You're using a CC from Cablevision? I assume it's a Scientific Atlanta card.

Did it work for you without getting the 161-6 error and needing the Sony fix?

Haven't tried this way yet but since you said it will not work with a cablevision cablecard. + Can't pick another cable provider that option is gone.

What sony fix?
Gregg

These devices have a problem dealing with some cablecards that requires sending the unit to Sony for a modification.

If you use a CC and don't have an issue, don't worry about it.

Haven't tried this way yet but since you said it will not work with a cablevision cablecard. + Can't pick another cable provider that option is gone.

It may or may not. I read what you wrote to infer that you were already successfully using a CC [before the recent TVGOS problems] and was wondering that you had no error with the Cablevision SciAtl card.

These devices have a problem dealing with some cablecards that requires sending the unit to Sony for a modification.

If you use a CC and don't have an issue, don't worry about it.

I think that only applies to CableCards that are
from Scientific Atlanta.

Also - I thought the Version 13 FW fixed the SA
Problem and the Version 13 FW can be installed
by anyone.

I think that only applies to CableCards that are
from Scientific Atlanta.

Also - I thought the Version 13 FW fixed the SA
Problem and the Version 13 FW can be installed
by anyone.

That's not as I have always understood the issue - and why I never bothered getting a CC.

My belief was that SciAtl cards were almost certain to cause the error and a Sony modification was the only repair.

The Tivo does have a lot going for it. But the $1,000 and the additional cables is a pain.Just buy the TiVoHD and add your own bigger hard drive. It'll come to a heck of a lot cheaper than that.

That's not as I have always understood the issue - and why I never bothered getting a CC.

My belief was that SciAtl cards were almost certain to cause the error and a Sony modification was the only repair.

SA Cards were the only problem child - we AGREE on that.

At one time - I do remember needing to send your box in
for a SA Cable Card Upgrade.

I'm not 100% sure if the FW Version 13 fixes the SA problem
on NOT. It is the Simplest thing to try.

Just buy the TiVoHD and add your own bigger hard drive. It'll come to a heck of a lot cheaper than that.

Ya - there is a SALE GOING ON HERE (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=7181228#post7181228)

I'm sure he is factoring in the Lifetime Subscription fee into his
$1000 price but doing it yourself at least saves $300 ;)

Just buy the TiVoHD and add your own bigger hard drive. It'll come to a heck of a lot cheaper than that.New TivoHDs with lifetime service (no fees), pre-upgraded with 1TB (157HD hours)...go for about $700 (http://cgi.ebay.com/TiVo-HD-Series-3-upgraded-to-XL-Lifetime-Plus-Service_W0QQitemZ220388800420QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDo main_0?hash=item220388800420&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A0 |293%3A1|294%3A50) on ebay.

At that price, the seller makes about $125. They buy new TivoHDs for $199 at Sears, buy 1TB hard drives in bulk for $80, and then add lifetime for $299 (cost an existing subscriber has to pay for lifetime on a new box).

If you can somehow sell the Sony for $400 on ebay, you're more than half way there...

That is what you are led to believe :rolleyes:

But I just upgraded to Lifetime and before I did
I called TiVo directly and SAID: What if my BOX
dies after 1 Year. TiVo Said - they will transfer
a Lifetime subscription to my NEW BOX whenever
my old one dies. That is the KEY Language. You
have to say your OLD DIED ;)

Their site says the exact opposite:

Includes a "Product Lifetime subscription" to the TiVo service which covers the life of the TiVo DVR you buy – not the life of the subscriber. The Product Lifetime subscription accompanies the TiVo DVR in case of ownership transfer.

Well, about a week ago I had one 250 with no channel grid/host and another 250 that was working completely normal with a digital host channel set.

Now, both units are working similarly. Both have correct time and channel grid. Neither unit has a host channel set now. The unit with the digital host channel lost it after about 5 days. So, I've been manually tuning to the digital PBS (that passes G* Test) daily and leaving the unit on for a while. If I don't do this, the guide doesn't get new listings.

As long as I do this, both units seem to be working fine. So, a minor inconvenience, but I'm happy enough with the current situation.

Also, at night, I can hear the tuners clicking around the time when the downloads used to start. It's the same click heard when the tuner switches from cable to OTA. I think the tuners are searching for an analog host channel.

New TivoHDs with lifetime service (no fees), pre-upgraded with 1TB (157HD hours)...go for about $700 (http://cgi.ebay.com/TiVo-HD-Series-3-upgraded-to-XL-Lifetime-Plus-Service_W0QQitemZ220388800420QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDo main_0?hash=item220388800420&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A0 |293%3A1|294%3A50) on ebay.

At that price, they make about $125. They buy new TivoHDs for $199 at Sears, buy 1TB hard drives in bulk for $80, and then add lifetime for $299 (cost an existing subscriber has to pay for lifetime on a new box).

If you can somehow sell the Sony for $400 on ebay, you're more than half way there...

According to their site, their high end $600 box gets you 150 HD hours.

Their site says the exact opposite:

Includes a "Product Lifetime subscription" to the TiVo service which covers the life of the TiVo DVR you buy – not the life of the subscriber. The Product Lifetime subscription accompanies the TiVo DVR in case of ownership transfer.

Yes - I know what the site says - that is why I
called and even got issued a Trouble Ticket
Number to Validate my Call ;)

SA Cards were the only problem child - we AGREE on that.

At one time - I do remember needing to send your box in
for a SA Cable Card Upgrade.

I'm not 100% sure if the FW Version 13 fixes the SA problem
on NOT. It is the Simplest thing to try.

Oh, for the good old days when that was the relevant issue. Maybe someone knows- I believe a physical fix is the only fix.

Today I just want a reliable grid.

Still, there is another issue on the horizon that may make CC's less then desirable- maybe useless

Some companies- that dreaded Cablevision again- are changing their feed to switched video [SDV]- cablecards don't pick up those channels.

According to their site, their high end $600 box gets you 150 HD hours.In the v11.0 software, TiVo changed the way they estimate available space. Now a 1TB TiVo reports 157 HD hours.

Given the way many broadcasters and cable companies overcompress, real-world capacity is often closer to 180 HD hours.

Yes - I know what the site says - that is why I
called and even got issued a Trouble Ticket
Number to Validate my Call ;)

Good luck. Hope the box lasts for years and years.

In the v11.0 software, TiVo changed the way they estimate available space. Now a 1TB TiVo reports 157 HD hours.

Given the way many broadcasters and cable companies overcompress, real-world capacity is often closer to 180 HD hours.

It's tempting. Even 150 hours, I believe, is plenty for anyone. No more need to attach an external drive.

Oh, for the good old days when that was the relevant issue. Maybe someone knows- I believe a physical fix is the only fix.


AGAIN - if anyone is having a PROBLEM TODAY with an SA CableCard,
they can update the FW to Version 13 in less than 5 minutes to see
if THAT fixes the problem.


Still, there is another issue on the horizon that may make CC's less then desirable- maybe useless

Some companies- that dreaded Cablevision again- are changing their feed to switched video [SDV]- cablecards don't pick up those channels.

AMEN to that one - SDV will KIIL the SONY DVR for sure. :mad:

AGAIN - if anyone is having a PROBLEM TODAY with an SA CableCard,
they can update the FW to Version 13 in less than 5 minutes to see
if THAT fixes the problem.




I doubt after all this time anyone using a CC is still having the error. Either they got it fixed or they gave up on the CC, or like me, they never bothered and were satisfied with clear QAM.

If anyone by chance has the error, apply the .13 firmware and let us know.

I've read this board constantly and don't ever remember anyone writing that a firmware upgrade cured the 161-6 error.

AMEN to that one - SDV will KIIL the SONY DVR for sure. :mad:

When do DVR's come out with tru2way?

I've read this board constantly and don't ever remember anyone writing that a firmware upgrade curred the 161-6 error.

You may be right.

When do DVR's come out with tru2way?Late this year...

Some people aren't satisfied with the cable company's DVR software, though, which is what these boxes will run.

Eventually, we will probably see a few DVRs that that run the cable company's EPG in the background, with their own interface on top, but that is probably still 18 months off.

When do DVR's come out with tru2way?

I think you need to ask TiVo that question.

There are NOT Many DVR sources out there that are independent

I have friends at Moto working on it - but you only get a Moto
from your Cable Provider.

I think you need to ask TiVo that question.

There are NOT Many DVR sources out there that are independent

I have friends at Moto working on it - but you only get a Moto
from your Cable Provider.

I'm really surprised that even very high end TV's due up soon do not incorporate tru2way.

I just checked my host channel screen on my 250 and it was blank. (the line saying host channel) How do I find out what channel it should be and force it to that channel. I'm using it ota only in 61761.:)
No guide for 2 weeks now. It's a shot in the dark but if I can find the right vbi channel.....

All:

My short missive to macrovision concerning TVGOS was replied to, with a request for more information, which I provided. They even wanted a contact number.:D

I'll update if I learn anything. (NY DMA)

Just talked to friend in Orlando FL. his dhg 500 is not recieving updates as well and lost connection around the same time I did here in NY. Has a time display though even though it is off by 4 hours but all listings are coming up blank.

All:

My short missive to macrovision concerning TVGOS was replied to, with a request for more information, which I provided. They even wanted a contact number.:D

I'll update if I learn anything. (NY DMA)

Give them a link to this thread, they'll get all the information they can handle............. :rolleyes::rolleyes::eek::eek::eek:

You may be right.

There was a hardware mod sony did along with the firmware update. I think it had to do with insufficient power to the CC slot. If you look at the photos from waaay back in the thread there's a fat black jumper wire installed near the slot

>>Quote:
>>Originally Posted by drhankz View Post
>>OH YA - I have (5) Sony DVRs - one is Dead the other four are fine.
>>
>>When Sony STOPPED making the DVRs - I bought a 5th one as a
>>Spare. I thought I would NEVER need it. I was WRONG.

>>I'm sure it is a HD failure in my SONY.

>>>>Do you still have the dead one for parts?

Sure Do http://www.rx8web.com/smilies/bouncy.gif

drhankz, Would you be willing to sell some of them parts? My front panel is practically destroyed as are some of the parts just inside the front panel. The tiny joystick like control and the LCD panel are busted. How easy do you think it would be to replace the LCD panel?

There was a hardware mod sony did along with the firmware update. I think it had to do with insufficient power to the CC slot. If you look at the photos from waaay back in the thread there's a fat black jumper wire installed near the slot

WOW - thanks for that info.

drhankz, Would you be willing to sell some of them parts? My front panel is practically destroyed as are some of the parts just inside the front panel. The tiny joystick like control and the LCD panel are busted. How easy do you think it would be to replace the LCD panel?

Easier to sell the Whole BOX AS IS for PARTS.

FWIW
2 500's OTA only
Well it looks like they are messing with us again in the Chicago area..
CBS 2-1 has not broadcast VBI data for at least 3 days but guides are staying at about 4.5 days ahead. CBS analog is sending data but sparsely.
1 500 uses 3-0 as host? and 0-2 as clock set, the other uses 0-2 for both.
I know 3-0 is supposed to be digital CBS but neither 2-1, 3-1, or 3-0 show VBI data.
Don't know where exactly it's coming from but at least I've got 4.5 days and a correct clock on both machines.
FYI - The machine that went to digital after the last reset has a very low Clock set count compared to the analog unit.

Do you still have the dead one for parts?
Actually, he could get it repaired at Sony in Pennsylvania for probably about $150. He could then sell it on eBay for $400, or keep it as a spare.

New TivoHDs with lifetime service (no fees), pre-upgraded with 1TB (157HD hours)...go for about $700 (http://cgi.ebay.com/TiVo-HD-Series-3-upgraded-to-XL-Lifetime-Plus-Service_W0QQitemZ220388800420QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDo main_0?hash=item220388800420&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A0 |293%3A1|294%3A50) on ebay.

At that price, the seller makes about $125. They buy new TivoHDs for $199 at Sears, buy 1TB hard drives in bulk for $80, and then add lifetime for $299 (cost an existing subscriber has to pay for lifetime on a new box).

If you can somehow sell the Sony for $400 on ebay, you're more than half way there...
Will a Tivo HD do clear QAM on cable without a cablecard? If so, are the channel listings changeable (like the Sony) to match the channel linup with the clear QAM channel numbers?

Will a Tivo HD do clear QAM on cable without a cablecard? If so, are the channel listings changeable (like the Sony) to match the channel linup with the clear QAM channel numbers?

Nope! No channel mapping capabilities on the Tivo and it appears Tivo has no interest in changing this. This is the sole reason I will not buy a Tivo.

frank70,
While your response may be true sometimes, I can tell you that it's not always true.
The 1:92-0 is not a typical channel that is tuneable on Cable systems. The clue is the "0". I'm not aware of any channel using the -0 subchannel.
In my situation, I had Comcast pass the Host ID as 1:93-0 for a few weeks. channel 93 is/was not tuneable in either analog or digital. Another forum member mentioned that Comcast was passing the TVGOS on a digital subchannel without any video/audio, just the TVOGS data.
ftBelieve what you may - I don't use Comcast or any other cable company so I couldn't comment on any special arrangement they have. But OTA, channel 26 is not "tunable" on my TV (i.e. if I enter 26, it says no signal, which means on a more primitive TV I'd see "snow", but the "snow" in this case is the 8VSB modulated bits of channel 3.1, KYW-DT Philly.) My host channel and/or my clock-set channel sometimes reads 0:3-1 and sometimes reads 0:26-0. Nonetheless, it's the same channel, and the data arrives ok.

Will a Tivo HD do clear QAM on cable without a cablecard? If so, are the channel listings changeable (like the Sony) to match the channel linup with the clear QAM channel numbers?Without a CableCard, the TiVo lists "Clear QAM" channels without guide information. You've got to setup single or repeating manual timers (record 89-1 every Friday @ 8pm, etc).

The ability to manually remap QAM channels is the primary advantage the Sony has over the TiVo. Of course, the TiVo has many advantages of its own.

It's worth noting that the Moxi DVR does support QAM remapping.

Believe what you may - I don't use Comcast or any other cable company so I couldn't comment on any special arrangement they have. But OTA, channel 26 is not "tunable" on my TV (i.e. if I enter 26, it says no signal, which means on a more primitive TV I'd see "snow", but the "snow" in this case is the 8VSB modulated bits of channel 3.1, KYW-DT Philly.) My host channel and/or my clock-set channel sometimes reads 0:3-1 and sometimes reads 0:26-0. Nonetheless, it's the same channel, and the data arrives ok.

Added information, this has been posted previously, but I believe the first digit (either a 0 or 1) of the host channel designates cable or OTA (Cable = 1, OTA= 0). I have found this true when my host changed from cable to OTA. OTA will either show the VHF/UHF frequency assignment (ie 26) or the actual psip "tune to" channel (ie 3-1).

My unit just reset in the last day or two causing it to miss recording CSI-NY last night! :mad:

As background, last week due to weirdness I did a thorough reset of the TVGOS and guide (factory reset of guide software, set zipcode to 00000, then reset it to my zipcode). It took much of the week to get back to the point where it asked me to confirm which cable system I'm hooked up to.

After several days of subsequent normal operation (though, only days 1-5 in the guide), the unit reset apparently sometime yesterday, losing the guide data and its understanding of which cable system I'm on. Tonight when I turned it on for the first time in two days, it asked me to confirm which one, and when I did I saw that it had turned on every channel. Last time, when I reset it, it resulted in everything turned off, which made it relatively easy to get the channel order set up.

Interestingly, it now has days 1,2,5,8 which is to be expected on the first day of a normal operation. Haven't seen day 8 in a LONG time.

For now I'm not investing much effort in the channel order. I'm getting pretty frustrated with this thing... I'll give it a week or two and see what happens.

The strange thing is that in three years, it's never on its own reset to the point where it asks me for the cable provider, except in the rare cases where I reset it. Spontaneously doing this has never happened to me.

Marc

For those of us that are OTA only and have no interest in Cable or Sat - our choices are basically nil. The Tivo HD XL is the closest to the Sony Box; but it cost $1,000 and has its own drawbacks; extra cables to run and clumsy interface, and the "spy" feature is not too nice - why does everyone have to "spy"?Tivo HD is 199 at Sears. You can purchase an AV quality 1TB hard drive for just under 100 and replace the internal drive as a DIY project very easily. As far as spy - you can opt-out of that on their website. I'm sure this getting off-topic, so here's a couple (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16181171) threads (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16183755) if you're interested.

For all the people talking about Tivo...why not just start up a new thread? This is the Sony DHG-HDD250/500 thread.

My unit is working just fine with TVGOS and I'm sure that everyone else's will after June as well - unless you live in Outer Mongolia. Have some patience. Obviously the problems are not the Sony DHG's fault - Macrovision is still getting its act together for the digital transition. TVGOS isn't going to disappear anytime soon.

My unit just reset in the last day or two causing it to miss recording CSI-NY last night! :mad:

As background, last week due to weirdness I did a thorough reset of the TVGOS and guide (factory reset of guide software, set zipcode to 00000, then reset it to my zipcode). It took much of the week to get back to the point where it asked me to confirm which cable system I'm hooked up to.

After several days of subsequent normal operation (though, only days 1-5 in the guide), the unit reset apparently sometime yesterday, losing the guide data and its understanding of which cable system I'm on. Tonight when I turned it on for the first time in two days, it asked me to confirm which one, and when I did I saw that it had turned on every channel. Last time, when I reset it, it resulted in everything turned off, which made it relatively easy to get the channel order set up.

Interestingly, it now has days 1,2,5,8 which is to be expected on the first day of a normal operation. Haven't seen day 8 in a LONG time.

For now I'm not investing much effort in the channel order. I'm getting pretty frustrated with this thing... I'll give it a week or two and see what happens.

The strange thing is that in three years, it's never on its own reset to the point where it asks me for the cable provider, except in the rare cases where I reset it. Spontaneously doing this has never happened to me.

Marc


I have almost gotten use to this thing. Can almost tell when it's resets are coming, that it is getting ready to "do something" in the next day or two. A combination of the two error tracking screens along with some of the download screen; hint of things to come.

Here is Houston, with all these changes, it seems to be happiest if I wait till after 7AM to turn it "on". If I happen to turned it on at 5:30am, the download screens make note of the "interruptions" Particularly, on the StID 5319 - which I still think is the loading up for digital. As of yesterday my unit is still analogue.

I have almost gotten use to this thing. Can almost tell when it's resets are coming, that it is getting ready to "do something" in the next day or two. A combination of the two error tracking screens along with some of the download screen; hint of things to come.

Here is Houston, with all these changes, it seems to be happiest if I wait till after 7AM to turn it "on". If I happen to turned it on at 5:30am, the download screens make note of the "interruptions" Particularly, on the StID 5319 - which I still think is the loading up for digital. As of yesterday my unit is still analogue.

I read this thread EVERY DAY - All I can hope for is
This THREAD will quiet down AFTER June 12

71 Days to GO http://www.rx8web.com/smilies/bouncy.gif

I read this thread EVERY DAY - All I can hope for is
This THREAD will quiet down AFTER June 12

71 Days to GO http://www.rx8web.com/smilies/bouncy.gif

I'm a pessimist by nature, so after the 71 days, will you put up a new one showing 180 days to go?

If I happen to turned it on at 5:30am, the download screens make note of the "interruptions" Particularly, on the StID 5319 - which I still think is the loading up for digital. As of yesterday my unit is still analogue.


