# New SkipMode issue



## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

So twice now I've had an issue where a program will have the skip icon, and display the press D message along the bottom, but when I actually press D I get a bong sound and it doesn't actually skip.

Now to be fair this is when playing the show via my Mini and not on the Bolt directly. The Bolt is upstairs in my office and I'm too lazy to go up there right now to test it out. 

Has anyone else seen this. It happened on tonight's episode of Big Bang Theory and last night's Modern Family.


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## sluciani (Apr 21, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> Has anyone else seen this. It happened on tonight's episode of Big Bang Theory and last night's Modern Family.


Haven't experienced it... yet. 

FWIW, I record both those shows as well. Just checked via a mini, and SkipMode is working as expected here.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Big Bang worked for me last night. So far, I've gotten skip within five minutes of show ends and they have all worked. The exception was Undateable but they may not be doing "live" shows.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

This is unusual because the shows have the Skip icon and show the little press D message along the bottom when the show starts playing, but D (no Channel up) actually do anything. They just bong.

Other shows with SkipMode work fine.


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## shupp872 (Jan 1, 2014)

Dan203 said:


> So twice now I've had an issue where a program will have the skip icon, and display the press D message along the bottom, but when I actually press D I get a bong sound and it doesn't actually skip.
> 
> Now to be fair this is when playing the show via my Mini and not on the Bolt directly. The Bolt is upstairs in my office and I'm too lazy to go up there right now to test it out.
> 
> Has anyone else seen this. It happened on tonight's episode of Big Bang Theory and last night's Modern Family.


The only time I have seen this happen is when I am near the end of the show and there are either no more commercial breaks, or the recording ends before the show returns from the last commercial break. However, I am guessing that is not the case in your scenario.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

No. Tried in various places in the recording. Pressing D at any time results in a bong.

Also tried on the source Bolt. Same issue there. So it seems that it thinks it has skp data, but it doesn't actually have it.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

One thing I have noticed is that sometimes I get a chime reminding me to skip. Sometimes I don't.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The SkipMode data contains time codes that deleniate the start and end of each segment of the show. I believe they use the end point of those segments to determine when to play the chime. I've found that the end points can be way off compared to the start points. The start points are usually off by maybe a couple of seconds, but the end points are off by 10+ sometimes.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

So no one else has actually seen this issue? Show says Skip but it doesn't work?


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

I wasn't clear. The "push D" prompt always comes up. It is the chimes that don't always sound. I like the chimes. I didn't even know it did that at first. Nice for when you are doing other stuff other than just watching. 

So far none of the end points have been off for me at all.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

TonyD79 said:


> I wasn't clear. The "push D" prompt always comes up. It is the chimes that don't always sound.
> 
> I like the chimes. I didn't even know it did that at first. Nice for when you are doing other stuff other than just watching


Like all TiVo sounds it wont work if the show you're watching has Dolby audio.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> Like all TiVo sounds it wont work if the show you're watching has Dolby audio.


Who has Dolby audio?


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

TonyD79 said:


> Who has Dolby audio?


Lots of people.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

GoodSpike said:


> Lots of people.


I'm confused because I hear the chimes on most of what I watch. And most what I watch is major networks.

I will pay attention next time.


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

TonyD79 said:


> I'm confused because I hear the chimes on most of what I watch. And most what I watch is major networks.
> 
> I will pay attention next time.


I'm pretty sure it's not that the material has Dolby sound, it's that the person watching it has equipment that can decode Dolby.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yeah it depends on how your TiVo is connected. If you're using the analog audio connectors, or have it connected directly to the TV via HDMI and the TV does not support Dolby, then you'll hear the sounds. If it's connected to an AV receiver or a TV that does support Dolby then you will not. Unless you set the TiVo to always output PCM audio then you'll always hear it.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

I am 100% HDMI via an AVR. Dolby is my choice. My tv is a smart tv that feeds Dolby back via the hdmi.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Then you should never hear it. Unless the show has 2ch audio. In my area the only channel with 2ch audio is The CW. But I'm sure that varies by location.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> Then you should never hear it. Unless the show has 2ch audio. In my area the only channel with 2ch audio is The CW. But I'm sure that varies by location.


I'm sure it does. I get two nbc channels. For years, one had full surround and the other only 2 channels. They both do full now.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

It's impossible for TiVo to overlay their sounds into a Dolby bitstream, which is why you don't hear any of the beedoop sounds when watching most shows. The only way they'd be able to do that is to decode he audio, overlay the sound and then recode it. That would require a much more expensive license.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> It's impossible for TiVo to overlay their sounds into a Dolby bitstream, which is why you don't hear any of the beedoop sounds when watching most shows. The only way they'd be able to do that is to decode he audio, overlay the sound and then recode it. That would require a much more expensive license.


