The Official AVS Dish DTVPal DVR Topic! - Page 504

My concern with over padding everything is potential for skipped recordings. If you schedule recordings from 8-9pm on channels 2 & 3 and recordings from 9-10pm on channels 3 & 4 with 5 min early and late padding then you would need 4 tuners 8:55pm to 9:05pm. Since the DVR only has two tuners I have sometimes seen it omit the requested padding in order to capture all requested programs, but I have also sometimes seen it skip some of the recordings altogether in order to comply with the requested padding. It's unpredictable so I try to avoid those situations. One thing that helps is that more than half my recordings are from one of the PBS channels. Those programs always end at 25 or 55 minutes past the hour so I set them to 0 padding on the tail end.

I guess I've been fortunate with the programs I watch and that my clock has been steady and on time--I don't use any padding and simply schedule my recordings manually, 1 minute either side of the hour. In situations like you describe, which don't happen often (more good fortune), I'll do the earlier recordings as 7:59 pm to 8:59 pm and then run the next ones from 8:59 pm to 10:01 pm. Most of the time I just miss the previews for next weeks' episodes and not any content from the ends of the shows.

It's been about a week and a half since I had my shifted clock issues, and nothing more has cropped up on that front. I suspect it had something to do with the channels I watched the nights it happened, NBC (25.1) and The CW (25.2), as they are the ones that for some time always appeared shifted an hour in the guide with every DST change. Perhaps the discontinuation of TVGOS had some influence or effect on them, I don't know. I definitely lost my TVGOS, but it still says the time has been acquired by TVGuide, and the clock is grayed out. It remains on time, so I've decided to not do a factory reset but wait and see if anything else happens. After several posters discussed it, I have been checking out the PSIP clocks my DVR is receiving out of curiosity; here's what I saw:


PSIP (5) (Anyone know what that number means?), elements: 36 (Is that supposed to be how many stations' clocks it's receiving? I have only 19 IDENTs listed, so it doesn't seem to match up.)

Early Sunday afternoon--8 were under +/-10, 3 were within the +/-10-20 range, 4 went over (22, 23, 40, and 52--I think they were all negative), and then there were 4 outliers: -979, +225, +618, and +750

Sunday evening, about 12 hours later--all but one of them had shifted to be more positive (by the same amount, oddly: 3): 8 were +/-10, 5 were +/-10-20, 2 went over (37 and 52), and the outliers were -976, +228, +621, and +753

Monday evening, another 24 hours later--7 were +/-10, 5 were +/-10-20, 3 went over (23, 43, and 54), and the outliers were -990, +220, +630, and +762


Additionally, it took a week but I now have PSIP guide data that goes out longer than a few hours. Such a nice surprise Friday night to see 24 hours' worth of listings for all but 2 channels (but those channels never provided information through TVGOS, either). About half of those continued on for another 12 hours beyond that point.

What is your location? I see that you do not have your location activated.
Edited by trp2525 - 11/20/12 at 4:33am

Don't see YOUR location listed.

He live in Jamaica mon, or is it Palm Springs?

Not me either. Probably 99% of the use of my two are simple recording one show while watching another, or using the DVR skip-back and fwd functions to skip through commercials by delaying time to watch by 20-30 min. Only when they shut down OTA broadcast TV will it be useless to me. (Like my "state-of-the-art" at the time C-Ku band Videocipher receiver, and it's replacement Digicipher receiver, both useless now, obsolete technology.)

I doubt OTA would go away. That would be stupid. Now, if you moved and can't get OTA due to whatever reasons (too far, blocked LOS, etc.), then maybe (could use it again later on with another move).

For my aunt there is no reason to sell this dvr. She has no internet and does not want it. If she did I would sell this dvr and get her a tivo with lifetime or some box with internet guide. I never understood why someone with internet would not do this. I have a new tv with internet wifi and I love the ability to get netflix or youtube on the tv with a push of the button.

Also this dvr has hdmi and component connections.

I thought that PBS should buy TVGOS or rent the license. That would be revenue stream for PBS.

 

Best quote of the day. 

I dunno. If the trend lines continue for OTA viewership within a decade ther'll just be a few hundred OTA viewers in each DMA! At that point it would be stupid NOT to pull the plug on OTA TV. I'm not looking forward to that happening, but I think it's inevitable.

While OTA is slowly fading away, the segment that's growing most rapidly is internet streaming. I think eventually 100% of video content will be streamed over the internet. That's the holy grail consumer experience, what you want, when you want it. That's the reason we've all spent the last 500 pages of this thread trying to get (and keep) these DVRs running isn't it? All a DVR is is a "bridging technology" that allows a mass-distributed product (like OTA, CBL, SAT delivered video) to be consumed as if it were on-demand streaming. And from a business perspective, I'm sure the industry can't wait to complete the transition. Today, they're seeing their ad revenue stagnate as advertisers balk at paying high rates for commercials that are increasingly DVR-skipped anyway. Streaming VOD put's them back in the driver's seat.

