ABC vs Progress

[sudsmaster]

Like many, I eagerly awaited the return of the TV series LOST to the air on Thursday night.

I queued up the DVD recorder and got all four hours of the programming on Wednesday and Thursday night recorded. I planned to watch the shows again to re-familiarize myself with the series and the new episode.

Last night I got out the DVD and tried to watch it.

A shocker. ABC has apparently decided it doesn't want people recording its digital broadcasts. The commerical came through just perfect - excellent picture, full sound. But the actual show was missing an important audio track - the dialog. The sound effects were still there, as was the full picture, just no dialog. Boy, was I disappointed.

I got by with just turning on closed captioning so at least I could figure out what people were saying. Kind of like being deaf, I suppose. In future I'll record the analog broadcast signal, but since that is going away in 2009 this does not portend well for future viewers who want to time shift TV programming onto digital media without having to subscribe to a service like TIVO (and I'm not sure that DVR's were able to record the sound on LOST either). I suppose I could use an external tuner to convert digital signals to analog and feed them back into the recorder, but that will be a hassle and won't allow for scheduled recording.

Brickbats to ABC for this attempt to limit what viewers can do with the broadcast signal. A big frown for Mickey.

 

[Brent-Aucoin]

Hello,
Interesting that ABC is doing this all ready.
My last job was in television. There was talk about this from networks doing some type of "scrambling" so that it would be an unsuccessful record.
The issue for them is that HD or any digital signal is as good as the master tapes. Digital transfer is exact no matter what the source. It is not like tape or film where copies degrade.
I remember when studios were converting old masters to digital while re-mastering the quality of the movies. There were going to get producers to sign a waver saying that we would only use the masters for work and producing spots, and not make "personal" copies.
I am sure in time, someone will make a device that will "un-scramble" these signals that are causing you not to record, and make themselves rich.
Funny that everyone is pushing HD, and HD recording equipment for home use, but not telling you that you might not be able to record your favorite programs.
Brent

 

[sudsmaster]

The thing is, this dvd recorder already has built-in protection against making digital copies of dvd's. There is no digital video output; the machine will shut down if disks are inserted and ejected more than 50 times in a row (I'm guessing the machine needs to be powered off and on occasionally to avoid that), and it won't make copies of copy-protected tapes (or vice verse).

There are plenty of ways to bootleg DVD's... preventing consumers from making copies of broadcasts for their own personal use doesn't address the the bootleg issue one bit. Like I say, I could convert the signal to analog, make a digital copy of that, and then start bootlegging that, if I really wanted to. But for me it's just a matter of convenience, and if ABC starts making viewing their programming inconvenient (and by preventing home copies they are making it inconvenient) I'll choose some other form of entertainment.

 

[MikeS]

ABC. Start Here

I'm sorry to hear about your bad luck recording "Lost" on DVD, Sudsmaster. But this may be the price we pay for our favorite shows if we don't download them onto iPods or watch them on the Web. So far, ABC shows seem to be coming out quite well on my HD hard-drive recorder (which I rent from my cable company for $10 a month; it's cheaper overall than TiVo). I've had no trouble playing back any of the shows in HD (though I have not transfered the shows onto DVD or tape from the hard drive--yet). There should be a way to allow you to record your favorite shows--with picture and sound intact--but prevent dubbing off duplicate copies. Engineering, anyone?
Sometimes, I miss the early 1980's when VCR's were new and wonderful!

 

[countryguy]

I recorded lost on my DVD recorder without any problem.

Gary

 

[pturo]

I am suprised if a DVD recorder would not copy a digital Broadcast, with the intention of the manufacturer and ABC.

There was case law established decades ago when one of the networks sued SONY for copyright infringement.(BETA Recorders) The network lost. The Supremes(the fab 9 in DC) stated that copying a program to view later is mearely "time shifting", and legal to do for individuals in a home setting. The studios did not want BETA or VCR copying to occur back then, either. Screws up the Neilsen ratings stats for advertizing revenues and costs of commercials that are time based on hot shows like LOST. They did not like that you could fast forward the commercials, either.

