The Official AVS Dish DTVPal DVR Topic! - Page 496

This was the first time change since I bought the machine (on
April 11, 2010, with F208 already installed) where I didn't lose patience just before and delete all timers that were showing "Std" or "Dst" to reenter them after the change.  It came through just fine, but then again I had just done a factory-defaults reset a few days before this time change.

That's REALLY SUX!

It wouldn't sux so much if the stations would provide informative guide info over PSIP for a decent length of time in advance, but so few send out even twelve hours’ worth and many send none, and I've no nope of any better enforcement in the future.  Certainly the end of TVGOS won't get the stations to change their ways nor the FCC to make them do it.

Mine has always done that very same thing, every DST change. I've always done the 'soft reset'...(hold down the power button when the DVR is running till it reboots) When it comes up and 'downloads the guide' the clock is correct, and a short time later the guide shows the TV Guide logo like normal.
I just assumed everyone had this issue.

I agree. In my area I do have two noteworthy exceptions with the closest CBS affiliate currently sending out 4 days of PSIP and the closest FOX affiliate sending out 3 days of PSIP. Those are definitely exceptions, however, as most of the other PSIP stations have 6-12 hours of data at any given time. The other thing that I have noticed is that the PSIP data sometimes only contains the title of the program with no program description given.

Unfortunately with the lack of TVGOS guide data for a full week, our DTVPal DVRs and CM-7000PAL DVRs will be much more like a VCR of yesteryear as far as programming goes. My personal approach will be to sit down once a week and program my DVR for the upcoming week using a TV program guide from the internet as a reference (i.e. tvguide.com). It will certainly be a little more tedious and time-consuming but at least our DVRs will continue to function. Of course even with TVGOS we never had the "season pass" feature of other DVRs that would only record new episodes and disregard repeats and "find" the program if it changed its time slot.

Hopefully the clocks will be accurate with the "weighted mean" of PSIP times in your area used by the F208 firmware to set your clock. Earlier firmware versions (F201 through F207) were negatively affected by inaccurate PSIP times which would cause the clock to jump around constantly and would frequently lead to missed recordings.

The amount and quality of PSIP information provided by the stations is unlikely to change beyond what it is today. What is provided today serves the market at large which is the viewers who press the "Info" button on their DTV's to see what is playing in the next couple of hours.

PSIP data is provided by each station for their particular channel. PSIP data for a specific channel is only available for download when the unit is tuned to that channel. Does the Pal DVR/CM-7000 scan the channels in the background to refresh PSIP data or is it like the CM-7400 and only loads the PSIP info when the user manually tunes the box to the individual channels. People with the CM-7400 who chose to depend on PSIP data to schedule their recordings have to scan through the channels daily (sometime more frequently for channels with very limited PSIP time spans) to refresh the PSIP information otherwise they risk losing guide-based recordings because there is no info in the guide that says there is something that needs to be recorded. Scheduling for periods of unattended recording -- i.e. vacation for a week -- must be done manually (VCR date/time style) in order to insure recording of the intended timeslots.

Is this how the Pal DVR/CM-7000 will have to operate without TVGOS?

I think your assessment of how the DTVPal DVR/CM-7000PAL DVR compiles PSIP data for the guide is correct. I have noticed that if I haven't recently manually tuned to the channels for which I currently only receive PSIP data, those channels say "No Information Available" in the guide. If I manually tune to that channel and then go back to the guide the program information is now populated.

The other observation that I have made is that sometimes the PSIP program data disappears from the guide for some channels right after manually tuning through all of the channels. As you manually scroll through the channels to populate the PSIP guide data, some of the just-downloaded PSIP data in the guide disappears from some of the just-tuned-to channels. I attribute this behavior to a lack of memory capability (or a programmed limit of memory space allocated) for PSIP program data. I currently receive 39 channels (including sub-channels) so maybe this is only a problem if you exceed a certain number of channels in your area.

No, I definitely have PSIP info for stations that I never tune to, so the unit must occasionally, when there's a free tuner, poll all stations.  That is not counting PSIP info for channels or subchannels I don't watch of a station where I do watch another channel, which would be picked up when I tune to the channel or subchannel that I do watch of that station.

One thing I'd miss if there's no more TVGOS is the inability to set an Event Timer (as contrasted to a Manual Timer, because the two behave differently and often I want the behavior of an Event Timer) until the event is close enough to show up in PSIP guide info, or at all if the station doesn't provide guide info in its PSIP stream, unless the event starts at the top of the hour and ends sixty minutes later.

Then there's also the matter of the clock.  WBBM's TVGOS has kept time well enough, but from what I've read here, the clock of a DTVPal DVR without TVGOS is at the mercy of the local stations’ PSIP clocks,

If there is a tuner available the DVR will scan.

Well, the clock issue has fixed itself, thanks to all those who chimed in!!

Jeff

Has it been determined if the DTVPal will scan channels for PSIP info if it loses the TVGOS data without a reset?

Yes, it will use PSIP data for any channel for which no TVGOS data is being received. And it does scan all channels in the channel list both while it's off and while it's on (with the other tuner). The only time it won't scan is if you are recording 2 programs, or recording one and watching another. Due to various issues at KYW in Philadelphia over the past year, I've been without TVGOS for a month here and a month there, and the PSIP guide took over. TVGOS is on now, but apparently not much longer.

However, as we all know, both the quality and quantity of PSIP guide data are lacking. What we'll end up doing is using the listings online or in the newspaper to make a list of times, channels, and durations for desired recordings in the future, and resurrecting our ancient knowledge of how to program a VCR. At least the DTVPal DVR can do that because it has a time source other than TVGOS; Sony DVR users are not so lucky unless Sony releases a firmware update that allows manually setting the clock or using PSIP-based clocks to set the clock.

