The Official AVS Dish DTVPal DVR Topic! - Page 510

If anyone is interested there is a brand-new in-the-box DTVPal DVR for sale on eBay for $312.00 plus shipping. It says you can add a 1-year Square Trade warranty for $54.99 or a 2-year Square Trade warranty for $82.99.

So what does Square Trade do for you if a DTVPal bites the dust? Tell you to take it to a local service center for repair? Send it to Dish for service? Or just refund your money since they are basically not serviceable?

"SquareTrade Warranty protects your eBay purchases from mechanical and electrical failures during normal use.

•1 to 4 years of coverage, as indicated at the time that you purchase your warranty.
•100% parts and labor coverage – with no deductibles.
•Item repairs, or the full item price paid back to you if SquareTrade can't fix it.
•Covers New, Refurbished and Used items – even if there's no USA manufacturer's warranty on your item."

"...or the full item price paid back to you if SquareTrade can't fix it." That one line answers my question.

Those prices seem high for the warranty. I paid about $40 for each 3 year warranty on my 2 units a little over 3 years ago. Units purchased for $300 at Sears, Squaretrade warranty. At those prices for a warranty I would take my chances. If the seller isn't offering any warranty or return I'd pass on that deal.

Adding a 1-yr Square Trade money-back guarantee, that's almost $370 plus shipping. CM's original MSRP was $399 with the same guarantee and the "street price" quickly dropped to $350 plus shipping. The DTVPal version went for even less, even with a 2-yr Sears guarantee. And that was back when we thought TVGOS would go on forever. Now with TVGOS going away, unless upgraded to 1 TB (in which case it wouldn't be "brand-new in-the-box") I don't think anything over $250 plus shipping (about $300 with a 1-yr guarantee) is reasonable, especially for a 2nd unit. After all, if you're reading this topic, you probably have one DTVPal (or the CM equivalent) already.

Nevertheless, as I posted earlier I've seen these boxes go for even more, so I wouldn't be a bit surprised if someone pays the $312. I guess that's good news for anyone thinking about selling one. Apparently it's a seller's market

Unless it's something really simple to fix, like a bad hard drive or fan, you'll get your money back. (At this point I doubt even Echostar has spare parts for these anymore.) Of course, you can always use your refund to try to buy another one on eBay

Yes, but if you're already using the non-CableCard version (or any of many similar devices), the FCC wants to let your cable co. basically turn it into a doorstop. Yet another reason to drop cable and go OTA and/or satellite. I hate when industries get control of the agencies that supposedly regulate them

Of course if you're using cable, you probably have no interest in the OTA-only DVR which is the subject of this thread, which means you aren't reading this and we're getting off-topic again Still, thanks anyhow to atmusky and harleyjoe43 for this info.

And you'll still be out the initial shipping cost, and shipping the defective unit to the service center, and the cost of the warranty.

I agree. Once you get into the $300 to $400 price range for a used (or even new) DTVPal DVR/CM-7000PAL DVR I think you would be better served with a TiVo Premiere with lifetime service. This is an even easier decision when you consider the TVGOS program guide will be disappearing 4 months from now for all of us using these OTA DVRs.

Right now you can get a brand-new TiVo Premiere 320GB (45 hours of HD) for $59.99 and lifetime service for $499.99 directly from TiVo. You get a 30-day money-back guarantee, free shipping and a 90 days labor/1 year parts warranty from TiVo. You also get a robust 2-week program guide as part of your service. If you go to a TiVo retailer or through eBay you might be able to do even better on the prices.

This happened to me recently. I wrote to PBS and got this answer. Not their fault . . . of course:


And later he said:


I have never dealt with SAP before. My only options via SAP on the remote are English and Spanish. I went through the menu but couldn't find the SAP options there. I also don't see an 'audio' button on the remote (a Time-Warner thing?). Can you guys offer some tips on the correct settings so this doesn't happen again. It wasn't easy watching Ashes to Ashes with closed captions. UGH!

And you need a telephone connection or an ethernet connection, or a WAP at the DVR's location. Correct?

Start by turning a tv to PBS, selecting alternate audio and finding out what the different tracks are titled. Are they both "ENGLISH?"

Where do I find 'alternate audio'?

The SAP button on many tuners' and converter boxes' remotes is indeed labeled "Audio." But on the DTVPal, I believe the English/Spanish option you found is the correct SAP option. ATSC lets each station label each audio program with a language, so in theory, you should be able to set the DTVPal to English and not worry about it afterwards (it'll always record whichever program is labeled English).

Assuming your PBS station has the channels labeled correctly, "English" should have the full audio and "Spanish" should have the "natural sound" (background audio only). Unfortunately, to be sure they're correct, you'll have to wait until they're broadcasting a show where the two audio programs are different, then switch back and forth. If they're backwards, you'll have to get back with your PBS station to get them corrected.

It'd be nice if the DTVPal recorded all audio programs for the channel, and let you choose the one you wanted at playback time, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't do that.

I don't actually own a TiVo but from the information that is available online regarding the TiVo Premiere "You can connect to the TiVo Service through a wireless N, wireless B/G, or wired home network, or through a phone line." I would imagine that most people would have at least one of those options available in their home nowadays.....unless of course you were living totally incommunicado.

