End of ReplayTV Electronic Programming Guide Service

I worked for one of the companies that provided the dial access. I believe we gave the local access to them for free as it was off shift.

Was disappointing when they cancelled "myreplaytv", and now they are not even willing to keep most of the basic function working.

If somebody "bricked" your 6 year old color TV you'd be pretty disappointed.

Not nice having your PVR (or three in my case) turned into a dumb VCR. But somewhere, some corporation is saving a few dollars - yippee.

Great quote: "ReplayTV DVRs are unable to take advantage of the wealth of HDTV programming"
This is no thanks to them. I record "HD" programs all the time (in SD of course, but the quality is fine).

At least they gave us 6 weeks to sort this out. Thankfully we have Wirns and Schedules Direct.

Since they are discontinuing monthly services I wonder if those machines will be elevated to "lifetime"
or simply turned into doorstops. If it's the former, those boxes will finally have a positive value.

-Chris

PS: I bet it's the dial-up service and all the "lifetime" users that cost them money. BTW, the dial-up
service is Earthlink...

Earthlink was one of the dial up providers.

My old company (IBM.net, then ATTGlobal) provided fenced Internet RADIUS access (meaning the replaytv's could only go to a few TCP/IP destinations). I wasn't involved in the contract, but I'm pretty sure we gave the local nightly access for free as our marginal cost was virtually nil.

I think dial access will still be needed to allow time synchronization. Makes for a much shorter connection, but I'd be surprised if saving a few nightly connect minutes is the driver for killing the guide update.

I called them and asked them that, and all they could quote me was that they were no longer billing for the monthly units and that they're supposed to be able to manually record. They couldn't tell me how that was possible, only that they could read the press release...

Henry

But, you certainly have to at least be able to set the clock, like a VCR! I guess you could install the clock set control panel, but I don't recall if that was for the latest firmware or not. I always thought that the 2Ks/3Ks were strange that after a power failure they didn't dial up to set the clock, so they likely didn't record correctly until the next net connect!

Henry

Why not free for local night-time use, especially if the company paid for the 800 activation minutes? The banks of dial access ports were sitting there unused. The ReplayTV designers were smart to use industry standard dial authentication, so they could use any dial access provider (thus keeping the price to a minimum).

I don't see how these units will keep accurate time without nightly dial-up. So you'd still need authentication, and some access minutes.

It's possible in our world of corporate penny pinching that the dial access providers are trying to squeeze some money out of DNNA, and DNNA is doing everything they can to limit the access minutes, but I personally think DNNA has some small profit motive to provide less service to the remaining units.

A screenshot of the actual message that's popping up on the Replay is attached.

I'm already using Wirns/SchedulesDirect to deliver over-the-air digital guide data, but many other questions that have been posed here and at Planet Replay remain unanswered on how things will work after this (or next) month as regards activation...

I have 1 replay that was on monthly. It is now saying "Activated", along with the lifetime units

Is this the right place to ask, how do I use Wirns and scheduleDirect so that I can continue to use my RTV? What do I need to do/get? Or please point me to the correct forum/thread.

I've got four 5K units, accumulated over time. currently subscribed to FiOS TV with just their STB
thanks!

For those of us who paid for a "lifetime subscription" expecting just that, do they owe us a rebate or refund? sounds like lawsuit material to me.

wow ive just got into this sharing stuff even though i had replays since 2003. i havent been able to get wirns to work yet. but that will have to change cause its fun. ive not got any notices yet on any of my replays dan

just net connected my 2 monthly units and they now say activated where it used to show an end date. also i just net connected a lifetime unit and it says activated where it said activated one time fee paid. i tried to net connect an un serviced unit and that ones not gonna work. wont activate. dan

Not sure why my first post didn't go through. I was asking for a how-to on getting wires and a third party program guide service so that I can continue to use my RTVS

correction iwas able to get my 2 unactivated sets to say activated. so thats something. dan

Along with my one lifetime, I have a monthly that hasn't been used for months, but I wouldn't cancel the subscription. Time to let in connect to mothership and make use of whatever lifetime service it will have.

search for wirns and download it. without that it will be very difficult. h. donzis is the expert and will answer any posted questions im sure.

Are there any free guide sources?

Not really interested in investing more money in my ReplayTV by paying Schedule's Direct.

Really sucks that they discontinued the service as I still regularly use my ReplayTV for some shows. So much for a lifetime box...

The end-of-guide-service pop-up is going to drive me crazy if it keeps appearing every time you press the Replay or Channel guide buttons - and you can't dismiss it, the only choice is "remind me later". Later seems to be in an hour or so.

A month or so of this is going to get old...

I've been using WiRNS to serve the guide data for about 2 years now... and I've only been using it to take the channel guide from FIOS and remap it to 2/3 digits channels so that I could tune OTA subchannels.

