TVGOS on my Pannys Driving me Nuts!

hi breyan...

welcome to the TVGOS nightmare. i, too, have suffered lo these many post digital transition years with my panny e95 Version 7 TVGOS...

1 - are you using a CATV provider ?

if so, fear not, it's most likely the CATV provider path that's screwing up..
i am in Las Vegas, NV. i am using Cox Cable as a provider... originally ( pre digital ), TVGOS was delivered usually via the local PBS stations. the PBS stations also historically provided time signals in the VBI section of their video signal, to allow our whiz-bang VCRs to auto set their clocks ( but that's not important right now ) ...

POST digital-transition, the majority of TVGOS delivery was taken on by the CBS affiliates throughout the country, although some PBS stations still also deliver the data...

in Las Vegas, BOTH the CBS affiliate AND the PBS affiliate are delivering TVGOS data.

the TVGOS data that is delivered comes in 2 different formats, although one cannot get a straight answer out of ANYONE ( been there done that... i've tried )...

the 1st format i'm aware of is the original ' legacy ' data, which feeds listings in the sequence of Day 1, Day 2, Day 5, and Day 8 each day... after a few days, this results in a week's worth of listings that gets continuously updated...

the 2nd format is a ' newer ' format that only seems to provide 3 days of data updated daily...

into the mix, the nightmare is compounded by how the stuff gets to your panny box... my provider ( Cox ), and likely yours as well, has equipment that is network based, and is used to collect the data streams. these streams are then inserted into some analog cable channel, so that our older machines can recover them.

in its infinite wisdom ( NOT ), cox has elected to deliver the newer data stream via the analog cable channel for our local PBS station. cox MAY be delivering on the CBS analog channel as well, but i have not been able to force my machine to lock onto the CBS affiliate, and it always ends up locking onto the PBS channel. while it does work, i only get 3 days worth of listings on my machine that's supposed ot be able to maintain a week's worth, and that drives me crazy....

your panny(s) are getting confused at various times probably because they locked on at different times and, when they lose the feed ( for whatever reason ) the only wait so long before they give up.

ultimately, a complete reset is needed ( a REAL reset - one that makes your clock go back to blinking 12:00 )...

during the transition and in my frustration, i picked up an OTA analog to digital converter box, eg, a DTVPAL set top box, which was one of the ones that was available with the government $40 credit cards... there are a few others, as well... some of these ( like the DTVPAL ) support TVGOS, and will perform the conversion and then deliver it to your panny...

my complicated solution to the dilemma was to mix the DTVPAL's RF output on channel 4 ( in my case ) with my provider's cable tv feed... further, i had to notch out my provider's PBS channel, to keep the panny from trying to lock up on that one, and to favor what got provided by the DTVPAL box.

these set top boxes are, of course, OTA devices and, as such, need to receive stations over the air. in my case, i settled on the local CBS affiliate.
so, the set top box is ONLY used to provide the TVGOS feed from the ' over-the-air ' CBS affiliate. it has no other purpose. in fact, TVGOS support on my box is mutually exclusive from standard OTA reception ( you can't really do both at the same time ). and i rely on my cable provider to deliver my normal cable programming....

in any case, even my complicated setup DOES fail occasionally, and i have to do a full reset to bring things back to life, and it sometimes takes several days for things to stabilize. looking for your updates in the morning may result in the ' Search For Data Has Failed ' for up to several days before your panny finally locks onto its host...

if you do decide to use the DTVPAL, or one of its competitors, make sure it supports TVGOS, as most of them do NOT have this feature...

my DTVPAL box has 2 methodologies for TVGOS support. the first is via what is offered in the owners manual.... that is to use the DTVPAL in TVGOS mode, feed its line outputs into your panny L3 input, and then use the IR blaster from the panny to control the DTVPAL. inclluded in this setup is a directive to utilize a ' bogus ' zip code in the panny... this methodology does work, sort of, but will only provide you with OTA listings using wierd channel numbers. in this mode, the panny will accept your channel request, and will control the DTVPAL to make it tune to whatever channel you want.

if you are using CATV, though, this methodology sucks...

the 2nd methodology is to ignore the owners manual and tell the panny you have CATV with NO box, and use your normal zipcode ( none of this is documented in the owners manual )... you then set up the DTVPAL normally, including scanning all OTA channels and committing them to memory, followed by implementing TVGOS Support Mode in the DTVPAL.

this methodology requires you to mix the RF output of the DTVPAL as i described above ( i chose to use channel 4, and installed the appropriate notch filters and a channel 4 combiner ) ....