An easy way to tell if your unit has any digital download schedules is to look for ID97 entries. If you do not see any of these in your 5319 download schedule, then this is not a digital schedule. Also if all of your ID70 times are 180 minutes then it is not a digital download schedule.

This picture (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=537711&page=510) that you posted recently shows no digital downloads in the schedule.

Mark

I'm a pessimist by nature, so after the 71 days, will you put up a new one showing 180 days to go?

I honestly can not believe they will delay the transition
again. The Broadcasters were ready - the Public was
not. I agree - come June the Public will STILL not be
ready.

But it is about time - we all move on.

For all the people talking about Tivo...why not just start up a new thread? This is the Sony DHG-HDD250/500 thread.

My unit is working just fine with TVGOS and I'm sure that everyone else's will after June as well - unless you live in Outer Mongolia. Have some patience. Obviously the problems are not the Sony DHG's fault - Macrovision is still getting its act together for the digital transition. TVGOS isn't going to disappear anytime soon.

I share your feelings about the Tivo talk. I live in Outer Mongolia. That puts me at the mercy of one cable company that tells me that they will rent me a CC, but not activate it. It's a very old cable company. I might get the closest CBS station with a really high antenna, but they told me TVGOS is not in their future. I'm getting VBI data on the cable company's CSPAN feed. It's working today with the same 2 or 3 days of listings. I don't care about the listings except as an indicator that some good data is making it through and I get ads once in a while. I love my HDD205, but live in fear that the signal will stop and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm really patient, but (to me) June means warmer weather, nothing more. Time will tell.

That puts me at the mercy of one cable company that tells me that they will rent me a CC, but not activate it.

That's pretty crappy of them. What's the point of renting yo a CC, but not activating it?

I'm sure you could threaten them with the spectre of an FCC fine or something, but it sounds like they may be some podunk outfit and will probably screw up your DHG.

Although maybe the rep has been trained to steer people away from CCs, so they make stuff up to discourage customers from getting CCs.

ft

My unit just reset in the last day or two causing it to miss recording CSI-NY last night! :mad:

You can go here (http://www.cbs.com/primetime/csi_ny/) to watch the episode you missed.

I read this thread EVERY DAY - All I can hope for is
This THREAD will quiet down AFTER June 12

71 Days to GO http://www.rx8web.com/smilies/bouncy.gif

I'm getting my shotgun loaded...........but alas, today I'm hitting the river.

Did get the box turned on before I leave. Guide info today: CBS listings from day 2 forward are "no listings"

Days 4 and 5 are a bit of a mess?

Days 6 and 7 useless.

Day 8: Never seen this one before; only about 16 hours are filled in "perfectly" that stop exactly on all channels 7PM next Friday..........from there to midnight it is no listings.

I'm out of here

Did get the box turned on before I leave. Guide info today: CBS listings from day 2 forward are "no listings"

Days 4 and 5 are a bit of a mess?

Days 6 and 7 useless.

Day 8: Never seen this one before; only about 16 hours are filled in "perfectly" that stop exactly on all channels 7PM next Friday..........from there to midnight it is no listings.


Same with my 2 units,

I record CBS most of the time and with "no listings" I will need to move back to the red dot problem.

mike

I honestly can not believe they will delay the transition
again. The Broadcasters were ready - the Public was
not. I agree - come June the Public will STILL not be
ready.

But it is about time - we all move on.

You can't be serious!:eek: I know you've been reading the thread. Did you not see how many people have reported TV stations that haven't installed equipment or haven't gotten their equipment to function properly? Not to mention the government running out of $40 coupons in the converter box program. It's not just the public that is unprepared. As I understand it, there were also problems in the test markets that performed the transition early to test overall readiness in that market area. If it weren't for the delay, many of the people posting in this thread would have had bricks for at least several months. OTOH, maybe this would have been a good thing, since the e-bay price for a Sony DHG would have plummeted and I could have picked up another one on the cheap.:D

We had a power hit a week ago outside Boston which cycled my new-for-me Sony DHG500 DVR. Its TVGOS downloads were working fine for the past six months but not now. (Well, I did have several intermittent freeze ups over the last few weeks for the first time ever, but that’s likely unrelated).

The unit knows its OTA Host Channel (CBS-WBZ-4, tried both analog 0-4 and digital 4-1) and claims it is getting “Good” VBI packets from both channels during the 753 *G test screen. Host status is [3] – good. [Side note: sometimes the VBI test fails on CBS-4, but mostly passes, I assume this is normal if VBI packets don't come in fast enough during that particular 20-second window?)

However the TV Guide Online Service listings have half the channels missing from before, and has half the titles missing on the channels that to do show up (partial data?). With all the missing channels, my TVGOS channel setup is shot. I can see the missing channels outside of TVGOS, but it’s as if TVGOS doesn’t know that are there. I did a system reset where I fed it my zip code from scratch several times over. No luck.

The bigger clue is that the clock eventually resets overnight upon each soft reset, but always to exactly ONE HOUR BEHIND the current time! This must be the 7th time I’ve tried the various soft resets. Daylights Savings mismatch somewhere in the data chain?

For the past week, I tried all the usual soft-reset and host channel re-training tricks via the hidden 753* and 936* Service menus detailed here. I did a new “scan from antenna” several times. I wiped the user memory several times over. But no luck. I don’t want to do a full factory wipe reset yet since that will destroy the nearly 60-hrs/500G of programs I’ve saved up over the last six months to watch later. (complete Nova, Scientific American Frontiers, etc).

I am OTA only (no cable). I can post a picture of my service data screens later, but for now I recorded these:

Host state: 0x80
Host ID: 0x6
Host Channel: 0:0-4
VBI Channel: 0:4-1
OTA Lineup: 0x20

Since then I’ve done another “force host channel” on the analog CBS 4 so both VBI and Host match (0:0-4).

What else can I do? Anyone else from Boston area getting good TVGOS data? CBS or PBS, analog or digital, OTA or cable?

-Erik

You can't be serious!:eek: I know you've been reading the thread. Did you not see how many people have reported TV stations that haven't installed equipment or haven't gotten their equipment to function properly? Not to mention the government running out of $40 coupons in the converter box program. It's not just the public that is unprepared. As I understand it, there were also problems in the test markets that performed the transition early to test overall readiness in that market area.
Well, I think it is a mistake to prolong the agony...a lot of places are in a mess because of PARTIAL transition to digital only....and I don't think the gov't ran out of coupons, because a LARGE number that were sent were never redeemed...what they ran out of (at least initially) was money to RUN the program, especially MAILING costs...

As for installing equipment, if you're talking about TVGOS, that is Macrovision owned and operated equipment, so it is usually NOT the fault of the broadcast stations for difficulties; it's because Macrovision hasn't got their act together.

In the case of the SF area, things were working smoothly with both analog and digital stations seeming to work (including the TVGOS), but about the time Macrovision was starting to activate the "legacy" data stream here and there around the country, things REALLY started to go to hell, and they've been a mess ever since.

So how many test markets have there been (for checking viewer preparedness)?...I only remember hearing about one, but I thought there were supposed to be a couple of subsequent ones...

Regarding listings downloads, happily (albeit probably temporarily), I got my first regular overnight listings on my Sony in about a week (from PBS 9), so I now have listings for days 1,2,5...

man would it be a PAIN to do manual recordings regularly, half of the problem being that you end up with this recordings list that just has Unknown for program titles (let alone having no descriptions of the programs, though that is a distinctly lesser problem for weekly programs that you tend to delete within a week...but I've been envisioning having to keep a list (in order) of the programs that are set manually...

(with three people in the household who watch different programs, this whole deal can be a real problem)

You can't be serious!:eek: I know you've been reading the thread. Did you not see how many people have reported TV stations that haven't installed equipment or haven't gotten their equipment to function properly? Not to mention the government running out of $40 coupons in the converter box program. It's not just the public that is unprepared. As I understand it, there were also problems in the test markets that performed the transition early to test overall readiness in that market area. If it weren't for the delay, many of the people posting in this thread would have had bricks for at least several months. OTOH, maybe this would have been a good thing, since the e-bay price for a Sony DHG would have plummeted and I could have picked up another one on the cheap.:D

The entire state of Hawaii has been digital since 15 Jan 2009. The PBS analog to CBS digital transition had a few bumps but it's been worked out. The fact that some DMAs have had multiple one-step-forward, two-steps-back problems stem from (a) the uncertainty of the transition once the tards* in DC got themselves involved, and (b) the fact that some local TV station and local cable operators made the mistake of employing morons. Amazing! There are low level employees in these businesses that do not understand broadcast VBI data and SCTE 127! Add to that there are some people living in caves and under rocks that have not heard of this whole "digital TV transition" or refuse to prepare for it? Well, F them - they can ride around in their hollowed out wooden logs until the cows come home for all I care. These are people problems. No amount of waiting around, tapping your foot, watching grass grow, etc, are going to fix these problems. They need to have their incompetence thrust out into the bright light of day as the rest of the country (and world) passes them by like discarded Ladas. Only then will they either (a) get with the program, and/or learn how to do their jobs correctly or (b) be fired and/or stop watching TV, freeing up their valuable time to run for political office.

Please tell me how waiting another 6 months, 12 months, 18 years, what ever, will fix these problems. Or should we simply revel in the fact that we are a country that puts technological progress in the hands of imbeciles? Or politicians? Or both?

*I realize that "tard" and "******" are considered politically incorrect these days, but I still use the terms when I am unsure whether I should use dimwit, halfwit, nitwit, or some linear combination of the three.

PS. I've done rocket science, so I can say with authority this ain't it. And I've been digital OTA since 2004 - that's 5 years people!

For all the people talking about Tivo...why not just start up a new thread? This is the Sony DHG-HDD250/500 thread.
...

There IS a Tivo thread, right here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=879469

You can go here (http://www.cbs.com/primetime/csi_ny/) to watch the episode you missed.

Thanks. Turns out maybe I didn't actually miss the episode. Maybe basketball or something was on instead. I saw that episode last week :D

So far the unit is operating more or less normally today.

I have days 1,2,4,5,7(partial),8(partial)

Marc

The entire state of Hawaii has been digital since 15 Jan 2009. The PBS analog to CBS digital transition had a few bumps but it's been worked out. The fact that some DMAs have had multiple one-step-forward, two-steps-back problems stem from (a) the uncertainty of the transition once the tards* in DC got themselves involved, and (b) the fact that some local TV station and local cable operators made the mistake of employing morons. Amazing! There are low level employees in these businesses that do not understand broadcast VBI data and SCTE 127! Add to that there are some people living in caves and under rocks that have not heard of this whole "digital TV transition" or refuse to prepare for it? Well, F them - they can ride around in their hollowed out wooden logs until the cows come home for all I care. These are people problems. No amount of waiting around, tapping your foot, watching grass grow, etc, are going to fix these problems. They need to have their incompetence thrust out into the bright light of day as the rest of the country (and world) passes them by like discarded Ladas. Only then will they either (a) get with the program, and/or learn how to do their jobs correctly or (b) be fired and/or stop watching TV, freeing up their valuable time to run for political office.

Please tell me how waiting another 6 months, 12 months, 18 years, what ever, will fix these problems. Or should we simply revel in the fact that we are a country that puts technological progress in the hands of imbeciles? Or politicians? Or both?

*I realize that "tard" and "******" are considered politically incorrect these days, but I still use the terms when I am unsure whether I should use dimwit, halfwit, nitwit, or some linear combination of the three.

PS. I've done rocket science, so I can say with authority this ain't it. And I've been digital OTA since 2004 - that's 5 years people!

Ok, OK, so you're 100% all digital through and through in Hawaii. :):):)

But all we wanna know is this........... :confused::confused::confused:

Is your DHG-HDDxxx working ??? :eek::rolleyes::D

That's pretty crappy of them. What's the point of renting yo a CC, but not activating it?

I'm sure you could threaten them with the spectre of an FCC fine or something, but it sounds like they may be some podunk outfit and will probably screw up your DHG.

Although maybe the rep has been trained to steer people away from CCs, so they make stuff up to discourage customers from getting CCs.

ft
They make money renting cable boxes that let you have on-demand movies. I got one for a free three month trial. It did give me a fresh cable connection, so now I have three seperate cable lines. When I said I had a 'dual-tuner' DVR, they almost hung up on me. Ain't monopolies great? But they stopped scrambling all basic cable last month, and I get the major networks in HD free so far. I'm counting my blessings.

Now, does anyone know what the difference is between "commit" and "write" when it comes to NVRAM? I have a HDD250 that is for testing. So far, I have done a factory reset and been back to listings and clock in 12 hours. I did a TVGOS reset and got back to 100% in 4 hours. That, of course, means 48 hours of listings now. I did the .13 update also. I want to find out what these options do, and I'm not afraid to start from scratch anytime. As long as I get my cable signal, I'll keep testing. When it gets warmer I'm going to put up an antenna, but doubt if that will work since even my local (50 miles away) PBS & CBS stations have stated that they are not going to bother with TVGOS. So I am clear QAM only, but willing to help any way I can. Being 80 miles NW of Philly and 90 miles SW of NY and 60 miles NE of Harrisburg qualifies me as "in the middle of nowhere".

I have a simple question for anyone who may know. I am using my 250 OTA and it would appear that all the locals have terminated analog transmission, so am I outta luck as to guide info anymore? My 250 shows no host channel. The clock is still accurate so should I just give up and do manual recordings?

I have a simple question for anyone who may know. I am using my 250 OTA and it would appear that all the locals have terminated analog transmission, so am I outta luck as to guide info anymore? My 250 shows no host channel. The clock is still accurate so should I just give up and do manual recordings?

Do you receive Peoria stations? According to RabbitEars (http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=station_search&callsign=28311#station), WTVP is transmitting TVGOS.

Ok, OK, so you're 100% all digital through and through in Hawaii. :):):)

But all we wanna know is this........... :confused::confused::confused:

Is your DHG-HDDxxx working ??? :eek::rolleyes::D

Yep, with both .05 and .06 firmware on my HDD500s. I'm on cable and I've heard from someone OTA who is getting digital TVGOS. We're suffering through the whacko Macrovision/Whoever-owns-TVGOS-now 5 day + smattering schedule. Although today I found Day 8 populated from 4AM HST (the normal day-to-day transition) to 2 PM HST (midnight GMT). If I was on the East Coast, it would be good through 8 PM. I suppose it could be worse on the date line and get 4 AM - Noon. Blah.

...snip...

The bigger clue is that the clock eventually resets overnight upon each soft reset, but always to exactly ONE HOUR BEHIND the current time! This must be the 7th time I’ve tried the various soft resets. Daylights Savings mismatch somewhere in the data chain?



You might be doing too many resets and your unit has no opportunity to download the 08.06.44 software. Without it, your clock will be an hour slow (well, until this Sunday which would have been the old change date for DST).

Since the clock comes back each time, I'd suggest leaving the unit off for 24-48 hours and see what happens.

You can't be serious!:eek: I know you've been reading the thread. Did you not see how many people have reported TV stations that haven't installed equipment or haven't gotten their equipment to function properly? Not to mention the government running out of $40 coupons in the converter box program. It's not just the public that is unprepared. As I understand it, there were also problems in the test markets that performed the transition early to test overall readiness in that market area. If it weren't for the delay, many of the people posting in this thread would have had bricks for at least several months. OTOH, maybe this would have been a good thing, since the e-bay price for a Sony DHG would have plummeted and I could have picked up another one on the cheap.:D

I have to agree with ImTheOne. I think a lot of people are going to discover after June 12th that they have lost their listings, and after further investigation, find out that the only station broadcasting TVGOS in their area was shut off on June 12. I think the activity on this board will be comparable to what it was a few weeks ago when they pulled the plug on analog data in many areas. I'm just hoping that macrovision has fixed their problems, and people will actually be able to transition seamlessly from their analog host to the digital host (and recover effortlessly from errant resets), presuming they have one. Whether the fixes that need to occur are in the TVGOS data stream, or a firmware fix from Sony is still debatable.

Mark

The entire state of Hawaii has been digital since 15 Jan 2009. The PBS analog to CBS digital transition had a few bumps but it's been worked out. The fact that some DMAs have had multiple one-step-forward, two-steps-back problems stem from (a) the uncertainty of the transition once the tards* in DC got themselves involved, and (b) the fact that some local TV station and local cable operators made the mistake of employing morons. Amazing! There are low level employees in these businesses that do not understand broadcast VBI data and SCTE 127! Add to that there are some people living in caves and under rocks that have not heard of this whole "digital TV transition" or refuse to prepare for it? Well, F them - they can ride around in their hollowed out wooden logs until the cows come home for all I care. These are people problems. No amount of waiting around, tapping your foot, watching grass grow, etc, are going to fix these problems. They need to have their incompetence thrust out into the bright light of day as the rest of the country (and world) passes them by like discarded Ladas. Only then will they either (a) get with the program, and/or learn how to do their jobs correctly or (b) be fired and/or stop watching TV, freeing up their valuable time to run for political office.

Please tell me how waiting another 6 months, 12 months, 18 years, what ever, will fix these problems. Or should we simply revel in the fact that we are a country that puts technological progress in the hands of imbeciles? Or politicians? Or both?

*I realize that "tard" and "******" are considered politically incorrect these days, but I still use the terms when I am unsure whether I should use dimwit, halfwit, nitwit, or some linear combination of the three.

PS. I've done rocket science, so I can say with authority this ain't it. And I've been digital OTA since 2004 - that's 5 years people!

How selfish can you be? There are hundreds of thousands of people who for whatever reason aren't prepared for the digital transition and you want to deprive all of them of all television reception just so you can find out if your HD recorder will work and you can get your TVGOS listings. I'm not saying that these people weren't irresponsible not to have done something by now, but have a little compassion. Those people who did prepare for the transition are happily receiving their digital transmissions even with the analog stations still broadcasting. What's the big deal that they haven't shut down all analog transmissions according to the original schedule? Do you own stock in a company that is waiting to have part of the broadcast spectrum reassigned? And when did a large government initiated effort ever proceed on time and within budget anyway? I'm happy that my 2 inch handheld Casio still works for another 4 months. After that I'll need a converter box that's six times the size of the television and a verrrrrrrrrrrrry long extention cord.:D

How selfish can you be? There are hundreds of thousands of people who for whatever reason aren't prepared for the digital transition and you want to deprive all of them of all television reception just so you can find out if your HD recorder will work and you can get your TVGOS listings. I'm not saying that these people weren't irresponsible not to have done something by now, but have a little compassion. Those people who did prepare for the transition are happily receiving their digital transmissions even with the analog stations still broadcasting. What's the big deal that they haven't shut down all analog transmissions according to the original schedule? Do you own stock in a company that is waiting to have part of the broadcast spectrum reassigned? And when did a large government initiated effort ever proceed on time and within budget anyway? I'm happy that my 2 inch handheld Casio still works for another 4 months. After that I'll need a converter box that's six times the size of the television and a verrrrrrrrrrrrry long extention cord.:D
Andrewg +1!
I agree all of this anolog crap should be gone by now!
Typical politicians screwed it up for everybody including the poor and
uninformed.

