The Official AVS Dish DTVPal DVR Topic! - Page 517

Just A thought about the PALDVR longevity.

Some people have recently posted about this box not going to last long etc.

MY opinion is that this PALDVR has gotten a lot of use in my house and probably yours too. In fact since I have owned it, it probably has been used at least 10 times plus more than the VCR I previously had. I have 2 of them and each one has done more recording than I could have dreamed of with my old VCR. The firstVCR I had died after only recording a fraction of what I have on my PALDVR.

SO these boxes when you think of it are work horses 24 hours a day seven days a week. At some point all that work will take it's toll. I hope mine never never fail but realistically these units can't sustain that activity foreever and when they fail I will applaud this device for the service it has given me. I wish they were being sold as I would replace it in a heartbeat. I think the next device I get when they die will have a tough act to follow.

Ditto. I have had mine since December 2010. I unplugged its power during the two hot summers (except during Olympics' ceremonies in London) to let it rest, make less heat in my upstair room (can go up to 90F degrees!), etc. So far, so good. Vents looked a little dusty though which I cleaned from the outside. Looking through their holes doesn't look bad to me.

I think they are "required" by the FCC to provide a minimum level of PSIP. All this stuff about pleading with ROVI to keep giving us TVGOS is a waste of time but if enough people wrote/emailed the FCC they might actually start enforcing the PSIP requirement. If enough people contacted the stations we might even get them to send a weeks worth of program data if we can convince them that enough people want it and that it won't harm low end TV and CECBs.

Even with the TVGOS I've been sort of recording VCR style. Usually I set up all of my recordings for the week at one time after consulting the listings at tvguide.com. I do this to avoid recording repeats of my followed shows as the listings at tvguide.com indicate whether an episode is new or not. The information in our DTVPal DVR's TVGOS listings (unfortunately) does not show that information although I believe it is included in the TVGOS data stream.

So with PSIP only I'll just click on the time and channel boxes corresponding to the shows I want to record if they are beyond the PSIP listings. You just have to be careful to watch for some of those "non-standard" start and end times for some programs that don't conform to the on-the-hour boxes in the DTVPal DVR's program guide (i.e. Grey's Anatomy, Castle, etc.). Not a big deal in my book.

I recall I've seen the data in binary form, it would be matter of an hour or so to add parsed Air Time and Epsode # to regular screen into source code.

Do we actually know for a FACT that Dish paid ROVI a per-box fee to make use of the TVGOS data in the DTVPal DVR? From what I have read Dish was "allowed" to make use of the TVGOS data under some litigation settlement.

I'm no lawyer but I'm thinking if Dish had to pay ROVI a per-box licensing fee for each DTVPal DVR, then Dish would have used the genuine and supported TVGOS software that included the display of ads. Perhaps the reason we have no ads and a non-genuine TV Guide is because Dish was able to simply use the data for free in their own program (because of the litigation agreement/settlement) but would have had to pay a licensing fee to ROVI if they used the genuine TV Guide software.
Edited by trp2525 - 12/22/12 at 1:16pm

if it's true, then missing "Air time" and "Episode#" info would be on same plate...

Personally I don't think you have realistic expectations with this TVGOS situation. You seem to believe that TVGOS should continue forever, no matter what, so that you can continue to receive it on your DTVPal DVR. Things in the electronics world just don't operate that way.

As an example I have two JVC VCRs that are still in use today that used to be able to set their clocks automatically from data sent out by my local PBS station when they were still transmitting in analog prior to the digital changeover in June of 2009. After the digital switch my clocks were no longer set automatically and now have to be set manually. I paid for that feature of automatic clock set when I bought my two VCRs and it was clearly advertised as being a feature of the VCRs. Following your logic my local PBS station should have never stopped broadcasting in analog and sending out the clock data to my VCRs because I paid for that feature and should have it forever, no matter what.

Things constantly evolve and change especially when it comes to technology. What you bought and use today may no longer be possible in the future due to circumstances beyond your control. Does Microsoft still support Windows 95 or Windows 98 with patches and updates? The answer to that is NO even though we paid for the use of those operating systems back in their day.

Please tell me you opened your PALDVR and cleaned the insides! You should have by now. From my experience this should be done at least anually!

I have not. It doens't look bad inside through the vents though. My PCs are a different story (have to cleaned every two years due to dusts).

What about the rest of you?

Not yet. I'm trying to work up to enthusiasm to break into Fort Knox . (I did save the instructions on my hard drive!)

You should share that with the rest of us. [grin] BTW, there is no gold in there though.

Not sure what the settlement stated,

Should I sell my three DTVPal DVRs and my one Sony HDD500 now before TVGOS goes away entirely?

