topic Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems in TV & Streaming

Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

budwich — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 14:37:21 GMT

The practice is bad in general but it is even worst when it has audio drop out problems because the substituted channels isn't really the "same quality".... maybe. No sure how many channels are impacted but its an issue with channel 1202 (CBS) when Bell decides to substitute the "YES TV" feed over the wheel of fortune program at 7 pm weekdays. There appears to some sort of audio decode / sync issue of the stream. I suspect the cbs channel is a "normal" video channel while the YES TV feed is a "rebroadcast streaming channel" much like some of the other channels that Bell recently "switched" from SD bandwidth to "HD" as part of the satellite "situation". It has had jitter problems with the conversion. In this case (substitution), the video is OK but the audio drops here and there (less than 1 second) as the decoder appears to have some issue with buffering / syncing.

Anyone else notice this? other channels?

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

BellPatricia — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 22:59:56 GMT

Good day @budwich

Thank you for reaching out to the Bell community 🙂

When you notice this occur are you using a TV receiver (if so which model)? Or, are you using a different device with the Fibe TV app?

@BellPatricia

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

budwich — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 23:11:05 GMT

I am using a sat receiver (9242). Not sure when the problem started although its been happening for a while. I would say when the substitution of yes tv started although we don't always watch that time slot as the program (in this case, wheel of fortune) can be "grabbed" at 3:30 on ntv. It has no problems then as no substitution is happening as far as I know.

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

budwich — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 00:39:56 GMT

I was just watching the next time period (ie. 7:30 slot) on the same channel (1202). Its jeopardy. It is being substituted with yestv and has the same audio drop issue. 😞

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

BellNick — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 21:10:03 GMT

Hi @budwich
We've been keeping an eye on this and our teams were not able to replicate the issue you are experiencing. We wanted to check in to see if you're still experiencing this issue or if it has gone away?
Looking forward to hearing back.

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

budwich — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 01:02:15 GMT

Thanks for the reply... I am just watching the channel now (7:00pm tuesday). It is still happening. I haven't been watching very much at this time slot as we normally try to catch the program earlier.

As far as I can tell, the hdmi stream is basically ok as the picture doesn't appear to have an issue but somehow the audio gets dropped... for a split second here and there. Again only when the channel (in this case 1202) is operating in substitution mode. Other wise, the channel does not have a problem with "regular programming".

ADDED: can you tell me what the incoming bit rate for the audio stream (at the "bell pickup / feed") is on the yestv substitution channel?

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

budwich — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 15:38:38 GMT

As a side note and somewhat related, channel 509 (cnbc which was an "SD resolution channel" and is now some sort of "720p type" channel) has some sort of video issue (jitter) while the audio is ok. It appears that the channel is not a regular broadcast channel but is some form of a streaming channel in its origin (based on my limited experience of seeing this channel "elsewhere" / on the internet) and is thus similar to yestv channel that this thread was commenting about.

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

dks — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 17:00:09 GMT

What you are seeing may well be attributable to a geomagnetic storm event. There currently a Geomagnetic Storm Watch (G2) issued for Dec. 3/4 by NOAA. While these storms can cause the Northern Lights over much of Canada, they can also affect communications satellites by disrupting equipment and interfering with radio signals. This may cause the symptoms you are seeing. Here is a good summary of the effects of geomagnetic storms on everything from power systems to radio to fibre optics.

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

budwich — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 17:15:39 GMT

Well that could be true... BUT how does the storm know to cause the problem when I am watching a certain channel / program as opposed "blanket issue" across many different channels. Further, why are there issues with portions of the signal and not the entire channel signal (ie. video and audio).... pretty impressive "selective geo storm". Anyway, from other threads in similar issues somewhat related to bell's migration to another satellite and signal characteristic (SD versus HD, compression, etc), it would appear they have a few "underlying" issues in the area... some of which they seem to have addressed in some fashion although the specifics of any solution seems to be "thin". I realize that the receivers involved in most of these observations are old so expectations are somewhat capped. At the same time, if the issue does indeed exist and can be addressed, then I hope that this forum is a way to get there. It can only help Bell and its customers in terms of satisfaction with the service.

