TVGOS Gone - Panny E500, EH50, EH55 - Page 2

This evening has the channel lineup restored, still no listings. 6 ads in the Promotions screen. When turning the e85 on, the guide's options menu screen appeared, and featured 3 cable ch lineup choices, which happens when there's more than one cable provider serving the designated zip code.

And there's a different ID number now under the Messages TVGOS ID Number bar. this time it's
ID:8F078-1179RV-55306
Stranger and stranger...

Im in Portland OR area and have had intermittent trouble with listings for TVGOS for last couple of weeks. Strangely enough, I have a scattering of data, more so for PBS than any other station, but some other scattered enties. but most entries show no listing. Except full listing for Tuesday, Feb 17.

I've tried resetting on my TVGOS (this is on a Toshiba HDTV) with no better results.

Rick

I have a Panasonic DVR with TVGOS. Cox Cable in Fredericksburg, VA had been pretty good on keeping up the TVGOS connection until a few days ago.

I don't know if it is the host station's fault or Cox Cable. Of course with the proposed analog sunset scheduled for tomorrow, either one of them could have shut down their system, or haven't changed over to a new system to keep the TVGOS going in a full ATSC digital transmission system to my local cable head end, and then analog down the cable TV line to the DVR.

I'm not sure if we have the TVGOS on the PBS or CBS station (Washington, DC).

I'm hesitant on calling my local Cox number because I'm sure they probably know absolutely nothing about TVGOS.

I have a Panasonic unit, and called their customer service. They did indicate that they are getting a lot of calls regarding the TVGOS being gone. We did some basic troubleshooting to allow him to escalate the issue to Macrovision customer service. Macrovision is supposed to call me back.

Meanwhile I sent a message to the CBS station here in Phoenix to see what response I got from them.

Also called Cox just to see what they would say and they were clueless, didn't even know what TVGOS was.

I'll update if I hear anything otherwise it's wait & see and use manual recordings.

PBS was "responsible" for carrying TVGOS information until the digital transition (originally Feb 17, 2009). As far as I know, PBS has no agreement to carry TVGOS after the digital transition.

CBS is the one "responsible" for providing TVGOS after the digital transition. As CBS goes online with their digital TVGOS feed, many PBS affiliates are shutting down the analog feed.

I say responsible, but no networks outside of the CBS owned-and-operated affiliates are actually required to provide TVGOS. For everyone else, it just takes away bandwidth they can use for other channels and services. Macrovision provides little or no incentive for other broadcasters to carry TVGOS; they provide the necessary equipment for free, but that's about it.

For many (most?) on this forum with DVD recorders, TVGOS via cable will be dead after the analog stations are shutoff. TVGOS will continue to be available in most markets, but only in digital format for newer devices. Some cable companies like Comcast expect to convert this information to analog, but that's not something you can count on in every market.

Here in the Philly area, TVGOS for my Panasonic DVDR has been supplied by the Fox, CBS, ABC and PBS stations, at different times.

Exactly the same in Chicago. Two different PBS stations, actually. I'm currently getting v7 from one, and v8 & v9 from another.

My EH75 and EH55 will continue to work with Dish, because it doesn't work the same way as with the other providers, and rely on the guide info from TVGOS. Doesn't need any OTA signal, either.

If the DTV Pal ever works exactly like they've said all along, you should at least be able to use it with your older analog-tunered recorders to convert the digital data to a usable analog form. At least with OTA - cable I'm not so sure about. But even when local Comcast headends converts to digital, they occasionally keep an analog channel in there to carry the analog data. Some people have reported that the channel was PBS before, but is now the CBS channel - so the analog data should be continuing for them with no break in service.

I'm figuring the stations don't care too much and putting pressure on the hardware manufacturers & Macrovision is the only way to get them to fix the situation. Putting together a letter in the next day to see if the consumerist will post it regarding how these big companies have left us with expensive bricks without the TVGOS.

Maybe a little publicized pressure will get them moving.

Got a response from local CBS KPHO:


Mike,
Sorry, but corporate has decided not to take on this task at this time.
Thanks,
Jon "JT" Thorwaldson
Engineering Supervisor
___________________

602.650.5536 (Voice)
602.650.5510 (Fax)
602.769.3790 (Cell)
Jon.Thorwaldson@kpho.com
CBS 5 (KPHO TV - Phoenix)
www.kpho.com

Correct me if I am wrong, but don't all TVGOS products support manual timers? If so, then your recorder will simply function like the rest of those on the market without TVGOS. Free guide service was never guaranteed.

