE (Mar 27, 2007)

Well, I'll have to say that my concerns that my issue were hardware-related went away when I finally got a software version upgrade from Tivo that made this disappear. I have not had this problem for 6 months now (and forgot about all my stress over it until I re-read this forum.)

If you're on the latest and still have the issue, I'm going to guess that your problem is a variation on the theme, and not the exact thing that they seem to have fixed at some point. You mention that this only lasts a few seconds then goes away... mine was different in that once it started, it never stopped (even after changing channels) until a reboot.

Sorry that's not an encouraging message - you appear to have a different problem than the one they solved.


----------



## proudx (Sep 16, 2008)

Bierboy said:


> I've had the issue on my S3 off and on only on SD channels during "live" TV (not recorded). A quick hit of the pause button then resuming playback takes care of it, but it is annoying. And, it normally happens when I go from one tuner to another or jump to live TV from a menu. My problem doesn't seem to be the same as this one, though.


This problem is back in Software v11. can be reproduced by sheduling two analog recordings in a row on a sd channel. on the 2nd analog recording studder is introduced.


----------



## daveminker (Oct 31, 2005)

Same thing happening here - not on most channels, just a few. It's almost like it gets 'overloaded' with frames, slows down for about a second and a half and drops a few frames so it can catch up and once it does, it's fine for a while ... and then it happens again. Sometimes 5 seconds sometime a full minute in between... Audio is never interrupted, just video.

What can I do, because it's driving me NUTS.


----------



## rsc (Mar 10, 2009)

Any resolution to this? It's happening to me with my new Tivo XL HD.


----------



## daveminker (Oct 31, 2005)

Still suffering with this problem. Can't believe no one has figured this out ...


----------



## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

The following post assumes your TiVo has had the 11.0b software for at least two days, and you still see stutter on a HD channel. It also assumes you are not asking about CBS' Big Bang Theory, which has exhibited stutter from some broadcasters throughout the season.

*If you have a Pioneer plasma or a 120Hz LCD...*

Stutter can be caused by a processing mode on some newer 120Hz LCDs from Samsung, Sony, and others. If you got one of these 120Hz LCDs, then you should ask for the setting to eliminate this stutter in the thread for your TV model on the AVS LCD Flat Panel Displays forum. Stutter can also be caused by an incorrect setting on certain Pioneer plasmas. If you have a Pioneer plasma, you should ask how to prevent this stutter in the thread for your TV model on the AVS Plasma Flat Panel forum.

I've read reports where people saw stutter on a OTA channel with the TiVo, but not with their TV's built-in tuner, and the culprit was a display setting enabled on the HDMI input used by the TiVo, which was not enabled on the input for the built-in tuners. [Newer TVs save separate settings for each input.]

*If you have neither a Pioneer plasma or a 120Hz LCD...*

If you see stutter, then the first thing you need to do is tune to a HD channel with the issue, and then find that channel under the Message & Settings -> System Information -> DVR Diagnostics screen. Do you see continuously incrementing RS Uncorrected errors? If so, you know the stutter is likely caused by a signal issue; either the signal is too strong (>100, but TiVo only lists up to 100) or the signal is too weak.

_Keep in mind RS Uncorrected error counts are reset to 0 whenever you change the channel. They are also reset when a recording starts / ends._

If you are seeing stutter on a channel with few to no RS Uncorrected errors, and you are using HDMI, then the first troubleshooting step should be to use a fixed 720p or fixed 1080i setting under Settings -> Video -> Video Output Format. A few televisions have trouble reacquiring display HDMI sync properly after resolution changes, which is what you get when you are using the native or hybrid output settings.

If you still see see stutter in fixed 720p or fixed 1080i modes with HDMI, do you see it with component? Using component with a fixed 720p or fixed 1080i setting would take sync issues out of the equation.

If you are seeing stutter on a channel with few to no RS Uncorrected errors, and you still see stutter on component in fixed 720p or fixed 1080i....is it on one specific HD channel or multiple HD channels? If it is only on or two specific channels, then you should should report that channel here and ask in your regional thread whether others are seeing the same issue on that channel. A few NBC affiliates are known to exhibit stutter, as are certain programs in certain areas (such as Big Bang Theory on certain CBS affiliates).

If you see stutter on multiple HD channels under 11.0b software using component output, despite the absence of RS Uncorrected errors, and no one in your regional thread sees the same problem, then that suggests: (A) a problem with the external drive or its eSATA cable, or if you have no external drive, (B) a problem with the internal drive.


----------



## proudx (Sep 16, 2008)

I don't want to run fixed and bought the tivo to run native resolution for my crt projector and crt tvs. 

I have noticed two types of studder:

One is the analog studder, to reproduce record two shows in a row on the same analog channel, if the tivo tuner does not switch to the other tuner when it starts the second recording on the second show on the same tuner and same channel. example (channel 37 recorded at 6pm to 7pm, then next show set to record from 7 to 8pm), then major studder and frame rate drops are introduced until the tuner is swaped hitting the live key. the recordings have no studder ever and it appears to be a playback driver issue. Bug started with v11 on my tivo series3.

The second type that I just started to notice on 11B shows up on some over the air HD sources. It looks improper 3:2 pull down and perhaps some video sources getting tagged as film 3:2 when they are actually video. 

Please call in and report this issues if you have them.


----------

