Pioneer DVR-531H-S TV Guide EPG went screwy

The TVGOS software on the Pioneer 531-533-633 is a bitch and a half to repair, a complete total pain. If its well and truly corrupted, I recommend you *not* try to fix it yourself using advice from various web sources. It can be done, I have done it myself on almost a dozen units, but its an absolute nightmare and half the time a do-it-yourself TVGOS repair doesn't "stick" for very long. It is also not possible to save your recordings in the process: burn those to DVD before you proceed any further. Take the unit in to a Pioneer service center, or sell it and move to a TiVO unit as you've considered. Pioneer makes incredibly good recorders, unfortunately the TVGOS in the 531-533-633 is prone to corruption rendering those particular models a bad bet.

Yeah, its probably hosed. You say you've had to reboot and reset the TVGOS a couple times before, which means it was already starting to go bad. Now that the blind reset trick didn't work, your TVGOS is likely a goner. When the TVGOS dies it takes the manual timer with it, so forget being able to time shift. You CAN use it on total manual by hitting the record and stop buttons, and it will copy from a TiVO or cable DVR. I wouldn't rely on it for anything important, though: the unit is almost completely dependent on its accursed TVGOS software, sooner or later when every last invisible scrap of it tanks the machine will spontaneously inform you it has an "HDD error" and lock itself down so tight you won't be able to do a thing with it. At that point you lose any video that was on the HDD.

Unfortunately the only way to reinstall the TVGOS is by removing the drive from the Pioneer, installing it or attaching it to a PC, booting the PC into the Knoppix (Linux) OS, and entering a string of DOS-like commands to copy a new TVGOS onto the drive. This generally only works for new replacement virgin drive, your corrupted drive would be resistant to the reinstall or would likely fail quickly if it "took". Also you would need to obtain a Pioneer Service Disk and Pioneer Service Remote or generic clones of them, another pain. On the Pioneer TVGOS models the EPG repair seldom goes quickly, you often have to do the entire process repeatedly until it "takes", and trust me on this you'll be ready for a straightjacket by the end of it. There have been a couple of claims on this forum that the TVGOS can be repaired simply be inserting a "firmware disc", but that trick has never worked for me: I think this only applies to the European version with "Guide+", not the American "TVGOS".

Of course there are many who have perfomed this procedure successfully and replaced a dead TVGOS by installing a new drive in their 531 with a fresh copy of TVGOS. But in my experience with nearly a dozen, the repair often fails within a few weeks to perhaps a year at the outside. There is something wackadoodle with the 531-533-633 motherboards that make them a little "inhospitable" to replacement burners or hard drives: no logical reason but these damn units simply do not like to be repaired once their TVGOS fails- they give up the ghost and want to be left alone to rot. Even Pioneer recognized this eventually, they quietly blew a fortune in 2006 replacing many "unfixable" 531-533-633 units with the new (and far FAR more reliable) model 640 under warranty.

I absolutely love Pioneers, wouldn't use any other brand myself, so it pains me to say it: the 531-533-633 models are possibly the all time worst recorders ever made in terms of reliability and serviceability: real lemon-dogs. Every mfr has made one disasterous mistake, this was Pioneers. All the Pios before or since have been very reliable and are easily repaired, the 640 and later series being damn near bulletproof.

Bummer about the repeated burglaries! Thats terrible to hear, I'm so sorry you had to go thru that more than once. Hope you at least got some insurance coverage back?

What kills the Pioneer531-533-633 models is the horrible implementation of TVGOS as software loaded on the hard drive. It is very fragile software that corrupts easily, and it paradoxically forces the hard drive and the recorder to run constantly so it can stay updated. Essentially the machine was designed to run itself into the ground asap: not the smartest move Pioneer made. The TVGOS feature was/is very popular on other brands like Panasonic and Toshiba which put it on a dedicated hardware chip- much more reliable. All TVGOS recorders were discontinued a year or two ago and can only be found used now.

I can't exaggerate how badly this misguided 531 design blew up in Pioneers face: it cost them a ton of money in warranty service and was PR nightmare. Rather than try to fix their poor TVGOS design they chose to drop it altogether from later models, hoping to avoid anyone ever mentioning the words "Pioneer" and "TVGOS" in the same sentence again. The 640 and later models were designed in cooperation with Sony, which was having problems of its own: together they came up with a really solid chassis with possibly the best burner you can get in a standalone DVD recorder. They operate exactly like your 531, using the same editing screens and other displays, the only difference is no more TVGOS: you set the timer like you would a VCR or any other DVD recorder.

