The Official AVS Dish DTVPal DVR Topic! - Page 10

I received mine yesterday and so far am very impressed. I set it up to record it's a wonderful life and bones at the same time and it did so without breaking a sweat. This morning I got up to find that the TV Guide logo showed up in the guide. I wasn't aware that our station started broadcasting it. It's not fully populated for later periods but seems to be more thourough in program discriptions than PSIP. In any case, this thing sure beats any VCR!

TVGOS updates on a rolling 3 day schedule if I remember correctly. I think it is day 1,4,8 (so on the 12/26 AM update it will update 26,29,2). Since the Cowboys game time was changed on Tuesday, the rolling update probably hasn't hit Sunday again yet. I bet that if you get up Sunday morning it will be correct.

I've 2 questions.

1 -Last night I set it to record 2 shows @ 8PM at the same time. They both recorded. However when I checked the events screen (or whatever it's called) it showed one show was COMPLETED and the other was CANCELLED. Huh?

2 - I have a Dish DVR in the same room and I find I was controlling both devices. It is not evident in the manual or the screen how to change the remote id.

See a previous post, we discussed how to change the remote/pal's id. I don't know why they didn't include the procedure in the manual. I got the procedure from a Dish manual. (Be sure one of the receiver's is turned off or you will be changing both.)

I believe TVG provides data in the stream. How each manufacturer wants to present that data is up to them. TVG does have software available for this- I wonder if they charge more than a nominal fee for it. I suppose there is some utility in TVG data being consistently presented across platforms. But I much prefer the Pal DVR guide, almost identical to my other Dish receivers, to the Guide on my Sony. The Sony is good, but it's too complicated and slow.

My reference point is the Panasonic DMR-E85 and I would not say this thing is near as friendly. In particular it seems like you have to go through several menus to schedule anything more than a one time recording.

Lots of obscure stuff not described in the manual but the help button usually has some good info on what each function does. Have not found a good "how do I do that" source.

Hooked it up several ways but if I use a splitter and switch between the direct input to the TV and HDMI input through the DVR I don't notice much differance in the PQ for an HD program but it did look like Scrubs (SD upconverted by station and then run through the DVR) looked a little grainy but there are so many variable at work I will reserve judgement.

The M-F timer option looks like it will be a problem for any program that comes on after midnight i.e. Friday night is really Saturday morning. I guess you can record daily and then delete/ignore what you don't want.

I clicked on a program in the guide and then clicked it again hoping to schedule it for recurring recording and it just toggled. Not a problem but it shows up in the schedule list as deleted. I hope it goes away in a few days because there is no obvious way to remove it.

I too find interruption of viewing or recording when it decides to do an update to be annoying.

Has anyone had any luck with connecting a TVGOS equipped box to this thing? When you go through the procedure it says the DTV functions will be disabled but press any key on the remote to enable them. It seems then only time it accepts a command from my E-85 is when it is in the setup mode. Do you have to leave it in the TVGuide mode to make it work. Does anyone know how a dummy can make this work. It is more of a challenge than a need because it does not really add any significant capability to the Pal DVR but I wanted to try it since so may people have had problems getting this capability to work with their DTVPals.

For people connecting this box to an HDTV using an HD connection, this shouldn't be a problem.

May be true because my E85 would set the clock a few minutes after startup even though it takes a while to load the program info.

Topic merged.

I think that we will see Echostar discuss its purpose at CES this year.

The Digital TVGOS works much faster down here in Raleigh. I typically have full TVGOS data within an hour of plugging the unit back in.

I sure hope that there is some new vs repeat indicator...a real bummer if not.

As far as the channel logos not being there, the unit DOES offer the capability of renaming the channels, and if that mean NOT having to look at ugly things like 009-01 (instead of 9-1), it's a significant advantage. (For most purposes, leading zeros only offer confusion, and in this respect having a channel logo is definitely nicer.)

A question I also have is whether in the list of recordings, for a recording that was manually set, can you rename the item in the list, so it's easier to keep track of?

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/12/24...t-in-the-wild/

This should help bolster visability...and a few additional reviews

After two days, I still don't have any useful TVG data. Late yesterday, the TV Guide logo finally appeared (after I had set the zip code to the alternate code for Baltimore), but there was no more guide data than before (and of course not surprising nothing for the Harrisburg stations - which I am currently not receiving any of).

I left it in standby overnight. This morning there was no more guide data than before, going to about 11:00 pm at night except for the FOX and CW stations, which go out around 24 hours (I'm guessing that's still coming from the PSIP data. I'll wait and see what happens in future days, but it looks like I'll be programming it manually (no biggie, I'll continue using Dish SD as backup so I don't miss any shows).

A couple of times when I've turned it on, it announced that it found new services. But when I tune to the station, there was no signal. It must get enough of a brief signal to see a channel. Anyway, it looks like it will add stations it sees without any user interaction. This will be helpful at the time of transition when several stations change channels and/or go full power if they are not already.

A comment about PQ. It seems that my Sony KDS-60A2020 TV is a little better at scaling 720p to it's native 1080P than the DTVPal DVR is at converting to 1080i. I was watching an ABC channel. Midway I switch the DVR to 1080i. I wish the DTVPal DVR could be set to output the native format, but it's no big deal to switch it depending on the channel or recording I am watching.

