Official DVICO TViX M6620N HD (ATSC/QAM) Tuner Topic - Page 62

Think I'll crack it open tomorrow just to take a peak, I'll find someplace to post some pics. Side USB ports down the road would be nice :-) if nothing else to blow it out?

Has anybody determined which protocol (NTP?) is used for the network time feature and the server the TViX contacts to update its clock? Despite changing the time mode from manual to network, the time didn't change the next time I booted the DVR, so I'm wondering if the server was run by DVICo and has gone offline, or something. If it's using a standard protocol, I'm tempted to run a rigged DNS server to direct it to update its time from a different source.

I'll be careful , if not I'll be sleeping outside till I pick up a new one,lol. I just ran across this and was wondering if any 1 has any experience with something like this? http://www.codeforge.com/article/138582 tvix firmware creation tool
Edited by northernlight11 - 2/5/13 at 12:25am

Interesting concept, haven't seen or heard of that approach. Too bad data is so spotty. Where are the coders? Forget designing viruses, re-do the firmware for these less than stellar DVR's instead.

.
Edited by videobruce - 2/5/13 at 4:45am

Hi All,

Such a spirited discussion of the PSIP info... Do I want to get involved...

Ok, I'll summarize what I've gleaned from the various posts on this forum and my own experience.

I think it has been established that the 6620 only displays about then next 24 hours of PSIP info regardless of how much data the TV station is sending. There is a person on the forum that actually programs the PSIP for her local station and tried loading 3 days and still only 24 hours displayed. I can confirm from my 6500 that it will display more days from the same station than the 6620. From that, some stations in my area are sending about 2.5 days. I have not done specific experiments. I'll try to do some tests later today.

Also, as far as I can tell, the 6620 doesn't encode anything into the files when it records - it simply copies the stream to the harddrive. The example that it can't display closed caption but that you can extract the CC info and use a file implies it. Additionally, I can play the files with my PBO Core and it will display the CC info. Given this assumption, we can assume that all the PSIP info that the station is sending is encoded within the file regardless of whether the guide can display it. Ok, so let's see what there. This is the MediaInfo from a show from my local CBS channel:

ID : 853
Complete name : \\192.168.0.70\tvixhd1\PVR\WIVB-HD\13-01-31(Thu) The Big Bang Theory.tp
Format : MPEG-TS
File size : 3.95 GiB
Duration : 30mn 52s
Start time : UTC 2013-02-01 00:59:58
End time : UTC 2013-02-01 01:30:50
Overall bit rate : 18.3 Mbps

Video
ID : 81 (0x51)
Menu ID : 5 (0x5)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@High
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, Matrix : Default
Duration : 30mn 52s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 16.7 Mbps
Nominal bit rate : 15.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Standard : PAL
Resolution : 8 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Progressive
Scan order : 2:3 Pulldown
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.335
Stream size : 3.59 GiB (91%)

Audio
ID : 84 (0x54)
Menu ID : 5 (0x5)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Duration : 30mn 52s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Surround: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Video delay : -182ms
Stream size : 84.8 MiB (2%)
Language : English

Text
ID : 81 (0x51)608-1
Menu ID : 5 (0x5)
Format : EIA-608
Muxing mode : MPEG Video / EIA-708
Muxing mode, more info : Muxed in Video #1
Duration : 30mn 52s
Stream size : 0.00 Byte (0%)
Language : English

