The Official AVS Dish DTVPal DVR Topic! - Page 492

That I'll try. Maybe not yet tonight, but soon.

Oops, I didn't pick up on the fact that both tuners were in use. I have no idea what the DTVPal does if both tuners are in use and you are in "live tv" mode toggling back and forth between the two tuners. It could jump to the end of the on going recordings or it could start a third recording. I tend to think the latter, but that is WAG not even a SWAG. Now if you go to programs and select one of the recordings it should use the stream that is being recorded.

If you have both tuners in use then the only choice for live TV will be one of the programs being recorded. If you have both tuners recording you can access the HDD and play any previously recorded program without going through the tuners. You can time delay and playback while recording an ongoing show without affecting the recording in progress but whatever you record is what is played back.

Actually if both PALDVR tuners are in use recording there are 3 choices:

Watch one of the already recorded programs with the PALDVR,

Watch one of the programs being recorded by the PALDVR, or

Watch live TV by using your TV tuner and not your PALDVR tuners.

I don't suppose anyone has ever found a way to get additional content onto this DVR, have they?

I mean, I've got a 2TB drive full of movies and such, but having to use a separate device to read from the external hard drive, supporting multiple remotes, and toggling input devices on the main viewing screen is a little more than a family wants to deal with 20 times a day.

That's the reason I stopped using my DTVPal DVR.

You are the SW developer Can you make a sample of short recording in TS format (PES only, no PMT, no PAT) ?

LOL - this is Post #14747. I haven't read all of the earlier posts.

So, this device (DTVPal DVR) can only read TS video formats (specifically PES)?

Looks like there are a set of tstools available for conversions. It may (or may not) be worthwhile to see if all of my various video formats (mostly from torrents or ripped from Handbrake) can be converted over.

If you interesting "to do" or "make it" - try .

I am confused. There are a number of programs that will deal with TS like Roxio Creator and WinTV7 but I have been lead to believe that the DVR disk format is proprietary and no one has been able to decode it and there is not way to get data on or off of the disk.

Yeah, I asked about this years ago, and there was no way unless someone managed to figure it out.

Has anybody tried PVRExplorer on it? Maybe they reused that old file system (Daves?) on the DTVPal.

Dish claimed it's security measure (Dave FS) and used it as evidence of violation DMCA in some case.

I used PVRExplorer on my old Dish Network DVR before sending it back to them, so I was under the impression that it would work on the DTVPal DVR as well.

Nope. No one has figured it out after all these years on this DVR. At this rate, probably never. Dish got this one secured so far?

Though truth be told the amount of DTVPals sold means it probably never even got on the radar of the hackers that would be intrigued by the challenge. That is unless it is the same format as is now in use on Dish Sat DVRs.

That's irrelevant - see how many different routers has new own FW - each of its owner making own FW; the point is dish convinced judge Fogel that precursor of pvrexplorer was in violation of DMCA.

I don't see what the big concern is. They want all this digital rights security on a program that's chocked full of commercials, random National Weather Alerts, etc.

My Win7 Media PC makes files that I can burn to a DVD if I really wanted to save them (I never have wanted to keep one, though). However, I can easily hook up a 2TB drive to it and have that be part of the media library.

Ask dish for a permission to manipulate data from the PALDVR, we will see what you'll have.

Re; The DTVPal DVR language issue.

I also had an English/Spanish issue on Fox during a Vikings football game a couple weeks ago. I'm in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro, and the Fox affiliate here, KMSP, simulcasts in both HD and SD.

The Vikings game on KMSP HD was in Spanish - I couldn't get English no matter what I did with the SAP button. The broadcast on the KMSP SD signal was in English. All other channels were in English as well, with the lone exception of the Fox HD feed - Spanish no matter what I did. (Signal strength was over 87 on the level dispaly.)

I watched the game on the SD channel for about a half an hour and then tuned back to the HD channel, and the English was back. I could toggle English/Spanish with the SAP button as always. Seems to me the issue was with the Fox Network.

I've not had this happen before or since. Seems hard to blame the DTVPal DVR.