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

dks — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 20:03:26 GMT

Geomagnetic storms can affect one segment of a radio signal but not another. Or the whole spectrum. My understanding is that Bell staff do monitor the forum, as you have seen already posted here, do relay issues to the relevant team and respond with any appropriate information they receive.

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

budwich — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 19:24:10 GMT

Some of the real questions in and around this problem (and related problems elsewhere with channels jittering) is how are the uplinked channels being received / gathered by Bell. Are they picked up via fibre data cable (from a broadcast hub), radio / microwave link or some form of "selective internet" and of course, how is Bell "pushing" the "extra" bandwidth into the satellite receivers at the other end (ie. firmware especially on relatively old devices with limited processor power... remember when the SD channels were ugly and now most appear to be some form of 720p).

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

budwich — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 00:37:59 GMT

As usual, the 7pm 1202 channel (cbs) gets substituted with yestv feed and my receiver was experiencing the usual audio drops here and there. 😞 I decided to have my pvr on the receiver record some of the program while I was watching the channel. Audio drops continued as expected during my watching. I then played back my pvr "capture". There was no audio drops during the play back of the pvr capture.... hmmmm! Not sure what that means exactly but it would appear that the captured stream goes thru a different processing "environment" then the live stream". Not sure what the difference involved is though.

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

budwich — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:49:32 GMT

Another aspect of the issue. The yestv channel is fed to 651 on the satellite system... of course, that is an "original SD" resolution numbered channel which Bell has found a way to "push" it to some sort of 720p(?) type channel now.
Bell also has an "hd channel" of 1651 but its on Bell fibe and not satellite. I don't know what its "source resolution" is. The interesting thing is that the program substitution into channel 1202 (yestv substitution into the cbs channel) has the audio drop issue while the channel 651 does not. The video quality of the two channels is quite different (HD one is more clear) so it ls likely that Bell is using a different yestv feed for the substitution channel as oppose to the SD channel.... but whatever is done somehow the 9242 doesn't not seem to like it as the audio drops frequently.

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

dks — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 11:09:10 GMT

Thank you for your question. Information about the resolution of Bell Satellite TV video can be found in this thread. There is also useful information on Bell Satellite TV video quality found in this thread. The receiver (I have the 9500) and your TV (I have a new Sony Bravia 5) also have an effect on video quality.

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

budwich — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 23:43:07 GMT

This problem still exists for me with the YESTV substitution over channel 1202 (CBS) in the 7-8pm timeslot. The cbs channel has no audio problems at any other "normal" time including which CITY) is substituted during the morning at the 11am -noon timeslot. It is most likely that the substituted channel (city) is "picked up" / distributed in a "normal broadcast mode" where is appears that YESTV origin is some form of streamed content which may have some "transcoding" going on thru the various points in the route.

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

BellPatricia — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 18:48:14 GMT

Hey there @budwich

Thank you for keeping in touch with the Bell community 🙂

We were able to monitor the recording from yesterday between 7pm-8pm in its entirety and did not encounter any audio issues. Can you verify if this impacts other channels during that time slot?

What type of TV are you using, and is your receiver plugged directly into the TV or do you have third party equipment in between (such as a sound system)? Do you have any other receivers in your home, and if so, does this happen on them as well?

@BellPatricia

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

budwich — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 20:09:20 GMT

Thanks for reply. To answer your questions.... yes there is a AVR involved BUT it does not have any problems with the mentioned channels when the substitution is no longer on the channel in question (ie. 1202). My TV on this system is a 4k sony. I have not connected the sat receiver directly at this point because I don't believe that the tv is an issue.