How selfish can you be? There are hundreds of thousands of people who for whatever reason aren't prepared for the digital transition and you want to deprive all of them of all television reception just so you can find out if your HD recorder will work and you can get your TVGOS listings. I'm not saying that these people weren't irresponsible not to have done something by now, but have a little compassion. Those people who did prepare for the transition are happily receiving their digital transmissions even with the analog stations still broadcasting. What's the big deal that they haven't shut down all analog transmissions according to the original schedule? Do you own stock in a company that is waiting to have part of the broadcast spectrum reassigned? And when did a large government initiated effort ever proceed on time and within budget anyway? I'm happy that my 2 inch handheld Casio still works for another 4 months. After that I'll need a converter box that's six times the size of the television and a verrrrrrrrrrrrry long extention cord.:D

I have dumped all my analog hardware - years ago. I'm not making anything off of the transition. I have found that local broadcasters use the fact that they are still generating an NTSC signal to delay moving to digital and HD production in-house. As a matter of fact, Hawaii probably trails the rest of the country at upgrading local facilities. So far, only one affiliate produces news in HD. NTSC is over half a century old - technology has moved so far in that time. It's like we're all forced to ride around in 1950's vintage gas guzzlers, with big, spongy white-wall tires (with inner tubes). Also, modern, digital televisions are more energy efficient (minor nit).

Weigh the few hundred thousand to the hundreds of millions who are ready to go. I want the OTA analog transition to pass, so that we can look forward to the cable transition, which has been inexplicably delayed to, what, 2011? Right now, the less scrupulous MSOs (read: Time-Warner) try to extract extra fees from their customers for "premium" digital service; basic tier service is nasty, interference laden analog NTSC, deliberately made undesirable. Once the cable QAM transition passes, everybody will be able to move into the 21st century. And they can no longer play "hide the HDTV channel" like they do now (have I told you how much Oceanic Time-Warner hates their customers?) My compassion lies with the overwhelming majority who are ready - and waiting.

What I'm trying to say is the time for analog NTSC is long past. I have no stake in the bandwidth reallocation; I only want consumer technology to move forward. Some times people need to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to the future - you can't keep giving people crutches.

Do you receive Peoria stations? According to RabbitEars (http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=station_search&callsign=28311#station), WTVP is transmitting TVGOS.

I indeed do but no listings for 2 weeks now. I read up on how to force a host channel but would I use 47.1, or 47 which shows no signal?

Days 5 and 8 are basically complete now. This is the first Day 8 listings in a MONTH!

Days 6 and 7 are useless

Days 1 and 2, for the most part still show CBS as "no listings" ?

Already forgot about day 3 - I think it was useless too?

For certain the old routine of filling in days 1,2,5, and 8 and "rotating in" each day have not worked in a long time (month?). But since this is the first day to see Day 8, maybe it is about to change?

It is funny, cause this morning (Saturday), when day 5 (Wednesday) rolled in, it was 100% complete with CBS - So odd that Days 1 and 2 are not? So will have to manual record those shows if there anything on CBS we want.

Over and Out

The PBS station in Asheville NC (WUNF-33) that was still sending analog TVGOS has apparently stopped doing so. One of my Sonys has full listings only through early Monday morning (less than two days' worth now). The other one did a self-reset a few nights ago and never picked up the correct time again. I did a TVGOS reset on that unit and now it has no guide data or lineup at all.

So I thought once again about WLTX-DT in Columbia SC, which I tried once before to get TVGOS data from, without success. I did get the proper clock setting.

[March 16] The G* Factory Test shows VBI packets on WLTX-DT, the CBS station in Columbia SC. Nevertheless, someone reported in the Columbia local thread this morning that she had spoken with an engineer at WLTX who told her that they are not sending TVGOS data, nor (apparently) do they plan to.

Nevertheless, I turned my antenna towards Columbia last night, did a TVGOS reset, entered a Columbia ZIP code during the TVGOS setup procedure, and used the 963214785 VBI Search on WLTX before turning the unit off. Now (just like before), I have the correct time, but no guide data, and the host channel field in the 753159852 screens is blank.

However, one of the other 753159852 screens does show channel 17 (WLTX's RF channel) as the clock channel. Also, the time is correct, whereas the time in the PSIP data (as shown by my Zenith DTV converter box) is off by nearly an hour!

If I continue to get the time, I can at least schedule manual "Untitled" recordings, which is better than nothing.

I've now turned the unit off after doing a 963214785 VBI Search on WLTX, to see if it does pick up a host channel after all. I didn't have it off all that long last night, maybe six hours.

[added] Here's another tid-bit. I'm getting advertisements in the left-hand pane, even though I have neither a host channel, nor channel lineup. Could they be "left over" from from the analog Asheville data, even though I've done a TVGOS reset?

I have done a factory reset and been back to listings and clock in 12 hours. I did a TVGOS reset and got back to 100% in 4 hours.

Before folks start to do things that they did not intend to do, because some of us may not use the exact same wording as someone else, I think we should have- here, and maybe in the FAQ, a specific definition of certain phrases.

When you write "factory reset" did you refer to your settings or did you format the hard drive?

When I read factory rest- I often assume a full reformat of the drive.

The bigger clue is that the clock eventually resets overnight upon each soft reset, but always to exactly ONE HOUR BEHIND the current time! This must be the 7th time I’ve tried the various soft resets. Daylights Savings mismatch somewhere in the data chain?



You don't write if your TVGOS software is at the latest .44

Since originally DST was scheduled to change this weekend and these units were built on that old schedule, there is maybe a chance tomorrow your clock will be correct.

I have a simple question for anyone who may know. I am using my 250 OTA and it would appear that all the locals have terminated analog transmission, so am I outta luck as to guide info anymore? My 250 shows no host channel. The clock is still accurate so should I just give up and do manual recordings?

First do a G-test on the digital channel that should be transmitting in your area.

If it passes, then you have a choice to make.

Some here have successfully transitioned to a digital host. Some have a had a boat load of problems.

You have a working correct clock and as long as it lasts you can do manual recordings and have in effect a HD VCR.

Are you willing to gamble losing the clock on the chance that you can successfully transition to a digital host?

If you lose the clock and date, and didn't successfully transition, the usefulness of this DVR/VCR diminishes significantly.

If the G-test fails you have no choice. You have a VCR - which is better then nothing for the time being.

Thanks, I think I will leave it alone since I can still record. I really don't want to risk the clock going up in smoke as well.....

You don't write if your TVGOS software is at the latest .44

Since originally DST was scheduled to change this weekend and these units were built on that old schedule, there is maybe a chance tomorrow your clock will be correct.

Main Menu->Preference->System: SW Version = 1.2.05
TVGOS->Setup->753*->System Info->2nd line: 08.01.42 (right place?)

I tried reading all these 15K replies but am having a hard time seeing the big picture. Pardon if I am missing pieces covered already. Is there a FAQ which explains the current clock loss situation (analog vs digital VBI?) and fixes to this problem? The spiffspace FAQ was helpful but seems to pre-date the current scenarios.

I've done yet another host channel force, back to the analog CBS-WBZ-0:0-4 (original) station again. Will give it another 48 hrs, but this hasn't worked so far. Clock being behind one hour was only one problem, bigger problem was partial TVGOS listing data.

I frequently notice recently than my Host Channel is 0:0-4 whereas the VBI channel is 0:4-1, shouldn't they be one and the same, ie, TVGOs gets its data via VBI packets on the Host Channel? Is this telling me something? We have excellent PBS stations in Boston, however I am surprisingly not picking up any VBI pkts from any of them (2, 44, etc). Expected? CBS is the preferred source?

Do I need to upgrade my firmware? Seems there are rumors that Sony will make a new firmware version that handles digital-only host channels soon, do I have that right? I should wait, or worth upgrading firmware now?

-Erik

Days 4 and 5 are a bit of a mess?
Days 6 and 7 useless.FWIW, for the past couple of weeks, if I get listing after the next Tuesday when I scan through the schedule Friday evenng I'm lucky.

TVGOS->Setup->753*->System Info->2nd line: 08.01.42 (right place?)


-Erik

Exactly the right place. But it should be 08.01.42/08.06.44

If you don't have 08.06.44 then your Sony did not download the latest version.

There is nothing you can do to upgrade it, it does it itself, if it is getting good data.

Main Menu->Preference->System: SW Version = 1.2.05
TVGOS->Setup->753*->System Info->2nd line: 08.01.42 (right place?)

I tried reading all these 15K replies but am having a hard time seeing the big picture. Pardon if I am missing pieces covered already. Is there a FAQ which explains the current clock loss situation (analog vs digital VBI?) and fixes to this problem? The spiffspace FAQ was helpful but seems to pre-date the current scenarios.



As I said earlier, I think each time you've done a reset it has put your TVGOS software back to the base version of 08.01.42. It needs to update twice after that; first to 08.05.40 and then to 08.06.44. The base version and the first update do not recognize that DST starts four weeks earlier than it used to.

It can take 2 days just to get both SW updates which is why I suggested just leaving it be for awhile.

No one here really knows if Sony will issue another firmware update. You can find instructions on spiffspace to update yours from .05 to .13 (the latest) should you want to do that.

my dhg250 quit getting the guide info and i left it unplugged for a couple of weeks. (got a cable box to pacify the wife)
i have since plugged it back in elsewhere and i am unable to get the menu or the guide to even come up. changing channels is spotty as well. i have done the "warm reboot a few times and unplugged it a few times with no results.
anyone have a suggestion?

As I said earlier, I think each time you've done a reset it has put your TVGOS software back to the base version of 08.01.42. It needs to update twice after that; first to 08.05.40 and then to 08.06.44. The base version and the first update do not recognize that DST starts four weeks earlier than it used to.

It can take 2 days just to get both SW updates which is why I suggested just leaving it be for awhile.

No one here really knows if Sony will issue another firmware update. You can find instructions on spiffspace to update yours from .05 to .13 (the latest) should you want to do that.

Thanks for the further elaboration. I was going to leave it be for 48 hours per your suggestion, but now I better understand the reasoning. I assumed I would update the TVGOS software myself via manual steps, I didn't realize that it automatically self-uploads itself slowly in the manner you described. (IE - you update the Sony fireware yourself, but the TVGOS SW is automatic).

Does watching a saved program from the recorded programs impede the VBI data upload? Or does watching a live TV tuner channel take away from the VBI bandwidth? IE, I shoud I leave the unit totally untouched for 48 hours without ever hitting the power button, where watching a previous HD program had been interferring with the process? (I had been doing that daily until now, perhaps making the problem worse).

I will provide an update after 48 hours. I can provide screen data if someone suggests which screens are useful.

Thanks for the help so far!

-Erik

[...]
I tried reading all these 15K replies but am having a hard time seeing the big picture. Pardon if I am missing pieces covered already. Is there a FAQ which explains the current clock loss situation (analog vs digital VBI?) and fixes to this problem? The spiffspace FAQ was helpful but seems to pre-date the current scenarios.

The best advice I can give you is to do what PossumGirl is telling you to do.


I've done yet another host channel force, back to the analog CBS-WBZ-0:0-4 (original) station again. Will give it another 48 hrs, but this hasn't worked so far. Clock being behind one hour was only one problem, bigger problem was partial TVGOS listing data.


Does 0-4 (an analog channel) pass the G* Test? If it does then you shouldn't have to do any "forcing" on it. Our DVRs love analog VBI data, and don't need to be forced to use it.


I frequently notice recently than my Host Channel is 0:0-4 whereas the VBI channel is 0:4-1, shouldn't they be one and the same, ie, TVGOs gets its data via VBI packets on the Host Channel? Is this telling me something? We have excellent PBS stations in Boston, however I am surprisingly not picking up any VBI pkts from any of them (2, 44, etc). Expected? CBS is the preferred source?


The VBI channel always shows the current channel you are tuned to, and has nothing to do with your host channel. Try tuning to other channels, and you'll see what I mean.

Mark

Does watching a saved program from the recorded programs impede the VBI data upload? Or does watching a live TV tuner channel take away from the VBI bandwidth? IE, I shoud I leave the unit totally untouched for 48 hours without ever hitting the power button, where watching a previous HD program had been interferring with the process? (I had been doing that daily until now, perhaps making the problem worse).



TVGOS downloads 4 times throughout the day on a repeating schedule. If you leave the unit off from roughly midnight to 6AM you'll get everything for that day (if the unit is operating normally). There are no downloads during primetime evening hours. Since your unit is trying to recover right now, I'd leave it off as much as you can.

About a week ago I noticed my DHG 250 do a rest in a middle of recording.
Since the clock was --:-- I did a VBI search on CBS 2.1 (LA) and the clock came back but it was 1 hour late. When looked at the TV Guide grid, I had to do a double take because, the grid (Scheduled shows) was also listed as being 1 hour late.

The following day I wanted to schedule a recoding for Smallville on 5.1, So I was going to "adjust" the recording times to compensate for the 1 hour difference, but when I checked the TVGuide it had Smallville scheduled to run at 7pm instead of it's regular 8pm (here in LA). So I highlighted Smallville and pressed record on the remote! At 8pm PDST, box started recording Smallville, when I looked at it later the show was listed as Smallville Channel 5.1 and time 7pm)

So there you have it, My clock is 1 hour late vs Pacific Daylight Saving Time, bu the TV Guide is also late by 1 hour, so everything works perfectly you record as you would normally do, pick up the shows on the TV Guide, and it will record the show, the only difference is the "Real time Pacific Daylight Saving time is 1 hour ahead! Go figure!

I've now turned the unit off after doing a 963214785 VBI Search on WLTX, to see if it does pick up a host channel after all. I didn't have it off all that long last night, maybe six hours.

[added] Here's another tid-bit. I'm getting advertisements in the left-hand pane, even though I have neither a host channel, nor channel lineup. Could they be "left over" from from the analog Asheville data, even though I've done a TVGOS reset?

Still no grid, and the host channel field is still blank, but now I know the ads aren't left over from the Asheville station. One of them is for WLTX's "News 19" and shows one of their anchorpeople!

Well, I was relieved on Friday to find that I'd gotten a day 1,2,5 download in a normal overnight off mode (from our somewhat reinvigorated PBS analog station)...I guess I didn't bolix up things on my unit by the occasional digital download (G* test/leave on overnight mode) or from the time I tried the search for a new host station code from the LG3410a, and that current disabilities are due to Macrovision.

This was confirmed when TODAY I found no listings added. I was hoping I would build a full 5 days of listings (not wonderful, but better than the occasional 1 or 2 days). Guess after their success overnight Thursday the Macrovision people had exhausted themselves and just turned everything off...

Just now I happened to look at my Sony #2, which hasn't been reset. This morning it had listings only until about 3AM Monday, from the analog PBS station in Asheville (WUNF, ch 33). Now, it has a full eight days of listings, through next Saturday, and the host channel field is blank. The channel lineup is the same as before. One of the Clocks screens in the 753159852 diagnostics has "Failing Clock Chan" = 0:0-33, and "Clock Set Chan" = 0:17-0. 17 is the RF channel of the digital CBS station in Columbia (WLTX, virtual ch 19), the station that I've been trying to get digital TVGOS from with my Sony #1.

I also have a Panasonic DMR-EH75V DVD recorder which uses only analog TVGOS. It still has listings only until 3AM Monday, and the host channel field now reads NONE instead of 33 as it did before.

So it looks like digital CBS in Columbia is indeed carrying TVGOS data (contrary to what a WLTX engineer said a few weeks ago), and if I can get a channel lineup on Sony #1, I'll be in business. Right now I still have no lineup on that unit, although the clock is correct, and "Clock Set Chan" = 0:17-0.

Both units have software 8.06.44. Unit #1 did not lose it when I did a TVGOS reset yesterday.

I did a 963214785 VBI Search Current Channel on unit #1, and turned it off while I continue watching the basketball game on unit #2. We'll see if anything changes tomorrow.

The NY Saga continues.

My untouched, unreset unit acquired time a few days ago and is now a "VCR".

Since the unit which had the TVGOS reset didn't get time in about five days, I then did a full reset from the Sony menu. The unit now has time, but incorrect time. It has only been about 18 hours since the reset.

About 90% complete schedule - 100% analogue source, minor ticks and checks on information screens like it is going through the process of checking itself out, getting ready for more changes. There was the "one" download digital (test I guess) it made on March 31st; but has not resumed digital downloads.

Day 2 (Monday) has CBS channel only from 7PM to midnight as "no listings"

Day 6 (Friday)at 7PM has "no listings" for "all channels" until 4AM Saturday.

The rest of Days 7 and 8 are 100% complete.

The last automatic reset it made was about March 28th, so that has not changed............that was the point in time it changed itself back to analogue.

Over and Out

Just another data point... for the past 2 days (4/4 and 4/5), I've woken up to fully populated listings out to 11:30PM on the 8th day. This being from host KYW-DT, 3.1 (UHF 26) in Philadelphia.

Prior to that I'd had the erratic-days-6-7-8 listings everybody else had been reporting.

Before folks start to do things that they did not intend to do, because some of us may not use the exact same wording as someone else, I think we should have- here, and maybe in the FAQ, a specific definition of certain phrases.

When you write "factory reset" did you refer to your settings or did you format the hard drive?

When I read factory rest- I often assume a full reformat of the drive.

You're right, I wasn't precise. I used the 9012 entry and selected "restore factory default". It displays "Formatting...", but I did the "Format" also. I turned the unit back on, went through the 5 steps, and left it alone. I still wish I knew what the NVRAM does and what's it used to store.

I pulled the plug yesterday and gave it 24 hours with no power. After plugging it back in the clock was around 90 minutes off, but all channels, listings and software updates were intact. I work weekends, so I'll do more testing on Tuesday.

Here in Seattle, the new host channel is CBS (107 on Comcast). Last week, after not having the guide fully populated, i did both a warm reset, THEN pulled the plug. Then, did a force host channel, left it tuned to 107, then turned it off (surprisingly, after the power recycle, there were still listings in the guide). The next day MOST of the days had been populated, the day after that everything was. And, it's been several days and I still have all 8 days listed.

I DID contact TVGOS and complained. Not sure what that did, but they do seem to respond. Here's the email address: TV Guide Customer Care [tvgos@mailnj.custhelp.com]

Good luck to all of us. I don't really want to rent a DVR from Comcast...

I DID contact TVGOS and complained. Not sure what that did, but they do seem to respond. Here's the email address: TV Guide Customer Care [tvgos@mailnj.custhelp.com]



Why is it that all I get is this (two tries)

Response
---------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for contacting TV Guide Partner Technical Support. This email address is for supporting our
Consumer Electronics partners only. If this inquiry is regarding the Digital Transition please
consult our Digital Transition web site located at www.macrovision.com/dtv for regular updates.


If you need further assistance please contact your Consumer Electronics Manufacturer for support.


Regards

TV Guide On Screen

Partner Technical Support



and responding to this response gets nothing back.

I now have pretty much full listings up through day 8. only day 6 is no listings for now.
Also, on another subject, my girlfriends DVR 500 unit has not had a host for a couple of weeks (Comcast cable only).
For some reason, it was showing no signal for digital channel. I hooked it up to an antenna and it would not look for/find any digital stations. At that time the software was zero and no host yet. Ended up doing a soft reset and a force host for the analog station. Later I checked and it had the host and 08.05.40 software. I rescanned the antenna and got the digital stations this time. Anyone else had the happen? Not able to find or lock onto any digital channel when you have no host and zero for software?
Oh, it has the correct time ( old 1st Sunday time change I guess).
Michael

Finally have proper times and listings are starting to download once again. Also for anyone living in new york I believe the new host channel is 14 at least it is on my dvr.