That's correct, no matter how kluge, people will still be able to use manual timers so they won't just have a brick after the shut down.
It certainly won't hurt to rattle some cages but don't get your hopes too high.

What is the number at Panasonic that you called? I may want to call them as well.

Thanks!

That's what I'm afraid of. Manual timers of course still work fine, but the main reason I bought the brand and model was for TVGOS.

Panasonic Customer Call Center at (800)211-7262. The hours of operation are Monday through Friday 9AM to 9 PM. Saturday and Sunday 10 AM to 7PM Eastern Standard Time.

Hi - just posted this in the EH55 forum but this seems to be the hub re. this problem. I'm in NYC specifically Time-Warner South (Manhattan)

I contacted Panasonic about my EH-55 not getting schedule information from the TV Guide channel. I was told that many cable operators went "all digital" last week and that might compromise the TV Guide data feature. It's very unclear since I'm getting little help from Time-Warner (Manhattan South) on this. They did acknowledge some vague changes being made on their system.

Panasonic EH-55 is designed to locate the TV Guide channel but the unit can't find it, even though I see it on ch51. The EH-55 will go though all the channels and has done this several times in recent days and claims it can't find the TV Guide channel. Superficially I can see VBI data "dots & dashes" in vertical interval of the TV Guide channel but can't of course inspect the data by eye.

I'm using the Scientific Atlanta Explorer 2000 and have enjoyed perfect performance for over a year with this. During this time I always thought I had an "all digital" service and don't understand what system-wide changes might have been made by Time-Warner. (My wiring config that always worked fine was cable going into the the TW cable box, then s-video going into the eh55)

Paul
New York City

Without getting into the whys and whats of your cable co; If your cable company has stopped transmitting the analog TVGOS signal and has no intention of reinserting it into their analog data stream then your EH55 will no longer have the guide functionality. Every time you turn the EH55 off to standby it will scan the channel listing looking for a TVGOS signal to refresh it's data. If it can't find one it will report an error. Eventually you will run out of data in your guide, your clock will drift off time and you may even lose your channel listing since that also comes from the guide data.

So, what to do about it. When you are ready to give up hope on regaining the guide data you need to do a soft-reset to send the unit back to initial setup mode. Then follow the instructions in the manual for a manual setup. This will allow you to do a manual channel scan to restore your cable channel listing and edit the listing and allow you to manually maintain the clock. You will no longer have the guide so all recordings will need to be scheduled VCR style by inputting the channel/date/time/duration in a manual timer window. You will still have the capabilities of setting recording quality and timer event repeat frequency. After recording, titles will be identifed in the list by date/time/channel and will have to be titled manually.

If you are used to a guide this is a big step down, especially if you are used to scheduling a lot of recordings for time-shifting, but it means your EH55 will not be a brick going forward. It just means it will now program like an old VCR, which is how all the new DVD recorders work anyway.

Ditto what Kelson said...and to add, the TVGOS data doesn't come from the TV Guide Cable channel, it's data that was previously carried by local PBS stations, and recently has been switched to CBS stations due to contract changes that occured when Macrovision bought Gemstar, the former owners of TV Guide.

Ditto what Westly-C said Many people seem to think the TVGOS signal comes from the TV Guide channel but for whatever reason it's not.
On a side note you could try attaching a indoor antenna (bow tie if your local analog CBS PBS channel is UHF) to your EH-55s RF input. You may be able to pick up the direct OTA broadcast of the guide info, at least for a few months more. Since it doesn't sound like your use your RF input on your Panny this might be a possibility for you.
If this works then you may be in luck using a DTVPal CECB to eventually convert the digital OTA TVGOS signal to analog for your EH-55. A fellow in the following post has said he's able to do just this.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...2#post15877902

Yes, the only time you can't set up for more than one source is when one of them is Dish. So you should be able to set up for both "digital cable with a box" and "antenna" and get the guide info OTA.

Thanks everybody. I'm sure the replies are all pretty expert opinion but allow me a dissenting footnote or two. (I'm no super tech but I'm a lifetime video editor who started on pre-timecode 2" Quad tape in the 70s.) One reason I still suspect the eh55 is still pulling data from the TV Guide channel is that when turned off, it would lock on this channel overnight, always, always. Yes this is anecdotal but why would it spend every minute parked at this station when I'm not using it except to download data?

