topic Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames in Android TV

KD48A9 recordings have black frames

GreatBoo — Sat, 10 Oct 2020 18:41:16 GMT

Recording freeview HD channels to a 1 month old 1TB WD Elements Portable USB drive, on playback there are multiple black frames displayed and occasional audio glitches during playback. This does not happen when watching the same freeview channel live.
The menu tells me the software is up to date.
I assume Sony are going to release a fix for this?

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

royabrown2 — Sun, 11 Oct 2020 10:44:53 GMT

@GreatBoo

How are you powering the drive?

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

GreatBoo — Sun, 11 Oct 2020 11:41:48 GMT

The drive is powered the only way possible, via the USB3 socket on the KD48A9 dedicated to the recording drive.
The drive is a fairly standard WD passport drive, model WDBUZG0010BBK-WESN.
https://shop.westerndigital.com/en-gb/products/portable-drives/wd-elements-portable-usb-3-0-hdd#WDBUZG0010BBK-WESN
The drive only has one connection socket, and is USB 2 & 3 compatible so I assume it only requires 500mA or less specified by USB2 standard, and I assume the KD48A9 can output 900mA specified by the USB 3 standard, so there should be no issues over power.

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

Mrhappy37 — Sun, 11 Oct 2020 12:05:30 GMT

This is a problem many are experiencing. It was absolutely fine with android 7 but started with android 8, and has been an issue ever since. I find its mainly hd channels that do it. Another problem is that sometimes series link recordings just cancel for no apparent reason and sometimes when recording a programme that is split for the news etc the recording sometimes misses the second half. All very frustrating and been waiting over a year hoping for a fix.

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

GreatBoo — Sun, 11 Oct 2020 12:40:18 GMT

You're kidding, I just paid £1799 for a top of the range TV which uses an operating system with a major bug outstanding for over a year!?
Are there any work-arounds?

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

Mrhappy37 — Sun, 11 Oct 2020 12:42:44 GMT

Not that I’ve found or read about. I complained to sony and got the “do a reset” reply, which I did a full reset and it made no difference.

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

Mooly01 — Sun, 11 Oct 2020 13:24:00 GMT

I wonder if it would be worth while trying a much lower specced USB2 drive, even an oldie if you have one lying around. The requirements for recording are not strict and I've used old drives without issue (although not on this model). USB3 drives can be a bit fussy on supporting hardware and drivers.

If you run into issues reusing a drive that has been formatted by the TV then this might help:

https://community.sony.co.uk/t5/android-tv/how-to-recover-usb-drive-that-was-used-for-hdd-recording-and-that/m-p/2708180#M41438

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

rooobb — Sun, 11 Oct 2020 13:53:02 GMT

You cannot assume about power consumption....1TB hdd probably get more than 1A check better its specification. If you want to be on the safe side don't go over 500gb drive or use one with it's own power

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

Mrhappy37 — Mon, 12 Oct 2020 15:33:11 GMT

I tried 3 different hard drives and even tried an SSD but got the same result on both my XF tvs.

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

Mooly01 — Mon, 12 Oct 2020 18:39:31 GMT

That doesn't sound promising then. If this is becoming a known issue then it needs escalating to a level above the 'first line support' that would normally be involved.

Although you may not be keen on this I have found in the past that a politely worded message on Twitter to Sony UK might possibly get you a response. Be concise. Make it clear it is not an isolated issue.

Good luck anyhow 🙂

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

GreatBoo — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 10:32:48 GMT

I've now also tried a Samsung FIT 128GB flash drive as the USB recording drive, a totally different technology (flash memory) to the WD elements passport drive (spinning disk).
Using this also produces black-frame drop-outs on a recording of Freeview HD.

At the time I was watching the same program back while it was still recording. Watching back a programme which was recorded earlier was OK.
So it doesn't seem to be power related, it seems more likely to be data bandwidth related.
It still needs fixing!

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

Mooly01 — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 13:20:49 GMT

That's an interesting observation. I know you have tried several conventional HDD's but are all of these USB3 types? bit I'm still wondering if a USB2 would be better as these are much more universal in their support with partnering equipment.

In the past I have used a SanDisk 64Gb flash drive successfully, at least for a considerable while anyhow. That was USB3. Unfortunately after some months it started to suffer issues on playback and when I removed the drive to test it on a PC I found the data rate had dropped off a cliff. No amount of trying to fix the drive at a command line level worked and so I complained to SanDisk who to their credit asked for details stamped on the drive. Once given a replacement forwarded to me. I then went back to using an ancient 'Mistral' USB2 drive I got from Argos around 2007/8.

What is of most importance with a drive for real time playback is not so much high speed but the ability to deliver a constant data flow without having to pause, resend and recheck data. This was something I researched some years ago when upgrading the drives in the venerable Sony RDR HXD870 series recorders. Seemingly high specification drives were not always satisfactory (freezing and stuttering) and in that instance I found the Seagate 'Pipeline' series offered superb performance (these were 3.5" drives though) and these drives were deliberately designed for video applications.