Could you describe how you did it? I tried removing the one bottom screw and prying up on the tabs on the back, but it does not want to open for me.

So far with my limited use I would say no it does not

It would be nice if in a future software upgrade to would include the ability to "SKIP" a scheduled recording like dish has in the VIP 722. Does anyone who has installed the 2.02 software know what changes it made to 2.01?

I noticed that as well, curious.

Great news indeed! If the machine can format and use a replacement drive, whether for larger capacity or because the original fails, that's a big plus IMO.
I hope you will post any new findings in this thread.

If I remember right, on my DTVPal you can only re-name the channel names or call letters, but not the channel numbers.

Note: This post no longer represents the easiest way I have opened up my case.
This link has an accounting of my most recent attempt.

Here is how I opened my DTVPal DVR case, as it was not entirely obvious.

Disclaimer: I am not suggesting that you do this, I did it merely for curiosity's sake; if you try to do this the device may break, warranty voided, or any number of bad things could happen like fires or damage to yourself of other items or persons, etc for which I am not liable.

Here are the steps, reordered from what I did and several failed attempts not mentioned to make it easier to follow:
- Unplugged the power
- Removed the smart card from the front so I didn't accidentally break it
- Removed the visible screw on the case's bottom
- Pried off the rubber pad on the case's bottom which is closest to the green and yellow RCA jack and unscrewed the screw underneath
- Pried off the rubber pad on the case's bottom which is diagonal from the one just pried off and unscrewed the screw underneath
- Carefully used a flat screwdriver to release the two tabs on the back of the case slightly; this sometimes is easier if done after a couple of latches are unlatched in the last step
- Looked in the slots on the bottom of the case with a flashlight to see that an object could be stuck in them and bent slightly to unlatch
- Unbent a heavy duty 3" long cotter pin, the kind obtainable from a hardware store
- Inserted one end of the cotter pin straightly in the four slots in the bottom of the case excluding the ones with green circuit board visible, to the point where they stop on their own, and bent slightly to unlatch, was careful not to bend very far, and applied a slight force to try to manually separate the top of the case from the bottom
The case opened

Here are a few low res images, sorry no hi-res:

I tried to upgrade the internal drive to a 1TB drive but on power up, a message came up on the TV saying that an error had occurred. I went to the diagnostics menu to format the drive but after 5 seconds or so the DVR rebooted and the same error message came up. Hopefully it is just user error, may try again this weekend.

Thank you. This story just keeps getting better and better. It looks like I'll be putting my order in sometime in January.

For all those using JP1 remotes: the codes in

DISH VIP622(8910).txt

work almost perfectly for the DTVPal DVR. I swapped it in and had the remote learn just a few functions to control everything I wanted. Here's the download.

http://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/dl...e&file_id=4500

For those unfamiliar with JP1, one of its advantages is the ability to control even very new devices through a strategy such as I described. See http://www.hifi-remote.com/jp1/

For my signal and antenna:

The previous "best receiver" for pulling in my most difficult signals was the Samsung DTB-H260F, which was really quite good. It easily bested an earlier Samsung, a Voom HDTV receiver, and the Zenith HDV-420.

The new champion is the DTVPal DVR -- seems a little better than the best Samsung, as good as it was.

(The difficult test signal for me is WTVR-DT in Richmond, VA, 98.4 miles away over two mountain ranges. Have had it solidly all day today with the DTVPal DVR.)

Others' experience of course, will differ. The more I learn, the more mysterious OTA signal propagation is to me.

Got the DTVPAL DVR for Christmas from my Brother - - - Thanks Reg

I'm about 55 miles from DC and about 72 miles from Baltimore (near Winchester, VA)

Antennas are a very old Channel Master for VHF and an XG-91 for UHF both amplified by a Channel Master 7777. TV is a Samsung 4096 LCD.

Out of the box experience was Great - - DTVPAL DVR was packaged well and seems to be built well.

Setup was easy with a very good setup wizard. 37 channels found which is 5 channels better than the Samsung. The extra channels are mainly in Harrisonburg, VA which is amazing since both my antennas are pointed between DC and Balt. The Microtune tuner in the DTVPAL DVR must have very, very good multipath rejection. Harrisonburg has 4 sub-channel which I watched for about 45 minutes with almost no pixalation!

Did one manual recording with no issues - - playback video and audio very close to live TV.

Updated firmware from F201 to F202 with no problems - - I did try to find out where the DTVPAL DVR is downloading the firmware but failed to get this data

Very happy with the DTVPAL DVR and would recommend it to anyone who has OTA and currently no DVR capability.

Here are a few pictures - - tried to do more but my camera had issues - -

Here ya go.
tiny url.com /9abg6c
(minus the spaces)

Updated: this one with the shields removed revealing the tuner and video chips
tiny url.com /7cudke

wildwillie6 - What do you use for an antenna?

Thanks,
B

A more interesting question for me would be whether the recorded files were readable if the drive was connected to a PC, possibly in an external drive housing ?

The main processor is on the under side of the board, or possibly under the "can"..

Someone's going to have to be daring enough to do a little further dimantling.