Further, I have posted that the PVR recording of the channel DOES NOT have the issue. It is likely that the recording encoding is NOT the same as the "live event" signal. IF you are using that method, then you are not seeing the "live signal characteristics". One question that is not answered is how is the yestv feed being pickup by bell, as I outlined there are a few different options of how that is done in the system (based on my general understanding). My "guesses" are that the feed is a "streaming feed" and NOT a broadcast feed but I have no information on that. It is quite possible that errors in the audio feed can be corrected before the signal is recorded while errors in the live signal are just passed thru by the sat receiver and not happily by the avr... again, my guess. Still further on this, as I have mentioned, the "SD channel" of yestv (ch 615) does not have the issue in the same time slot. Bell also has ch 1651 for YESTV HD which is not available to my receiver so I don't know if it has the issue and if that is the feed used for the substitution. Anyway, it certainly is an issue that appears to be less than "defined" as the "black boxes" at multiple points in the signal path are just that black boxes. 🙂

I will try moving another receiver to this location... I seem to recall trying that before when troubleshooting "jittering picture" which is kind of how this all started... bell changing satellites in the sky -> moving SD channels to some other form of signal -> various receivers reporting the issues on this forum / community -> bell finding a "firmware fix" somewhere. Pretty long line of events.

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

budwich — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 23:27:05 GMT

Ok... I hooked up my 6141 to the same setup (ie. swung the hdmi cable over from the 9242 along with the coax LNB cable). No problem with audio on the 7pm timeslot with ch 1202 being substituted with yestv feed. Swung everything back and the audio drops come back. There is some sort of issue with audio stream coming from the yestv feed that the 9242 isn't handling well resulting in the audio in the hdmi to drop.

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

budwich — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 15:00:17 GMT

I found some "information" from "AI" for sound dropping from bell tv services.

Quote: "If you are using an older 9242 model, the receiver defaults to Dolby Digital unless set to "PCM Only." If you have chosen "Dolby Digital Only" but the program is only in PCM, you will hear nothing.

Navigate to Menu > System Setup > Audio.
Select PCM Only to force the output.

If these steps do not work, try turning off any external sound system and check if the sound works directly through the TV speakers, which can help narrow down if the problem is with the receiver, the HDMI cable, or the audio system. "

Based on this "info", it would appear that perhaps the audio stream loses it "sense of type" (DD or PCM), temporarily, and then tries to resync causing the drop. It would that the sat receiver is stuck in some form of "auto" audio (DD /PCM which would be a normal setting). Even if one can change the audio output to some fixed from (either DD or PCM only), from the quote, it appears that the sat receiver may not be able to down mix or "up mix" to the appropriate audio type, should a channel "broadcast" a different audio type. Currently, trying to change the audio out setting to "pcm only" does nothing and the output stays at DD (based on the incoming signal info at the AVR which is capable of handling ALL audio signal types, both "bitstream" and PCM). However, I don't believe a given audio stream should be "randomly" switching back and forth between the two. It is more likely a "stream error" that is causing the sat system to not handle the DD and thus tries to resync, dropping the audio for moments during that process.

ADDED: I have been able to change the sat receiver output to "pcm only" by doing a "hard reset". The AVR incoming signal is now PCM... so I will leave this in this mode until monday when the ch1202 substitution takes place to see if the audio drop still occurs. It is likely to NOT occur since the "fallback" for audio when DD is unable to occur is PCM. Will go from the results therein. Remember though, this audio dropping ONLY occurs with the substitution of the particular feed to the particular channel and NO other instances have been found... but I don't know what or which channels have this type of substitution happening..... do you?

Re: Bell Sat TV... Simultaneous Substitution Practice Has Audio Problems

budwich — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 19:26:44 GMT

Another question: are all bell sat channel "broadcast" as "dolby digital" or are some "PCM". There seems to be some "funnies" in the way the 9242 handles the sound settings (in system setup menu). This would appear to have some "strange interactions" with the DD MAT data that is sent out in hdmi land.