The Official AVS Dish DTVPal DVR Topic! - Page 418

Originally Posted by AV Empiricist

Yeah, it's a shame that the Pal has no S-video output. There is no comparison between S-video and composite. My work-around is to route the component output to a Philips dvd recorder and output the Philips S-video to a panasonic dvd recorder. It seems to be as good as a direct S-video connection.

Originally Posted by dkreichen1968

...In the midst of this phenomenon, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski continues to assert that over-the-air broadcasting is no longer needed and consequently should be barred. These assertions are 180 degrees from the reality occurring in living rooms across America. As Antennas Direct's growth demonstrates, the pace of antenna sales are convincingly accelerating as people cut the cord. Viewers appreciate that not only does Digital TV offer improved picture quality, more channels and greater reliability, it's also free to the consumer - an important feature during a time of such economic challenges....

Originally Posted by jrpastore

You're right, the total bandwidth requirement for the TVGOS datastream is a trivial fraction of the total 19 Mbps bandwidth available to every ATSC broadcaster. The problem is not that the TVGOS datastream is hogging the ATSC bandwidth. The problem is that IF the local broadcaster has over-allocated his 19 Mbps and has almost no reserve capacity left in the stream, THEN the ROVI encoder will buffer its TVGOS datastream (guide and clock data) and trickle it out into the 19 Mbps ATSC stream on a "space available" basis (It's like flying standby during during the evening rush, you may have to wait a while). Most broadcasters leave a considerable portion of their 19 Mbps un-allocated, I've seen some up to 25% or more. Our local CBS affiliate typically only has about 1% of their 19 Mbps available as "reserve". These are the kinds of things that can be measured with the free TSREADER-Lite program and an ATSC tuner card (or external USB tuner).

Originally Posted by dkreichen1968

Both models are made by Echostar, the parent company of Dish. Since Dish no longer markets it there isn't any incentive to upgrade the software until/unless Dish/Echostar starts using them as a streaming device for BlockBuster VOD.

Originally Posted by jrpastore

The update from Austin is that this auto-reboot method no longer works reliably so I have stopped using it. I think the timestamps must be skewed sometimes even during prime-time. I say this because even the manual intervention of changing time-zone (or zipcode) and then changing it back, no longer works reliably either. I have attempted several times in the middle of prime-time, with no affect on clock skew. I know I should fire up TSREADER to confirm what's really happening, but I haven't bothered.

What used to work in Austin is what Mark is describing to you in his post. Under those conditions, timestamps from about 5pm to 11pm were not skewed while timestamps at all other times were skewed. The clock smoothing algorithm in the DVR prevents it from taking immediate advantage of the clean timestamps starting at 5pm so what was needed was a way to force the DVR to drop its TVGOS time lock and re-acquire it during the "clean zone". This could be done manually using the zipcode or time zone trick but that required manual intervention every day sometime after 5pm but before the desired evening recordings started. Mark suggested a way to automate this process using the auto-update feature and that worked pretty well for a while...

So to answer your question, no harm will come from triggering the auto-reboots, but if you've found a solution that doesn't require it I certainly wouldn't recommend it. Also, if the WUSA clock skew issue is some completely different animal than the KEYE clock skew issue, the auto-reboot solution might not do you any good anyway. But it terms of recommended timing the auto-reboot would have to happen AFTER the "clean zone" of unskewed timestamps started (thought to be around 6:30pm now), but at least 5 min BEFORE the intended recording starts. Doing the reboot after primetime would be pointless. You might fix the clock for a brief time, but it will be hosed up again by the following morning and it will remain hosed up when your intended recordings begin that following evening. Confusing I know...

Originally Posted by WillN937

I have had a number of people like telephone repair men and other technicians who see my antenna and assume I have some sort of transmitter. I said something to one person about free HDTV and he assumed I was stealing cable some how.

Originally Posted by mabuttra

It is easy to tell whether enabling updates is needed or not. Turn on the DTVPal at 6:15 pm. If the clock is right, then no 6:30pm reboot is needed. You could even do this two days in a row, just to be certain.

Mark

Originally Posted by J-D-H

It's been said repeatedly in this thread that CBS stations often or even usually run close to the brink. While some stations in our area have as many as 4 sub-channels, the CBS station has only one (and it's a simple radar display broadcast in SD). Without the need to service many sub-channels, it makes me wonder what they're up to.....