Hi!

I have had success contacting the techs at Macrovision using the links below. Just create an account and submit.

I think I may have originally contacted them wth this link:

http://www.macrovision.com/support/8459.htm?link_id=topnav

Where it asked for Job Function I wrote Owner
Where it asked for Company I wrote Home :)
They contacted me a day or two later via email.

This is the link I currently use to check for updates on my account. There is a place at the bottom to create a new account. This link also includes a semi-useful FAQ section.

http://tvgos.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/tvgos.cfg/php/enduser/acct_new.php?p_sid=edUrRHsj&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_created=&p_iid=&p_faqid=&&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=

Also, their phone number is listed elsewhere on AVSforum. I got a return phone call within a week of my initial phone call. By that time I already had an email claim so I called back to let them know.

I have been in regular contact with them since early February!
Hope it helps someone.

Robin
No reliable TVGOS since mid January.:mad:
Comcast customer: West Palm Beach, FL service area (Macrovision's GBA46)
Comcast Expanded Basic (analog) no cable box.

Update: 48 hrs did nothing.

Prior G* test showed good passing VBI pkts on both analog 0:0-4 & 0:4-1 digital CBS channels. So Friday night I forced the host channel back to the original analog CBS 0:0-4 Friday night & gave it time. It’s been 48 hrs now and TVGOS is in the worst state yet.

No TVGOS clock (--:--). No TVGOS listings – empty (“There is no data for this screen”). Sony front display clock: unchanging 12:20AM.

753* menu has [3] state so that means good host channel? Yet host channel is blank further down page??

I had better situations earlier, so I decided to perform yet another re-start again (must be 9th time by now). I reset the user data from 9012 menu, which put me back into the antenna re-scan. I couldn’t help myself where I did a quick *G VBI test after this (minutes ago) to re-confirm that analog CBS is still sending good VBI, which it was.

Fingers crossed that the next 48 hrs shows something...

Update: 48 hrs did nothing.

Prior G* test showed good passing VBI pkts on both analog 0:0-4 & 0:4-1 digital CBS channels. So Friday night I forced the host channel back to the original analog CBS 0:0-4 Friday night & gave it time. It’s been 48 hrs now and TVGOS is in the worst state yet.

No TVGOS clock (--:--). No TVGOS listings – empty (“There is no data for this screen”). Sony front display clock: unchanging 12:20AM.

753* menu has [3] state so that means good host channel? Yet host channel is blank further down page??

I had better situations earlier, so I decided to perform yet another re-start again (must be 9th time by now). I reset the user data from 9012 menu, which put me back into the antenna re-scan. I couldn’t help myself where I did a quick *G VBI test after this (minutes ago) to re-confirm that analog CBS is still sending good VBI, which it was.

Fingers crossed that the next 48 hrs shows something...
The G* VBI test on a good VBI channel should get you a clock within a minute, or so. The clock may or may not be right.

Once you have a good clock, IMHO, use manual timers.

Thursday night, I got a 1,2,5 download...next night nothing (I think), and last night I'm not sure...all the listings I had in my guide today were Tuesday and next Sunday....weird!

CRAP! Just when everything was working rather smoothly again with both my 250's, I screwed one of them up. I had to kill the power to the house to add a circuit in the breaker panel. When I turned everything back on both Sony's still had everything except the right time. I did a G* Test on 1 unit successfully to correct the time. When I went to do the same on the other unit, I accidently hit the reset above the G*Test. Right back to the beggining. And, of course, that's the unit that records 95% of my shows.

When I did a reset on my Sony a couple of weeks back, it took a half a day or so, and overnight, to get the correct time back. Unusual, but still....give it some time.

All 8 days filled in accurate, with only one minor exception. Day 1 (today Monday) still has CBS prime time as "no listings" - all other stations are 100% accurate. Not an issue and should rotae out tomorrow.

Still analogue of course.

All 8 days filled in accurate, with only one minor exception. Day 1 (today Monday) still has CBS prime time as "no listings" - all other stations are 100% accurate. Not an issue and should rotae out tomorrow.

Still analogue of course.
Is that because of the basketball game on tonight?

Now have the full 8 days again.
My 500 reset it self this morning after locking up? when I set to record a live program. Locked out all commands and clock stuck at 7:38, Had another show scheduled for 8:00 and that is when it went into reset. took a few minutes and then the clock came back correct. The scheduled recording started. Seems to be OK now. This has happen each time to both units whenever I set to record a live show ( show in progress to be more accurate).
Michael

Still no answer form Comcast on the host problem for TVGOS. Anyone here have a contact at Comcast that I can try?
Thanks,
Michael

Upgrading firmware to 1.2.13 solved this problem for me. This wasn't a problem using HDMI with an older HDTV, but my newer TV would always cause the DVR to revert to "Auto HDMI". It drove me nuts too. See paragraph 1.1.10 here: http://www.spiffspace.com/sonydvr.html.

No Mas Auto-HDMI! Thanks to teeitup, DragonXBS, and Possumgirl - got rid of the IRRITATION by going to .13 from .09 - muy bien!!! The update applied from a 128MB USBdrive was painless...

DHG250 to a Vizio VX37L mfged 11/06.

There's no way to prevent these DVRs from disabling the component output when an HDMI device is connected, is there?

Is that because of the basketball game on tonight?

I don't think so. It use to be in times gone by, the days 1 and 2 would always update and fully correct themselves - and that almost ways included live sports - even with the "teams" changing from week to week.

Because this "no listings" for CBS has tagged itself across rolling down days, 5, 2, and 1.........I just think is it left over carbage from when my Sony went through all its self corrects last week - resetting itself back to analogue.

I'm htownleo on spiffspace and have been following your issues as I'm also in Houston, TX. I've been experiencing exactly the same "No Listing" for CBS digital 11.1 in prime time. Didn't check today, but it's probably the same. Glad there is someone else here in Houston that can confirm problems. I think 11.1 pulled the trigger too soon and now we're back to analog 8.0 (PBS), which is fine with me until they work out the issues. Thanks again for your posts.

2 500;s OTA only
Well CBS in Chicago finally got 2-1 back up sending VBI data after more than a week of nothing.

FWIW
For a week all I had was 4.5 days starting with day 1. I now have 1,2,3,4,6,8 on both machines, all from analog is my guess.

Tonight I'll run the G*test and leave on 2-1 to see if it fills in all eight days.
Funny thing is the one machine I reset back 2 weeks ago still hangs on to 3-0 as host with 0-2 as clock while the other has 0-2 as host and clock set but both have had the
exact same guide data for over a week.
Hopfully they're done fooling around with the digital end.

No Mas Auto-HDMI! Thanks to teeitup, DragonXBS, and Possumgirl - got rid of the IRRITATION by going to .13 from .09 - muy bien!!! The update applied from a 128MB USBdrive was painless...

DHG250 to a Vizio VX37L mfged 11/06.
I may be trying to do this, too, because (assuming the Sony is still functional in the summer) I may be changing my system to something where I HAVE to use the HDMI out...think it would work with a 100 MB Zip drive? I don't know WHERE you would get small thumb drives any more!

Right now I have almost NO listings on my Sony, despite the fact that I got a normal overnight download (from PBS 9) for days 1,2, and 5 last Thursday night...I had hoped that meant the beginning of regular downloads. But, since then, nada!

So all I'm left with is listings for tomorrow! Not worth much, in my opinion!

(In contrast, my LG 3410a seems to have locked onto CBS analog 5 as a host, and is now giving me regular 1,2,3,8 downloads...pretty soon, I'll be back to 8 days!)

WOW! What I said above was based on my check at about 6 AM, but when I checked just now, I have a standard download of days 1,2,5,8!!! And, back to the past, NO host channel!!! I guess for now just have to go with the flow! (Clock set channel now PBS analog 9!?!)

I don't know WHERE you would get small thumb drives any more!



eBay :D

eBay :D
hmm...didn't think of that - do you think they'll cost more or less than a multi-gigabyte drive?

But, also...do you think the zip drive I have would work?

Thanks - Tony

Going back to the original analog CBS 0:0-4 worked this time, in that I finally got back to my original problem.

The good :

clock shows current time
Host Channel is 0:0-4
TVGOS has 50% of old channels which show titles in 50% of their timeslots

The bad (the original problem I tried to solve via resets) :

many prior channels missing from TVGOS
... even though they are still in My Favorite channels when I channel surf ("Wipe User Data" reset left this?)
... even though I watch these TVGOS-missing channels on the DVR tuner
of few channels in TVGOS, most are analog including many w/o reception (too far away)
only one digital channel in TVGOS channels
most channels list "No Title" in many timeslots for today
most CBS stations only read "SIGN OFF" across all their timeslots

For example, take my WLVI 0:0-56.

Analog 0:0-56 is listed on TVGOS
However its digital version WLVIDT 0:56-1 is not in TVGOS
Yet I can watch WLVIDT 56-1 on the DHG tuner.
Via TVGOS->Setup->Channels, I can see WLVIDT many pages down in TVGOS.
Channel setup lists: "Pos:140 WLVIDT Air --- OFF"
I select it, hit Menu, and it lets me chose "channel=ON".
It does not let me change its "tune channel=NONE"
However when I hit done, the channel remains OFF (unchanged)


Why? Have you ever seen this? Any idea what I can do to fix this?

Any 101 tips into what is happening here would really help me understand and debug this. IE - What is the interplay between the DHG tuner (antenna scan) and the channels seen in TVGOS - totally separate? Why won't TVGOS let me turn these OFF channels to ON - when they are clearly being received by the tuner?

-Erik (newbie)

To help me debug this, I took a baseline of my 753* menu data screens.

Does this data suggest anything to the more experience DHG users?

TVGOS 753* Menu

My Current State description: Has proper clock now (was 1 hr behind for two weeks during new Daylight Savings date, yesterday was old Daylight Savings date). Has fair amount of TVGOS channels but 50% of fields say "No Title", and most CBS stations only say "SIGN OFF" in their TVGOS timeslots

System Info
4/6/2009 22:41 [3]

ID: 7X778-3319T2-7V083/FFFFFFFF12345678
08.01.42/08.06/44/00.00.00/0000012C/64/0000
Build Time: Jan 21 2005 03:07:32
P:3DA3D6D0,0,9076241/0,-1
Video Source: OTA

Statistics
Model ID 0x43
Host State 0x80
Host ID 0x6
Host Channel 0:0-4
OTA Lineup 0x20
CR Lineup 0x0
CB Lineup 0x0
CC Lineup 0x0
Local Off -300
XDS SrchCnt 0
SU Chg N/A
Last SU N/A
Last Ch Map N/A
Last Src Map N/A
HS Entries 0

Clocks 1
Time zone element 16
Time zone version 160
Offset from UTC -18000
Daylight/Standard Daylight
Next DST Trans 11/1/09 6:00:00

ATSC Slicer
Tot Pkts 0
PAT 0
PMT 0
TVG 0

Comm-Serial
GL State No Device
Buad 115K
Com Port 1
Alt Port 2
Last Probe 4/6/2009 22:57:02
TX Num Pkts 2180
TX Num Bytes 5740
TX Pkt Time 4/6/2009 22:58:09
Tx Restarts 0
TX Errs 0
Tx Err Code 0
Tx Err Time N/A
RX Num Pkts 0
RX Num Bytes 0
RX Pkt Time N/A
RX XSum Errs 0
RX XSum Time N/A
RX EOP Errs 0
RX EOP Time N/A

Input Configuration
0 Air avail: A config: (G) A tvcAvl: Aad tvcCfg: Aad

VBI Data
LastClkSet 4/6/2009 21:07:03
NumClkSets 3
LastDLStart 4/6/2009 21:06:19
DLTimer 4/7/2009 2:31:00
VB! State 0x07
HostSUFlags 0xbf800000
<Rest all 0 or N/A>

Reception Slicing
Since Cold HostChan CurrChan
Starts 47798 <all same as cold> <all zero>
Ends 47751
Drops 924
TypeB 33215
BCorr 2
BErrs 35
TypeC 14379
CErrs 54
CBad 20
<Rest all 0 or N/A>

Reset Info
Power On 4/6/09 17:17:03
Startup Flag -1
Startup State 0x15
Reset Num 12
Cold Time 4/6/09 17:14:49
Cold Err 0x102
Cold Num 2
Sys Time N/A
Sys Num 0
Sys Err 0x0
Next Wakeup 0
All Resets 26

hmm...didn't think of that - do you think they'll cost more or less than a multi-gigabyte drive?

But, also...do you think the zip drive I have would work?

Thanks - Tony

I have no idea on the zip. I just decided to take the recommendation of using a small thumb drive. Paid a little under $5 (including mailing) for a Lexar 256Mb on eBay.

Going back to the original analog CBS 0:0-4 worked this time, in that I finally got back to my original problem.

The good :

clock shows current time
Host Channel is 0:0-4
TVGOS has 50% of old channels which show titles in 50% of their timeslots

The bad (the original problem I tried to solve via resets) :

many prior channels missing from TVGOS
... even though they are still in My Favorite channels when I channel surf ("Wipe User Data" reset left this?)
... even though I watch these TVGOS-missing channels on the DVR tuner
of few channels in TVGOS, most are analog including many w/o reception (too far away)
only one digital channel in TVGOS channels
most channels list "No Title" in many timeslots for today
most CBS stations only read "SIGN OFF" across all their timeslots

For example, take my WLVI 0:0-56.

Analog 0:0-56 is listed on TVGOS
However its digital version WLVIDT 0:56-1 is not in TVGOS
Yet I can watch WLVIDT 56-1 on the DHG tuner.
Via TVGOS->Setup->Channels, I can see WLVIDT many pages down in TVGOS.
Channel setup lists: "Pos:140 WLVIDT Air --- OFF"
I select it, hit Menu, and it lets me chose "channel=ON".
It does not let me change its "tune channel=NONE"
However when I hit done, the channel remains OFF (unchanged)


Why? Have you ever seen this? Any idea what I can do to fix this?

Any 101 tips into what is happening here would really help me understand and debug this. IE - What is the interplay between the DHG tuner (antenna scan) and the channels seen in TVGOS - totally separate? Why won't TVGOS let me turn these OFF channels to ON - when they are clearly being received by the tuner?

-Erik (newbie)

You do have a strange problem. :eek: TVGOS does not seem to have your correct channel list. In your 2nd post where you reported info from the 753 screens, you don't list any zip code appearing on the Statistics screen. Was that an oversight or is there really nothing there? Pretty much everything else you listed looks quite normal except on the VBI Data where you didn't mention anything for search start or search end.

Try going through your setup again. Perhaps use a different, nearby zip code or something from downtown Boston.

There isn't any connection between the channels you can tune from a scan and the channels TVGOS loads in based on your location and air/cable configuration. Since TVGOS isn't letting you turn on channels you actually receive, there's something really wrong with its channel list.

My TVGOS appears to have reverted to analog, specifically channel 13 (PBS). I have nearly complete listings for eight days. My host channel is blank! My clock set channel is 0:0-13.

Last time I checked, I was still receiving packets on 2-1 (CBS) and 13-1 and 90-1 (PBS), but I guess they're being ignored in favor of analog.

For obvious reasons I'm nervous about relying on the TVGOS listings to set recordings, but it worked last night.

Dave Kristol

The brick has come to life.

Packets are being received again and it has a correct clock. No grid yet- hopefully will have one tomorrow.

I do, however, believe we may have to change our belief about how quickly the TVGOS software updates to .44. It was said to take two overnights.

From a full reset, once the packets came back (not sure when exactly but they were not there yesterday late afternoon) it took well less then 24 hours - maybe even just a few- to get to .44.

I don't know WHERE you would get small thumb drives any more!



I used this successfully but a larger one might work too

It's still available at some places online.

SanDisk SDCZ2-128-A10 128MB Cruzer Mini USB 2.0 Flash Drive

....................................

I don't know where I read it, maybe in the FAQ, but in gives a tip that if nothing happens unplug the DVR for 30 sec. In one of two, I had to do just that for it to catch. [Of course unplugging could have consequences].

I get no channels although my guide software has upgraded to halfway at 8.6.44, it seems to be stuck at 8.5.

I get pseudo analog VBI, its TWC station (97 aka KCET 28 in the LA Ventura County region), CBS-HD has nada. I'm waiting for 8.6 and hoping it doesn't revert, it has once. I've had it reboot twice at unknown times, I know because it goes to channel 1.

Anyone have any thoughts as to what's happening?

BTW, I'm thinking of switching to FIOS, if anyone is interested in buying my unit, PM me.

The full 8 day guide is back in MN now.

For that last month or so, the guide only had 4 days of listings.

You do have a strange problem. :eek: TVGOS does not seem to have your correct channel list. In your 2nd post where you reported info from the 753 screens, you don't list any zip code appearing on the Statistics screen. Was that an oversight or is there really nothing there? Pretty much everything else you listed looks quite normal except on the VBI Data where you didn't mention anything for search start or search end.


The only line from the 753* screens that I did not include was my zip code, which is correct. Everything else that was not listed was either N/A or 0. I just double-checked as well...

LastSrchSt = N/A
LastSrchEnd = N/A

What does this mean?

The TVGOS channels do make sense for Boston area. By far away I meant far for my reception, ie, New Hampshire and Providence, but those would be counted as part of my zip code area. I think it's odd that I get all the analog channels from my favorites (ie, PBS 0-2 & 0-44), but not their digital versions (no PBS 2-1 or 44-1 or 44-2 or 44-3 or 44-4). The only digital channel I can see on TVGOS is 2-2. This seems like an odd clue to me. Analog vs digital conflicts?

I am trying to avoid wiping all the programs on my hard disk. But since the DVR remembered my favorite channels, I wonder if it has other data stuck which is interfering somehow. I might try another zip code later, but will wait a few days first, hoping that somehow more download time might make a difference.

If anyone has any other ideas, please let me know. If something works for me I'll share that too.

Day 1 updates.....
Is it just me, or has TVGOS >not< been updating day 1 listing for any last minute changes? I know most of us just started getting full 8 day listing after a few weeks hiatus with only 5 or 6 day listings. However, one persistent snag that I have noticed was that it appears that day 1 updates are not taking plans. Any one else notice this?

Regards
MK

The brick has come to life.

Packets are being received again and it has a correct clock. No grid yet- hopefully will have one tomorrow.

I do, however, believe we may have to change our belief about how quickly the TVGOS software updates to .44. It was said to take two overnights.

From a full reset, once the packets came back (not sure when exactly but they were not there yesterday late afternoon) it took well less then 24 hours - maybe even just a few- to get to .44.
It has always taken several days for me to get back to .44 with ota analog station. Just recent, after Comcast quit sending TVGOS at my girlfriends, I hooked up an antenna and at .00.00.00 it took a couple of hours to get to 08.05.40. The clock came back pretty quick if I recall. Then it was not unitl the 2nd day afternoon download time that the full grid (cable card channels) showed up along with the current .08.06.44 software. Now, so far all is working and listings are filling in. So I guess about a day and one half minimum time to go from .00 to.44, at least in my experince.
Michael

I may be trying to do this, too, because (assuming the Sony is still functional in the summer) I may be changing my system to something where I HAVE to use the HDMI out...think it would work with a 100 MB Zip drive? I don't know WHERE you would get small thumb drives any more!

