The Official AVS Dish DTVPal DVR Topic! - Page 535

Here is some testing I did with and without TVGOS, you might try the two soft reboots, and see if things improve.

1/27/2013
I still had TVGOS, and I deleted my host channel. I left the DTVPal alone (no resets, no zip code change), but checked three things every day. This went on for nine days.

Did it still have the TV Guide logo?

Did it have the correct clock?

Was the clock grayed out?

From the first day, the clock started drifting about 8 seconds per day. It never did lock on to the PSIP clock.

I lost the TV Guide logo on day 8 when all the listings were gone (others have reported this also).

The clock never ungrayed.

On day 9 (2/5/2013) I did a soft reboot. The clock was still off (after drifting for 8 days it was now over a minute off). I then added my host channel back in, and by the next morning, the TV Guide Logo was back, and the clock was correct.

2/6/2013
TVGOS data stopped

2/7/2013
Now that TVGOS is gone, my clock was already off 10 seconds in the morning. In the evening I decided to do another soft reset. After the reset the clock was still off, however it was no longer grayed out. Just for fun, I did a second soft reset. This time, when the DTVPal came back up, the clock was correct. Since TVGOS is gone, there is no way to duplicate this, to see if the back to back reboots is what sync'd the clock to the PSIP time.

2/8/2013
Clock is still locked to PSIP.

2/9/2013
Since the clock was ungrayed I decided to play with it. I bumped it forward about 15 minutes. I wanted to see if it would lock back on to PSIP by itself.

2/12/2013
After three days the clock did not lock back onto PSIP, and was still about 15 minutes ahead. Also the clock had drifted about 8 seconds a day, which tells me that manually setting the clock causes it to drift on its own. I did a soft reboot, and just as before the clock did not correct itself with the PSIP clock. I did another soft reboot reboot, and just like on 2/7, the clock was now sync'd with the PSIP clock again.

2/14/2013
Clock is still correct.

Conclusion

After losing TVGOS, you should do two back to back soft reboots. To do this, turn on the DTVPal so you can see what it is doing. Once it is on, press and hold the power button for 10 seconds, until both lights on the DTVPal come on. Let it go through the boot up process. Once it comes up and you are watching TV again, do the soft reboot again. Once the DTVPal is back up, the clock will have stopped trying to sync to TVGOS, and should be sync'd to the PSIP time.

Mark

Now that I think about this, it is too soon to try this in Dallas. According to the DHG thread, the listings are drying up in Dallas, but the inserter has not been removed, so your clock is still being set by TVGOS.

Mark

How do you tell the unit's time to the second?  Is there some screen where it displays its clock with seconds, or do you just keep another clock (with seconds) in view and wait for the DVR's minute to change?

I have an atomic clock that is close to my TV. I go to the DTVPal menu, and watch the screen for the DTVPal's minute to change, and note the offset from the atomic clock.

Since I have only 13 entries in the PSIP table, I go to the diagnostics screen and page down until I find the "Local Time=" line. Time is displayed to the second. I guess that method doesn't work in Chicago...

According to Mark's experiments, the logo will go away once all the TVGoS data from the last download is gone; so it should disappear by Tuesday.

Deleting the host channel (KTVT in our case) and rebooting has been reported to get rid of TVGoS and start automatic scans, but since KTVT hasn't removed the TVGoS equipment yet (see below), that probably won't work by itself. The Pal would just lock back onto the TVGoS clock shortly after you added KTVT back.

I don't plan to do anything until Monday evening. Might as well make use of the remaining TVGoS data while it lasts. At that time I'll try the following:

1. Delete KTVT and set zip code to 00000 (so the Pal won't recognize TVGoS clock data even if KTVT is still sending it)
2. Reboot twice, as Mark suggested (1st reboot unlocks clock from TVGoS; 2nd locks it to PSIP data, hopefully)
3. Add back KTVT and any KTVT timers (clock shouldn't re-lock due to zip code change in step 1)

That may be overkill. If KTVT's equipment is already gone step 2 is probably enough by itself. Since I have 2 Pals, I may try just step 2 on one, to see if there's still any TVGoS clock to lock onto.

In the NY City Market here is what we have ( approximate hours of programming) after TVGOS left and the guide is now populated by each station:

CBS 2.1 - 69 hours
NBC 4.1 - 21 hours
FOX 5.1 - 26 hours
ABC 7.1 - 30 hours
MY9 9.1 - 26 hours
THE CW 11.1 - 10 hours
PBS 13.1 - 20 hours
ION 31.1 - 21 hours
PBS NJ 50.1 - 21 hours

I guess this is pretty good compared to many of you. CBS was sending the TVGOS data and they are now doing the best with TV guide data after the cut off.

I know this is an old post, but did the 5.0 IR remote work right out of the box? Did you have to do any programing to get it to work with your DTV Pal DVR? If not, what did you do to get it to work?