sooooo... your panny now receives cable programming on everything but channel 4, which is delivered by the DTVPAL, which is presumably connected to an OTA antenna.... the signal does not need to be fantastic, but it needs to be able to show a reasonably good picture on the CBS affiliate station. this methodology also does NOT utilize the panny L3 inputs, nor do you need the IR blaster setup.

in my case, as stated before, i also had to notch out the Cox Cable channel for the PBS affiliate that provided TVGOS, to avoid having my panny randomly let go of the CBS OTA signal and latch up to the Cable PBS channel.

you may not have this issue, but you might expect it...

if you have some interest in going this elaborate route, i'll be happy to try to help you with some drawings and instructions, as well as where to buy parts from to make it all work.

i've been slowly weening myself away from TVGOS due to the hassle, but i haven't really lost faith yet, since TVGOS in its digital form is hopefully not going away very soon. using the DTVPAL or other supportive competitor box should stave off obsolesence for some time to come, since these boxes DO derive their TVGOS Analog support output from the TVGOS digital signals...

rgds,
ron g

hi breyean...

yes... first, for reference, there IS a TVGOS thread around here somewhere with a wealth of info... the thread was sparked, i'm sure, due to all the confusion that happened during the digital transition... as i recall, it also has a wealth of information on the various panasonic DVRs... if not there, there is a thread somewhere dedicated to the various models of panasonics dating from about 2003 ( i believe that's when i got my e95 ) through present..

based on your indication that one of your listing displays says ' Title Unavailable ' as opposed to ' No Listing ' indicates that that particular machine is probably using a later version of TVGOS than that which is in the E95 machine... possibly version 8.xx or above...

i only have the majority of my experience with my e95's version 7.xx, although i DID have a Mitsubishi TV with version 9 for a while. the TV had major software bugs and an LCD problem, so i ultimately got it replaced with a later model TV that did not have the TVGOS in it..

there are several interesting diagnostics you can do with the TVGOS, including finding out which host channel is being used, lineup number ( an assigned number that is NOT just the numeric one indicated on your lineup choice lists ), numbers of packets received, when the clock was last set, etc...

if you're able to open an excel spreadsheet, i can ship the entire list that i know of ( it's large, with only some of the diagnostics working for given versions of the TVGOS firmware )..

your various DVR's may be latching onto different analog channels ( assuming that Cox is feeding more than one... also, some of your Pannys might be slightly different. If any of them have certain TVGOS versions, and have digital capable tuners, those might opt to receive the digital TVGOS stream on a digital channel...

i'm pretty sure that some later models of the pannys DID have digital tuners, and could receive the Digital TVGOS streams directly.... others, i think, may have had the later version TVGOS, but still had only analog tuners... so it can be a tossup as to which panny is receiving what...

so it's probably safe to assume that you can expect them to act differently, even though it might seem logical that they should act the same.

i DO know that your e95 ( i have that one ) is full analog-only, both tuner and TVGOS version 7.xx

the general sequence of events for TVGOS acquisition can vary a bit, but from scratch, here's kind of what happens -

1 - search all channels to find one that has TVGOS VBI data being transmitted.

2 - if success above, set the clock.

3 - continue listening on that channel for TVGOS firmware updates ( my e95 begins with version 7.xx.xx, and then gets updated to 7.yy.yy ).

4 - continue listening on that channel for lineup data, and trap lineups for the given zip code you entered.

throughout the above processes, it's difficult to tell the exact schedule that the DVR is controlling the tuner, but it's more often than the normal fully initialized TVGOS system would normally be needing control ( DVR turned off ) .

TVGOS data is transmited several times per day to do line-up updates, and more often to do ' maintenance ' things... until a valid line-up is seslected, the DVR does not really know when to start looking for scheduled updates. after a line-up is chosen and initialized, part of the data that the DVR receives is info on when it is supposed to take control and get updates.

whenever it does this, it can only do it while the DVR is turned off... if it is on, or if it doing a timer record, it cannot get such updates. so this is why it may seem like some of your machines have titles, while others might be missing the same info...

also, the TVGOS transmissions are not necessarily ' complete ' when each package is sent. it might take more than one scheduled download to completely fill up a given date, or given channel of listings. i have heard somewhere that a complete transmission can take upwards of 3 hours to complete. if you happen to turn your DVR on in the middle of a transmission, the complete transmission is interrupted and you would only get partial data. the DVR would then have to wait until the next scheduled transmission to pick up where it left off...

bottom line is that it can all be hit and miss for each of your machines...

i'll be happy to ship off some info, including diagnostic procedures, if you PM me with your e-mail address...