Regarding the SAP spanish-only questions above - I have some useful info:

I've had this happen maybe a dozen times over the years. Always NCIS or NCIS Los Angeles. In my case, it is undoubtedly the machine. The symptoms are always the same. If I happen to catch it recording, it is in English. But when I go to watch the recorded show, it is in Spanish. Pressing the SAP button has no affect, and it appears there is only 1 audio track. ...BUT... Doing the following will, about 90% of the time, get the recording to start playing in English:
- Go into the setup menu and muck with the "Audio Language" setup - changing between "Primary" and "Alternative", and changing between "Stereo" and "Mono"
- Try doing the above while the recording is paused.
- No luck ?
- Try doing the above while the recording is playing
- No luck ?
- Try doing the above while the recording is stopped.
- No luck ?
- Try all above permutations with SAP in the alternate mode
Basically, I muck around with all of these permutations. I haven't figured out what the magic is. Sometimes it fixes it on the first try. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes. I usually give up after that, and just turn on closed caption.
- Oh yeah... I forgot that permutation as well... try all of the above with closed caption turned on.
Anyhow, once it clicks over to English, it stays there even if you stop playback and come back later. And at that point.... sometimes hitting SAP works correctly and toggles Spanish/English... and sometimes SAP still does nothing, and you are stuck in English.

I've also checked the analog audio output, and it has the same exact problem, so it is not an HDMI or TV issue.

I've had a similar problem about 4 times where there is simply no sound. Sometimes, only the program has no sound, but the commercials do. The same activity above has always gotten the sound back for me. In this case, though, I found that the analog sound was working when the HDMI was not.

Jordan

I searched this thread but haven't yet found this question or answer.

How can I reprogram a remote from a DTVPal DVR to work on a different DTVPal DVR?

I push the power button and all I get is one quick green light flash but the unit doesn't turn on using the remote from a different DTVPal DVR? How can I get this DTVPal DVR remote to work on a different DTVPal DVR?

Thanks!

That's odd. All of my remotes automatically worked with any different unit, and it doesn't even matter if they are DTV or ChannelMaster. Are you sure you didn't accidentally hit one of the other buttons so it is trying to power on a TV or VCR, etc instead of the DVR?

I have not had this problem. I use one remote to run two PALDVRS and never had a problem at the start or since. You may have an issue but it is not due to the remote needing to be different.

You need to know how to do this, especially if you are running more than one DVR in the same room. Instructions for changing the remote code are found in the first post in this thread (copied below).

I saw that but since I cannot turn the DVR on, I cannot see the sys info screen. Will this reprogram for the remote work while the DVR is off?

I have three DTVPal DVRs and used to have 3 remotes(now I have 2 remotes) and none of the remotes worked on any of the other two DVRs but only on the unit it originally came with.

Problem solved.

Rebooted DVR and hit Sys Info button when screen said to do so... opened Sys Info screen and I saw the remote address was set to 09.
Using the method shown above, reprogrammed it to 09 and bam... it works.
My other two DTVPals were set for 01 and 02 respectively so that's why none of my remotes were working with any of the other two DVRs. Since none of the DTVPals are in the same room, probably can just reset all the remotes/DVRs to 01 and then any remote will work with any of the DVRs.

Thanks for the help!

Anyone on this thread live in the Springfield, Missouri DMA?
If so, are you getting TVGOS?

I'll call MIL

Well, a new problem today: the Browse function now locks up the unit and no buttons get any response except for holding down the power key to do a soft reset.  After a soft reset or a power cycle, everything is OK until I try a browse.

It's not a bad signal from the remote: the same key does fine for cursor-right on screens where it has that function.

This is with F208 as it came already installed on a unit purchased in April, 2010.

If one does a reset to factory defaults, are scheduled recordings canceled and are existing recordings lost?  That's the thing I want to try next, but will I have to write down and later rekey all scheduled recordings and watch anything already recorded that I haven't watched yet and still want to?

Ah, nevermind, Chuck44 answered that back in post #14385: existing recordings are not erased, but scheduled recordings are canceled.

Edit: a reset to factory defaults cleared it up; browsing is functional and harmless now.  I hope that lasts.
 
Edited by dattier - 10/21/12 at 6:42pm