Menu
ID : 80 (0x50)
Menu ID : 5 (0x5)
List : 81 (0x51) (MPEG Video) / 84 (0x54) (AC-3, English)
Service name : WIVB-HD
Service channel number : 4-1
Service type : Digital television
UTC 2013-01-31 23:30:00 : en:CBS Evening News With Scott Pelley / / / / 00:30:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 00:00:00 : en:Wheel of Fortune / / / / 00:30:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 00:30:00 : en:Jeopardy! / / / / 00:30:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 01:00:00 : en:The Big Bang Theory / en:Sheldon faces a crisis of confidence when he is forced to work with his nemesis, Barry Kripke; Raj and Howard buy expensive action figures of themselves. / / / 00:31:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 01:31:00 : en:Two and a Half Men / / / / 00:30:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 02:01:00 : en:Person of Interest / / / / 01:00:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 03:01:00 : en:Elementary / en:During his suspension from the NYPD, Sherlock investigates a hit-and-run accident involving a conspiracy theorist; Watson tries to make peace between Gregson and Sherlock. / / / 00:59:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 04:00:00 : en:News 4 at 11 / / / / 00:35:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 04:35:00 : en:Late Show With David Letterman / / / / 01:02:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 05:37:00 : en:The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson / / / / 01:00:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 06:37:00 : en:Paid Programming / / / / 00:30:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 07:07:00 : en:Paid Programming / / / / 00:30:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 07:37:00 : en:Paid Programming / / / / 00:30:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 08:07:00 : en:Paid Programming / / / / 00:30:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 08:37:00 : en:Up to the Minute / / / / 00:53:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 09:30:00 : en:CBS Morning News / / / / 00:30:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 10:00:00 : en:Wake Up! / / / / 01:00:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 11:00:00 : en:Wake Up! / / / / 01:00:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 12:00:00 : en:CBS This Morning / / / / 02:00:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 14:00:00 : en:Rachael Ray / / / / 01:00:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 15:00:00 : en:Let's Make a Deal / / / / 01:00:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 16:00:00 : en:The Price Is Right / / / / 01:00:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 17:00:00 : en:News 4 Noon / / / / 00:30:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 17:30:00 : en:The Young and the Restless / / / / 01:00:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 18:30:00 : en:The Bold and the Beautiful / / / / 00:30:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 19:00:00 : en:The Talk / / / / 01:00:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 20:00:00 : en:Anderson Live / / / / 01:00:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 21:00:00 : en:The Dr. Oz Show / en:Dr. Mehmet Oz gets an hour of his own each weekday to discuss viewers' health-and-wellness concerns. / / / 01:00:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 22:00:00 : en:News 4 at 5 / / / / 01:00:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 23:00:00 : en:News 4 at 6 / / / / 00:30:00 /
UTC 2013-02-01 23:30:00 : en:CBS Evening News With Scott Pelley / / / / 00:30:00 /
UTC 2013-02-02 00:00:00 : en:Wheel of Fortune / / / / 00:30:00 /
UTC 2013-02-02 00:30:00 : en:Jeopardy! / / / / 00:30:00 /
UTC 2013-02-02 01:00:00 : en:Undercover Boss / / / / 01:00:00 /
UTC 2013-02-02 02:00:00 : en:CSI: NY / / / / 01:00:00 /
UTC 2013-02-02 03:00:00 : en:Blue Bloods / en:Danny investigates when a man covered in rat bites is thrown from a moving vehicle; Frank deals with a bigoted radio host who will be working in New York. / / / 01:00:00 /
UTC 2013-02-02 04:00:00 : en:News 4 at 11 / / / / 00:35:00 /
UTC 2013-02-02 04:35:00 : en:Late Show With David Letterman / / / / 01:02:00 /
UTC 2013-02-02 05:37:00 : en:The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson / / / / 01:00:00 /


What I have not done is specifically compared this to what is being displayed. But we can see there is about a day and a half worth of data. At this exact moment I can see until tomorrow at noon on that channel... a bit more han 24 hours... hmmm...

Coders are exactly what is needed for the 6620 , unfortunatly most of em seam to married to there pc based dvr's or hacking the cheapest pieces of hardware they can find, I personally havnt done any real coddling for about 30 years( since I was ten ) My idea of coding theses days amount to turning autogordian knot on. I like to be able to plug things in and goto the web for the jailbreak, hack, boot loader . Unfortunatly I absolutly LOVE THE 6620 and for that reason alone I will start hanging out at the local computer recycle centers, picking brains and if it takes me another year I will make it do more, even if it's only having a really cool smoke screen and pyrotechnics show when I plug it in. :-)

When you said "Dish" I mistakenly thought that you were talking about a guide from your satellite service. Nevertheless, the TVGos service, which rode on the NTSC signal from some stations, was not actually from the broadcasters themselves as the PSIP data are, but rather was a separate subscriber service that was bundled into the cost of the boxes that could use it. Those subscriptions are now all void with the demise of analog transmissions even on cable.

Technically, the broadcast stations could include more hours of PSIP EPG data than they do, but since so few devices today make any use of that data (and the cable companies typically strip it all off of their feeds anyway) they have little incentive to cede the bandwidth that they'd lose by so doing. Therefore, I'm not holding my breath waiting for it to get better. Having said that, it's curious to see how much variability there is between stations in the amount of EPG supplied.

Thanks for the memory jog, dornanu! You're right that the M6620, unlike some previous TViX models, has a bug in its EPG display such that it won't show future days' programming even if present. I forgot about that. It's one of the things that I was hoping DViCo would fix, since doing so should be pretty easy.