rgds,
ron g

Thank you so much for the information on this thread!
Our party just ended also. We have a Panasonic DMR-EH75 and are using Comcast in the Houston area. Comcast has recently permanently done away with their analog feeds and now require the use of their adapter or digital box. In the past we tried digital with horrible results, so we do not plan to continue with Comcast. We would like to use the Panasonic DMR for OTA only recording with the TVGOS. Our hope is to install a common OTA digital-to-analog box (ATSC tuner) and hook it up to the Panasonic DMR via antenna.
From what you mentioned rkg22, it sounds like the key is to purchase a digital converter with TVGOS support and use the Panasonic’s IR blaster to control the converter. Does anyone have any suggestions on a recently purchased converter that supports TVGOS. Sadly it seems the DTVpal and Artec models recommended by Rovi and those I read about in the forums are no longer available.
Thanks

TVGOS is dead, and Rovi is bankrupt. They don't even mention TVGOS as something they support on their website. I would not suggest trying to find a converter box with the attempt to continue to use OTA TVGOS. You can still purchase a CECB and use TVGOS in the manual mode, you just won't have a grid.
TVGOS was nice while it lasted(I used it successfully for a few years) but it's time has gone

The show is pretty much over for the old analog-tuner recorders and OTA. The best you could do is find a Channel Master CM-7000 CECB on ebay or Craigslist. It has S-Video output for the best quality SD picture and the IR blaster on the Panasonic will control it (the EH75 has the codes). It's not ideal, you won't have any guide functionality, you will program it completely manually like a VCR and, of course, it still records in SD. Other than that, your EH75 is at the end of it's rope for OTA and it's time to move on.

If you are going to bail on cable and go OTA you can use the money you will save on cable to buy a new digital recorder. Also, there are plenty of people on ebay who would pay you dearly to buy your Panasonic EH75. As far as what's next, some here would suggest the single-tuner Magnavox 515 DVD recorder for OTA. At its current price of $330 from walmart, that would be a very poor choice unless your primary purpose is to burn DVD's of recorded TV shows -- it too has no guide functionality and is programed manually like a VCR; not something you might be pleased with given your desire to retain TVGOS functionality. If you are strictly a watch and delete type, then the dual-tuner Channel Master CM-7000 HD-DVR for $400 (+$50/yr for TV guide service) or a dual-tuner TiVo Premier for $600 (no further fees, 14-day guide service included) would be the better choices. They also record in HD if you are thinking of moving to an HD display in the future.

well, hang in there folks...

yes, TVGOS is on some definition of its last legs.

that said, as recently as about 2009, at least 1 mfg ( mitsubishi ) was selling their big screen LCD machines with TVGOS. i think they did discontinue, but the point is that the CBS affiliates, and even some PBS stations are still providing the data feeds.

cablecos notwithstanding, an OTA TVGOS feed is still out there.

for houstonusersue, check out the artec website, as they still show their version of the box that supports your Panny's TVGOS as being a current item.

i would contact them to confirm, however, as their retailers might not be stocking the thing due to lack of demand...

the link to the correct model on the artec site is here -

http://www.artectv.com/ehtm/products/t3aprt.htm

i have never used this particular device. i have only used the older DTVPAL boxes and while those have a bug or 2 in them, they do work, or at least can be made to work... a word of caution, here. my Panny e95 had troubles with using the IR blaster method with the dtvpal due to sluggsh tuner response... the artec model might be better...

rgds,
ron g

Thank you everyone for your responses. Will keep you posted on our progress. You guys are just awesome!

hi breyean...

yes, it WILL drive you nuts, especially using your cableco as the provider...

cable cos seem to be very unreliable when it comes to the service...

again, i'm only familiar with the panny e95. the e95 uses version 7 TVGOS...
your other panasonic machines might be using different revisions, and may act differently...

from the diagnostic info i sent, you should be able to determine the different revisions inside the diag screens.... 1st screen will tell you the major stuff, like firmware revision it started with, and the most recent that was downloaded once your machine locked onto tvgos...

in any case, if your panasonic is sitting there for more than 72 hours with nothing to say, it's time to cold boot the thing ( front panel buttons and get it to blinking 12:00 ).... even if you have a clock right now, but the rest is dormant, your machine has given up for some reason, or has locked up ( in terms of TVGOS )... and there is no real way that i have found to note this, other than to be checking the diagnostic screens for packet counts... if they have not changed in 3 days, your machine has either given up or has locked up.

after blinking 12:00 reset, wait until the clock gets set... it will first show UTC, not local time, and there are periods during the process where the front panel clock will show UTC, while the grid screen might show local time.

that's the beginning of the saga, and it does NOT necessarily mean that the machine has actually found a host yet. wait longer...

