The Official AVS Dish DTVPal DVR Topic! - Page 503

I'm sure that it works at least for the short term (a few hours), which is all I (and others) tried during the Austin clock-skew debug back in 2010. I don't think the DVR will automatically add back any channel that you manually delete from your lineup. It only adds in new channels that it "sniffs" out of the ether that have never before been part of your lineup. But I cannot vouch for the longer term behavior because I haven't tried it.

I think that makes sense. Mabuttra will correct me here if needed, but I think of it this way:

The TVGOS datastream contains timestamps every 15s. In addition, every few hours it contains a big block of guide data separated out like this:

ZIPCODES: 12345, 12346, 12347, 12348, ....
GUIDE DATA: WHIO, WGBH, WJTY,....

ZIPCODES: 23456, 23457, 23458, 23459, ....
GUIDE DATA: KPRX, KKMJ, KLRU, ...

So if the DVR detects the presence of the timestamps, it will assume they are correct (sometimes big issues there!), set your DVR clock and "grey out" the manual clock set option. It then looks through the blocks of guide data that come through to see if the zipcode you entered is in any of the block headers:

If you entered 00000, the DVR will never find that zipcode in any header, so it won't display any guide data (and evidently will discard the timestamps as well).

If you entered any zipcode that is within your DMA you get the guide data for your area.

If you enter some other zipcode from some other DMA you will get the guide data for that DMA provided that the TVGOS stream being broadcast in your region includes guide data for that other DMA. I'm not sure how many of these regions ROVI has divided the country into. I would guess 5 - 10. Let's call them "ROVI regions" for clarity.

Finally, if you enter some other zipcode from some other DMA that is not within your ROVI region, no TVGOS guide data will be displayed and the DVR will probably revert to PSIP data. I think this is the scenario you are describing.

I tried the 00000 trick a couple of days ago, and again last night. The reason I did it twice, was the first time I just left it over night, and last night I decided to leave it set to 00000 indefinitely. This is on my unit which is already getting TVGOS data. The zipcode change made no difference. The clock is still grayed out, and the TVGOS data is still coming in (full listings). Apparently once you enter a valid zipcode, and it starts receiving TVGOS data, there is no way to shut it off just by changing the zip code. I'll leave it set this way for a few days, to see if there is any change. I still think the only way this is guaranteed to work is to do a factory defaults, and then never set the zip code (leave it at 00000). It is also possible that once TVGOS is turned off, and all the TVGOS data is gone from the unit (the TV Guide logo goes away), it may ungray the clock.

Thanks! I always forget to scroll on that first diag screen. Looks like the PSIP scatter in the Austin DMA has gotten worse in the last couple years. Of the 28 PSIP "elements" listed a saw errors ranging from about -100s to about +30s. For any kind of weighted mean to get dragged off more than 5 min in either direction would seems really unlikely given numbers like these. My only real concern is overall stability of the machine in a TVGOS-less environment. I know F208 was supposed to solve the lock-up issues with these weighted mean algorithm, but it has never been put to a real test yet. Next few months will tell...

Hmmm.... Anybody from the 2011 WHIO debug efforts browsing? Or maybe WLDSTLLN from Georgetown, TX? I know that WLDSTLLN was able to repeatedly toggle his TVGOS listings from the Austin DMA to the Temple/Kileen DMA by swapping the relevant TVGOS supplying channels in and out of his lineup. IIRC, the zipcode swap wasn't sufficient, but the actual channel lineup swap worked every time. I thought he also tried deleting both TVGOS suppliers and observed that the clock was "released", but I could be mis-remembering that last bit.

Looking at that list of PSIP sources with their various IDENT values, is there an easy way to correlate them back to the broadcasting channel? If I view a channel in TSREADER LITE, can I look at the PSIP PID and see the same IDENT # or what?

I was thinking if you had a really bad actor in there maybe you could identify and delete that channel from your lineup and cure the clock problem. On further reflection, this is probably not possible, because my DVRs still show 28 PSIP suppliers despite the fact that I have deleted all but 8 channels from my lineup. But at least identifying the PSIP bad actors quickly and easily would be a good first step to then calling the offending station and asking them to correct their problem. Deja Vu eh? At least with a PSIP problem we know who owns the problem and we won't have this 3-way finger pointing game between the station, ROVI and the users of "unlicensed hardware"!