Unfortunately Pioneer no longer sells recorders in the USA, you would need to buy one from an import dealer or online Canadian source, which is what I and many others here have done. The easiest models to come by are last years 450 and this years 460, they are identical except for USB/DV inputs added on the 460. Either will run $300 or so delivered to the USA. In your case, since you'll be moving to TiVO as your primary timeshift device, you don't necessarily have to get a Pioneer with hard drive: any inexpensive DVD-only recorder from WalMart would do for backing up TiVO occasionally. If you want to get a little fancier, the only hard drive equipped recorder still marketed thru USA stores is the Phillips 3576, excellent unit with 160GB HD and ATSC digital tuner. Not quite as refined as a Pioneer or Panasonic but still a really good unit.

Nope, TVGOS still lives on, although after 2/'09 it will only be in digital form OTA.

But the new DTVPal CECB ATSC tuner should keep those old, analog-based TVGOS recorders receiving guide data and working just as they always have (although I don't think I would even bother with another Pio with TVGOS).

The difference between using VCR+ and setting manual timers? Maybe a couple or so button punches, I'd presume. Not really that much of a difference.

Be careful making a decision based on VCR+. I tried it on my Pio 640 and found that it generates a diff. code for each show each day and time slot.

Here's my post back then, and if I remember right, the "test" I mentioned to see if it would timer rec weekly shows failed to record the next week's show, so it turned out to be pretty lame... back then, anyway.

If you have to have TVGOS and would prefer a HDD model, and don't mind ebay, I'd suggest a Panasonic EH-55. It has analog TVGOS which we are all hoping will be converted from the digital TVGOS by using a DTVPal CECB.
It has a 200GB HDD and of course DVD burner. Canadian Future Shops may still have some for ~$300 NIB and you can search for ebay to see what their going on that.
Note Tivo may be your best bet, if you don't care about the monthly charges, which since you have cable it sounds like you don't.
Note before buying your Tivo make sure it has a cable card slot or some other way to receive digital cable. If you don't it may cease operate quite shortly since many cable systems are converting their channels to digital only. Come to think of it unless you have or plan on getting a digital STB the Panny wouldn't be able to tune the digital channels either. The DTVPal is for OTA only, not cable.

One thing to consider is that current analog TVGOS is delivered by Gemstar to Gemstar's encoders at PBS stations via telephone line. The still unanswered question is, will Gemstar/CBS continue to send that telephone-based TVG data to their encoders, and will PBS continue to support this method (making sure the encoders are plugged in)?

I haven't read anything to suggest they won't, but maybe someone else has?

Apparently, some people are already losing the TVGOS info by switching over to all-digital service. But some aren't. Depends on what your cable company is doing, or what they will do.

I think you can sometimes split the signal, one lead to the RF input, and the other to the digital cable box, so that the analog locals can get to the tuner and the analog host channel can be picked up. But sometimes they strip the signal from those, also. But the DTVPal box won't work with cable and pick up the digital info and convert it like with OTA. You'll need the digital-based TVGOS built in to the digital tuner, like with the new Sony LCD's. Which, unless the TV has video out, won't help you as far as recording anyway.

That's unless you can find a US Panasonic EH55v or EH75V, because you can set it up to work with a digital cable box, and still download the guide info for cable over-the-air. That may work for you right now, but I don't know if the cable info will still be available OTA after the analog cutoff (in the case of using the DTVPal with it to convert).

With TiVo, if your cable company eventually switches to SDV ("switched digital video"), you'll need some kind of "dongle" that supposedly TiVo says they will have and supply.

Between the two, I'd probably just go with TiVo at this point. There are no digital-based TVGOS recorders on the immediate horizon as far as anyone knows, although there very well might be eventually. (Except maybe the Echostar TR-50, which will only be OTA anyway.) As far as analog cable though, as long as they are keeping that available, and if they're passing along the data now, they should continue to do so. You could call them and ask them how long they plan on keeping extended basic analog going, but you know how dependable the CS people's words can be.

They could tell you "not long at all", just to try to get you to rent their DVR.

I've got a call into my state's PBS chief engineer asking if they know anything about continuing the tel-based analog TVGOS. The CS I talked to and left a message with said the last meeting she was at, they still don't know. I'll post here if/when I hear from chief engr.