Don't worry; it isn't too scary. Recurring timers make recording weekly events a breeze.

Isn't the time change bug related to manual timers? I didn't have any wrong recordings/times on mine from PST to DST for this fall/autumn! I did in the past, but then maybe because I didn't have any manual timers this time? Or just lucky? Weird.

Interesting what would happen with all of us, if some "silicone eating virus" would kill cable/sat/OTA station's equipment ?

Pamela Anderson may worry about a "silicone eating virus", but I won't.

Nay, that Si what is major part of microchips.

It sounds like the CM-7400 does name based recording which means it won't record a scheduled show if it doesn't show in the guide. The DTVPal/CM-7000 doesn't do name based recording. When you select to record something from the guide, and tell it to record weekly, it will just record that channel every week for the length of that show (if the show is two hours this week, but one hour every week after that, it will still record two hours every week). The name of the program doesn't matter. So it could care less whether the show it is recording is named "NFL Football" this week, and "No Information" next week. It will still record the same block of time as the week before. So the answer to your question is No, the DTVPal, and CM-7000 do not work like the CM-7400.

Mark

When people say "guide-based" recordings for most non-TiVo DVRs, they mean when you select a program from the PSIP guide and the DVR automatically creates a timer for its time slot. The most you get from that is having the timer named after the program title shown in the PSIP guide (instead of a descriptive name like "Manual Timer"); it isn't a name-based recording. AFAIK even the CM-7400's paid guide service operates this way; it just provides more data than PSIP normally does.

It wouldn't surprise me, as I've read many reports that DST changes wreak havoc on the DTVPal. I decided some three years ago not to buy one of these DVRs, and its flaky clock was one of the prime contributors to my decision at the time. I was merely observing that frank70's "doomsday" scenario of using manual timers in lieu of TVGOS isn't as bad as it might seem. They're quite functional for my purposes, at least.

Would you consider to buy CM7-dvr or the tr50 now after reading the all posts?

If you're recording one (not two) while watching another, only one tuner is in use.  Are you sure it doesn't scan then?

There are things you can't do when even one tuner is in use, for reasons that escape me: for example, you can't add or delete a channel nor scan for new channels if even one tuner is in use.  That would imply that it doesn't scan for PSIP updates if even one tuner is recording, though again, there's no obvious reason that it couldn't use the other tuner for that so long as an event isn't scheduled to begin in the next few minutes.

No, it has been established in the CM-7400 thread that with the paid guide service it operates under name-based recording. It has the equivalent of the season pass but not wishlists.

If you are watching a program it uses a tuner unless you are in analog pass-thru so it takes both tuners to record and watch at the same time

I've experienced my first time glitch related to the DST switchover, thought I'd share. I came through the actual change on Sunday with no issues, and just yesterday everything was fine, but today my clock says it's an hour later than the actual time, as though the change never occurred. Since I was initially tuned to a channel that's had problems in the past, I thought that might be the reason why it was appearing that way. (For some reason the programs of that channel--and its subchannel--always appeared shifted by an hour in the guide when both changes occurred, and it would be several weeks before the station fixed them.) But the time was off no matter to what channel I tuned, and every listing in the guide is shifted over an hour.

Thanks for the correction. I must have overlooked that part of the thread.


According to the first post, the DTVPal allows you to record two shows while watching a recorded file (which is standard for dual-tuner DVRs), which contradicts your assertion (and using a tuner to watch a file on the HDD makes no sense, anyway).


If you were addressing me, my answer is still no. No new firmware has been released to address the CM-7*00's many problems, and I consider the lack of networking functionality for offloading recordings to be an unacceptable hardware limitation.

I currently have two DTVPal DVRs in use (one for almost 4 years and the other for 3 1/2 years) and both have met my TV recording needs very well with no monthly or lifetime subscription fees beyond the initial purchase price. I have, however, only used my two DVRs with TVGOS which has always been available in my area since I put these two DVRs into service.

I would like to hear from any users here who have used the DTVPal DVR/CM-7000PAL DVR for extended periods with no TVGOS available in their area. I'm wondering how accurate and reliable the clock is using the "weighted mean" of PSIP times in your area which is how the F208 firmware sets the time in the absence of TVGOS. I would also like to know if you have experienced any recurring problems recording from the limited PSIP guide available to you or with manual recordings.

Unfortunately all of us will be losing TVGOS at some point between now and April 30, 2013. I hope that these DVRs remain basically functional with an accurate clock and reliable recording capability when using just PSIP data. Seeing that these DVRs were never "official" TVGOS products that used the "genuine" TVGOS software, I'm sure we were not even a consideration in Rovi's decision to discontinue the TVGOS service. For those of us that have had the DVR since its inception in December 2008, I think we have had a good 4-year run of it with TVGOS.

Let me clarify:

The only time it won't scan is if you are recording 2 programs, or recording one channel and watching another live channel.

That is the case if you are watching a live program, yes, but not if you are watching a previously laid-down recording. My experience agrees with Aleron Ives, as I have watched a previously laid-down recording while the DVR was recording two channels.  One can also one of the channels being recorded while it is recording two channels. That makes more sense.  It can scan while you are watching a previously recorded program and recording another, because a tuner is available.

Does not require a tuner to watch a recording but to watch a broadcast requires a tuner and that is what we/I was talking about. There is an exception to this in that you can be recording two programs and also watch one of them "live" at the same time.

I would suggest if one of two tuners do lock to a station what providing TVGOS, you should get EPG updates too.