[mythtv-users] HD recording problem

[Yeechang Lee]

Chris Bare <chris at bareflix.com> says:
> Last night I had it programmed to record Smallville and My Name Is
> Earl, both in HD, both at the same time. While it was recording, I
> was watching another show. The playback during recording was fine,
> but when I watched the recording of Smallville, it had so many data
> dropouts (missed frames, broken audio, scattered macroblocks) that
> it was unwatchable.  What I find odd is that Earl played back almost
> perfectly.

You don't say, but based on your description I'll guess that you are
using over-the-air with the HdHomeRun. If so, the simplest and
most-logical explanation is that somehow the signal for Smallville
didn't tune in right. Read
<URL:http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/OTA_Antenna_Tuning> and make
sure that the antenna is positioned properly to receive both stations.

OTA antenna tuning is an art more than a science. I live in a condo,
and so use an indoor antenna with a splitter wiht my HDHomerun. 95% of
the time the reception is fine for all of the OTA channels I want, but
sometimes the reception can blink in and out for mysterious
reasons. Recently, I found that a particular station (the San
Francisco Bay area's The CW affiliate, in fact) was only tunable on
one of the two inputs. I discovered that the positioning and
orientation of the (very short, well-shielded) coax cables connecting
the splitter to the HDHomeRun can and will affect reception!

-- 
Yeechang Lee <ylee at pobox.com> | +1 650 776 7763 | San Francisco CA US