But... I've been using the ReplayTV guide data as the source. Without it, it means we all lose the Replay Zones data, doesn't it? (I still use it)

Does losing the tv listing also mean that we cannot control the cable box with the IR blaster? I can program the recordings through DVArchive, but if the replaytv will no longer be able to change the channels of the cable box because the guides aren't in "synch," then it is like going back to a VCR where you have to leave the cable on the correct channel ahead and can't program different channels without manually changing it.

What does manual record mean (of course it is analog)? Now I can manually record by choosing a channel from the TV listings and setting a time. If the listings are gone, then so are the channels, so how can you choose one that can send to a cable box and change it?

Of course, I can plug it back into the wall and get the few channels still provided through analog conversion over the coax. Is that what they mean by "analog?" And those TV listings are going too, so it would all be manual program and analog coax feed, like before they turned off analog TV.

WIRNS is something I may consider, but I am practically all mac, so having to flip back on a PC for that is a pain.

This is a good question for Robert (Reden)! According to the SD spec, it looks like it provides the genre information in word format, which would have to be converted to a Replay Zone code. It's certainly worth considering if Robert says that it all still works this way...

Of course, it also means that the Replay Zone information in the RTV itself continues to stay in place...

Henry

Does WiRNS have to be run on a PC 24/7 for it to work? In other words, do I have to keep a PC running all the time for this to work as a replacement for the ReplayTV guide?

To those folks using WiRNS and a 'Scraper':

Do 'Theme Channels' still work? (i.e. Keywords; I use actor's names to find movies)

I also use:

• 'Season Finale'
• 'Season Premiere
• 'Series Finale'
• 'Series Premiere'
• and even the recently posted 'Ovit'

I've been waiting for a "Round Tuit" to get an old 'HDD Crashed Win2K PC" up and running again with WiRNS SOLELY to provide one source for editing the 'Channels Available' from Comcast from the hundreds the ReplayTV Guide shows to the hundred or so that I actually subscribe to.

I guess I now have some new incentive...

Since not many people use theme channels in the first place, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it depends on the scraper data. WiRNS supports gleening whatever cast information it can from the scraper data. So, if the scraper data has cast information, then your cast-based themes should still work the same...

Of course, title-based and description-based themes should continue to work the same as well...

Henry

I have shows that are on "permanent" record as in they record daily/weekly for always. When we lose the guides, do we also lose all of our recording programming that were set up with the tv guide in place?

For example, I record Saturday Night Live every week and keep a few episodes to watch when I want. Will this function go away as the unit will no longer know what SNL is or will is still record whatever is on channel 7 from 10:30-12? (assuming it will let me manually program channel 7 without a guide since it doesn't fill in any channels without a guide in place which is why you only get 99 for an analog feed and 1000s for a cable box one).

I'm pretty sure that if you start using WiRNS, you won't lose your guide data.

The only hitch I had when I switched to WiRNS was that I started mapping the OTA subchannels such that 7-1 became 71. This meant any Replay channels scheduled to record just from a specific channel had to be recreated (which doesn't lose any shows in the old Replay channel until you delete it). If you're just using a cable feed, then this wouldn't be a problem as you can keep all the channel assignments as they are now.

In answer to your first question, AFAICT the IR Blaster codes are FIXED on the ReplayTV HDD, won't (shouldn't!) be deleted by DNNA *AND* can easily be augmented / modified as demonstrated by the most recent Pace 50X 'Hack'.

Regarding recordings, at first glance, I can see (at least) two possible scenarios:

1. WiRNS and a 'Scraper':
   1. ReplayTV, as you know it now, should be 'pretty much' the same.
   2. AFAICT, from a recent post on PlanetReplay, if you're already running WiRNS, within MINUTES, you can subscribe to Schedules Direct @ $20/year and be up-and-running.
   .
2. WiRNS and a fixed 'Channels' file:
   1. This should provide you with the BARE channels from which you can create MANUAL recordings ala the VCR method (i.e. Every MON, 8:00PM-9:00PM, Channel 2).
   2. HOW-TO create this file MANUALLY will probably be posted in the upcoming weeks. BUT, IMHO, even for someone unemployed, $20/year for Schedules Direct is not a big hardship, considering the alternative(s).

Time will tell.

The pool of 'Technical Developers' (i.e. folks capable of creating an alternate solution) is MUCH smaller nowadays. IMHO, WiRNS with Schedules Direct is already developed, in-place, and ready-to-go for Windows PC folks.

With some GOOGLE'ng, combined with sufficient technical ability, some folks MAY be able to achieve a FREE solution. But, again IMHO, for the majority, the solution in the previous paragraph is probably the best.