The gating item will be bandwidth. Already the broadband infrastructure at ISPs is at 70% - 80% capacity during the primetime viewing hours, just streaming Netflix, Hulu, etc. And the video quality of all these streaming services is FAR below even DVD quality at present, let alone Blu-Ray. In order to provide every primetime viewer with his own on-demand video stream at 1080p with a decent frame-rate, the bandwidth requirement would be astronomical, at least a decade away. I think that's about the same timeframe we'll see discussions of pulling the plug on OTA.

With it's very limited funding, how do you propose that PBS should come up with the money to buy out TVGOS?

And if they did, why would they want to supply DTVPalDVR users with free guide service? What's in it for them?

But Netflix is not free and not everyone has fast Internet connections. I really hope OTA stays. I hate subscriptions.

I'm preparing myself for life without the 'tube'. Literally. I have three old TVs that will have to die before I consider a flatscreen. Maybe the demise of my analog technology will coincide with that of OTA . . .

You could donate them to GoodWill type places. I donated other things and saw they had old TV's there. Of course I waited like you for my tv's to die. How old is yours. They go in 13 to 17 years. Normally.. I am glad I do not have to lift those heavy things anymore.

I still have my 20" Sharp CRT TV from 1996. It still works. I don't care for HDTV stuff. I will get one after this one dies.

That is what I did. Just saying if you want an excuse. Goodwill takes them

I was 10 years old in the early 60's when we got our first B&W TV. My Grandmother, a very wise lady from the old country that fed half the block from her 1-lot garden, was amazed at what she saw coming from that box. I'll never forget her statement: "One day there will be a box on the side and you'll have to put coins in it to watch". ....decades before cable.

I remember coin operated TVs in motels.

Old sweet ladies with wisdom ...

Decades before cable? Your timeline is a bit off. Cable/subscription/pay TV was already here in the US in the late 1940's early 1950's. Coin slot TVs and radios have been around for use in motel rooms and other public areas that long also.

I remember those and vibration beds (coin fed)

In that era......we only knew what we were able to experience........

If OTA dies it will be because the government wants to sell the spectrum to cell phone or other wireless services.

And my grandmother said she would buy a radio when they had pictures. Some of those old people had some vision.

> 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.

Just sold my 7000 on ebay, replaced it with a refurb TIVO original series3 with upgraded HD and lifetime from Weaknees. The net cost was a bit over a hundred dollars, worth it to me with TVGOS going away.

I had participated in an online DVRPal v. tivo debate on another site, defending the DVRPal based on lower price, but certainly had to admit that the Tivo is a better device (much better guide and larger HD). Went with the old TIVO box over the current one after a good bit of research, and went with Weaknees over ebay for the warranty and return policy (in case I did not like it or did not get all the channels). Bought the tivo first to make sure I wanted to switch. Smooth transition. YMMV.

As long as we're OT, I remember the good old 80,s well...3 meter dish and my VC 1. Spent a small fortune on those dang U-30 chips ( if you know what I mean ) IIRC, VC 1's were C band only.

First one I had was a VCII. They started migrating some things to Ku band around '88-89 which was when I got to swap out the Chaparral C band feed horn for a dual bander, and added a Ku LNB on the dish. And yes the VCs that were modded... I remember reading at one point out of 10 they sold only one got authorized. But it gave ol' Charlie at Echostar (later Dish Network) a nice start! Who ultimately brought us the DTVPal DVR.
Edited by ed_in_tx - 11/24/12 at 10:59am

I think the gov will be using it for the 'Big Brother Psy-ops Program' to be ushered in with the 'Real ID Act Rewrite' soon to be inflicted upon us.
They're gonna need a lot of bandwidth to shuttle all that video-cam spy info around.

This Monday the CBS station here KTVT 11 will finally cease transmitting on RF-11. THis is where the TVGOS comes from (until it's terminated) for the DTVPal. They've been simulcasting on RF-11 and RF-19 since July 2009 and finally are turning off the VHF transmitter. They originally were to stay on RF-11 their original analog channel, but from "thousands of complaints" when they switched off UHF in 2009 and went to VHF they found out lots of viewers couldn't receive RF-11 VHF on their little "HD" UHF antennas, so they changed plans filed changes with the FCC and now the day of reckoning is here.

I'm sure the DTVPal finds the VHF RF-11 first when it dos a channel scan, and names it "11". The other one on RF-19 gets assigned Ch 70 by the DTVPal. So when the VHF channel goes away it will likely kill TVGOS. I will have to do a rescan at least to make it show 11 for RF-19. Thinking I will delete the old VHF 11 and the one on Ch 70, and do a rescan so it will put the RF-19 on Ch 11. Anyone else have a better idea?