I also wonder if the F208 "weighted mean" calculation discards the extreme +/- "outliers" before making its calculation. If so, that would make the DVR's clock when set from the PSIP times even closer to the actual time. This of course assumes that the majority of the PSIP times in your area are tightly clustered around the actual time.

Usually it has a acronym TSID - Trip's site has all of them.

I remember reading that is the case. Maybe years ago when update happened. That the most extreme times get disregarded

I have 19 different IDENT listings when I go to Menu 3-2-6 and then page up/page down. 10 of my 19 listings are within 30 seconds of "0" ranging from -12 to -30. My two worst outliers on the negative side are -228 and -101 and my two worst outliers on the positive side are +623 and +403.

So for me I have a range of PSIP times spanning over 14 minutes from -228 (3.8 minutes slow) to +623 (10.4 minutes fast). That being said I also have more than half of my PSIP times (10/19) within 30 seconds of the "0" target. How this will work with the F208 "weighted mean" calculation is unknown to me at this point.

As best I can tell all using a CECB all channels are within 30 seconds. So can I learn from the following screens? See attached... DSC00032.JPG 41k .JPG file DSC00033.JPG 38k .JPG file

If I am interpreting this data correctly -- ID 1819 is WFMY is Greensboro. A station I do not receive (probably got it one night for a couple of seconds)

Yep I think I'm right...

The other two are WBRA and WSET, Local stations I currently receive and they are within one second of each other. But WFMY (and others) skew the calculations. Next question is would the DTVPal behave differently if TVGOS was not present. (WDBJALAN confirms that they will remove TVGOS in April)
Edited by Pete-N2 - 11/17/12 at 1:03pm

I recently returned to Florida and did the Initialization menu option to setup my DTVPal. My ZipCode was set to '00000' before and after the initialization - I've never entered a valid zip code. The end result is:

1. In the DTVPal Menu, TV Guide is set to "Enabled".
2. I'm receiving PSIP data (at 1pm the Guide goes to 11pm)
3. I can manually set the Time.

Right, exactly as expected. Couple of points:

- In my post that you quoted I meant the guide will not display any TVGOS guide data, not that the guide will not display any guide data at all. In your case it reverts to PSIP data as expected. Sorry for not being more clear, hope I didn't confuse you.

- Your item #1 makes no difference. That option only controls whether the guide displays TVGOS data (if available) or reverts to PSIP data. By initializing the DVR with zipcode 00000 you have ensured that there is no TVGOS data available and therefore the guide reverts to displaying PSIP data regardless of whether you set the TV Guide option to "enabled" or "disabled". That option has absolutely nothing to do with the clock. It makes no difference to whether the clock option is "greyed out" or not. It ONLY affects the contents of the guide display and NOTHING else about how the DVR operates.

So your observations agree completely with what we're saying.

Here's an update to this. I did manage to get the clock to ungray without resorting to factory defaults. First here's what didn't work:

Setting the zipcode to 00000 alone didn't work.
Doing the 10 second power button soft reset after setting the zipcode to 00000 didn't work, although sometimes it does ungray the clock for about 10 minutes, eventually TVGOS set the time again.

So what did work?

I did what jrpastore suggested. I set the zipcode to 00000. Then I deleted my host channel (and all its subchannels) from the channel list. Then I did the 10 second power button soft reset. Once it completed I turned off the DVR for about 15 minutes (this may not be necessary). After I turned it back on, I went back and re-added my host channel and all its subchannels again. The clock is now ungrayed.

Mark

Interesting glitch I had with one of my DTVPals last night. Went in and turned on the analog TV and DVR, it feeds the TV through composite video output. No tuner video! What the heck is this!? Black screen with all the usual graphics, channel etc, and audio, but no tuner video. I have a Sony programmable remote I use with the Pal and the Sony TV it's hooked up to. I could not make it do a soft reset holding down the power button on the programmable remote. I finally got the original remote, held down the power button and that worked for the soft reset, which brought back the tuner video too. Original remote must be putting out an additional command signal while pressing the power button that the programmable Sony did not copy, but the power button from the Sony remote turns it on-off otherwise.

Could be that the programmable remote doesn't send out a continuous IR pulse while you're holding down the power button. It might only send a brief pulse when you first press the button and then turn off despite that fact that you're still holding the button down. Easy to confirm this by using the cell phone camera trick. Just view the IR transmitter end of your remote through your cell phone camera while you press the power button. The IR emitters will appear as bright white dots on the cell phone camera screen. See whether they stay on for as long as you hold down the power button.