Originally Posted by mabuttra

Your channel estimate is off by about 500. The DTVPal is one of the few TVGOS devices that does not support cable. Cable channels can number in the hundreds. The TVGOS data includes all cable channels as well as OTA channels. Even though I'm OTA only, my channel lineup on the Sony DHG contains over 500 channels.

Mark

Originally Posted by J-D-H

Okay, updates are now disabled and spot checks against a NIST clock show that all it still well with the clock (always within a few seconds). By watching what happens when removing from the channel listing either the CBS station in Wash DC, Baltimore, both, or neither, it appears my TVGOS data is now coming from Baltimore. Evidently that station is not over-allocating (assuming that's what's truly going on with the Wash DC area CBS station).

Another matter is that we don't see much future TVG programming information, nothing beyond maybe 2 days. At first I thought this might be a byproduct of having the TVG data source coming from a remote city. However, I'm no longer sure since this may have been the case all along, even before this clock fiasco began and when our TVG data came from the local CBS affiliate WUSA. The problem is that we used to very infrequently check the advance programming info so we can't be sure.

Originally Posted by AV Empiricist

After the official analog-to-digital changeover, Channel 7,9,11 and 13 (ATSC broadcasts) returned from UHF to their VHF High Band frequencies. All of my antennas are well designed for the UHF band but all have been demonstrated to fall-off as frequencies approach the VHF Band. In spite of this, reception on 7 & 9 are perfect because I'm only 12 miles from the DC towers. Channels 11 & 13 are 27 miles away. That's a significant distance for an attic-mounted UHF antenna to reach into the VHF High Band. With perfect positioning, 13 registers an SS of 86. (2,45,& 54 can hit 98-100) . But to optimize other channels, I accept a clean SS of 73. There's no trouble receiving my Guide info from the weaker station.

I would hope the Pal was designed to lock onto the time according to zip code. People near the time zone boundaries might otherwise be stuck with the wrong time from a strong signal across the boundary.

It will be interesting to see how this resolves for you and gary-in-dc.

Originally Posted by dkreichen1968

Antennas Direct is only one company. (Channel Master, AntennaCraft, Winegard, Digitenna, etc.) They probably do have the most aggressive marketing though.

Originally Posted by jrpastore

Number of subs does not correlate very well with bandwidth utilization. I've seen stations with 3-4 subs and 10-20% reserve capacity. I've also seen KEYE which has only one sub and only 1% reserve capacity. I haven't seen any references to CBS affiliates routinely running "close to the edge", can you point me to one. Actually we've turned up just the opposite, a published rule from CBS that places caps on the bandwidth that their "owned and operated" local broadcasters can allocate. Unfortunately KEYE is not "owned and operated" by CBS.

Originally Posted by jrpastore

If you have NO guide data out past 48 hrs for ANY channel then I think you're probably looking at PSIP data. I'm not sure that the presence/absence of the TVGuide logo in the top-right corner of the guide display is an accurate "real-time" indicator of the guide source data. I think there may be some lag between when you lose TVGuide data and when that logo disappears.

Originally Posted by J-D-H

It's not just the logo. The menu system's time setting screen is ~always~ grayed out and says "time obtained from TV Guide". This has varied exactly once when I deleted both CBS stations (WUSA and WJZ) from the channel listing. On that occasion only, the time setting screen became available, un-grayed out, and no longer said TV Guide was the source.

With all the above, we seldom if ever see TV Guide data beyond 2 days.

Originally Posted by AV Empiricist

To differentiate between TV Guide listings and PSIP, I simply looked 4-7 days forward. No flaky info disappearing acts have ever occurred in my guide listings.

All three dvrs are keeping perfect time. (One is still set to a Baltimore zip as a precaution). So, among three of us (i.e., gary-in -dc, J-D-H, and me), the attempts at resolving the time skew for DC have met with dramatically different results. All of my antennas are essentially UHF. At 12 miles from VHF 7 & 9, it's no problem but VHF 11 & 13 are more than twice the distance so it takes more effort to bring them in cleanly (with UHF antennas). There could be more than one source of this time skew problem, but I'm suspicious it has to do with each Pal's schedule for time updates. Since one of my dvrs never skewed and another was corrected by changing my zip back and forth, is the solution to revert to a DC zip at an optimum time of day? My update option is disabled and has been forever. Why ask for trouble?