After scarring everyone, local (Albuquerque) tv stations and even comcast recently have been making extra sure to say "If you have cable, you won't be affected by the switch over." So I think if you can get regular cable now, you'll be okay. This does not mean that your cable provider will keep your favorite stations in the places you see them now. Ours moved Hallmark and The Game Channel to digital, which I didn't care about until Hallmark had a movie I wanted to see (but Netflix will have it). What mildly irritates me is Comcast still has the channels on their regular rolling grid. Stupid. Comcast should replace them with better programming. If I wanted to watch those channels, I'd go rent another Scientific Atlantis (I think) DVR from them, but I had digital for a year or two and finally got bored of all the reruns and Comcast's failure to keep that grid up to date.

And I've mentioned before that I don't think Albuquerque's Comcast passes along the TVGOS signal, so I have never relied on it, simply programming in programs I want to record on my Pio 531H(s), like we used to do on old VCRs.

I just got a return call from my PBS Network Ops Center and analog TVGOS delivered by Gemstar via tel. line to PBS is going to go away in Feb 2009... "as far as they know now."

To add to the TVGOS talk, I just checked my EH-55. In Minneapolis WCCO channel 4 (CBS) is sending the analog TVGOS that my EH-55 picks up. I had thought PBS was sending the analog while CBS would be sending the digital. Looks like in MSP anyway CBS may be doing both with their analog station sending analog and digital station sending the digital. Note I don't have anything that gets digital TVGOS to verify but I have read WCCO is one of a few stations broadcasting digital TVGOS.
If I get the Sony LCD with digital TVGOS, and figure out a way to display what station is sending the TVGOS, I'll report back.

TVGOS is not going away, its just hibernating at present. Those with analog-based TVGOS recorders will likely have increasing trouble in getting a signal, but the company is definitely moving forward with some kind of ATSC/QAM -based service. Sony is in no position to waste money on useless features: since they are incorporating TVGOS in nearly all their newly released ATSC HDTV displays I think it highly unlikely they put it there with the expectation it would be useless in six months. Something is percolating. But it isn't here yet, so back to you and the here and now picture:

Your "cable without a box" scenario torpedoes the easiest and most sensible short term solution: rent the cable company DVR until TVGOS sorts itself out next year with new products. Since you don't want to upgrade to a cable service tier that gives access to a DVR, you're more or less screwed for cheap answers. The only reliable DVD machines left with analog TVGOS are Panasonics, and they fetch ridiculous prices second hand, even more as new-old-stock imports from Canada. Panasonic's recent discontinuation of the Canadian DVD/HDD units (as well as USA) is driving prices sky high. For someone with money to burn I'd say go ahead, but since you are obviously frugal with your cable subscription I don't think you'd be too happy gambling with a $500 machine that may be obsolete next year. All the supposed converters that would keep analog TVGOS viable are still vaporware, not to mention you have the dreaded "girlfriend factor": she's not going to want to deal with a possibly flaky secondary feed providing an unstable guide for an obsolete analog recorder.

I'm not that familiar with the latest TiVO variants, but if there are updated ATSC/QAM capable TiVOs they would be the way to go in your situation. If you want a one-click, long term automatic timeshift solution that doesn't involve upgrading your cable or gambling on the future of TVGOS, then TiVO seems the only option. Pair it with an accessory DVD recorder, with or without hard drive, and your bases are covered. It would cost 50-100% more than you paid for the 531, plus monthly TiVO fees, but it will do exactly what you want with no reliability headaches.

Eventually a new digital TVGOS may make its way into USA-market DVD recorders, but it will be a half-measure. The hardware mfrs all pulled hard drive DVD recorders from the USA in 2006 and seem hell bent on not bringing them back, so any recorder with a new TVGOS is going to be DVD-only: not terribly useful. If we're extremely lucky, maybe Phillips will add the new TVGOS to its 3576 recorder in a year or two, since its the very last remaining DVD/Hard Drive recorder for sale in USA. This is a strong possibility, given Panasonic has pulled out of Canada now as well as the USA: Phillips seems poised to jump in and compete with Pioneer for whatever market remains in Canada for DVD/HDD units. This time next year should be interesting.

I hope you found some way to continue using your Pioneer DVD-recorders. Even without the TVGOS, the Pioneer 531H has some pretty useful features.