Looks like it's good time ... or sad time ... depend who is talking.

Yes! definitely! They are no longer any good! I will buy all 4 from you for $100! I am doing you a big favor!

Also 4 years running. Only minor inconveniences, no major problems. Dec. 2010

Ummm...isn't from December 2010 to December 2012 only 2 years?

Doh' actually got mine in 2008 looks like yesterday was 4 years.

My understanding is that full-power stations are required to send four 3-hour EITs, or 12 hours of guide (although it could "look like" as few as 9.5-10 hours if you happen to check the guide near the expiration of the first EIT), but LPTV stations aren't required to send guide info. But I'd ask for more even if they're complying with the rules (provided I knew whom to ask). I doubt many stations would send a full week, but you might be able to get them up to 24 or even 72 hours, which would be a big help.

TVGoS is still on here in DFW, but they've never covered several of our stations, so I've already had some experience working with PSIP info only :-/
Edited by JHBrandt - 12/24/12 at 10:41am

I would say ok. If you explain that the Sony will be a brick. Otherwise you are selling your headaches to someone else. It would be like selling a car. Knowing that the wheels would fall off in April.

Just did this last night. Took about an hour. Paul set his HDD vertical, using the stand that comes with the external drive enclosure, but I let mine lay flat. Takes a bit more space, but much less risk of being knocked over while running.

Not only should it extend the life of my Pal, it'll be a lot easier to replace the HDD when it eventually fails. And it looks cool: with the blue HDD activity LED, I can see whenever the drive is accessed.

BTW I noticed the drive was being accessed when downloading the program guide upon rebooting. So it appears the guide is also kept on the HDD, even though it's rebuilt on a reboot.

Nope. The access it standard routine: Check & Recovery of file system. The guide [EPG data] is not on HDD. Remove the HDD and you'll see it as the same.

Interesting; downloading the guide at the same time it's checking the file system. That implies the Pal uses a multitasking OS.

Which reminds me: I've thought of a "third way" that Echostar could enable DTVPal updates, besides the unlikely alternatives of releasing the firmware to open source, and issuing another update themselves for a fee.

Instead, they could enhance the firmware to allow plug-ins. The basic idea would be to add documented exit points to the firmware, so that programs could be written to take over certain functions (for example, populating the program guide) from the routines already built into the firmware. Plug-ins could be installed from the USB, similar to firmware updates, but could be saved on the HDD instead of overwriting the Pal's flash memory. That way, if a buggy plug-in caused problems, a soft reset could boot the Pal in "safe mode" to disable all plug-ins, restoring the Pal's original functionality.

That would require considerably less work from Echostar than a full brand-new update, without the risks of releasing something proprietary to open source.

OK, OK; that's probably no more likely than the other possibilities. You naysayers (you know who you are) need not bother explaining all the reasons why it'll never happen either. But it's fun to think about anyway.

Of course there's also the possibility of just living with what we already have, which really isn't bad Especially compared to the problems documented for the CM-7400, TViX 6620, and ePVision PHD-VRX.

Perhaps it would be interesting for you: the HDD hold only pertinent data to recordings/events include last 25 records about fired timers. There are no EPG nor system files nor logs, nothing beside events.

The Logitech Harmony 700 universal remote is today's Amazon Deal-of-the-Day. Does anyone know if this remote will work (all functions) with a CM-7000PAL?

I have a GE programmable (learning) universal remote that functions perfectly with my Sanyo TV, LG Blu-Ray, and Roku, but it turns belly-up when attempting to learn any of the DVR commands.

I have an earlier Harmony 510 and it works with my DTVPAL like a champ.

I have my DTVPal DVR set to use remote code 2 because I am also using a DTVPal+ with my Panasonic DMR-E85 so that may explain some of the following. I am using a Harmony 700 with no problem but it did take a bit of effort to get it programmed because even though the document says it supports the Pal DVR it actually has codes for a similar Dish DVR so you have to teach the Harmony a few things. In other words code 1 may be OK but I would want to make sure I had access to a working Dish remote just in case I needed to use it to tell the Harmony which code set to use.

Thanks for both of those replies concerning the Harmony 700 remote. I just pulled the trigger at Amazon.com.

I wouldn't expect any trouble with Harmony remotes. But regarding other brands, I've found almost all non-learning remotes will only operate DTVPal DVRs (or other devices that use Dish's remote codes) if they're set to address 1. Of course this is a problem if you have two such devices.

With learning remotes, I'd expect to be able to teach the remote the correct codes for any address. But my experience is 50-50: I was able to teach a Sony learning remote to use address 16 with no problem, but a Universal brand learning remote wouldn't learn the codes no matter what I tried.