On the plus side, it's the sort of bug that a hacked firmware should be able to fix too. This would be at least as welcome as "side USB ports".

I guess you could look at it that way. TVGOS has never been a subscriber service. No legacy cable feed has lost their data yet. In 2009 TVGOS started on ATSC channels OTA. Some cable feeds also used the digital version. I still get analog TVGOS on my cable with listings for 8 days. True, I get no PSIP data. My TV gets TVGOS from the internet and there are no plans by Rovi to stop that. It's a rolling 24 hour guide for all cable channels, not just the broadcast networks. Many PBS stations have stopped TVGOS, and CBS/ABC are slowly dying. All broadcast TVGOS is supposed to be dead by the end of April. That's why I bought a TiVo. I still have my TViX for a backup.

It's coming apart pretty easy so far, seems to me there is tons of room inside this thing, not nearly as much dust inside it as I would have thought, but still worth blowing out, the top seams to be locked into the face somehow, see if I can find out how as I go deaper in from underneath, I only have an hour till my gf gets back, I goto do it quick! Hahahahaha! I see the tunner has a funny discoloration to part of it wick is worrisome , will note it when I post pics, looks like converting the internal drive into an external sata would be a snap and drasticly cut down on the internal heating of this box , definitely heat discoloration on the internal plastic parts , will also note in pics( life extending measure?) mb is out, there is ALOT of free room in this thing, including an xtra power jack and a very curious unused space on the mb for adding things?will also note in pics I have a hunch it's for another USB, labeled j10, there is a USB plug right in the center of the board!!!!!!!!I think,lol labeled gnd D+ D- vcc j14 unused if that's what it is putting a USB anywhere you want couldn't get any easier? Judging by the molding on the inside of the case something was to plug in there, maybe remnant from previous modle or internal drive?? Ok, I am going to attempt to reassemble , I hope it still works?...... Back together seams fine , only 3 XTRA SCREWS!!!!
Edited by northernlight11 - 2/5/13 at 4:08pm

mystery usb port? http://www.avsforum.com/g/i/143898/a/2178874/mystery-port/sort/display_order/ internal wifi that did not pan out?Nixed top port?
Edited by northernlight11 - 2/5/13 at 8:44pm

Man, that is not a impressive design. It surely doesn't look like the quality of the exterior. Especially at the price it is/was sold for. That drops a couple of stars off the rating.
A lot of dust inside also.

Price rollback. $299

Ya Think! I had less dust inside my Sony with 50k hours on it. Get some compressed air please. There should be a Peta for electronics.

I carv antler, mamoth ivory and stone for a living, most of the time I walk around with a cloud resembling pig pen from Charlie brown, I was very surprised at how little dust was in there,( less dust then the usual amount that is. Covering the table it sits on, hahahahahaha hey of any one plugs into the USB on mb before I open it up again and try it out i hope they post about it! The hdd being stacked directly onto the transformer is the most worrisome thing about the set up I saw and I'm am beginning to think I'm the only one who is interested in putting a mother USB port in this thing,lol I'm thinking lower right front panel! I know it's a minor thing, but it's astart right, and I have never ran across pics of the inside online or any actual modding discusion
Edited by northernlight11 - 2/6/13 at 10:37am

This prompts me to ask something I've been wondering about. When I set mine up, I had the clock set to manual and I set the time/date. I was probably fast by about 5 minutes, so later I switched it to the setting to get the time OTA. After a couple of days, it didn't seem like the time had updated, so I switched it back to manual, corrected the time, and left it set on manual. Now, every time I turn it off/on, in the upper right corner of the TV screen I see a clock X'd out with a big red X. I don't know what this is supposed to be telling me. Also, I don't know whether it has always been this way and I just noticed it, or if switching from manual to OTA then back to manual caused it.

I can't help you there. I've never been brave enough to try the OTA time setting. One reason I selected this DVR was that I don't trust stations to provide the correct time, and I wanted a manual clock option to prevent stations from breaking my timers with their faulty clocks.

Joe, my point was that TVGOS is not the same as the PSIP EPG data stream at all. It is a third party service paid for by the manufacturers of certain CE devices on behalf of their customers. I call that a "subscription". Let's not dive into a semantic argument.

Anyone interested in the details can read a very authoritative account of TVGOS here. (I was wrong about its being analog only, but not about its being on the way out; i.e., the subscriptions have lapsed)

Hahahaha no nead to worry about that now! When ion can shut you off anytime they want,lol

Funny!