I understand all that. What I am not understanding is why I heard it at all. I will just keep watching stuff and note when I hear it versus when I don't.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

A new one last night. The person doing the skip mode must've gotten confused with War and Peace. They had a commercial that looked like the show was returning. Skip dutifully skipped to it.


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

TonyD79 said:


> A new one last night. The person doing the skip mode must've gotten confused with War and Peace. They had a commercial that looked like the show was returning. Skip dutifully skipped to it.


That sort of thing happens near the end of Jeopardy. They have a commercial that is lead in by Alex T. and it captures that, but you can hit skip again to get to the right part.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

This happened again with this weeks episode of Supergirl. It shows skip, makes the little chimes at commercial breaks, but when I press D I just get a bong and nothing happens. 

No one else has seen this?


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

I haven't seen it.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Skip skipped two commercial break on episode 7 of the Expanse.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

TonyD79 said:


> Skip skipped two commercial break on episode 7 of the Expanse.


Is either of these what you meant?


Skip skipped to (the) commercial break on episode 7 of the Expanse.
Skip skipped two commercial breaks on episode 7 of the Expanse.

Just curious.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

ej42137 said:


> Is either of these what you meant? [*]Skip skipped to (the) commercial break on episode 7 of the Expanse. [*]Skip skipped two commercial breaks on episode 7 of the Expanse. Just curious.


Second one.


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## robind21283 (Dec 21, 2015)

I'm not seeing skip mode on new recordings (within the last week) that earlier episodes had skip mode available. I am waiting at least 5-10 minutes (if not days) before watching the program.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> Then you should never hear it. Unless the show has 2ch audio. In my area the only channel with 2ch audio is The CW. But I'm sure that varies by location.


Not two channel audio but pcm audio. I'm on FiOS and all the video channels use Dolby Digital. Whether 2.0 or 5.1 it's DD. The same goes for OTA stations. They use DD. PCM audio uses too much bandwidth for OTA.

So if the TiVo outputs DD you will not hear the sounds. But if it ouputs PCM audio you will hear the sounds. The only channels on FiOS I've seen with PCM audio are the music channels. And everything I've ever recorded around here from OTA since 2001 has DD audio. And I've seen everything from 1.0 to 5.1 and in between.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

A few channels here use MP2 audio. In that case TiVo seems to decode to PCM and can insert the sounds. 2ch AC3 is not decoded and is passed through to the receiver as-is, so it doesn't get the sounds.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

aaronwt said:


> Not two channel audio but pcm audio. I'm on FiOS and all the video channels use Dolby Digital. Whether 2.0 or 5.1 it's DD. The same goes for OTA stations. They use DD. PCM audio uses too much bandwidth for OTA. So if the TiVo outputs DD you will not hear the sounds. But if it ouputs PCM audio you will hear the sounds. The only channels on FiOS I've seen with PCM audio are the music channels. And everything I've ever recorded around here from OTA since 2001 has DD audio. And I've seen everything from 1.0 to 5.1 and in between.


Which is why I am confused on why I heard it. Unless they drop out of DD when they do a local commercial drop in.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

TonyD79 said:


> Which is why I am confused on why I heard it. Unless they drop out of DD when they do a local commercial drop in.


I have seen files like that sent to me as samples for VideoReDo issues. So it's possible.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

A follow up. I figured out when I was hearing the TiVo noises even though all my programming is Dolby. It is during quick mode. The retuning of the audio is dropping the audio to PCM.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

TonyD79 said:


> A follow up. I figured out when I was hearing the TiVo noises even though all my programming is Dolby. It is during quick mode. The retuning of the audio is dropping the audio to PCM.


This has always been the case. Quick mode decodes the DOlby digital audio before output.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

aaronwt said:


> This has always been the case. Quick mode decodes the DOlby digital audio before output.


Didn't say it wasn't. I just explained why and where I heard the jingle noise for skip.

Always? You make it sound like it's been around for decades. It is still pretty new.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

TonyD79 said:


> Didn't say it wasn't. I just explained why and where I heard the jingle noise for skip.
> 
> Always? You make it sound like it's been around for decades. It is still pretty new.


Just that it's been that way since it launched last year. I wish it had been around for decades.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

aaronwt said:


> Just that it's been that way since it launched last year. I wish it had been around for decades.


I'm sure. That doesn't matter. I was just reporting on a discussion from earlier in the thread.


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