typical progressive checks of the diagnostic screens ( maybe once or twice per day and typically during ' prime time ' to avoid interrupting the search process ) should show packet counts increasing....

wait a good 3 days, and expect the ' failure ' display to happen at least once, if not more than once....

and also remember to keep the thing powered OFF as much as possible. frequent checks by powering up will interrupt the process and might cause the thing to give up if it gets too many interruptions. i learned this the hard way by doing frequent checks and pulled my hair out until i forced myself to be patient and avoid turning the machine on a lot...

after the clock gets itself oriented, the next thing that happens is that the machine will look for a firmware update ( at least for my e95, there is a followup firmware update that gets loaded, and this must be accomplished before the machine will begin to look for host channel and lineup, etc )...

finally, a host channel is assigned, and one or more lineups are displayed for choice...

after choosing a lineup, you need to ensure that however you might edit that lineup, that you keep the host channel turned ON in the lineup. if you don't, you'll find that the machine may stop getting updates...

similarly ( in my case where i use OTA for TVGOS and re-modulate onto a different channel than the original host channel ), the machine may get confused with an incorrect channel assignment....

for example, my OTA CBS affiliate is on channel 8, but using the DTVPAL as the source, i re-insert CBS on analog channel 4. in order to keep things alive, once i have the lineup properly edited, i have to change the channel assignment for the host to channel 4. if i do not do this, the e95 begins looking for updates on channel 8 ( the normal lineup channel ), which fail.

by changing the lineup channel to 4, the panny will look for updates on RF analog channel 4, where i am delivering the CBS ( and its TVGOS data ) affiliate.

also, if your cable co is delivering TVGOS on more than one channel, this can also confuse your machine... my cable co passes TVGOS on BOTH analog 8 and analog 10 ( local PBS )... when my e95 locks onto the cable co signal on rf 10, i get the ' short ' more recent TVGOS, which only does 72 hours in a 1-2-3 day sequence... the legacy TVGOS delivers a 1-2-5-8 day sequence which is what the original ( whole week's worth of data ) relied upon in order to fill a 7 day grid...

the ' OTA insertion ' method that i have used has been the most reliable for me, however it's complicated to make it work, requiring a channel 4 notch filter for the cable co feed, a channel 4 inserter to deliver the DTVPAL OTA signal and, last but not least, a channel 10 notch filter to get rid of the local PBS station's TVGOS feed being inserted by the cable co...

properly configured, the above does work for me and remains reliable, unless the OTA box does something wierd, which usually gets fixed by toggling the OTA box channel off of the CBS channel and then back onto it again... this is only occasional and a bit of a nuisance...

all in all, though, i AM expecting TVGOS death sometime soon, and have been weening myself away from it. lately, i've had trouble with my channel 10 notch filter ( cheapo tuneable thing that does not do a great job of notching ), and the e95 suddenly locking back onto the cable co's channel 10 feed...

i'm getting used to just manually programming timers and using the TVGOS on the panny for quick checks for what's on... it's just becoming more and more inconvenient to keep chasing it...

rgds,
ron g

Hi Breyean. Hope you got your issues straightened out. You deserve a prize for having the most DMR panasonic dvr devices and keeping them going!
Over the years we had numerous tvgos outages, some required a cold boot to get the tvgos back and some did not.

To everyone else, thanks again for the many ideas. Will create a new post to post our progress or lack of progress since this post is really about a more specific problem that Breyean is having. Yes, since we are saving money by reducing our cable services we felt we can afford to try other options. Since we need another converter box anyways, have the Artec t3apr-t on order-eta mid May.

Not quite. DigaDo has like 30 or more.

New post - having positive results so far - OTA TVGOS on Panasonic DMR EH75 with Artec T3APR-T http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...1#post22035041

hi sue...

glad to hear you're making progress...

i have a small update for my market and COX cable in las vegas...

a couple of weeks ago, my TVGOS, which had again locked onto the cable feed rather than the OTA feed, giving only 72 hours worth of listings, apparently began to disappear... pretty soon there was nothing left in the listings database..

so i decided to give a bronx try again to make the thing lock onto the OTA CBS feed... long story short, it decided to lock to the OTA signal once again, much to my delight... so far about 2 weeks into this current situation, my E95 continues to remain locked to the OTA CBS affiliate. i'm hoping that COX decided to kill the TVGOS feed altogether, since the OTA feed gives me the full week's worth of listings ( still - it ain't quite dead yet, folks )...

rgds,
ron g

Hello Ron G,
Also glad to hear that you got your TVGOS sorted out. Sounds confusing to have to deal with more than one host channel. By "locked onto the cable feed other than the OTA feed", do you mean it automatically changed on its own? If yes, what method do you use to get the OTA feed back? Thanks
Sue

hi sue -

it actually ( well sort of ) switched back on nits own, but with a bit of nudging...

sequence of events as follows -

1 - panny being fed by cable as well as OTA CBS affiliate via DTVPAL converter box mixed in at RF channel 4.

