Sony DHG-HDD250/500: Official Thread - Page 828

^^

Oh well, I tried but it just doesn't seem to work for me. Google took me right back to THIS post!

I guess it got deleted because it had the person names.

Here is the contact information of all of Rovis North American loactions:
http://www.rovicorp.com/company/locations.htm

Here is the contact information to their headquarters in California:
http://www.rovicorp.com/company/locations_1739.htm

Here is two contact forms if you want to do it by email:
Consumer CE support:
http://www.rovicorp.com/company/cont...lectronics.htm

General Inquiries:
http://www.rovicorp.com/company/cont...al-inquiry.htm

If you are having difficulty getting TVGOS issues resolved then it will be a good idea to contact corporate and see if that would kick things into a higher gear.
In the first link I provided for their North American locations, there is two locations that deal directly with TVGOS. One of them is the broadcast operations. These two locations are from Gemstar.
When you use this email address:
CE_customer_support@rovicorp.com
It goes to the one location and if they think that it needs to be investigated further then it is sent to the broadcast operations.
If your TVGOS issues are not being resolved, contacting these locations will not do you any good. Contacting corporate will be a better option as it will let them know that there is issues related to the operations of TVGOS.

The choices presented to us are not due to a free market. If that were so, cablecard would rule and there would be a choice of DVR at the local Big Box. It was decided that all DVR should be rented....for those who insist, Tivo, which still requires a subscription, even for OTA. We'd be seeing 1TB drives in triple tuner boxes with a cable card slot. What we have is a monopoly, and the choices are limited not so much by business but by the major players. No one wants to upset the "content providers" so things like HDMI/HDCP are "voluntary" and adopted-and no one leaves the reservation. The HDMI plug enforces the "voluntary" rules...DVI was hacked into HDMI solely because DVI was open source and there was a real possiblity it would become a default standard like the RCA plug. I am impressed in a cynical way that they got this all to work because of licensing a new design....and making everyone use it. They have the money to sue anyone who goes to China and gets a few thousand recorders made and imported...again based on licensing that stupid plug, not based upon any actual copyright of content. Analog sunset closes the workaround....and our equipment becomes just a bit less useful to protect Hollywood's business model.

The industry gets real time ratings (you know most boxes talk back, right ?) and forever rental revenue, as there are no alternatives presented...unless you troll this board, and/or build computers for a hobby. There is very intentionally no real replacement at the big box for that VCR you got in 1980...unless you rent it from the cable co. Oh, and then it is easier to enforce broadcast flags, and make sure that it is impossible to export the show. (real pirates are not inconvenienced, etc etc etc).

The only ones which had any real distribution were the Channelmaster/Dish DVR, all buggy as all get-out, and eventually dropped-no Cablecard either. Limiting the gadget to OTA limited the exposure of the gadget makers as they didn't have to agree to the Cablecard requirements as well, but killed the market. Credit where it is due...if TiVo hadn't fought for cablecard, then there'd be zero alternative to the cable co box. (yup, hate that SA 8300....)
Yes, I am annoyed that I have to keep this museum piece running when I've retired the Windows 95 machine, the SD-TV, and the skinny ties. Even we are dependent on Big Content, via their handmaiden macrovision....it's NOT an error there is no clock set screen for this device.

/rant

Keep guessing.


The OP deleted it.

How are those rose colored glasses fitting these days?

Rovi is in the process of abandoning TVGOS. It's been at least two years since a new TVGOS product has been introduced, and as cable systems go digital they are also trying to get out of supporting it.

My Rose colored glasses are actually Orange with Green spots.

It would be nice to think that this could turn into something significantly new for the USA market, but perhaps it is intended for overseas only, if at all?

Wishful dreaming I guess.

http://www.fiercecable.com/story/rov...utm_source=rss

Nope, but as I commented not that long ago, the Internet is the way of the future for services like Rovi provides:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...php?p=21907162

And right on cue, here is what Jed1 recently posted:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=22004031

So based on what you said in your post, the Sonys will eventually become door stops unless someone comes up with an internet box to hook up to the Sonys USB port to continue getting guide data?

Boy am I glad I sold my two when I did.

Almost, but there are those dreamers (like me) who can live without the guide until my feed switches to SDV or some other unknown factor. I have rebuilt two units from tape then was able to get a clock from my feed but no listings.