I really doubt that the Zip Drive will work. But the good news is that I used my 4GB Sandisk Cruzer Micro a few weeks ago to successfully update the firmware on my number three HDD500. :)

Day 1 updates.....
Is it just me, or has TVGOS >not< been updating day 1 listing for any last minute changes? I know most of us just started getting full 8 day listing after a few weeks hiatus with only 5 or 6 day listings. However, one persistent snag that I have noticed was that it appears that day 1 updates are not taking plans. Any one else notice this?

Regards
MK
I don't ever recall any last minute updates to Day 1. Maybe for a couple of days out, but not the same or next day. This is part and parcel of the networks and locals who decide to mess around with their programming without telling anyone about it. Such as last week. L&O C.I., was on in place of Chopping Block? NBC 8:00pm Wednesday. NBC advertised the change? the night before. Said CI would be on both Wednesday and Saturday nights, but the schedule did not reflect that and CI did not show up Saturday as promised. So unless the networks and locals bother to notify TVGOS, then we do not get the most current schedules. Not so much TVGOS fault I beleive.
Michael

All 8 days 100% complete and accurate; including all sports listings; most with "teams" or "TBA"

Still analogue source.

There was "one" digital tickle last night at midnight; along with all analogue downloads. The previous digital tickle was 3/28/09.

The 753159852 test shows my firmware as::

08.01.42/08.06.44/00.00.00/0000012c/64/0000

But when I run the G* test the firmware shows up as 08.01.42

Which version do I really have ?

Thanks in advance

The 753159852 test shows my firmware as::

08.01.42/08.06.44/00.00.00/0000012c/64/0000

But when I run the G* test the firmware shows up as 08.01.42

Which version do I really have ?

Thanks in advance

You're up to date. The G-test page version doesn't change.

2 500;s OTA only
Well CBS in Chicago finally got 2-1 back up sending VBI data after more than a week of nothing.

FWIW
For a week all I had was 4.5 days starting with day 1. I now have 1,2,3,4,6,8 on both machines, all from analog is my guess.

Tonight I'll run the G*test and leave on 2-1 to see if it fills in all eight days.
Funny thing is the one machine I reset back 2 weeks ago still hangs on to 3-0 as host with 0-2 as clock while the other has 0-2 as host and clock set but both have had the
exact same guide data for over a week.
Hopfully they're done fooling around with the digital end.

I had left my 250 alone with the host set at 2-1. On Monday morning when the WBBM engineers decided to turn digital packets back on, I had the old pattern of days 1, 2, 5, and 8. On Tuesday morning my Wednesday grid was filled in. If they're done fooling around this week, I'm just going to let the blank grids fill in as if I was starting from scratch. I'm also OTA-only.

The saga may be over.

My "untouched" HDD 250, has found time and is getting listings and ads. I'm moving it back downstairs as the Dish box only has one OTA HDTV tuner.

My "TVGOS reset" and "full user reset" unit has found ads. Time was off the last few days, but after a warm reboot, it promptly found time correctly-I'm going to program it by time and channel.

Yea

NYC Area - I finally got a clock this morning on my 500, and by suppertime it had the correct time.
No listings yet, but I got ads! Pleeeezzze......
(using CBS 2.1 as host, at least that's what I asked it to do last week)

2 500's - OTA only
Since CBs 2-1 started VBI again...
1 500 was left on CBS 2-1 after the G*test and now has all 8 days and ads.

2nd recorded Jay on 5-1 and the listings are still incomplete, must have used 0-2 even though it now shows a host of 3-0. No ads on this machine.
Looks like digital is working great right now, hope it stays that way.
FWIW
On a side note I've recently noticed when watching a show as it's recording the slide bar at the bottom never advances even though the time viewed is correct.
On occasion it has locked up stopping the front panel clock for about 2 min. then unfreezes and the clock immediatly jumps to the right time.

Our local PBS engineer indicated that they got a message from Macrovision that they would be turning back on the analog data stream this week. His quote below:

"The CPTV legacy analog equipment downloads were restarted by Macrovision.

The analog units for OTA will be operating until June 12, 2009, when analog OTA is anticipated to be be turned off Friday night at 11:59 PM.

The analog unit for the Comcast direct fiber feed will remain in use for as long as Comcast continues to use it in support of their analog tier."

Perhaps this is starting to happen in other markets as I've seen some recent success from several folks on this thread.

Our local PBS engineer indicated that they got a message from Macrovision that they would be turning back on the analog data stream this week. His quote below:

"The CPTV legacy analog equipment downloads were restarted by Macrovision.

The analog units for OTA will be operating until June 12, 2009, when analog OTA is anticipated to be be turned off Friday night at 11:59 PM.

The analog unit for the Comcast direct fiber feed will remain in use for as long as Comcast continues to use it in support of their analog tier."

Perhaps this is starting to happen in other markets as I've seen some recent success from several folks on this thread.

As I said yesterday, I can confirm analog PBS (Channel 13) on Comcast in N. NJ.

Dave Kristol

Anyone in the Pittsburgh region? The local PBS station has stopped their analog signal that had been the TVGOS host channel. Supposedly CBS has picked this up, but my DVR isn't acknowledging that. I checked the "753.." diagnostic menu and the host channel is blank. I tried using the "963..." code to force the host channel, but it doesn't work (I don't get the "searching current VBI channel" message that I'm supposed to).

Know how to fix this? I don't mind setting this manually if I can, but I'd also like to know who (CBS, Sony, Macrovision) I should be harassing to get this working the way it is supposed to.

I don't ever recall any last minute updates to Day 1. Maybe for a couple of days out, but not the same or next day. This is part and parcel of the networks and locals who decide to mess around with their programming without telling anyone about it. Such as last week. L&O C.I., was on in place of Chopping Block? NBC 8:00pm Wednesday. NBC advertised the change? the night before. Said CI would be on both Wednesday and Saturday nights, but the schedule did not reflect that and CI did not show up Saturday as promised. So unless the networks and locals bother to notify TVGOS, then we do not get the most current schedules. Not so much TVGOS fault I beleive.
Michael

Yes I agree for the the last-last minute changes.... But when the networks make changes for the weekly lineup, and it makes it into the local newspaper (sometimes), and the on-line TV-Guide website (almost always), I would expect TVGOS to also get the updates..... And it use to be that TVGOS updated too..
MK

Upgraded to 8.6.44 but no VBI on CBS.
Damn you Time-Warner!

Thanks everyone,
I was able to follow the directions posted here and get my unit to use Digital CBS 2.1 as it's host. Took a couple of days. I was originally using analog fox 11, then after my first attempt it reset to analog PBS 28. After clearing the host again it locked on to Digital CBS 2.1.

Couple of points:

I had both analog 11 and 28 turned off on the unit while they being used as my host channels. I had no problem getting the guide on either.

I was able to get my guide data to fill in with the unit shut off between 9:00 am and 12:30 pm. This does not seem to correspond to the documented download times?

Anyways, I love this thing. This thread is very helpful to me.

Thanks again!

I have been searching this thread, but I have not been able to find the instructions for how to make switch to digital host. I also am in Los Angeles. I would really appreciate someone posting the link. I know analog TVGOS will disappear soon. Thanks.

Noticed today that OTA Analog KCPQ (Fox 13) show lots of VBI counts on the G* test. Hasn't helped me get a grid, yet. Doesn't show up on Comcast cable Analog 13, although in addition to Cable Digital KIRO (CBS 7-1/107CC) providing TVGOS, Cable Digital KONG (Independant/NBC-alternate 16-1/106) appears to have TVGOS data, as well.

Have Comcast with Cablecard
In Seattle (Northgate).Response from TVGOS
4/7/2009
Thank you for the Info.

Our Broadcast Engineer has worked with KIRO and it is determined that the equipment at the station is now passing our data fine. There are other Seattle area Comcast HeadEnds that are passing our data fine too. It is this particular dowtown Seattle HeandEnd in which we are waiting for Comcast to get an upgrade of their encoder.


4/7/2009
An Encoder issue was recently discovered at Comcast's downtown Seattle headend. We believe this may be the cause of TVGOS data not reaching you. We are awaiting Comcast to get an encoder upgrade at their headend. ETA is 3-4 weeks.
Guide Data should be passing to you by May 1, 2009.

Thank you for your patience

and on 4/1/2009 from KIRO (CBS) Chief Engineer:
There is defiantly something going on. I am working with TV Guide on this. Thanks for your input. The detail really helps.

I can verify that the software update to .44 happened in less than 12 hours for the one 250 unit I accidently reset. That was using a digital channel.

The brick has come to life.

Packets are being received again and it has a correct clock. No grid yet- hopefully will have one tomorrow.

I do, however, believe we may have to change our belief about how quickly the TVGOS software updates to .44. It was said to take two overnights.

From a full reset, once the packets came back (not sure when exactly but they were not there yesterday late afternoon) it took well less then 24 hours - maybe even just a few- to get to .44.

So, still waiting on the channel grid for the 250 unit I reset. Everything else got back to normal fairly quickly and the download schedule has even changed to a digital one. Strangely, when the local digital PBS first started passing data with Comcast here, both 250 units I have got channel lineups in 2-3 days. I'm waiting for more than 5 days now since I reset one of them.

Well CBS in Chicago finally got 2-1 back up sending VBI data after more than a week of nothing.

FWIW
For a week all I had was 4.5 days starting with day 1. I now have 1,2,3,4,6,8 on both machines, all from analog is my guess.

Tonight I'll run the G*test and leave on 2-1 to see if it fills in all eight days....
Hopfully they're done fooling around with the digital end.
On Monday morning when the WBBM engineers decided to turn digital packets back on, I had the old pattern of days 1, 2, 5, and 8. On Tuesday morning my Wednesday grid was filled in. If they're done fooling around this week, I'm just going to let the blank grids fill in as if I was starting from scratch. I'm also OTA-only.
As a Chicagoan, and another OTA-only viewer, I was experiencing the same problems you guys were... so last week I actually took the trouble to e-mail customer support at WBBM (the local CBS station), via a form on their web site. After a couple of days (namely, on Friday 4/3), someone actually got back to me—a broadcast engineer named Paul Rodriguez.

Of course, all he said at first was "things should be working fine"... but when I explained in some greater detail...
"Thanks for the reply. As of this afternoon (Friday 3:00 pm), the situation is as it has been for the last few days: my TVGOS is indeed working, but with significant caveats.

"IOW, when I run a G* reception test on my DVR I find that I'm getting plentiful VBI packets over channel 2 (CBS analog), and my TVGOS program grid is populating with listings; at this writing I have fairly complete listings for days 1-5, and partial listings (no prime time) for days 6-8.

"However, I'm still receiving *no* VBI packets over 2.1 (CBS digital), contrary to the status quo until just days ago... which is disconcerting, especially if it represents a situation liable to continue after June 12. If there's some situation behind-the-scenes with either WBBM or Macrovision that's preventing the TVGOS signal going out over a digital channel for the moment, but which will be resolved at some definite near-future date, I would certainly appreciate knowing that."

...and pointed him to this thread, he got a little more helpful. Specifically, he wrote back on 4/5, saying "I turned your inquiry over to our Transmitter Engineer, he indicated that he was going to reset the encoder used in our HD feed. Let me know if you are getting valid data on 2.1."

And lo and behold, when next I checked, I actually was. (Which is good, because otherwise all my listings were AWOL again after Wednesday 4/8).

Which leads me to conclude that the right hand simply didn't know what the left hand was doing, and at least some of the people at WBBM genuinely didn't realize there was a problem. Frankly, notwithstanding our preoccupations here, I suspect that inside most local stations dealing with TVGOS encoding is not really high on their to-do lists.

And that leads me to wonder how many of the other frustrated users on this thread have taken the trouble to make personal contact with their local host station. Obviously some posters have, in some markets... but have the rest of you given it a shot? It can't hurt, and it might help. Certainly more so than contacting Macrovision or Sony, at least...

FWIW, I have been following the auctions of these DRV's on fleabay and the range for the somewhat common 250 has been between $350 and $420 with a vaerage price of $400.
A somewhat rarer 500 just went for $735 with two more auctions in progress. Almost 2x for the 2nd HDD.

FWIW, I have been following the auctions of these DRV's on fleabay and the range for the somewhat common 250 has been between $350 and $420 with a vaerage price of $400.
A somewhat rarer 500 just went for $735 with two more auctions in progress. Almost 2x for the 2nd HDD.

I consider that insane pricing. We still have no iron clad guarantee the box will function normally in the digital world. CBS digital still has to send out data correctly (that should happen in time?), and Sony has to have a firm/software fix - while telephone promises are hopeful - it's not a sure thing.

So, they have gone back to the analog TVGOS. That is good to know, and they must realize that the analog transition, at least in their small area, didn't go well.

What we have learned is NOT TO RESET the units. I was very pleasantly surprised to see my "untouched" unit get time within a minute (!) when I hooked it back up downstairs. It will be getting plenty of use since the Dish DVR locks up while recording OTA.

The fully reset unit now has grids and program guides, and is back to "normal". I don't yet have the full 8 days of listings, but that is to be expected for time......both units have gone back to "fully functional".

Thank you TVGOS guys who are no doubt lurking.

You are welcome for the QSL

All 8 days are in. That has worked now, I believe for 3 consecutive days.

Perhaps (can't prove one way or the other), a few program descriptions could be wrong (old program descriptions vs. "new" tag missing) - will just have to see how that pans out. Not a real issue.

It appears that Day 1 is finally loading with correct data from the night before.

So, they have gone back to the analog TVGOS. That is good to know, and they must realize that the analog transition, at least in their small area, didn't go well.

What we have learned is NOT TO RESET the units. I was very pleasantly surprised to see my "untouched" unit get time within a minute (!) when I hooked it back up downstairs. It will be getting plenty of use since the Dish DVR locks up while recording OTA.

Let us hope "round two" goes better.

If the original transition date of Feb 17th had taken place, much more would have been resolved up to this point. Changing the date to a "zillion" tiered roll in to DTV made matters much worse.

A very high percentage of DHG-HDD users will require "Full Factory Reset" in order to bring back all functionality without conflicts and lock ups. Each person has to make their own decission as to "when" they do that. If you are in an analogue support environment and there are issues of any kind with your DHG; you should strongly consider the Full FactReset well before June 12th. That gives you an opportunity to get all those issues resolved.

Some areas will not have a 100% DTV change over June 12th, so this could cause problems for some. To what degree it affects PBS/CBS with power level changes and RF changes - only time will tell, and what actions if any Macrovision and Sony take to work around those problems if they can remains to be seen.

I just found out that our analog PBS channel 8 (29) is going away on April 29th and are switching the digital back over to their VHF channel 8. It will be interesting to see what happens to all those who have UHF only antennas (like me). As far as I can tell we're still getting the digital version of TVGOS here, I'm getting 8 days of guide info.

I was watching Channel 8 (KAET) and saw a public service message that analog channel 8 is going off the air on April 29th. The message also said that digital Channel 8 would switch over to broadcasting on their VHF frequency. So OTA reception will require a VHF antenna and to do a rescan to pick up the digital channels on the VHF frequency.

As a Chicagoan, and another OTA-only viewer, I was experiencing the same problems you guys were... so last week I actually took the trouble to e-mail customer support at WBBM (the local CBS station), via a form on their web site. After a couple of days (namely, on Friday 4/3), someone actually got back to me—a broadcast engineer named Paul Rodriguez.

Of course, all he said at first was "things should be working fine"... but when I explained in some greater detail...
"Thanks for the reply. As of this afternoon (Friday 3:00 pm), the situation is as it has been for the last few days: my TVGOS is indeed working, but with significant caveats.

"IOW, when I run a G* reception test on my DVR I find that I'm getting plentiful VBI packets over channel 2 (CBS analog), and my TVGOS program grid is populating with listings; at this writing I have fairly complete listings for days 1-5, and partial listings (no prime time) for days 6-8.

"However, I'm still receiving *no* VBI packets over 2.1 (CBS digital), contrary to the status quo until just days ago... which is disconcerting, especially if it represents a situation liable to continue after June 12. If there's some situation behind-the-scenes with either WBBM or Macrovision that's preventing the TVGOS signal going out over a digital channel for the moment, but which will be resolved at some definite near-future date, I would certainly appreciate knowing that."

...and pointed him to this thread, he got a little more helpful. Specifically, he wrote back on 4/5, saying "I turned your inquiry over to our Transmitter Engineer, he indicated that he was going to reset the encoder used in our HD feed. Let me know if you are getting valid data on 2.1."

And lo and behold, when next I checked, I actually was. (Which is good, because otherwise all my listings were AWOL again after Wednesday 4/8).

Which leads me to conclude that the right hand simply didn't know what the left hand was doing, and at least some of the people at WBBM genuinely didn't realize there was a problem. Frankly, notwithstanding our preoccupations here, I suspect that inside most local stations dealing with TVGOS encoding is not really high on their to-do lists.

And that leads me to wonder how many of the other frustrated users on this thread have taken the trouble to make personal contact with their local host station. Obviously some posters have, in some markets... but have the rest of you given it a shot? It can't hurt, and it might help. Certainly more so than contacting Macrovision or Sony, at least...

Here in Indy, I periodically have to contact the engineer at the PBS station to reset the encoder. He's a friendly, responsive guy fortunately and I'm lucky to have a direct line in to him now. FWIW, the CBS station here apparently has no plans to carry TVGOS... it's the PBS station that will continue to do it. I'm locked on analog at the moment but I've tested the digital side and can get data there too, so things are good to go for Indianapolis.

Marc

I have been searching this thread, but I have not been able to find the instructions for how to make switch to digital host. I also am in Los Angeles. I would really appreciate someone posting the link. I know analog TVGOS will disappear soon. Thanks.

The instructions are in this thread (http://www.spiffspace.com/forum/index.php?topic=25.0)on Spiff's forum; HOWEVER, since both FOX11 and PBS28 are still sending analog guide data, your unit may continue to use them regardless of what you do. My experience was that even though my units appeared to accept 2-1 as their host, they were actually still using FOX11. YMMV. ;)

Since it has been about a month I called to get an update on the Software/Firmware update. With a pre-assigned reference number they can now track me immediately - Yea!

I was told the work is ongoing, and their goal is to have this ready before June 12th. I was also told I will be sent an email notification when it is ready and it will be posted on the DHG-HDD Sony Support page.

Since this was first tier support, he could not answer my specific questions - regarding version numbers OR any anticipated timeline for the new version, nor specific details from versions currently out there .05 .06 .07 .09 .13 etc.

It is almost impossible to shake free of first tier support, sort of like standing in quick sand - but since "no knowledge" is "no knowledge" I did not want to taint my ref number LOL

So the only real message gained "software work is on going" and "should be ready before June 12th"

side note: I will believe it when I see it, and then prove to myself it actually works LOL

I finally broke down in frustration and did a complete factory reset (wiping out my disk). I used a different zipcode closer to Boston.

It came up in the same state and with the same analog 0:0-4 host. All my analog TVGOS channels show up in the listing fine. But all my digital TVGOS channels still show up very far down the listings (200+ position) where all are OFF and the Tune field reads NONE.

My previous posting was incorrect due to a newbie mistake. From TVGOS Channel Setup -> WLVIDT channel -> Menu -> TUNE, where it reads NONE in fixed-looking yellow background, I tried using the left-right arrows to select the choices as one does for Air vs Cable above. Nothing happened so I assumed the tune field was fixed.