2 - panny currently locked onto ' cable-side ' CBS affiliate and receiving TVGOS Lite ( 72 hours worth of listings only )...

3 - panny stops receiving updates for 3 days, until the program grid is empty... ( i get frustrated )...

4 - zero out zip code on panny, power-down, power-up
( this process resets ( in a soft way) panny to go through re-initialization )

5 - re-program correct zip code to complete initialization and power-down...

6 - after 24 hours, panny locates host from OTA CBS affliate feed...

my suspicion is that my cable provider, either in error or on purpose, discontinued its TVGOS data insertion, causing the panny to go blank after its memorized database was exhausted.

my further suspicion is that, after re-init, the panny could only locate data and host on the OTA feed and locked onto that...

under ' normal ' circumstances, the panny would grab the cable feed first and stick with it...

under ' normal ' circumstances, in order to get the panny to lock onto OTA, i would have to feed ONLY the OTA signal until the panny got fully locked, and then introduce the cable feed into the mix.... even then, the panny would eventually decide to lock to the cable feed after some period of time ( possibly days or weeks after: possibly due to momentary loss of the OTA feed )...

this is the first time that the panny actually grabbed onto the OTA feed with both signals present, leading me to believe that the cable side was no longer feeding TVGOS data.

i did not call cox to confirm, due to having experienced their ineptitude several times in the past with regard to TVGOS. interestingly enough, i have also dealt with the ROVI engineering folks, and they, too, are almost as inept as the cox folks... so i just didn't want the aggrivation, since i would get nowhere...

i'm just hoping that cox decided to pull the plug, and i can live happily ever after until ROVI goes under...

i DO note that the ONLY advertising inserts i'm receiving are for CBS shows, which means that market support from other possible advertisers has disappeared. i'm hoping that this will evolve somewhow into a CBS supported endeavor to give them ( whether profitable or not ) an outlet to promote their stuff.

this might be a reasonable endeavor for them, since the equipment is already there, and listings retrieval for insertion is all over the place on the internet and, i presume, available in ' industrial form ' to be extracted and then inserted via the TVGOS system... just a long shot approach, though...

more realistically, though, it's bound to die at some point due to diminishing returns...

rgds,
ron g

hi breyan -

i'll try to keep track and report sort of regularly... i hope that if my local cox provider has something broken, they leave it broke, though...

rgds,
ron g

Ron, your post saved me.

I get listings via Comcast in the Boston area market. After they disappeared for a few weeks, I did a hard reset, then after receiving nothing, contacted Comcast. Heaven forbid they resolve the problem - they gave me the email of the CBS affiliate that delivers the listings. An engineer replied that he worked with Comcast to resolve the problem and that I should get the listings - albeit with a warning that they will go away someday (soon).

Received the listings, edited my channel lineup. My lineup included CBS channels 4 and 97. The latter could not be decoded by my Panny EH50 or E95 so I turned it off. The listings then stopped. After a week or so, I read your post and it set off a lightbulb. I turned channel 97 back on and I now have listings.

Thanks to you and all who over the years have helped this non-techie with my machines.

Cathy (Mrs. mjw1948)

glad to hear you're working so far...
i'm just checking in here to note that i'm still receiving my OTA driven TVGOS without any interruptions... by now, my panny would have at least attempted to lock up on my COX cable signal, so i think they might have killed it ( good for me )..

so, so far so good...

i wouldn't be surprised if the powers that be ( either CBS, or at least various cable providers ) perform periodic interrruptions in order to guage their TVGOS audience level ( by virtue of incoming complaints ).. it would seem that this is a good way ( for them, not for us ) to decide the point at which they feel comfortable enough to kill it altogether... just a thought...

the fact that ALL of my received ' promotional material ' is for CBS stuff ONLY, indicates zero outside promotional support.

rgds,
ron g

Hi Ron,
We would also like to say thanks again for all the valuable information that you and others from this forum have provided. ( & special thanks for your positive comment of "well, hang in there folks") We have noticed only the CBS ads as well. Nice to read that you helped Cathy and things are working ok for you "so far" too. Hope Breyean that you are back up and running?
We are hanging in there using OTA and plan to enjoy as long as possible. Will keep a watchful eye on the forum for alternatives since we know we will have to upgrade one day.
Warm regards, Sue & hubbie