J-D-H, since my time skew was resolved with 0 reboots, I suspect resetting the zip is the key element here. The prima-fascia evidence is that signal quality may be a factor in setting the TV Guide station but signal strength isn't. For me, 9 was at 98-100 and 13 was at 73. I picked up the Baltimore time and Guide on the first try without a hiccup. Although, when I attempted the same exercise a while later, the change wasn't immediate.

If you're picking up a clean enough signal from 13, I doubt the DC time will wander back of its own accord. My guess is, if you change the zip back at the right time of day, the DC time will be fine. I'm still wondering if gary-n-dc would benefit from some signal attenuation.

Originally Posted by mabuttra

Your channel estimate is off by about 500. The DTVPal is one of the few TVGOS devices that does not support cable. Cable channels can number in the hundreds. The TVGOS data includes all cable channels as well as OTA channels. Even though I'm OTA only, my channel lineup on the Sony DHG contains over 500 channels.

Mark

Originally Posted by goddi1

Greetings,
In the past several weeks, my DTVPal has been starting to record shows about 2 minutes too early. The results are that I miss the endings of the shows. It does not seem to happen to every show. I have checked the times and all looks correct. What might be causing this? Can I fix this problem? The clock time is coming from TVGOS. The clock time is correct.
Gary

Originally Posted by P Smith

The DVR doesn't utilize Name Based Scheduling, it works as Time based schedule device, so you do set in advance a TIME/DURATION and in case if the show start early or delayed, the DVR will NOT correct your initial schedule, hence missing ending or beginning, etc.

Originally Posted by P Smith

The DVR doesn't utilize Name Based Scheduling, it works as Time based schedule device, so you do set in advance a TIME/DURATION and in case if the show start early or delayed, the DVR will NOT correct your initial schedule, hence missing ending or beginning, etc.

Originally Posted by goddi1

===========================
Greetings,
But the actual show is not really starting early. If there is a show that is to run, say, from 8pm to 9pm, the TVGOS shows it will run from 8-9. However, the DTVPal start recording at about 7:58pm and stops about 8:58pm. It is not the show that is changing its starting time. The recorder is not starting at the correct time.
Gary

Originally Posted by ss_sea_ya

I'd rather miss the beginning of the show rather than the end. Who would want to see two extra minutes of commercials at the beginning, only to miss who the mystery and unlikely killer was!

As for the clock skew, I think switch to B'more zip code did work, just not right away.

Originally Posted by mabuttra

Here is some information direct from Gemstar (now Rovi) about how the clock gets set in TVGOS devices. Remember that since Gemstar did not write the DTVPal code, it may use a different method for setting the clock.

Gemstar clock info

Mark

Originally Posted by AV Empiricist

Thanks Mark. That clarifies one issue: A device which was sanctioned by Gemstar (post v7) sets the clock by zip code (to avoid time zone errors).

Each day it checks again and adjusts the number of beats per minute.

Is it too much of a stretch to infer: once each day? If not, the firmware could be written with a specific time of day to check, or a specific interval of time between each adjustment. In other words, if you force a zip code reset at a certain time, the latter design, might simply check at 24 hour intervals from that reset. Whereas in the first case, it's out of our domain.

Originally Posted by mabuttra

jrpastore is right. For whatever reason, you are not getting TVGOS listings. The data you are seeing is PSIP only. TVGOS data is always 8 complete days. It is probably getting the clock from TVGOS, and it may even show the TV Guide logo, but you are not getting listings.

I have had my DTVPal for almost a year now, and for the first time last Tuesday, I turned it on, checked the end of the schedule, and found 100% 'No Information'. I then moved back 24 hours, and stilll 100% 'No Information'. I moved back another 24 hours, and had listings. I checked my Sony DHG, and it had 100% listings across the board. On the Pal, it still showed the TV Guide logo, and that the clock was set by TVGOS, but it was not getting new listings. I changed the zip code to another zip code in my area, and the next morning listings were back to 100%. On other TVGOS devices (with Gemstar/Rovi written software) the zip code change causes the device to start searching for a host channel. This sometimes helps when the device becomes confused, and although it still reports the correct host channel, it isn't getting listings. Who knows what the DTVPal software does, but in this case it seemed to work.

Mark

Originally Posted by jrpastore

If you have NO guide data out past 48 hrs for ANY channel then I think you're probably looking at PSIP data. I'm not sure that the presence/absence of the TVGuide logo in the top-right corner of the guide display is an accurate "real-time" indicator of the guide source data. I think there may be some lag between when you lose TVGuide data and when that logo disappears.