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

GreatBoo — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 16:52:08 GMT

I'm grateful for your suggestions, but I can't keep buying more and more USB disks in the hope that one of them works correctly with the KD48A9.
I do have older disks but to test them requires formatting on the TV and hence deletion of all their data - which is just not practical - on the small chance one might work, which I doubt.

In the short-term, Sony should issue guidance as to which type of disks can be used, and in the long-term, Sony need to fix the problem. It seems there are no fundamental hardware problems, just a software problem - as according to others on this thread, prior versions of software worked fine on other Android TVs in the range.

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

Mooly01 — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 19:08:14 GMT

I do feel your frustration over this as I encountered problems with jerky playback when there was fast horizontal camera panning in a scene. This was when I first tried using HDD's to record and Sony technical were no help at all and could only suggest supposed lists of drives that were supposed to be compatible and to do a factory reset.

It was a different issue to yours but I wonder... it was a few years back now:

https://community.sony.co.uk/t5/android-tv/usb-recordings-are-jerky-when-played-back/m-p/2289432#M15828

I think you are probably going to have to try and take the issue higher with Sony unfortunately.

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

rooobb — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 19:28:14 GMT

You may still want to change with an lg 48cx ...ops no pvr anymore, maybe a samsung even if not an oled ...ops no pvr since few year...

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

GreatBoo — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 08:28:37 GMT

The KD48A9 specification lists "USB HDD RECORDING" on the product web page. The Samsung and LG don't.
So your comment is not relevant. This is a discussion on why it doesn't work, not a discussion on whether or not it exists.

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

rooobb — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 09:27:41 GMT

My message was meant to give you all a view on the market: more and more recording from live broadcast is considered not needed from TV manufacturer, so major brands are stripping it from specification. Sony didn't till now.

The feature (with all the limitation of an all-in-on implementation, prior this was meant for dedicated devices) is working 90% of the time. It is working fine on my own A1 as well on most of the people I'm talking with. Your has some glitch but in this thread you pretend from the manufacturer to guarantee the compatibility of any USB device you connect to it, that is practically impossible. So you can still obviously complain and claim a fix for your specific setup but I guess this message will be ignored in Japan. My guess is they will make more a reasoning like "okay this feature is bringing claims and is not a marketing help anymore... better to remove it". But this is only my opinion

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

GreatBoo — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 10:32:34 GMT

@rooobb wrote:
Your has some glitch but in this thread you pretend from the manufacturer to guarantee the compatibility of any USB device you connect to it

What you write is utterly wrong. Where have I claimed "the manufacturer to guarantee the compatibility of any USB device"? I have no such expectation.
I do expect Sony to have compatibility with the most common USB device on the market, a WD passport drive.
I do also expect Sony to issue a list of compatible USB HDDs - I have yet to see one.
This is Sony's flagship A9 Master series after all.

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

Mrhappy37 — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 10:38:48 GMT

I agree, the tv was advertised with a recording to hdd feature therefore it should be present and working, without intermittent problems. This is clearly a software issue as between us we have tried quite a few different hdd and even ssd options. Mine was perfect on android 7, so the original hdd worked then with no issues. Hopefully it will be sorted with the android 9 software that’s coming

Re: KD48A9 recordings have black frames

rooobb — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 11:03:48 GMT

@GreatBoo ha scritto:

@rooobb wrote:

Your has some glitch but in this thread you pretend from the manufacturer to guarantee the compatibility of any USB device you connect to it

What you write is utterly wrong. Where have I claimed "the manufacturer to guarantee the compatibility of any USB device"? I have no such expectation.

In the short-term, Sony should issue guidance as to which type of disks can be used

I do expect Sony to have compatibility with the most common USB device on the market, a WD passport drive.
I do also expect Sony to issue a list of compatible USB HDDs - I have yet to see one.
This is Sony's flagship A9 Master series after all.

Sony issued a list of compatible HDD in the past and guess what? They are mostly Sony (I don't know if they even sell them still) https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/support/articles/00148248

You still write about WD HDD, and I already told you that it is not the brand that matters but the power consumption but you simply ignore it, 1TB is on the limit, 2TB would be surely too much. I personally use a WD mypassport 500GB without any issue (and by the way even a very old seagate 80GB or a Toshiba Canvio 700GB). You all talk about flash disk (working) or SSD (not working when they are stated as not supported at all on Sony TVs (for various and different reasons).

That your tv is a master series doesn't anything to do with HDD recording, but on colour rendering that's the reason I hope you bought the TV

I didn't want to be involved in an ugly discussion, if you want to try and solve the problem the suggestion was "try another device". If you don't want because you don't want to spend time on it (and btw I agree that it can be time and money consuming), you can wait for a software fix (that maybe will get your tv to give more juice to your WD 1TB)