I found a couple of ways to use my two Pioneer 531H DVD Recorders with HDD, once the TVGOS refused to work. Some Dish boxes, like the 501, will start and stop recording on the Pioneer, using the Record to VCR function. I had to try several Pioneer VCR codes in the Dish/VCR setup,to find one that works with the Pioneer 531H.

Back-to-back timers don't result in the first recording stopping, at least in my attempts they didn't. I tried changing the end and start times without success.

The thing I liked most was that the Pioneer acquired the show title, just from the line in from the Dish. And of course the function of saving collections to DVD, which I cannot do so easily with one touch record.

I have several other Pioneer DVD recorders which usually capture the show titles.

Another device that I have tried that will start and stop recordings on the Pioneer is WebTV that gets the TV Guide. Not all WebTV boxes get the guide and control VCR functions though. Plus you have to have WebTV service, which is free if you have MSN service already. Not a good deal if you have to pay for this!

I also did use the one touch record to capture in real-time, TiVo shows I had on the TiVo HDD. But this didn't always capture the show title.

Back to the other useful things to do with Pioneer 531H. If you want to record music from Dish or cable music channels, you can set the manual recording to the lowest quality, and get around 14 to 15hrs of music on one DVD. I think I got around 17 hrs in one recording. Of course this is only acceptable because the video doesn't change very often. I think it is called VBR. Variable bit recording. If you record directly on the DVD, that will give you automatic chapter marks that lets you somewhat easily jump around on the DVD. Or you can record on the HDD and insert chapter marks, at the beginning of each song, but that is very time-consuming. Depends on how much time you have to spend on editing.

You can also do a one touch record on the HDD and it will record as long of a chunk as it can at once, usually around 12 hrs. You can then go back and edit that, dividing it into shows and adding titles. Again, very time consuming. Plus no auto-chapter marks for recordings done to the HDD. If you do the same chunk on a DVD directly, it does get auto-chapters.

I would keep the 531 just for its ability to copy another DVD.

All in all, if it weren't for the TVGOS problem, I would count the 531 as the most versatile DVD recorder I have owned.

One other note on the TVGOS problem, if anyone knows how to force the "Optimize HDD" function, I would love to know that. That is the only thing that ever fixed the TVGOS for me, other than sending it to Pioneer for repair. I think must be a hidden partition that the optimize restores the TVGOS code from. Why wouldn't Pioneer share that with customers, I wonder. I even asked their tech support how to force the optimize, no luck there.

misssmokys, the "Optimize HDD" button is usually available in the disc window of the Home Menu, you shouldn't have to "force it". If yours is grayed out or unavailable it indicates severe HDD corruption and you should not rely on the HDD for important recordings. Note however "forcing an optimize" does absolutely nothing for major TVGOS problems anyway: the TVGOS software is located on an independent partition unaffected directly by the optimize function. When it seemed to help you before, most likely it was because the main partition with recordings on it had issues that were fixed by optimizing, allowing the TVGOS to run without interference.

Sometimes it is possible to "wake up" a damaged TVGOS by software reset of the TVGOS system itself. The following instructions were generously posted by member Sean Nelson (thanks, Sean!) a couple years ago:

1-Go to TVG "SETUP" in top Service Bar ("go to Service Bar" in side Menu, then left in Service Bar to "SETUP").
2. Down arrow once to "Change system settings" and HIGHLIGHT. DO NOT press Enter button.
3. With "Change system settings" highlighted, Enter 1st code with number keys: 753159852.
4. When grey menu screen appears, enter 2nd code: 653274147.
5. Turn unit OFF.
6. Turn unit ON.
7. Redo TVG Setup. Go to SETUP again and, this time, select (Enter) "Change system settings."
8. Select the bottom choice, "No, repeat Setup process."
9. Enter your system/location info. again, even if it's there from before.
10. Turn unit OFF.
11. Wait 24-48 hours for results.

If this doesn't work, you can either bring the recorder in for Pioneer Service (not cost effective), try re-installing the TVGOS using tools provided at wwwDOTpioneerfaqDOTinfo (extremely difficult and unlikely to succeed), or just use the remaining features of the recorder as best you can, per your post.

Good Luck!

I guess I should be glad I got the time I did before my TVGOS went away as described in the OP, but the unit would still be very useful if I could do timer recordings the old fashioned VCR way. Anyone figure out how to do that or something better for this problem?

What model do you have? Aren't you able to set the clock manually on it?