By playing around, I discovered that the TUNE field accepts a number. WLVIDT is really 0:56-1 but I entered a 2 and suddenly PBS 0:0-2 became visible in the formerly blank top-left video screen.

So it turns out I might have erased all my disk programs needlessly.

So apparently what I have to do is :


Print out a paper listing of all the station call-letters within my reception area
Manually find those call-letters among all the “turned off” TVGOS channels listed
Edit each one where I manually change its Tune field to reflect its actual number (ie, 56-1)
Repeat

Is this the standard procedure?

The digital channels all show up in the Sony antenna search, where I can watch them using the remote’s channel up/down keys.

Yet all these viewable digital channels were missed by TVGOS as being “good”?

Will this happen to me during every power loss?

So apparently what I have to do is :


Print out a paper listing of all the station call-letters within my reception area
Manually find those call-letters among all the “turned off” TVGOS channels listed
Edit each one where I manually change its Tune field to reflect its actual number (ie, 56-1)
Repeat

Is this the standard procedure?


Yes. You will become very proficient at this after a few times. I keep a excel spreadsheet I refer to with each channel I receive (both OTA and cable) and their respective channel assignment. Usually most of the OTA stations automatically map correctly in the TV-Guide. But digital cable channels (without cablecard) will most likely require remapping as you explain above.

Note: While editing your listings, you can also use the Channel +/- to page up/page down. This makes it faster to get down to the channels at the end of the list.



Will this happen to me during every power loss?


Possibly yes, but probably no. I just had a 30 minute power outage and was relieved to see my grid and mapping assignments in tact.

As a Chicagoan, and another OTA-only viewer, I was experiencing the same problems you guys were... so last week I actually took the trouble to e-mail customer support at WBBM (the local CBS station), via a form on their web site. After a couple of days (namely, on Friday 4/3), someone actually got back to me—a broadcast engineer named Paul Rodriguez.

Paul responded to my query about digital vs analog TVGOS back in December, although it took a week or so. I think you're right about the WBBM engineers not knowing the status of the TVGOS encoder, since operating it is just a small part of their jobs. Thanks for pointing them to this thread; I neglected to do that when I contacted them.

This morning my entire grid was filled in. Yesterday I was missing part of WPWR's listings, but had everything else. I hope this saga is over.

FWIW, I have been following the auctions of these DRV's on fleabay and the range for the somewhat common 250 has been between $350 and $420 with a vaerage price of $400.
A somewhat rarer 500 just went for $735 with two more auctions in progress. Almost 2x for the 2nd HDD.

I consider that insane pricing. We still have no iron clad guarantee the box will function normally in the digital world. CBS digital still has to send out data correctly (that should happen in time?), and Sony has to have a firm/software fix - while telephone promises are hopeful - it's not a sure thing.

Makes it almost tempting to sell mine (although I like this thing too much to sell). I'm surprised someone would pay $735 when you can get a new Moxi for $800 with dual tuners and perhaps greater certainty of future functionality.

Paul responded to my query about digital vs analog TVGOS back in December, although it took a week or so. I think you're right about the WBBM engineers not knowing the status of the TVGOS encoder, since operating it is just a small part of their jobs. Thanks for pointing them to this thread; I neglected to do that when I contacted them.

This morning my entire grid was filled in. Yesterday I was missing part of WPWR's listings, but had everything else. I hope this saga is over.
You're a luckier man than I, then. I have listings, but they continue to be very patchy. For the 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm block tonight, for instance, my grid shows "No Title" for four of the thirteen channels in my top screen of listings. (Even stranger, a couple of them show accurate listings for the 7:30 shows, then go back to nothing at 8:00.)

I have no idea how to account for this. I suspect it's just indicative of a reception problem, but how can I know? (After all, OTA digital reception has always been liable to turn on a dime...)

Makes it almost tempting to sell mine (although I like this thing too much to sell). I'm surprised someone would pay $735 when you can get a new Moxi for $800 with dual tuners and perhaps greater certainty of future functionality.
But the Moxi is useless for OTA, right? Kind of a deal-breaker, IMHO.

I could have sworn that AntennaWeb used to give me more channels listed for my area.

The closest thing I found now is...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_stations_in_the_United_States_by_call_sig n_(initial_letter_W)

which only has town + call letter + analog tune channel. Better than nothing. Output to text, grep'ed for [Mass, Rhode, Hampshire]. I'll fine tune the list when I get home.

PS- I just installed a cheap digital converter box on my upstairs analog bedroom TV that sits first off the antenna splitter. It's getting a handful more digital channels than my DHG downstairs (including Retro TV from Rhode Island - cool!). I might have to investigate using amplified splitters. The antenna coax is 2-from-1 split at bedroom, continues 150ft downstairs, where it is 4-from-1 split again at entertainment center into the DHG box antenna input. I'm probably losing several db before the DHG.

I put an OTA antenna (rabbit ears) on one of my RDRs last night to see if it would adopt KCPQ 13 as its host. Nope. It showed KOMO 4, as its host. So I used one of my DHGs to check OTA Analog KOMO 4 and sure enough, loads of VBI counts. I left the RDR off this morning with the OTA antenna connected (normally the RDR is connected to Comcast cable). The RDR has listings for the first time in weeks. The 753159852 Diagnostics show lots of current counts for all sorts of things. The RDRs G* test (971397135) does not appear to function correctly, as I have not seen VBI counts using it to look at either KCPQ 13 or KOMO 4, while my DHGs count away.

I'll move my rabbit ears to one of my gridless DHGs tonight. If I can get my grids back, I'll be happy to keep filling the grids from KIRO Comcast Cable (7-1/107CC).

FWIW, I have been following the auctions of these DRV's on fleabay and the range for the somewhat common 250 has been between $350 and $420 with a vaerage price of $400.
A somewhat rarer 500 just went for $735 with two more auctions in progress. Almost 2x for the 2nd HDD.

As I recall, I got my DHG-HDD500 for around $400 (months ago), but the front panel was badly damaged and the LCD screen was broken and not functional. The dvr is functional so it didn't matter too much. I found a place selling parts and ordered one that is being shipped out today.

PS- I just installed a cheap digital converter box on my upstairs analog bedroom TV that sits first off the antenna splitter. It's getting a handful more digital channels than my DHG downstairs (including Retro TV from Rhode Island - cool!). I might have to investigate using amplified splitters. The antenna coax is 2-from-1 split at bedroom, continues 150ft downstairs, where it is 4-from-1 split again at entertainment center into the DHG box antenna input. I'm probably losing several db before the DHG.

I would try hooking up your DHG to the same outlet as the converter box before you invest in any amplified splitters. The tuner in the DHG is marginal even compared to the newer "cheap" digital converter boxes. Connected to the same outlet, my DTVPal converter box pulls in a few more OTA channels than the DHG.

lawman00,
Just a thank you for letting them know there was a problem, sometimes we get lazy.

FYI
1st 500 was set to 2-1 and the G*test was run, then turned OFF. Tonight all days are filled in and it's using 3-0 as host and 2-1 as clock set.

2nd unit was set to 2-1 and the G*test was run and left ON because it was missing quite a bit of guide data. Tonight it has all 8 days. host is also 3-0 but clock set is fffffffd as expected since the G*test didn't accually show 2-1.

It appears that we won't have to leave the units on, like we did before, after a G*test to get the guide.

Thanks again for the call and hopfully if it happens again I'll do it first.
I just need to find that form...

I could have sworn that AntennaWeb used to give me more channels listed for my area.I've always been fond of this list: http://www.dtvprimer.com/DTVChannels.pdf .

It's a little dated (still lists WHYY-DT as on RF55, but they switched to RF50 several years ago) but a nice compact little reference that gives current RF, PSIP mapped, and post-transition RF channel numbers, by state and then by city; searchable by call sign.

Makes it almost tempting to sell mine (although I like this thing too much to sell). I'm surprised someone would pay $735 when you can get a new Moxi for $800 with dual tuners and perhaps greater certainty of future functionality.
The Moxi website doesn't even say what KIND of tuners it has....wonder why that is...no ATSC?? But that's what I BOUGHT my Sony for!?!

The Moxi website doesn't even say what KIND of tuners it has....wonder why that is...no ATSC?? But that's what I BOUGHT my Sony for!?!Moxi site does tell you that it is only for cable. You have to go to the FAQ to find it. I think I saw it elsewhere on the site as well, but don't remember offhand. But if you look at the ad, they are comparing it to TiVo and the fact they made boxes for cable in the past but now do so for the end user without all those fees. So just that should tell you it is only for cable.
I myself found the ad to be lacking in an outright placement of the fact it only has QAM tuners. Probably because I never had a TiVo or cable so it was a little hard to make the connection at first since the Sony box does both air and cable.
I did ask them if they plan on making one for ota only. Would be nice, since most people have internet in their homes.
Michael

The Moxi website doesn't even say what KIND of tuners it has....wonder why that is...no ATSC?? But that's what I BOUGHT my Sony for!?!The Moxi has two QAM tuners. It has no functional ATSC or analog tuners. If you need analog support, Moxi will send you this Hauppauge USB tuner (http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hvr1950.html) to connect to the DVR's USB port; with this tuner connected, the box can record one analog channel and two QAM channels simultaneously. In the future, Moxi could potentially use the Hauppauge USB tuner (http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hvr1950.html) to add a single ATSC tuner, but they have not said anything about that.

If teeitup were talking about OTA, he'd probably have mentioned TiVo. Since he mentioned Moxi, I would guess he has basic cable, because QAM remapping is one of Moxi's key advantages over TiVo. This also happens to be the Sony's primary advantage over the TiVo.

On the Moxi, QAM channel remapping isn't done through the box, but through their web site, which then pushes those lineup changes to the box. QAM channels can only be mapped with the information available on analog channels in the user's lineup. Hence, if an analog version of the QAM doesn't exist (for say, unencrypted Discovery Theater), then you can't map the information to that channel. Channel mapping on TVGOS doesn't exhibit the same limitation, although to be fair, very few people have "clear QAM" channels that lack analog counterparts.

Moxi's primary advantages over TiVo are:

16:9 HD interface with high resolution graphics (as opposed to 4:3 UI on a 16:9 background)
can display small guide at bottom of screen
plug-and-play support for any external drive, not just the WD My Expander
much larger liveTV buffer
on-screen widgets for weather, sports scores, etc
manual channel remapping so program information is displayed on QAM channels (basic cable) without the need for a CableCard

Some disadvantages to Moxi:

can't record two analog channels at the same time
no dual buffers
can't download recordings to computer
no MRV
no wishlists or comparable functionality (can't record based on search)
no overlap protection
doesn't keep record of recorded programs to eliminate duplicates

Moxi uses Tribune guide data. They license the Tribune guide data (just like TiVo) and deliver it to each box using their Internet servers (just like TiVo). Moxi doesn't allow downloads over a phone line, nor do they offer a wireless adapter, so you need to run an ethernet cable and/or buy an ethernet -> wireless bridge for the box to download guide data.

I posted a Youtube HD video of the TiVo in action (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNvgoLVzijE&fmt=22) and hope to do the same for Moxi in a few weeks.

A very high percentage of DHG-HDD users will require "Full Factory Reset" in order to bring back all functionality without conflicts and lock ups. Each person has to make their own decission as to "when" they do that. If you are in an analogue support environment and there are issues of any kind with your DHG; you should strongly consider the Full FactReset well before June 12th. That gives you an opportunity to get all those issues resolved.


Both of my units are locking up when either chasing a recording or playing one back while another records. I know I'll have to do this sooner or later but as I recall the Factory Reset deletes all of the recordings, no?

Hello everyone.

Minutes ago I received a telephone call follow up from Sony in response to my call to them on 3/24 (see post near the top of page 503) about the loss of the TVGOS on our DHG-HDD250.

The support person told me that they are mailing a flash drive to my home with updated firmware to allow the DVR to receive listings using a digital signal! I was told that instructions will be included with the drive.

Therefore, if you wish to receive help from Sony, you must contact them and explain that you are no longer receiving the TV Guide On Screen listings. If you are sure that your issue is related to the loss of analog programming (and you have done some diagnostics to verify what is happening) and explain that you are familiar with the problem, they are likely to assist you similarly.

By the way, I called Sony using this Florida toll number: 239-768-7547 (Hours: Mon-Fri 8:00AM-12:00AM (Midnight) / Sat-Sun 9:00AM-8:00PM ET)
which is posted on their sonystyle web site under the support link in the top right corner on the home page.

I hope to receive the device within a few days, do the firmware update and then see if I can then get the clock back on the front panel and download some programming.

I am just not sure if the TVGOS is actually being sent out through Time Warner Cable in the Orange/Sullivan County area of the Hudson Valley on a digital stream (it is obviously not going out in analog any longer).

I plan to post back on the board once I can determine if the firmware update has resolved this issue for us.


drbug

Moxi's primary advantages over TiVo are:
...
ok on this list, But!

Some disadvantages to Moxi:

can't record two analog channels at the same time
no dual buffers
can't download recordings to computer
no MRV
no wishlists or comparable functionality (can't record based on search)
no overlap protection
doesn't keep record of recorded programs to eliminate duplicates


So you really SHOULD add to the Moxi DISADVANTAGES compared with Tivo the one that it does not have ATSC tuners!

And their website should make this obvious, as well...

Hello everyone.

Minutes ago I received a telephone call follow up from Sony in response to my call to them on 3/24 (see post near the top of page 503) about the loss of the TVGOS on our DHG-HDD250.

The support person told me that they are mailing a flash drive to my home with updated firmware to allow the DVR to receive listings using a digital signal! I was told that instructions will be included with the drive.

Therefore, if you wish to receive help from Sony, you must contact them and explain that you are no longer receiving the TV Guide On Screen listings. If you are sure that your issue is related to the loss of analog programming (and you have done some diagnostics to verify what is happening) and explain that you are familiar with the problem, they are likely to assist you similarly.

By the way, I called Sony using this Florida toll number: 239-768-7547 (Hours: Mon-Fri 8:00AM-12:00AM (Midnight) / Sat-Sun 9:00AM-8:00PM ET)
which is posted on their sonystyle web site under the support link in the top right corner on the home page.

I hope to receive the device within a few days, do the firmware update and then see if I can then get the clock back on the front panel and download some programming.

I am just not sure if the TVGOS is actually being sent out through Time Warner Cable in the Orange/Sullivan County area of the Hudson Valley on a digital stream (it is obviously not going out in analog any longer).

I plan to post back on the board once I can determine if the firmware update has resolved this issue for us.


drbug

Please post a ISO image of the flash drive so the rest of us can update.

...
So all I'm left with is listings for tomorrow! Not worth much, in my opinion!
...
WOW! What I said above was based on my check at about 6 AM, but when I checked just now, I have a standard download of days 1,2,5,8!!! And, back to the past, NO host channel!!! I guess for now just have to go with the flow! (Clock set channel now PBS analog 9!?!)
So, back to the subject of this thread...

Despite my pleasant surprise on Monday afternoon, on Tuesday early AM, I found - to my disappointment - that I had gotten NO new listings overnight. So I was back down to days 1,4,7.

But when I checked in the late afternoon, ALL of the missing 5 days had been mostly filled in (i.e., about two thirds listings), and I had 29-0 as my host channel (i.e., CBS 5.1) - which it had to be, since during one day I had gotten most of the listings for 5 different day.

And today, I have a full 8 days of listings, with 29-0 still given as the host channel (clock set channel 5-1)...talk about ups and downs!

(Meanwhile, my 3410a now has a full 8 days of listings from CBS 5.)

Please post a ISO image of the flash drive so the rest of us can update.
Or better yet Sony should put the update on their website, with instructions, so we can DL it ourselves.

Both of my units are locking up when either chasing a recording or playing one back while another records. I know I'll have to do this sooner or later but as I recall the Factory Reset deletes all of the recordings, no?

Have you tried the other resets available (TV Guide - Reset to factory default for instance)? On spiffspace they have a procedure for fixing the lockup problem that doesn't involve the 'Reset with format'.

Also, I read several months ago where someone was speculating that these lockups were HDMI related. I wouldn't even bring it up, but my DVR doesn't lockup when I do the chase/play, and I watch shows this way about twice a week. What's interesting is last year I did have the lockup problem when doing the chase/play, but haven't had the problem this year. The only difference is that last year I was using HDMI, but this year I am back to using component, since my new blu-ray player got the one and only HDMI connection. It may be coincidence, but I'd be interested to know if there is anyone having the lockup issues using the component output, because I don't.

Mark (knocking on wood as I open my big mouth)

Have you tried the other resets available (TV Guide - Reset to factory default for instance)? On spiffspace they have a procedure for fixing the lockup problem that doesn't involve the 'Reset with format'.

Also, I read several months ago where someone was speculating that these lockups were HDMI related. I wouldn't even bring it up, but my DVR doesn't lockup when I do the chase/play, and I watch shows this way about twice a week. What's interesting is last year I did have the lockup problem when doing the chase/play, but haven't had the problem this year. The only difference is that last year I was using HDMI, but this year I am back to using component, since my new blu-ray player got the one and only HDMI connection. It may be coincidence, but I'd be interested to know if there is anyone having the lockup issues using the component output, because I don't.

Mark (knocking on wood as I open my big mouth)

Both of my units that are now locking up are using component (and always have)...

But the Moxi is useless for OTA, right? Kind of a deal-breaker, IMHO.I agree. No OTA or no CATV+ useless.
$700+ for a dual drive unit is way too much also.

Two more 500's were just sold. $615 & $675. One was 'snipped' at zero seconds (exactly when the auction ended)! I never saw a "zero seconds" before.
There are two additional 500's still active at over $600 with 3 days left.

I agree. No OTA or no CATV+ useless.
$700+ for a dual drive unit is way too much also.

Two more 500's were just sold. $615 & $675. One was 'snipped' at zero seconds (exactly when the auction ended)! I never saw a "zero seconds" before.
There are two additional 500's still active at over $600 with 3 days left.

Nice that's more then I paid for my 500 over 4 years ago. Not a usual thing for electronics.

As a Chicagoan, and another OTA-only viewer, I was experiencing the same problems you guys were... so last week I actually took the trouble to e-mail customer support at WBBM (the local CBS station), via a form on their web site. After a couple of days (namely, on Friday 4/3), someone actually got back to me—a broadcast engineer named Paul Rodriguez.

Of course, all he said at first was "things should be working fine"... but when I explained in some greater detail...
"Thanks for the reply. As of this afternoon (Friday 3:00 pm), the situation is as it has been for the last few days: my TVGOS is indeed working, but with significant caveats.

"IOW, when I run a G* reception test on my DVR I find that I'm getting plentiful VBI packets over channel 2 (CBS analog), and my TVGOS program grid is populating with listings; at this writing I have fairly complete listings for days 1-5, and partial listings (no prime time) for days 6-8.

"However, I'm still receiving *no* VBI packets over 2.1 (CBS digital), contrary to the status quo until just days ago... which is disconcerting, especially if it represents a situation liable to continue after June 12. If there's some situation behind-the-scenes with either WBBM or Macrovision that's preventing the TVGOS signal going out over a digital channel for the moment, but which will be resolved at some definite near-future date, I would certainly appreciate knowing that."

...and pointed him to this thread, he got a little more helpful. Specifically, he wrote back on 4/5, saying "I turned your inquiry over to our Transmitter Engineer, he indicated that he was going to reset the encoder used in our HD feed. Let me know if you are getting valid data on 2.1."