The next part is more complicated and involves big media companies who don't really care about this problem of mine. I'm on shaky ground about the analog/digital switch but maybe you guys can resolve this.... for the last year I've successfully used TW's digital box - I don't know what "legacy" analog came through the cable but... the feed to my eh55 always was/is analog to the following degree. Cable went into my TW cable box and I fed my eh55 *exclusively* with the s-video feed that came from the cable box = analog.

I still see some kind of vitc on the TV Guide ch. but have no idea how it's processed, stripped or munged compared to two weeks ago. So it would seem theoretically possible to restore the correct vitc, no?

Kelson is right, losing the TV guide for program recording is a huge step back after a year of heaven *and* the fact that I paid double the retail price to get this discontinued unit and just forked over more $ on a 3 year extended warrantee for this dream machine.

Paul

Yes it's interesting that it always parks on the TVGOS channel, I can't explain that. If you were still receiving guide info you could go into the EH-55s diagnostic menu and see exactly what channel it was getting it's guide info from. Since you're not getting it anymore I don't know what good that would be.
If you're not familiar with how to get into the diag. menu here's a link to a post by jtbell which explains how.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5#post12266445

Ugh . . . for that price you could have gotten a dual tuner TiVo HD with lifetime subscription.

I seem to remember that at least one person here in the past also said that their TV Guide cable channel was also their TVGOS host channel.

You could always get the TiVo and use the Panny for archiving.

For what it's worth, I've been in contact with Panny the past two days and they are sending all of my data to TVG to analyze. Of course, I know they're going to find that the EH55's analog tuner can't see the digital TVGOS broadcast but I'm curious to see what they recommend. I guess the fix will ultimately be: 1- buy an HD DVR,
2- break down and pop for $6.00/month to get Tivo from D* or 3- just keep programming manually. I'll take door number 3.

Ramm said "You could always get the TiVo and use the Panny for archiving".

That's what I've done For a test I recorded the Academy Awards to both my Tivo HD(using it's HD tuner) and my EH-55 fed from a CM-7000 using S-video.
I then off loaded the Tivo HD to my EH-55(realtime using S-video) and compared the PQ of the two titles. The Tivo HD title was noticeably better in both PQ and audio quality. At least as good as a EZ-28 recording(from my memory) if not better.
The CM is still a nice source but the Tivo HD seems even better. Not sure why the audio should be better but the Tivo HD DVD really seemed more lifelike.
Of course what I really should be doing is what others have done. That is connect my Tivo to my computer and burning lossless HD to regular DVDs. For now the EH-55 is working quite nice recording standard format DVDs and I'm happy to not have to involve my computer. I don't have a BR player yet anyway, which is what would be required to play back those HD DVDs.

The Oppo BDP-83 will be coming out later this year for when you are ready. I don't have a release price for you but the EMAIL they sent me said the early adopter price is only $499.

P.S. -- if you downscale the TiVo file on a PC, you can burn it to DVD-R, it still looks great and it has full 5.1 audio. Better yet, buy a 1TB external HDD for your PC and save the TiVo HD files there so you can download them back and watch in HD anytime you want.

I just got off the phone with Panasonic tonight as well. Let's see what TVG/Macrovsion has to say. I assume the worst - the TVGOS data is gone and the local cable co (Cox) is not re-broadcasting it, even if the local PBS station is still sending it, but in digital format.

I just wish I could find a HD DVR that had a digital equivalent of TVGOS. I really don't want to rent a DVR from the cable company, or go the subscription (e.g. TiVO) route.

I have been on the phone to panasonic support several times the last 4 weeks, they filled out a report after taking me thru the hidden menus in setup, they said my unit was ok, just not getting any data.

Last fri they called me back with a few things to try, that macrovision suggested.



I have direct TV, and was told to tune to channel 237 the TV guide channel, enter this # 963214785 wait 5 minits then

go to setup on the eh55, the menu with these 4 options

change system settings
change channel display
change default options
Display setup progress

then entered this #753159852 which takes you to a hidden menu, which showed 237 tv guide channel as the vbi channel.

we found no other evidence that anything had changed, he filed another report to macrovision, letting them know still no guide.

after waiting the last few days, no guide has come back.

The tech was glad to know I have 9.2 tvgos.

I assume that macrovision is trying to get a data stream that will work with out devices.

I will keep all informed of the evnual outcome, later Bruce