Hey, Northernlight, if you come up with a mod that allows the drive to be added externally, that would be pretty cool. Of course, I'm going to wait for the 1-year warranty Kei so graciously offers to expire before I even think about cracking mine open.

. I had a friend buy mine from kei just before the last fw came out and I could not have been happier, got here fast and I havnt had any real problems with it. As for the mod I am already plotin ;-) alittle reworking of the inside of this critter will go along way! Switching to external should be as easy as drilling a hole in the side and swapping sata plugs on the mb :-) or maybe just taking out the sata adapter and running through the side , step by step walkthrough video to be posted on YouTube or some such place within the next month , hopefully by someone other then me , but I'll do it if I'm not beaten to it,lol
"you can take my remote controll OUTA MY COLD DEAD HANDS!!"
Edited by northernlight11 - 2/6/13 at 2:32pm

Not a problem. Somebody must pay for all the internet services on my Sony TV. There were 20 video addons last time I checked and no way to hide them. I had Trip updating the stations until last month, but we decided to just move TVGOS to a discontinued product and let the poor thing rest in peace. I don't know how long my feed will last. The V10 on my TV is a waste, but it wasn't why I bought the TV.

I decided to test which time servers the TViX uses in network mode myself, since I guess nobody else has yet. I was actually quite impressed at how thorough the unit is at trying to find the time. If anyone is interested, here is a list of the servers it tries to contact and in the order it tried them (for me):

time.stdtime.gov.tw
time.nist.gov
tock.stdtime.gov.tw
time.stdtime.gov.tw
clock.stdtime.gov.tw
freq_f.stdtime.gov.tw
tick.stdtime.gov.tw
asia.pool.ntp.org
europe.pool.ntp.org
north-america.pool.ntp.org

It typically requests each one three times and waits a few seconds between trying each one. It looks like it does indeed use NTP.

no worries man! I blew it out , course my lung capacity ain't that great any more , what with the chain smoking and the cloud of toxic dust I work in. But I blew on it atleast 3 times :-) and I'm all for PETA , Peaple Eating Tasty Animals ! I'm all about the BBQ

That's good. The fan must really work well to keep the unit cool. I never felt any heat, unlike a certain CM unit. Last time I checked the exhaust temp was only about 20F above ambient. I was using a 500GB 7200rpm drive.

maybe next time I crack it open I'll throw a temp sensor inside for giggles ?There seamed to be some kind of heat shielding just beneath the top cover, I did not get as far as tacking the top off and finding how it locked into the face, I also did not detatch tuner from mb during proces , I never got to a point where it seamed nesasary or even wise to remove it, it is held in by pins alone on back and 2 pieces of what looks like tape in front after you remove the 2 screws that secure it to chassis of the box , care DOES nead to be taken not to let it flop around if the tape comes loose as it did in my case
Edited by northernlight11 - 2/6/13 at 3:34pm

Ok , after re reading the post's back on page 20 I notice kei saying they were now being made without the internal wifi and they will now have the annteas! So the jack is for the old wifi and it should be a hot USB jack

I cracked the box again, after being on for about 4 hours and immediately opening up the box after shut down it IS relatively cool inside, I am going to attach a USB port to the unused USB header on the mb! For this test while the box is open I will drill through right next to hdd slot and run it through there! It's proving to be difficult do to the fact that I do not have the correct plug with correct pin size, go go gadget paper clip!!!muahaha red green, Micky mouse and afew other questionable character's would be proud!THE TERROR IN MY GF EYES GROW AS I PULL OUT MY TOURCH!!!! The box is laid open hooked up to the tv and on,I plugged a portable wd USB drive up to it and it just flashes when the drive light should stay steady, I may have hooked pins up backwards? Will keep testing! If any one has any factual information on this port I hope they will speak up :-) the plug works!!! Will not power the wd external drive but it reads and plays a 64 g thumb drive perfectly!!!!!!! It will be perfect for a front or top USB port, I wonder how a powered hub would react , stick it Inside poping out of top spring loaded so the ports are accessible when you push on it like a clam shell type set up? WARNING, ! Even though I got this to work if you try this you will void any warranty and run a risk of trashing your box. Just saying it is a REAL RISK and by the time I'm done testing all the mods I would like I will probably need a new box
Edited by northernlight11 - 2/7/13 at 1:10pm

OK, I got a chuckle out of this reference.