Now we have TIVO, a time shifter of programming for consumers, which is entirely legal.
Technology that has a block on it to purpousley not allow a home copy to be made from a broadcast to DVD would seem unconstitutional based on prior case law.
Older DVD recorders may not have the right chip for the new digital broadcasts reproduction, which is obsolenece, not collusion on the part of ABC and the manufacturers of DVD/DVR's.

 

[sudsmaster]

This is a Panasonic DVD recorder, with built-in ATSC tuner. I got it last summer, so it is of a new design. It records other digital broadcast programs from other broadcast channels just fine, including HD programming (although it necessarily reduces such programming to standard NTSC of standard DVD disks). I did a little test tonight: the ABC digital signal of a recently released movie came through with no dialog audio, while recent programming on other digital network channels (CBS, NBC) recorded just fine.

The recorder has had other problems, such as locking up, or not coming fully back to life for a scheduled recording session (very annoying to find out a scheduled program has not actually been recorded). I may return the unit and get a replacement to see if it's peculiar to this machine. However, it's my conclusion that something on the ABC signal broadcast in this area results in loss of digital audio on the digital TV signals, and just for the broadcast shows. I've noted the same problem on the remake of "War of the Worlds" being broadcast here locally on the ABC affiliate tonight. The movie records without dialog, but with sound effects. The commericals come through loud and clear. So it's something the broadcaster is doing that results in these defective recordings.

I could see that a tuner-less DVD recorder might do just fine with the signal from a cable company, which might lack the "copy protection" of the local broadcast affiliate. Or, with an analog type signal. Or, it might be that this particular model of DVD recorder is reacting to copy protection in the broadcast digital signal that older DVD recorders don't react to.

I like this recorder because it also has a VHS VCR in it, and this makes transfering tapes to DVD very easy. But the other problems are quite annoying.

 

[danemodsandy]

Rich:

Before you come to any kind of conclusion, I would check with other DVD recorder owners in your neighbourhood.

Movies have three tracks on their soundtracks- the music track, the dialogue track, and what is called the Foley track, which is for sound effects. Before digital technology, all these tracks were mixed together into one single track for the final print of a movie, because there was no other reasonably cost-effective way to do it. Nowadays, the three tracks can be kept separate, which makes things cheaper, and also makes edits easier (like taking out an "F-bomb" for a TV broadcast).

It is just possible that your recorder has some problem that keeps it from picking up ABC's dialogue track properly, since you say you're having other problems as well. Then again, it may be that ABC is playing with us- digital technology does, sadly, make that possible.

 

[mattl]

Or...

Or, have you considered there might have been a problem at the broadcast end? One of my HD NBC outlets does this from time to time, the surround channels are fine, I listen in DD 5.1, but the dialog is missing. Annoying, it's almost as bad when they forget to flip back to HD from a local insert or a weather warning.

As someone once told me --"it's only television......"

 

[countryguy]

I have a Panasonic DVD recorder which is about 5 years old. When I first got it I had some problems with it locking up also. There was a fix that could be downloaded from the Panasonic website which resolved the problem. Perhaps there is also a fix for your model. Have you checked the the ecoustics forum? Lots of knowledgeable people on there.

Gary

ecoustics.com forums on everything electronic

Ask questions or learn from experts in home audio, video, car electronics and more in the ecoustics forums.

forum.ecoustics.com

 

[sudsmaster]

Hey Gary,

Thanks for the firmware update suggestion. I visited the Panasonic website and found an update that seemed to work. Since then the machine has not hung up, nor has it skipped any scheduled recording sessions. Will have to see if it affects tomorrow night's audio portion of the LOST programming, though.

 

[countryguy]

Glad to hear that (hopefully) your problem is resolved. I still have one problem with mine and that is at certain times of the day it will not record on channel 5. Mine has the TV guide feature and it indicates that the program is set to be recorded but when the time comes, it doesn't record it. If I turn it on manually then it works fine. It only happens for this one channel and at the same time every day. I can set it to record the same program which is broadcast on another channel at the same time and then it will work.

Gary

 

[sudsmaster]

I was able to record LOST tonight via the HD digital broadcast signal, no problem with the audio. So either the station "fixed" their signal or the patch "fixed" my DVDR.

 

[countryguy]

Great news!