I've got a unit about 2-1/2 years old, yesterday I had a couple of recordings scheduled, when I went to access them the unit will not respond to any of the remote entries, the unit will turn on when I plug it back in and tune the last channel it was tuned to.
I tried several soft reboots (with the power button on the remote) and several hard reboots (pull the power cord out for a few minutes), I get the progress bar showing the guide info being downloaded, then it goes to the last channel I was tuned to. The only button on the remote that will work when pressed is the "sys info", this will display. The pause, ff, rew etc., buttons do not cause the live program I am viewing to do anything. When I press the remote buttons the green light on the front panel does blink so I guess it's getting the signal from the remote The "dvr, channel up/down, info, menu", etc, buttons do not get any response when pushed. (I did change the batteries in the remote just in case and the dish remote does still control the tv, will turn it off and adjust the volume).
I'm thinking the hard drive has failed, any suggestions on how to test this theory? Thanks for any help, I'm kinda technologically challenged!

Other than it sounds sort-of like what mine did over a year ago. One morning came in tried to turn it on and it would only turn on briefly showing the last channel tuned to then turn itself off. I posted about it then. I had the original HDD loaded up with locked saved programs and was having to delete other programs to make room for it to record anything. I think it ran itself out of working room on the HDD to do it's functions. Plugged in a new HDD I had already bought to do a 1TB upgrade, and... fixed.!

I found the old post from 7/30/11. Here's a link to what happened. Different than your symptom.

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1099071/the-official-avs-dish-dtvpal-dvr-topic/13050#post_20758099
Edited by ed_in_tx - 12/10/12 at 3:24pm

Yes, though the 802.11g and .11n adapters, as well as the "Phone Line Adapter" (basically a USB modem) are extra add-ons for the TiVo Premiere, though I believe the "Phone Line Adapter" is about $30, and the .11g wireless adapter is ~$60 at retail. Obviously, wired Ethernet is integrated, so if you have an Ethernet switch behind your entertainment center, that won't cost you any extra.

Try to reset your remote to the unit:

1. Open the DTVPal DVR's System Information screen by pressing the 'Sys Info' button.
2. Press and hold the PAL button until all the function lights flash.
3. Enter a two-digit number for the new address (02-16) and press the '#' button. [Be sure you use 02 or higher.]
4. With the System Information screen on, press the 'Record' button.

The PAL button will blink three times, and you should see the new remote address at the bottom of the system information screen.

( http://www.avsforum.com/t/1246291/ultimatetv-and-dish-dtvpal-dvr-conflict )

Have you double checked that the remote is in DVR Mode, and a different mode button wasn't activated accidently?

The SYS INFO button won't do anything unless the remote is set to the DVR mode.

Thanks very much Wiscojim, this worked like a charm! Everything is working as it should, I'll keep a copy of the fix for future reference.

You're welcome.

I thought that might be it. I have 5 of these, and one of them randomly resets to a different code, forcing me to occasionally reassign it.

As best as I can tell the DTV pal does record all alternate audio tracks and you can select anyone during playback. However, my PBS station labels both audio tracks as English. This seems to confuse the DTV pal and it does not recognize the second audio track. On my NBC Channel the secondary
audio track is labeled Spanish on the Sony TV, but is listed as unknown on the DTV pal.

Could it also happen if the battery is needing replacing but not enough to get a message on the TV screen?

Not likely. The same unit has been doing this for over two years. My guess it's caused by a signal from some other equipment used in that same room. Never worried enough about it to switch it out with one of the others to see if it was the room or the unit itself, as the fix takes far less than a minute to do.

Glad to hear the DTVPal does that! Knowing that, I suspect the problem is that both audio programs are labeled "English." I've had problems with stations that do that, and not just with the DTVPal. Most tuners will toggle between all audio programs, even if several are the same language, but my old Samsung DT260F STB couldn't select among multiple "English" programs either. Like the DTVPal, I could only pick the program by language. If the DT260F picked the "wrong" English program, I was just SOL on that channel.

For that reason most stations label their audio programs with different languages now, even if they aren't actually in different languages. But your PBS station seems to be an exception.

My guess is that the ATSC standard wasn't intended to support multiple audio programs in the same language, and a few tuners (including the DTVPal) built that assumption into their products. So the only solutions I can think of are: 1) explain your problem to the PBS station and see if you can get them to relabel the "natural sound" program as a language other than English (it was intended for dubbing, after all); 2) delete the station and add it back, hoping the DTVPal picks up the "right" program this time (that sometimes worked when my Samsung had this problem).

Not sure why the DTVPal lists Spanish as "unknown" on your NBC station. The labels are standardized one-byte codes, IIRC. Maybe ATSC has added a second code for Spanish recently? Someone would need to examine the data stream with a computer program like TSReader to know for sure. Trip's rabbitears.info site has TSReader data for many stations; you might check your station at his site.

The SAP choices on my PBS channel are labeled English and Spanish. I confirmed last night that 'Spanish' does indeed carry the background/special effects track. The two channels were NOT recorded as I am unable to switch between them on playback (this is what the station engineer had told me). I have no idea why/how the tracks of back to back shows got to different SAP channels last week. Gremlins in the machine . . .

I could easily imagine someone having neither an Ethernet connetion nor a phone line near the TV's cable/antenna outlet. (Remember, not everyone is an A/V geek like us.) If so, WiFi may be the only reasonable option. That's an extra $60 on top of a $560 product, not including the cost of a WiFi router (which a non-A/V geek may not have). If that's the best DVR deal on the market today, I'm starting to understand why folks are still paying $350 for used DTVPals on eBay.

OK, let me get this straight. Pete's PBS station labels both programs as English, which they shouldn't, but anyhow, your PBS station labels them differently (English and Spanish). And you've confirmed the DTVPal only records the audio it's set to record (presumably English), not both as Pete reported But it incorrectly recorded the Spanish program for this particular show. Did I finally get it right?

You might want to delete the timer that recorded the incorrect audio and recreate it, in case the audio program to record is part of the timer data. It might've gotten corrupted somehow.