And lo and behold, when next I checked, I actually was. (Which is good, because otherwise all my listings were AWOL again after Wednesday 4/8).

Which leads me to conclude that the right hand simply didn't know what the left hand was doing, and at least some of the people at WBBM genuinely didn't realize there was a problem. Frankly, notwithstanding our preoccupations here, I suspect that inside most local stations dealing with TVGOS encoding is not really high on their to-do lists.

And that leads me to wonder how many of the other frustrated users on this thread have taken the trouble to make personal contact with their local host station. Obviously some posters have, in some markets... but have the rest of you given it a shot? It can't hurt, and it might help. Certainly more so than contacting Macrovision or Sony, at least...You were lucky. The broadcast stations just lease or provide rack space in their transmitter rooms for the Macrovision TVGOS inserters and have LITTLE control over them unless they interfere with the broadcast. They rely on Macrovision to do remote control/diags over the Internet VPN connection to them. There are not many broadcast engineers that could/would do that. Macrovision says we should contact our device manufacturers since they licensed and paid Gemstar/Macrovision for the technology built into the device and hence should provide us end-users with support. Most device (CE) manufacturers will not support us end-users, which leaves us scrambling to contact either Macrovision or the broadcaster of the Macrovision TVGOS data.

I live in SE Houston and own a Sony HDD500 (built in 2005) w/TVGOS updated to vers 08.06.44.

Over the last few months, I attempted the Frank70/SpiffSPACE.com force Digital host method to change from Analog PBS 8 to Digital 11.1 (KHOUD) at least 50 different times with no success.
(despite getting good VBI data on 11.1)

A week ago I tried something new.
I set my Zipcode to Conroe TX (77385) from my previous Houston zips- 77080, 77027, etc.

After a few days, my Host Channel has now changed to 0:31-0.
Which - apparently - is 11.1 KHOUD. (I have never seen this CH before ..only Analog 8 or 26).

See: rabittears.info as to why 31-0 is 11.1.

My Failing Clock channel reads 0:0-8 (but I presume that will update eventually.)

Of course - I could always get Guide data when the host was PBS or by simply doing a G-Test and leaving the unit on 11.1.

Now it does it on its own -

Hope this helps someone.

Mark

I agree. No OTA or no CATV+ useless.
$700+ for a dual drive unit is way too much also.

Two more 500's were just sold. $615 & $675. One was 'snipped' at zero seconds (exactly when the auction ended)! I never saw a "zero seconds" before.
There are two additional 500's still active at over $600 with 3 days left.That's well over the price for a TiVo HD w/Lifetime subscription. AMAZING! Those Sony's must be something special.

FYI
1st 500 was set to 2-1 and the G*test was run, then turned OFF. Tonight all days are filled in and it's using 3-0 as host and 2-1 as clock set.

2nd unit was set to 2-1 and the G*test was run and left ON because it was missing quite a bit of guide data. Tonight it has all 8 days. host is also 3-0 but clock set is fffffffd as expected since the G*test didn't accually show 2-1.

It appears that we won't have to leave the units on, like we did before, after a G*test to get the guide.
Well, unfortunately, my 250 is acting a lot more like your second unit above—very patchy listings—and it's still not listing anything at all as host. So I'll try leaving it on tuned to 2.1 overnight tonight (something I haven't actually done before), and see what happens.

Over the last few months, I attempted the Frank70/SpiffSPACE.com force Digital host method to change from Analog PBS 8 to Digital 11.1 (KHOUD) at least 50 different times with no success.
(despite getting good VBI data on 11.1)

A week ago I tried something new.
I set my Zipcode to Conroe TX (77385) from my previous Houston zips- 77080, 77027, etc.

After a few days, my Host Channel has now changed to 0:31-0.
Which - apparently - is 11.1 KHOUD. (I have never seen this CH before ..only Analog 8 or 26).
I've successfully forced the host in the past, but it always seems to go away eventually.

I've seen this kind of ZIP code reset suggested before, but not tried it, as I don't really get the underlying logic. Why is this supposed to work? (And how did you pick the alternate ZIP code, anyway—was it just a random one close enough to your own that you knew it would share the same broadcast area?)

I could have sworn that AntennaWeb used to give me more channels listed for my area.

The closest thing I found now is...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_stations_in_the_United_States_by_call_sig n_(initial_letter_W)

Try this site:

http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=marketmap

Click on the map in the area that you're interested in, and you'll get a list of stations with real ("digital") and virtual ("display") channel numbers.

Please post a ISO image of the flash drive so the rest of us can update.

And please make a backup copy of the file(s) on the flash drive before attempting the update, just in case there is some sort of automatic "delete files after update" routine.. :eek: :eek: :eek:

Hello everyone.

Minutes ago I received a telephone call follow up from Sony in response to my call to them on 3/24 (see post near the top of page 503) about the loss of the TVGOS on our DHG-HDD250.

The support person told me that they are mailing a flash drive to my home with updated firmware to allow the DVR to receive listings using a digital signal! I was told that instructions will be included with the drive.

Therefore, if you wish to receive help from Sony, you must contact them and explain that you are no longer receiving the TV Guide On Screen listings. If you are sure that your issue is related to the loss of analog programming (and you have done some diagnostics to verify what is happening) and explain that you are familiar with the problem, they are likely to assist you similarly.

By the way, I called Sony using this Florida toll number: 239-768-7547 (Hours: Mon-Fri 8:00AM-12:00AM (Midnight) / Sat-Sun 9:00AM-8:00PM ET)
which is posted on their sonystyle web site under the support link in the top right corner on the home page.

I hope to receive the device within a few days, do the firmware update and then see if I can then get the clock back on the front panel and download some programming.

I am just not sure if the TVGOS is actually being sent out through Time Warner Cable in the Orange/Sullivan County area of the Hudson Valley on a digital stream (it is obviously not going out in analog any longer).

I plan to post back on the board once I can determine if the firmware update has resolved this issue for us.


drbug


I wonder if you'd consider posting a copy of both the instructions and the flash drive itself (paying particular attention to the header data) once you've successfully installed the patch?

Thanks.

JLOB

I live in SE Houston and own a Sony HDD500 (built in 2005) w/TVGOS updated to vers 08.06.44.

Over the last few months, I attempted the Frank70/SpiffSPACE.com force Digital host method to change from Analog PBS 8 to Digital 11.1 (KHOUD) at least 50 different times with no success.
(despite getting good VBI data on 11.1)

A week ago I tried something new.
I set my Zipcode to Conroe TX (77385) from my previous Houston zips- 77080, 77027, etc.

After a few days, my Host Channel has now changed to 0:31-0.
Which - apparently - is 11.1 KHOUD. (I have never seen this CH before ..only Analog 8 or 26).

See: rabittears.info as to why 31-0 is 11.1.

My Failing Clock channel reads 0:0-8 (but I presume that will update eventually.)

Of course - I could always get Guide data when the host was PBS or by simply doing a G-Test and leaving the unit on 11.1.

Now it does it on its own -

Hope this helps someone.

Mark

Look at your data (info screens) very carefully. Chances are, it is still PBS analogue. It is unlikely I think, the clock would be analogue source with Guide data digital. In a day or two those screens may change back..........but then again? who knows?

Both of my units are locking up when either chasing a recording or playing one back while another records. I know I'll have to do this sooner or later but as I recall the Factory Reset deletes all of the recordings, no?


Yes the Full Factory Reset will also reformat the hard drive. Still this proceedure will be required for almost all - eventually. If you still have solid reliable analogue source, then you may want to watch as many of your recorded shows as you can - the most important ones. Then do the FullFactReset prior to the full DTV change in your area.

That give you a chance to have a stable machine prior to more changes coming.

Houstonperson -

Maybe you could call your contact at Sony today and see if you could convince him to email you the new firmware??? :D:D:D

I could have sworn that AntennaWeb used to give me more channels listed for my area.

Try.. http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php

Also, I read several months ago where someone was speculating that these lockups were HDMI related.

Mark (knocking on wood as I open my big mouth)

When I've had lockups, I've had it with both HDMI and component connections.

Houstonperson -

Maybe you could call your contact at Sony today and see if you could convince him to email you the new firmware??? :D:D:D
Again, Sony needs to post this firmware update on their website so all can have access to it. It would save them money too not having to send out flash drives.

Hello everyone.

Minutes ago I received a telephone call follow up from Sony in response to my call to them on 3/24 (see post near the top of page 503) about the loss of the TVGOS on our DHG-HDD250.

The support person told me that they are mailing a flash drive to my home with updated firmware to allow the DVR to receive listings using a digital signal! I was told that instructions will be included with the drive.

Therefore, if you wish to receive help from Sony, you must contact them and explain that you are no longer receiving the TV Guide On Screen listings. If you are sure that your issue is related to the loss of analog programming (and you have done some diagnostics to verify what is happening) and explain that you are familiar with the problem, they are likely to assist you similarly.

By the way, I called Sony using this Florida toll number: 239-768-7547 (Hours: Mon-Fri 8:00AM-12:00AM (Midnight) / Sat-Sun 9:00AM-8:00PM ET)
which is posted on their sonystyle web site under the support link in the top right corner on the home page.

I hope to receive the device within a few days, do the firmware update and then see if I can then get the clock back on the front panel and download some programming.

I am just not sure if the TVGOS is actually being sent out through Time Warner Cable in the Orange/Sullivan County area of the Hudson Valley on a digital stream (it is obviously not going out in analog any longer).

I plan to post back on the board once I can determine if the firmware update has resolved this issue for us.


drbug

I think I'm in the same boat. I contacted Macrovision and this was their reply in an e-mail yesterday:

There is a minimum guide version that you need in order to receive the digital TV Guide On Screen data, which is 8.1.65, the version that is on your DVR is 8.1.42, if an upgrade is possible you would need to contact Sony. Unfortunately the DVR that you are using is not compatible with a cable box, so installing a DTV Pal to convert the digital TVGOS data to analog so that your DVR can use it is not possible. you might want to contact Sony regarding that issue as well.

I had just read about how to install 1.2.13 and was planning to attempt that, but it was not clear to me that TVGOS would be rev'ed up 8.1.65 at the same time. Does anybody know if that's the case? What is Sony charging for this flash drive upgrade service?

A report on the current status of two units, a 250 and a 500, that were sitting side by side and acting differently.

Originally the 250 had firmware .06 and the 500 had .05, that was the only difference. During the problems I updated the 500 to .13 but at first, if at all, it seems to have made no difference.

With all the TVGOS issues, the 250 continued to get ads all the time and had all the listings that it was expected to get. Similar to the experience of others for a very short time it only received front days and not the 8th day.

The 500 was a mess, with rare downloads and no ads.

The 500 locked a few times, the 250 once. Did front panel resets on both.

Except for the update early last week to .13 on the 500, I did nothing but waited.

Over the past few days both are filling up, 8th day included and both have ads.

I still fear lockups but hoping they won't happen.

The point of this post is only to advice that two units side by side feeding off the exact same cable with exactly the same host channel reacted differently to prolonged bad TVGOS data. The 250 mostly immune, the 500 lost.

I wonder why.

Nice that's more then I paid for my 500 over 4 years ago. Not a usual thing for electronics.

Like rare stamps and coins.

We should wait to sell them at Sotheby's auctions for millions. ;)

Try this site:

http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=marketmap

Click on the map in the area that you're interested in, and you'll get a list of stations with real ("digital") and virtual ("display") channel numbers.

Best site yet - thanks! I had no idea we even had a Deutsche Welle station in our area.

-Erik

Hello.

If the firmware resolves the problem and there is no legal issues with posting an ISO or the file contents, I'll try to make it available.

I am not sure if I'll be able to post an ISO here because I have limited rights (could not even post a url yesterday) on this thread.

Ideally, Sony should post the firmware on their web site for those of us that can do this on our own. On the otherhand, I can see their desire to control what is going on to prevent problems caused by people doing this themselves.


drbug

Houstonperson -

Maybe you could call your contact at Sony today and see if you could convince him to email you the new firmware??? :D:D:D


As a result of my phone call with Sony yesterday, I have receive two emails from Sony – concerning my Ref #. Both include dead links that do not work, and both provide answers that have absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand.

Based on the posting above, perhaps Sony is mailing out, as part of a test; a firmware fix to a limited number of users that have digital sources “only”?

DrBug – Is your area digital TV Guide only? No analogue source?

Hello buraman.

There is no charge (not that I know of). After explaining the problem and my understanding of the issue, they called several days later and are mailing the "kit" to me containing the flash drive and instructions.

drbug

HoustonPerson:

I checked the PBS station that was previously passing VBI packets and it failed the G* test as did a number of others that I checked. On that basis and the loss of the clock and programming for our unit, I contacted Sony technical support and reported above what transpired.

drbug

I chatted with Sony on line. What a waste of time. He denied over and over there is an upgrade available. Told me to "move the unit to another location". And to reset it after I told him I already did that numerous times. He finally gave me a 1-800 number to call. I'll attempt that tonight.

HoustonPerson:

I checked the PBS station that was previously passing VBI packets and it failed the G* test as did a number of others that I checked. On that basis and the loss of the clock and programming for our unit, I contact Sony technical support and reported above what transpired.

drbug
drbug, what is your location?

HoustonPerson:

I checked the PBS station that was previously passing VBI packets and it failed the G* test as did a number of others that I checked. On that basis and the loss of the clock and programming for our unit, I contact Sony technical support and reported above what transpired.

drbug


Thanks DrBug. Guess a lot depends on who you get on the phone. The fact your PBS stopped analogue must have a lot to do with getting the "kit" now, instead of later.

Please report back in a few days, and let use know how the new fix is working.

Hello buraman:

I did mention earlier that I'm in the Hudson Valley (Middletown area) in New York with Time Warner Cable. We have no cable box and no good ATSC signal for using an antenna.

dr bug

DrBug -

Do you know if there is any TVGOS data at all on your cable system? In my area, the only TVGOS data available currently is OTA. My cable provider isn't passing any TVGOS at all, digital or analog. This has been like this for about the past month. I still have analog and digital TVGOS available via OTA however. My three HDD500's are using the analog OTA source. I'm hoping if this new firmware is truly available to wean them off of analog and be good to go for June 12th.

Last night I edited my TVGOS channel setup. It had all the analog channels (say WCVB 0-5) and their program listings, but no digital channels (or listings obviously).

So I scrolled down the big list of all channels, looking for anything WCVB*. I picked one that looked about right (WCVBW), hit MENU, and manually changed its tune number to 5.1 and set it ON. It was a lot of guess work trying to correlate the call letters of, say, WGBHDT, WGBHW, WGBHC, & WGBHK into the needed 44.1, 44.2, 44.3, 44.4 manual tune numbers.

I did this to all the digital channels, and waited overnight.

This morning, the TVGOS listing for all these channels still remained blank for today?!? (“No Listing”). Not expected.

For laughs, I tuned into my host channel (0-4), ran a VBI test, and left it there and DVR powered on before I went to work.

I just dropped by home for lunch - I now already have FULL TVGOS listings for today on all my digital channels!

Is this a known trick? Why does it work?

Trick#2…

I saw that my WCVBW channel (which I manually tuned to 5.1 and tuned on last night), had the wrong program listed than what was actually on the 5.1 channel.

I surmised that TVGOS gets the program information via CALL LETTERS and not the tune numbers. Great, which of the four WCVB* channels on the list is my real 5.1 station?

I then discovered that if I tuned into 5.1 while watching TV, and then hit the TVGOS button from there, it would take me RIGHT TO the actual channel call letter I was watching there in the Guide listings!! Hot dog! No more guessing.

I wished I had discovered that earlier, it would have made the channel setup process much easier than my manual line-by-line hunting for each station.

Hopefully this trick will make it easier for someone else too...

-Erik

Detroit area OTA. FYI:

1. Most major networks have had "No Listing" for the past several days but PBS and others did. All stations are "No Listing" from 8PM tonight on.

2. PBS analog channel 56 goes off the air 04-16-09.

So you really SHOULD add to the Moxi DISADVANTAGES compared with Tivo the one that it does not have ATSC tuners!

And their website should make this obvious, as well...


Also from what I read no back skip.

Now that both units are again "normal", I checked the Host Channel.

The reading was 0:0-13, so I assume that means that Analog Channel 13 is providing the data.

NYC DMA-OTA only

For those of us that find information on Gemstar & TVGOS interesting:

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/161029-Macrovision_Sells_TV_Guide_Network.php?rssid=20070

I find the timing curious.

DrBug -

Do you know if there is any TVGOS data at all on your cable system? In my area, the only TVGOS data available currently is OTA. My cable provider isn't passing any TVGOS at all, digital or analog. This has been like this for about the past month. I still have analog and digital TVGOS available via OTA however. My three HDD500's are using the analog OTA source. I'm hoping if this new firmware is truly available to wean them off of analog and be good to go for June 12th.
Here in Atlanta, still no host over cable and not but 1 return phone call with a promise to follow up the next day which never came. No response to many Emails either except the one who said they do not have a guide channel on 97, just 27. Bunch of idiots.
Michael

For those of us that find information on Gemstar & TVGOS interesting:

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/161029-Macrovision_Sells_TV_Guide_Network.php?rssid=20070

I find the timing curious.

That is an old article, the deal actually closed about March 2nd.

This news is a little more current:

http://www.macrovision.com/company/1434.htm

Tru2Way seems to be big potatoes, with multi room DVR for cable this and cable that....................but where does that leave OTA?

http://www.multichannel.com/article/191063-Cable_Show_2009_Macrovision_Moves_On_Multiroom_DVR_Tru2way.p hp

http://www.adbglobal.com/

The above link appears to have some DVR OTA products multi room; but for EU? Hard to say?

FWIW
2-500's - OTA only
Both machines were left off last night and set to CBS 2-1 with no G*test run.
Both are showing digital host and clock set with all 8 days of listings!
1 shows host 2-1 and 1 shows 3-0, both clock sets are 2-1.
Hope this bodes well for the Chicago area at least.

Like rare stamps and coins.

We should wait to sell them at Sotheby's auctions for millions. ;)


:D Im almost tempted to sell it and get a TivoHD with a lifetime subscipt. Whats the downside of TiVO?

Edit: I think I see what it is no OTA tuner, That would be a no thanks for me then. I don't want to be tied to having to pay the cable company more money.

To buraman:

I tried the chat before calling. They wanted me to send the unit in for repair. I called tech support to see if the response would be different - and it was...

drbug

:D Im almost tempted to sell it and get a TivoHD with a lifetime subscipt. Whats the downside of TiVO?

Edit: I think I see what it is no OTA tuner, That would be a no thanks for me then. I don't want to be tied to having to pay the cable company more money.

TivoHD DOES have ATSC tuners. The new MOXI does not.

TivoHD DOES have ATSC tuners. The new MOXI does not.

But with the Tivo you cannot assign your cable company's QAM channel nubers to the proper station call letters. So matching your QAM channels to program listings is impossible.

But with the Tivo you cannot assign your cable company's QAM channel nubers to the proper station call letters. So matching your QAM channels to program listings is impossible.

OK, but a cable card from the cable company costs next to nothing to rent. Many locations provide the first one for free. The one I have in my HDD250 is rent free.

However, I was responding to a poster that did not want cable at all but instead wanted an OTA tuner which is what an ATSC tuner is. So TivoHD does support OTA.