Are you cable or OTA? If OTA, you could try one of those Artec T3APR-T converter boxes from www.meritline.com that are supposed to convert the digital TVGOS signal to analog for the old recorders.

i have the Pio DVR 533 on basic cable. I'll have to investigate what you said, but I know this unit had the original capability to bypass the TVGOS system and use it for timed programming.

Thanks.

Home Menu > Timer Recording > Timer Recording > New Input.

Unfortunately, that didn't work (pressing "timer recording" causes the menu to disappear, not go to another screen), but I can't believe I didn't try that before. Thanks for your effort.

Nightingale, the 2005 Pioneer can be forced into manual timer mode but you need to prepare it first: it works rather differently than the later x40-x50-x60 models that most AVS members have now. To operate the 531-533-633 under strictly manual timer settings in the absence of a TVGOS data signal, the first thing you need to do is kill the automated TVGOS function so it doesn't randomly interfere with your manual settings:

1. Reset the recorder (press and hold "record stop" and then "power" buttons on the front panel). The recorder will turn off after a brief hesitation while it resets. Turn it back on.
2. Perform basic recorder setup from the initial setup menu (date, time, and any other features you activated like the MN recording speed facility).
3. When TVGOS setup screen appears press Enter
4. Choose "Canada" and press Enter
5. Set Postal Code to A, 0(Zero), A, 0(Zero), A, 0(Zero) and press Enter
6. Choose "Yes" in reply to the do you have cable question and press Enter
7. Choose "No Cable Box" and press Enter
8. When final confirmation screen appears, select the bottom choice, "No, repeat Setup process."
9. Repeat steps 4 thru 7
10. This time when you reach the end, choose "yes, end setup" and press Enter three times to exit the TVGOS system.

You've now "disabled" the automatic TVGOS system: the recorder will stop turning itself on to look in vain for the no longer available TVGOS signal, and it will obey any manual timer entries you input. The following is a basic overview of how you enter and navigate the manual timer screens of the Pioneer 531-533-633:

IMPORTANT: you must immediately set a "permanent" repeating manual weekly timer event, preferably a show you would record every week anyway. If you don't follow any weekly shows, you'll need to set a "dummy' placeholder timer- something that won't get in your way like "every Wednesday 5AM to 5:15AM". Any unwanted recordings can simply be deleted from the HDD afterward. There must always be one manual timer entered into the system, or the automatic TVGOS signal search will "wake itself up" and start trying to download the nonexistent guide data. If this happens, you'll have to repeat the whole reset procedure again.

11. Press Timer Record to get back into TVGOS.

12. The TVGOS screen will appear, but with no automated program grid data. The left side of the screen will either show a "record options" panel where you can set manual timers, or it will show two generic TV Guide logos. If you see the timer setting panel, skip to step 14, but if you see the two TV Guide logos instead then you'll need to make the timer screen appear by following step 13 first.

13. You then get into the manual timer screen by pressing the Menu button on your remote. New timer options will appear on the left side of your screen: use your arrow keys to highlight the New Manual Recording button and press Enter on your remote.

14. You'll note today's date highlighted in yellow- this is where you start setting a manual timer. Use the number keys on your remote to set the month (02 for February etc). Use the arrow keys to move thru the following fields, and the number keys to input any needed numbers. The exception to this is the am/pm setting: these alternate by pressing the right arrow key, once you've selected am or pm you move to the next field by pressing the down arrow key. When you get to the bottom "Frequency" field, press the right arrow key to select "weekly" instead of "once". With "weekly" highlighted, press Enter on your remote.

15. The timer you just set will appear on the right side of the screen as a blue bar, and the manual setting screen on the left will disappear and be replaced by two generic TV Guide logos. At this point you can either use the TVGOS navigation system to look at the details of the timer you just set, you can press Menu on your remote to program an additional new timer recording, or press Timer Rec to get out of the TVGOS system.

It takes a few tries to get the hang of manual timer entry, mostly due to the confusing way the am/pm setting works differently than you'd expect and the number-entry fields using the number keys on the remote instead of the arrow keys (which move you from one field to the next). Entering additional timers or changing/deleting existing timers also takes some study, its not the least bit obvious how to go about this because the brain-dead TVGOS designers assumed nobody would ever set a manual timer (so didn't bother to make the system very user-friendly). You'll find a combination of hitting "menu" on the remote and using its arrow keys will let you accomplish anything you want to do, its just a matter of figuring out the weird logic.

I have the Pioneer 533.

But thanks.