No audio on Fox?

[rsun]

As of Thursday, I've lost audio on both replay 50xx machines on the local fox affiliate (Austin's Fox 7, cable 2 on Time Warner). My tv plays audio on the channels live just fine so I know there's sound there, but neither replay tv records audio, and if I tune to fox live, there's no sound. All other channels seem to be ok, just fox is hosed. Any ideas as to what's wrong?

[lizard_boy]

I'm in Austin, also on Time Warner. Just checked, I'm getting audio fine ("live" tv via Replay) and on shows I've recorded on Fox over the last few days.

[Jeff D]

Try rebooting both the replays. If something changed with the audio frequency the replay won't notice that without restarting. This is going to be an odd guess, but it's the only option from what I can see other than checking all your wiring and such (doesn't sound right for only one channel).

[rsun]

I've tried rebooting both replays and unplugging the cable from them and there's still no audio. It doesn't appear that anything has changed for Fox - they're still broadcasting in stereo and mono (no sap).

[Phathead]

I have this situation with the USA network via Comcast here. It's been without audio ever since I plugged in my first ReplayTV. I can watch it without the ReplayTV no problem, but with the ReplayTV, no audio.

Kind of a bummer since I like Monk and can't record it. So far, no one has provided an answer for why this is happening. Hopefully for you it's just an intermittent problem.

BTW, I have two ReplayTVs, and both exhibit the same behavior.

[Kenlex]

Well, we know the RTVs' tuner isn't the greatest, so I wonder if it could be a signal strength issue -- perhaps your cable provider is running Fox's sound carrier at a lower level than they might? I presume you're splitting your incoming cable at least three ways. What happens if you connect one RTV, by itself, to the cable, with no splitters? Otherwise, it seems odd to me that BOTH RTVs (and not the TVs) are having this problem.

(I presume you have the cable feeding the RTVs directly, and you're not using a cable box for the RTVs)

[Phathead]

No matter how I hook it up, I have this problem. I do have the cable split three ways, but I also have an amplifier. Even with the cable run without a splitter, I have this problem. I don't think it's a signal strength issue. All other channels come in great, and the USA Network's video is one of the best looking.

I suspect that USA is being broadcast with the audio on SAP only. However, my TV just plays the audio, it doesn't tell me if it's coming in on SAP, and I don't see any way to tell the ReplayTV to pick up the SAP.

I've posted this here before and got no response. I've talked to ReplayTV support and also got nowhere.

[rsun]

I've checked every TV in the house, along with my only remaining working vcr and all get audio on fox just fine. I've verified that fox is transmitting a stereo and mono audio signal (one of my older tv's has a menu option that shows this info). I've rebooted both replays and unplugged one from the cable for a minute. CATV comes into the house, is split 2 ways with one end going into the cable modem and the other going into an 8 port amp. One replay is directly connected to a port on the amp, the other goes through a 2 way splitter. Picture quality on fox hasn't really changed recently. It's ok, but since fox 7 is retransmitted on channel 2 on cable and channel 2 is occupied by a distant UPN? station, it suffers from minor interference. If I unplug the cable on the replay and plug in (shudder) rabbit ears, I can get the audio on the distant station on channel 2 and I can get audio on channel 7. Thus, I don't think it's a problem with the tuner in the replay, but rather something odd going on with the cable.

[Kenlex]

You DO have your RTV(s) set for Cable rather than Over-the-Air, right? I don't mean just the program guides, but the tuner parameters themselves. I wouldn't think it would be an issue for Ch. 2, but...

[w@ntonsoup]

Now, if you had said Fox News I would have figured that the Replay was smarter than we realized....

[rsun]

Yes, replay is set for cable (else I wouldn't get most of the channels above 13 as UHF 14-65 != CATV 14-125 (though some catv channels are tunable by a UHF receiver). Nothing, to my knowledge has changed on the replay other than a minor channel lineup change involving channels 13 and 99 (swapped).

[mnunes]

Have you tried feeding the RTV line inputs (RCA) from your cable box or a VCR to see if it can pick up the audio that way? You may even get a better picture if your cable box has S-video out that you can feed to the RTV.

[Jeff D]

I've said it before, and I did touch on it in my first response(s).

The tuner is what could be the problem, the technique of rebooting with the cable disconnected tune to fox. Then connect the cable.

The replay will try to tune the channel correctly.

Like someone else stated OTA vs cable can be an issue. They have different tuning frequencies. Even worse cable has HRC and IRC which are different too. So... try the reboot without cable in connected, tune to the channel and then connect the cabletv line.

[rsun]

Cool, after trying the unplug cable, reboot replay, tune to channel 2, plug cable back in, I no longer get audio or video on channel 2. My second replay still gets channel 2 without audio (although it just scared the crap out of me when the audio came on real loud as it switch to cbs to record survivor...) Rebooting again with the cable plugged in gets channel 2 video back, but not the audio. Rebooting by unplugging everything and then connecting the cable brought up a menu I've never seen (a two line menu at the top of the screen with the input sources selectable via < and > and a "press exit to remove" option). Still no audio on channel 2, but video is there.

[chill1]

I would get your cable co to come out and do some testing on your cable line. It sounds like you don't have enough signal coming into your house. I had a similar problem when a storm came through and all of the sudden my upper tier channels that came through perfectly well had a slight fuzziness on the screen. Sound like that channel has lost just enough signal that your replay is not getting the audio signal. I now have an amp and that fixed my problem. If it is both replays having the same problems, it would have to be a cable issue and if you have not already it maybe time to invest in an amplifier.

[rsun]

Well, still no audio, so I've connected an old vcr up to line 1 input and created manual records on it for the fox programming I was recording (as audio works fine throug the line in). I tried to set line 1 up as digital cable, but that moved the analog tuner over to the 1000 range, which would have required me to remake all of the scheduled recordings. This is not a great solution, but it looks like it will work short term. Of course, maybe my replays are just trying to tell me something about Fox programming in general :-)