Dialogue problems with HD prime time shows (1 Viewer)

[John_Lee]

catching up on some DVRed shows, I've had a few that go for 10-15 minutes with no dialog. It's an HD satellite feed [Dishnetwork], though some may have been OTA [I have an antenna tied into my system and the Dish DVR allows OTA tuning, but I usually only revert to the OTA feed if I'm DVRing 2 shows off satellite already]. It's in 5.1, and the center channel is working, ie providing background effects and music, but the dialog is missing from the 5.1 feed, and it likewise missing from the analog downconversion if I switch over to analog inputs, or output through my TV speakers.
I specifically recall the 2nd episode of Shark and Numbers exhibiting this, so it's not a network specific problem.
Anyone else experience this? Could it possibly be a receiver problem? I kind of ruled receiver problems out as the center channel background was there, and the dialog came back in at the same spot [usually accompanied by a 'splat' indicating a change in feed], even if I rewound or restarted the program.

 

[mylan]

I have Charter HD DVR service and I get this as well. Some shows drop out for a second or two and others, like Survivor, are apparently not even encoded in 5.1 surround. I think the drop-outs are due to bandwidth issues but I think the producers intentionaly do not encode everything in surround. While watching "Lost" the show is in 5.1 but when they go to commercial all I get is a muffled mess, even the "next week on Lost" is not encoded, I have to switch off the receiver and turn up the sound on my tv to hear it.
Edit: I just read the part about dropping out for 15 minutes, no my feed does not do that...strange problem to be sure.

 

[Mark_B]

I had this problem once on my dish network receiver, not a DVR tho. It happened during a football telecast. It was actually kind of nice. All I got was the crowd noises and any background sound effects. At first thought it was the station as this was an OTA tru my receiver. I rebooted the receiver tho and it all came back. Dish has had quite a bit of software trouble with it's HD receivers of late, including the DVR. Check out DBStalk.com or Satelliteguys.com for details. It is much better now than when they first came out.