Yep you are right, just looked at it. Stops emitting IR after about 1 second but red indicator LED on remote continues blinking. And it's odd that the power button is the only one I programmed from the DTVPal that stops sending after about 1 second. All the others keep sending as long as held down. I will try and reprogram that Power button command.

It looks like the Dish DTVPal DVR has retained its monetary value (to some anyway) even after being out there for almost 4 years and with TVGOS disappearing (or maybe already gone in your area). There are two listings on eBay right now for used DTVPal DVRs: one for $279.95 with free shipping and one for $285 plus $16.95 shipping. Those prices are higher than what we paid 4 years ago in November 2008 when we were able to order the DTVPal DVR directly from Dish for the "pre-release" price of $250!

You did point to good idea - sell it now.

Who is selling his/her DTV Pal DVR? I am not since I use it a lot when there are something to record and watch on TV.

Channel Master is still selling the CM7000Pal new.  My TVGOS question to them 9 days ago is still "being processed." 

This morning I ran into another downside of losing TVGOS, but it probably doesn't apply to many of you.

I was using the guide in a Motorola DCH3416 rented from Comcast to look ahead for events to record and one of them that I found was on a broadcast channel, and the 3416 is getting full, so I decided to record it on the DTVPal DVR.  Lacking pen and paper at hand or a second television in the room such that I could see a screen from each DVR simultaneously, I used the DTVPal DVR's Search function to find the event in its guide so that I could set it to record.

With only PSIP guide information on the DTVPal DVR, I would have had to remember to do that within a few hours before the event, or would have had to remember its date, channel, start time, and duration to set a manual event on the DTVPal DVR.

Now, that won't affect most of you, who probably have laptops or tablets or smartphones and can consult Zap2It or TitanTV in the same room as the DVR and have schedule information in front of your eyes from another source.  But I have none of those, and my desktop computer is in another part of the house.
Edited by dattier - 11/18/12 at 10:23am

FAIL! It worked last night, but this morning the clock was grayed again. It's possible that if TVGOS was gone, it would not have grayed again. I did a "factory defaults" this morning, and I didn't set the zip code. It should run on PSIP only now. I would wait for TVGOS to go before doing this, but ever since I bought thie DTVPal, I only have ever managed to get TVGOS data for 4 stations. So I might as well start getting used to only having PSIP data.

Mark

I also got this canned response e-mail from Rovi. Seems this is a done deal. Why would Dish give permission?

We regret to inform you that Rovi has announced the termination of broadcast Guide data in the US beginning on November 1, 2012 and completing in April 2013.

The broadcast Guide data in the NYC market is said to supported through April 2013.

This was a business decision between Rovi and your Manufacturer. Please refer to your CE manufacturer for further inquiries.

Sincerely,

CE Technical Support
Rovi

The interesting question is who really owns the software rights to this product at this time and is it only one entity. I wonder how we would go about finding this out?

Some stations turn TVGOS off during the evening which may explain why it didn't reacquire until the next day.

I just noticed another advantage of having TVGOS on my DTVPal DVR vs. just having PSIP program data. I have two CBS stations that I can receive. One has program data from TVGOS and the other one is PSIP only (but luckily it does go out for 3-4 days). Last week I scheduled to record the entire CBS Tuesday night lineup for this coming Tuesday and the 3 program times at that time were listed as 8:00-9:00, 9:00-10:00 and 10:00-11:00. Well at some point the CBS network changed the program times to 8:00-9:01, 9:01-10:02 and 10:02-11:00. As of today the CBS station with the TVGOS data has the new updated times in my program guide but the CBS station with just PSIP data still has the 3 original program times which are now incorrect. A minor point but it's an advantage of having TVGOS.

It doesn't matter what the schedule shows, the DTVPal will still record the timeslot that was set originally, with or without TVGOS. That's why it is better to use padding for recordings, so when the schedule shifts by one minute, the Pal doesn't chop off the begininning or end of shows.

Mark

I always make my recordings five minutes before and after so I won't miss a single second!

You are absolutely correct. The point I was making was that the TVGOS data was more up-to-date than the PSIP data and accurately displayed the very recent program time changes made by CBS. To make sure that the program titles would line up correctly I deleted my original 3 program timers and created 3 new timers. I would not have been aware of the changes if it had not been for the updated TVGOS data in my guide.

They can correct that in the PSIP EIT tables, and technically speaking, the latest FCC regs actually require them to, with fines in the (IIRC) $3000 per offense range. You'd think they wouldn't want to be caught with their pants down.