After several weeks without a Host Channel from Comcast in Northern New Jersey I finally have an analog Host(PBS-Channel 13). I have no channel lineup. In the current situation how long will it take to have a channel lineup downloaded?

Everything was working great on my 250, all 8 days of listings on cablecard and its been working. I think some short of a record for 2 weeks.

But tonight, no signal on all channels, even my OTA ones. Its like both my cable inputs have been disconnect/cut. I tested both to the TV aside my 250 and both RF cables are working.

The 250 still has a full Guide screen and and is not losing days/data. The channel ID still apears on the TV screen, when I click a channel I get the message [tuning channel] and then [no signalI].

I don't know what to do??? A soft reset or a hard reset, but I forgot how to do both of them.

I do know how to do a really hard reset with my hammer.
Please help before I do. Gregg

After several weeks without a Host Channel from Comcast in Northern New Jersey I finally have an analog Host(PBS-Channel 13). I have no channel lineup. In the current situation how long will it take to have a channel lineup downloaded?

I think we're on the same Comcast network (Union, NJ). My DHG started filling in a lineup over last weekend on 13 (PBS) analog. By now it's pretty full. I'm imagine yours will be, too, in a couple of days.

Dave Kristol

Everything was working great on my 250, all 8 days of listings on cablecard and its been working. I think some short of a record for 2 weeks.

But tonight, no signal on all channels, even my OTA ones. Its like both my cable inputs have been disconnect/cut. I tested both to the TV aside my 250 and both RF cables are working.

The 250 still has a full Guide screen and and is not losing days/data. The channel ID still apears on the TV screen, when I click a channel I get the message [tuning channel] and then [no signalI].

I don't know what to do??? A soft reset or a hard reset, but I forgot how to do both of them.

I do know how to do a really hard reset with my hammer.
Please help before I do. Gregg

What does the the Sony's diagnostic (Menu> Preferences> System > System Menu>) show for signal strength? My guess is that if no signal strength is shown, the problem might be somewhere in the tuner (input) or between the input jacks on the back and the tuner. However, if it shows a signal, then the problem is somewhere after the tuner (output)..... Which, can you still watch a recorded program? That might help diagnose.

Either way, you are probably facing a hard rest.
Regards
MK

Have any members here seen the Major League Baseball Network listed in TVGOS yet? I started receiving ads for MLB today, but the station has yet to appear in the guide in the 3 months the channel has been live.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3641/3427433195_6888f332c1.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3298/3428242256_fdde79c96f.jpg

I think I'm in the same boat. I contacted Macrovision and this was their reply in an e-mail yesterday:

There is a minimum guide version that you need in order to receive the digital TV Guide On Screen data, which is 8.1.65, the version that is on your DVR is 8.1.42, if an upgrade is possible you would need to contact Sony. Unfortunately the DVR that you are using is not compatible with a cable box, so installing a DTV Pal to convert the digital TVGOS data to analog so that your DVR can use it is not possible. you might want to contact Sony regarding that issue as well.

I had just read about how to install 1.2.13 and was planning to attempt that, but it was not clear to me that TVGOS would be rev'ed up 8.1.65 at the same time. Does anybody know if that's the case? What is Sony charging for this flash drive upgrade service?I think more Sony owners should view this post and call Sony. ASAP.

I think we're on the same Comcast network (Union, NJ). My DHG started filling in a lineup over last weekend on 13 (PBS) analog. By now it's pretty full. I'm imagine yours will be, too, in a couple of days.

Dave Kristol

Engineering From Comcast(Union) called me Wednesday and said they thought they had resolved the problem with TVGOS info passing through their system.

Okay, I had 2 working 250 units with digital TVGOS. After a power loss, I accidently did the "reset to factory default" instead of the G* Test under the 9012 menu. It has been a week with no channel grid. Originally, both units got the channel grid after 2-3 days from a digital source. I could see the digital guide data counts (starts, ends, typeB, typeC) increasing in the reception-slicing section and the ATSC slicer.
Finally, I tried using a different zip code for another city that is on the same cable system. Boom! Channel grid instantly. WTF!! Don't get me wrong, I'm glad it's now working, but it seems that the info has been there and the unit's just been screwing with me. Strangely, both units got the channel grid a few weeks ago using the correct zip code. The other unit is still using the correct zip code.
Also, what does the 'fffffffd' mean when it is in place of a channel in the 753 menu. Example, at times the VBI channel or clock source will say '1:24-1' (the digital TVGOS host) and other times it says 'fffffffd' instead. I imagine it some sort of hexidecimal-like representation of the channel. Any other guesses.

What does the the Sony's diagnostic (Menu> Preferences> System > System Menu>) show for signal strength? My guess is that if no signal strength is shown, the problem might be somewhere in the tuner (input) or between the input jacks on the back and the tuner. However, if it shows a signal, then the problem is somewhere after the tuner (output)..... Which, can you still watch a recorded program? That might help diagnose.

Either way, you are probably facing a hard rest.
Regards
MK

Also, do you hear that little relay "click" when you try to tune between cable channels and OTA channels? Maybe that little relay has given up the ghost? :eek:

Generally, all appears to be well - full 8 day listings. etc.

One odd problem, that may fix itself in a week?

At the first of the week, you may recall CBS was "no listings" for almost a week. Finally during the week the CBS programs with descriptions started filling in - but there is the problem. The descriptions to CBS prime time are off by "one" week. For example for the last two weeks we have recorded "Without A Trace". Each week it has been a "new" show; but each week the Show Title and Description are the same?

So I have decided just to record the CBS Prime Shows we watch regardless of what the "Description" says because there is a good chance it is wrong. Each and every CBS show so far has in fact been "new". So far I have noticed this problem for the last week of March and the first two weeks of April - hard to say if it is now correcting itself or not? Time will tell.

Also, what does the 'fffffffd' mean when it is in place of a channel in the 753 menu. Example, at times the VBI channel or clock source will say '1:24-1' (the digital TVGOS host) and other times it says 'fffffffd' instead. I imagine it some sort of hexidecimal-like representation of the channel. Any other guesses.

I don't know what it is, but I have seen this exact number as well. It is likely a state code, rather than any channel representation. IE, my host is 0:0-4.

As mentioned yesterday, I had the wrong call letters for my ABC 5.1 (WCVBH vs WCVBW) which I fixed yesterday. This morning the TVGOS listing for the channel still had "No Listing" splayed across the timeslots (whereas the other channels were fine). Nervous, I jumped ahead 48 hours. EVERY listing is BLANK! WTF?!?

So in attempt to repeat yesterday's experience, I tuned into my 0:0-4 host channel, did a *G test, and left for work. Let's see if I get listings again like yesterday.

I'm scratching my head. Doesn't help to read about the Macrovision 8.1.65 firmware requirement above, though I'm classic OTA only.

I think I'm in the same boat. I contacted Macrovision and this was their reply in an e-mail yesterday:

There is a minimum guide version that you need in order to receive the digital TV Guide On Screen data, which is 8.1.65, the version that is on your DVR is 8.1.42, if an upgrade is possible you would need to contact Sony. Unfortunately the DVR that you are using is not compatible with a cable box, so installing a DTV Pal to convert the digital TVGOS data to analog so that your DVR can use it is not possible. you might want to contact Sony regarding that issue as well.

I had just read about how to install 1.2.13 and was planning to attempt that, but it was not clear to me that TVGOS would be rev'ed up 8.1.65 at the same time. Does anybody know if that's the case? What is Sony charging for this flash drive upgrade service?

A number of people have upgraded their TVGOS software from 8.01.42 (the "factory" version) to 8.06.44 (the current version) via a digital host channel, using the procedure described here (http://www.spiffspace.com/forum/index.php?topic=55.0).

[...]
Also, what does the 'fffffffd' mean when it is in place of a channel in the 753 menu. Example, at times the VBI channel or clock source will say '1:24-1' (the digital TVGOS host) and other times it says 'fffffffd' instead. I imagine it some sort of hexidecimal-like representation of the channel. Any other guesses.

If you notice when you run the G* Test the VBI ,and ATSC fields sometimes (most of the time?) show as 65533-1023, instead of the channel number. If the clock sets during this test, the clock set channel will then show as fffffffd instead of the real channel number. Also the VBI channel will be set to this number. You can "fix" the VBI channel by exiting the test, and tuning to a different channel , and then back to the current channel. If you go from the G* Test screen and do the 'Search VBI Channel' procedure (without changing the channel first, as described in that procedure), and this does accomplish setting the host channel, it will be fffffffd instead of the desired channel.

Mark

Hello buraman:

I did mention earlier that I'm in the Hudson Valley (Middletown area) in New York with Time Warner Cable. We have no cable box and no good ATSC signal for using an antenna.

dr bug

Dr. Bug: I did a quick check on Middletown, NY in www.tvfool.com , and while your situation is difficult (barring other major landscape issues), it isn't impossible. My Mother's home outside LaSalle, IL is a similar situation. The near stations are 50+ miles away, and all are listed in the "red" band. Mom has a short tower, less than 15 feet. (The antenna is actually slightly below the peak of her small single story ranch style home, so any roof mount would be as good or better.) I put a full sized "deep fringe" Winegard antenna on it with a powerful, low noise Winegard pre-amp. Inside, I have a distribution amp. Mom has no trouble receiving any of the Peoria, IL stations listed in www.tvfool.com that are stronger than -90 dBm. If I turn the antenna towards the Quad Cities (65+ miles), she can pick up those stations completely reliably. The rough cost would be $100-$150 for an antenna, $50 for a pre-amp, and maybe $30 for a distribution amp. I've used www.solidsignal.com successfully, if you can't find what you need locally.

Dan (Woj...)

A number of people have upgraded their TVGOS software from 8.01.42 (the "factory" version) to 8.06.44 (the current version) via a digital host channel, using the procedure described here (http://www.spiffspace.com/forum/index.php?topic=55.0).

Actually 08.06.44 is still below the version they say is required. The .06. in the version number indicates the type of version it is (.01. is a base version .05. is a patch version that fixes bugs, and the .06. version is a full version upgrade, and not just a patch). I forget the exact wording macrovision uses to describe these different patches, but I can look it up later. They are concerned that the .44 version needs to be at least .65. Whether that is true or not is debatable, since they assured me that mine could never work in a digital only environment, and it does pretty well (and has been since January 5th), not perfect, but good enough to get by (I wouldn't turn down a new completely fixed version though).

Mark

Hi dmaster. Thanks for your suggestion.

I actually have a roof antenna in place and tried scanning for stations on the DVR. I could only receive a few local channel - none of the major ones. Our home backs up to 25' tall powerlines which does not help the matter either. I can only go as tall as the house since I'm in a townhouse development and within the utility company's right of way.

My understanding of digital OTA is that one needs a supplemental UHF type antenna to get a good digital OTA signal. We are 50 miles or more (line sight) from the NYC metro area where most of the OTA broadcasting is done and the terrain is mountainous.

I'm going to wait and see what happens after the firmware update that I am waiting on from Sony. As I mentioned in my first post a few pages (503) back, there are more options available now to watch a missed program then there were when we bought our DVR in 2005. As much as I'd miss the use of the DHG unit, the loss is less significant than it would have been since I have broadband internet access available.

dr bug

drbug,
Did Sony indicate what version of the firmware you would have after the upgrade?
Did Sony indicate what version of the TVGOS you would have after the upgrade?

You may have stated it earlier, but what version firmware and TVGOS do you have now.

Detroit area OTA. FYI:

1. Most major networks have had "No Listing" for the past several days but PBS and others did. All stations are "No Listing" from 8PM tonight on.

2. PBS analog channel 56 goes off the air 04-16-09.

I switched my host channel to 62.1 a couple of weeks ago and everything was working fine until this week. Now no listings. Does anybody know what channel should be used in the detroit area. I ran the G test on all channels and they all failed.

RAC

To jengle 1023: Actually, I never posted that information.

When I stopped receiving listings, I did a factory reset (9012 menu). I also took advantage of the zip file posted at spiffspace.com and flashed the firmware to version 1.2.13 which is showing in the System Menu.

According to the info at the 9012 menu, the TVGOS software version is 08.01.42.

I've left my unit on for days, disconnected and tried again, but was unable to get a front panel clock or listing. That is when I tried contacting Sony.

When Sony called to tell me they were sending the update, I was so shocked that I did not think of asking what version they were sending. I did think of asking whether it was a firmware update and the tech answered yes. He also said (in answer to my question) that it would allow the DVR to receive the Guide digitally.

dr bug

So, back to the subject of this thread...

Despite my pleasant surprise on Monday afternoon, on Tuesday early AM, I found - to my disappointment - that I had gotten NO new listings overnight. So I was back down to days 1,4,7.

But when I checked in the late afternoon, ALL of the missing 5 days had been mostly filled in (i.e., about two thirds listings), and I had 29-0 as my host channel (i.e., CBS 5.1) - which it had to be, since during one day I had gotten most of the listings for 5 different day.

And today, I have a full 8 days of listings, with 29-0 still given as the host channel (clock set channel 5-1)...talk about ups and downs!

(Meanwhile, my 3410a now has a full 8 days of listings from CBS 5.)

Another data point for those in the SF Bay Area: I was out of the country from Mar 24 thru yesterday. When I left my 250 was sporadically getting listings and the host channel was blank (as was the case for several weeks). When I got home I had full listings and the host channel said 1:0-9 (analog cable 9, the local PBS station, if the indicator is to be believed). Seems I have reversed situations with avnstf! I am continuing a hands off approach until required...

Jim

Two days acquiring an analog host channel I received the channel lineup today. Success!

Actually 08.06.44 is still below the version they say is required. The .06. in the version number indicates the type of version it is (.01. is a base version .05. is a patch version that fixes bugs, and the .06. version is a full version upgrade, and not just a patch). I forget the exact wording macrovision uses to describe these different patches, but I can look it up later. They are concerned that the .44 version needs to be at least .65. Whether that is true or not is debatable, since they assured me that mine could never work in a digital only environment, and it does pretty well (and has been since January 5th), not perfect, but good enough to get by (I wouldn't turn down a new completely fixed version though).

Mark
? I think many of us would appreciate your actually posting where you saw this (i.e., the distinctions between .01, .05, and .06) , because it seems completely contrary to what most have been saying in this thread...thanks!

? I think many of us would appreciate your actually posting where you saw this (i.e., the distinctions between .01, .05, and .06) , because it seems completely contrary to what most have been saying in this thread...thanks!

I had to stop and think where I saw this before, but I knew I had run across it more than once.

The following info is from here (http://tvgos.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/tvgos.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=156&p_created=1226421696&p_sid=J_Pii1vj&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD0 3NCZwX3Byb2RzPSZwX2NhdHM9JnBfcHY9JnBfY3Y9JnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU 9YW5zd2Vycy5zZWFyY2hfbmwmcF9wYWdlPTE*&p_li=&p_topview=1).



Understanding firmware revisions

Devices are built with a base firmware revision which cannot be changed.

For example:

9.1.27/9.6.01

9 is the major release level and designates what UI and level of functionality are included

1 designates that this is a general release for all partners and devices.

2 would designate a platform or model specific release. ex. All brand X DVRs.

27 designates the minor release level.

Patch levels

A patch would be displayed between the first and second slash. For example:

9.1.27/ 9.6.01/

6 designates a main patch. These usually include all patches released up to this time.

5 designates a setup patch. These are short patches which fix one or two specific bugs.

Patches are downloaded over VBI just like lineup or listings. Main patches download three times a day during listing downloads. Setup patches are downloaded many times a day. Setup patches are critical, and they are shorter than main patches so that they can be downloaded to units that may have trouble downloading the larger main patches.

I had to stop and think where I saw this before, but I knew I had run across it more than once.

The following info is from here (http://tvgos.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/tvgos.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=156&p_created=1226421696&p_sid=J_Pii1vj&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD0 3NCZwX3Byb2RzPSZwX2NhdHM9JnBfcHY9JnBfY3Y9JnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU 9YW5zd2Vycy5zZWFyY2hfbmwmcF9wYWdlPTE*&p_li=&p_topview=1).It's been posted in many places. Follow rockin robin's advice and subscribe... (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16203658), look through the knowledge base (FAQ'S). Send a message.

I don't think the Macrovision page cited above says the same thing that Mabuttra says...in particular, in other documents, Macrovision has said that what is required for receiving digital TVGOS (presumably on a permanent basis) is a BASE version of 8.1.65 or greater, whereas the current version we have as a "main patch" is 8.6.44, which evidently - based on current experience - permits us to receive digital data (wholly or in part, I can't tell), but doesn't infer ANYTHING about whether this would stand up to resets, etc, in a purely digital environment....

But my main point is that the requirement they state has to do with the base version and not to any level of patch...

At least that's how I read it (on about my 5th try at reading that page)...

As for Macrovision's site, FAQs, etc....I haven't looked at them recently, or sent a message to them...mainly because when I did both of these things months ago, most of what I got was off the point or misinformation...

which I'm sure is what a lot of us got from them...

Most notable is the claim that the DTVPal plus their legacy data stream would serve for ALL legacy devices, AND their claim that the legacy data stream would be up and running by September...what crap!

But neither they nor the DTVPal manual has explained how digital high-def recorders like the Sony or the LG3410a would continue to function as HIGH-DEF devices if the DTVPal instructions were followed...

It's really hard not to be completely fed up with the half-witted or self-serving statements coming from Marcovision

Lost analog host channel back in Feb (OTA only). Reset to try for a new host.

Can see VBI packets on digital CBS, station engineer confirmed digital TVGOS there.

Cannot obtain host channel, get channel lineup/logos, or listings (great info in this thread and spiffspace!) Can get clock and advertisements though :confused:

Everything I've tried (and that's a ton, even DTVPal) produces "There is no data for this screen" instead of channel lineup.

Surrendered and called Sony support this week (same number drbug used). Total call time was about 20 minutes.

Level 2 support stated that a firmware update would be avail for download on the Sony's esupport web site. (Key in model number, look under software). No time frame given on the availability (I asked).

Apparently mailing a flash drive from Sony is an option if desired (I asked, though I'd rather download :)), but the firmware update is not yet ready.

"We're working on a free fix, but you'll have to wait" is much better than "that product is no longer supported", which I anticipated... :)

I don't think the Macrovision page cited above says the same thing that Mabuttra says...


All I was really trying to say is that, according to macrovision, 8.6.44 is less than 8.1.65.

Mark

Can see VBI packets on digital CBS, station engineer confirmed digital TVGOS there.

Which station?

Level 2 support stated that a firmware update would be avail for download on the Sony's esupport web site. (Key in model number, look under software). No time frame given on the availability (I asked).

Apparently mailing a flash drive from Sony is an option if desired (I asked, though I'd rather download :)), but the firmware update is not yet ready.

"We're working on a free fix, but you'll have to wait" is much better than "that product is no longer supported", which I anticipated... :)
Thats good news, thats what I wanted to hear. :)

HoustonPerson; Another satisfied customer. :D
Now, how long did that take......? ;)

I'm waiting for next week. That's when out analog host goes dark.

Going on 3+ weeks now without hardly an intelligent response out of Comcast. Same old song and dance.. must be your machine, we don't support it..etc.. or you need to unplug it......Real lame and pretty poor for such a big company.
Has anyone else in Atlanta gotten their Comcast host back?
Michael