Only if DVR and remote has different ID.

OK ... It might; it just would require a lot more paging down.  I'll try to remember to try it.  Thank you.

One would still need a radio-synchronized clock at hand to compare it to.  I'll have to bring mine into the room with the DVR.

Apparently, the TV Guide info is available on the internet. Is there any way of receiving that info (via ROKU or computer and entering the info to the DTVPal DVR thru it lan connection or usb port?

No.

Request from echo* an API and IDE for development such feature.

Mabuttra,

Just want to thank you for all of your very informative and helpful posts regarding the clock issues with TVGOS leaving us.

You're welcome. It's no problem, since I haven't been recording anything on the DTVPal or the Sony DHG, since I got the TiVo. So the DTVPal is free to experiment with.

I checked my DVR's scheduler and timer a few minutes ago. Both KCBS2.1 and KCAL9.1 show populated data for Tuesday 4:00 AM PST and up! I assume those are not TVGOS's feeds? Others still have no information.

I checked my DVR's Timer a few minutes ago, and it still showed an hour behind for my old scheduled TVGOS recordings for KTTV (FOX)'s 11.1 new cartoon/animated episodes (Simpsons, Family Guy, and American Dad). I had to delete them and readd them from TVGOS (one last time since it goes away on Tuesday at 4:00 AM PST ).

TVGOS logo gone in el paso tx. so it was probably disconnected around the 1st of February. It was a good ride while it lasted.Going to do a hard reboot and disable TVGOS and set zip code to 00000. Will see how accurate the clock is.

It looks like the end is near for Minneapolis/St Paul TVGOS. With most listings ending 4:00AM Tueday, the TVGOS rug will be pulled out from under us then. Thanks Rovi. I have expressed my frustrations to them, and of course recieved no response. I didnt really expect to. I wish there was a way I could boycot Rovi.

You could try never buying another DVD. Rovi is the current name of Macrovision Corporation, the same company that designed one of the many copy-protection schemes for those discs. It really should come as no surprise to see Rovi discontinuing TVGOS at the expense of consumers when one of Rovi's main businesses is in an inherently consumer-unfriendly field: preventing people from excercising their rights under fair use through DRM.

Will see what happens. In Tulsa only one station broadcasts more than 12 hrs of guide data. Our NBC sends out 36 hours. I just sent emails to all the other station engineers, to see if they would bump their data up. I've had a lot of luck with the OETA PBS engineers over the years when the TVGoS was having problems, they would reply and have it fixed pretty quick

TVGOS is gone in the Little Rock AR area. Not sure exactly what day, but at least a couple of days now. When I noticed the logo was gone I checked the time and it was appx. two minutes slow. I was able to set the clock without any resets or reboots. After I set the clock I changed my zip to 00000. Just now (about a day later) the clock was three minutes slow.

Setting the clock manually only works if you have no PSIP, which all OTA stations are required to provide. Even if you change the clock manually, it will reset to the mysterious "weighted average" of the time sent by your various stations.

I also thought that was the case, but from the testing I did here, apparently that is not the case. After setting the clock manually 15 minutes ahead, 3 days later it was still 15 minutes ahead.

Mark

That was quick. 1 down and 3 to go. ABC affiliate just emailed back that they had just made the changes to send out 48 hrs. I'll have to check when I get home.

I would guess that your result is due to confusion on the Pal's part regarding your TVGOS experimentation. It was probably in some sort of limbo state that prevented it from using PSIP to alter the clock, because it was still waiting for TVGOS to set the time, until you did the final reboot that caused it to use PSIP. JohnnGa's results (and your final ones) would support the standard view that the clock can only be manually set in an environment with no PSIP or when the Pal is looking for the time from a TVGOS station that is no longer supplying data.

From my experiment, my clock had been locked onto PSIP for two days before I decided to bump it 15 minutes ahead. It was not drifting before I set the clock manually. I'm curious, did you try this yourself to see what the results were? How long did your clock take to lock back onto PSIP?

As of a few hours ago, 40.4 has data but not the other 40.x. Weird! I will check again tomorrow after 4 AM PST to see what type of results I get without TVGOS feeds. Does TVGOS automatically go away after it doesn't get feeds anymore?

According to Possumgirl in the DHG thread, today is the last day of TVGOS listings on her DHG. Most likely your TV Guide logo will disappear sometime tomorrow. Any data you see beyond 4:00am tomorrow morning is PSIP data.

I only provide answers based on what others have shared in this thread, since new arrivals don't want to read 500 pages to catch up with the discussion; I don't have a unit of my own to test. Considering what's been posted in the last few months, your experience with the clock seems like an exception, rather than the rule. I recall this same discussion occurring a few pages back, but there weren't enough volunteers willing to deliberately set their clocks wrong at the time to test whether the manual clock setting would prevent the Pal from using PSIP time. Perhaps your results are definitive, as long as you don't reboot the unit (twice).