Except for TiVo, I don't see a decent alternative. My cable company uses the iGuide - that sucks. My TV gets V10 over the internet, but only for 24 hours. They aren't bricks yet, but I see some orange tint to the finish.

So far TVGOS is still working OK for me OTA in upstate South Carolina, thanks to South Carolina ETV. But I can see the handwriting on the wall, and I'm mentally prepared to retire my two Sonys and switch to a TiVo or CM7400 when necessary. At least I now (unlike 2005/06) have wireless Internet in my house so connectivity for the guide won't be a problem. I'll just have to pony up the money for the guide fee. $50 per year for the CM isn't too bad. I pay at least that much for most of the dead-tree magazines that I read.

Six and a half years is a pretty good run for most electronic equipment these days.

With the new revised Rovi data format pattern in Houston; now the Host Channel Set can occur just about any X:45 or X:15 around the clock. It's no longer restricted to just a couple of times or one set time during the night.

The sum of EPP + DPP still must be non equal to the total of StationPkt and TimezonePkt with the same up down scenario generate all data bits for Host Channel Set. However the new data pattern is clearly visible; previously EPP to DPP was about 5 to 1 and now that relationship is about 1 to 10. That relationship does float mildly up/down over time.

It does appear to be setting faster than ever before. Whether or not that has anything to do with Total Guide becoming the replacement of TV Guide (and that Net Guide vs OTA Guide issue), I have no idea (most will say it does not?). So far the press releases on the issue have been unclear to me. In some places it appears Sony just has new rights to use type of license and in other places the press hints that this could be Sony's direct purchase of Rovi patents? I have no idea that is most likely misinterpretation on my part. It is still unclear to me if Sony has any real plans for this in the USA market (even though the Mit's stuff is interesting with Media Guide).

Yup, my two HDD 250's are still running. The OTA one works fine, but TVGOS juggles the cable listings so much I can't keep the grid straight on the cablecard unit. I finally bought (sorry guys) a TiVo. It's buggy too but the listings are solid- The HDD soldiers on as my OTA recorder, and the family can "have at it" on the Tivo. The Tivo tuner is more sensitive than the HDD-I can't resolve one channel on the HDD (although the macroblocks are interesting in a trippy sort of way) but the TiVo can-it's an off axis transmitter up on channel 50, and my trees have filled in.

I still hope for a long and happy life. The impetus for the Tivo wasn't Sony, it was that my free year of DVR had expired, and NO WAY was I paying anything for that junk SA8300 box....

Just to keep hope up for others, I'll post an update. On 4/4 I lost everything. On 4/10 data came back, but it was 90% bad. I let Rovi know and I told my cable company that I was having the same issue as my adjacent headend. Long story short: replacing DAC, changing host channel, and many emails over 7 weeks everything is now 100%. Jed1 was a major help, and I sent copies of all emails to everyone. I must have been a pain for a while, but I did use my Tivo more. I know the Tivo costs a lot, but I find it pretty good and it beats my cable company's STB. Since we are in the TV drought season, two Sonys are off and I can save a few cents. I went through the channel mixing before this happened, so I skipped that issue.

I still feel my cable company is great. Rovi not so much. So I live until the next problem.

My cablecard unit is very unstable. Listings turn themselves on and off. Whoever programs it does not know that the Comedy Channel or HGTV is not an "air" channel. I've redone the grid a few times and have given up when I see yet again that it has been rejumbled on TVGOS. I now direct tune anything on "cable" and sadly cannot rely on TVGOS, which when it was stable, was great...a screen of channels you actually want, not all the filler and junk. Meanwhile, the ota only unit has a solid tvgos listing. Since both get off the air, the flaw is in the human who programs the TVGOS grid-intentional, maybe, to cause dissatisfaction with the system, who knows. Where's that tinfoil hat....oh, I'm already wearing it...good.

You might have one of two problems. The guide data is corrupted and you need to reset the guide back to its factory defaults and let it build a new grid, especially if there was recent inserter issues.

The other problem can be that the OOB (out of band) frequency for your cablecard has an intermitent signal issue. Usually the OOB frequency is 75.250 MHz and is located between RF channel 4 and RF channel 5. This is also called the Forward Data Carrier (FDC) and is how the cable headend talks to the cablecards and cable boxes.
If there is a signal issue the card will unpair and repair constantly and the guide will keep switching between a cablecard lineup and a cable ready lineup.
To check to see if this is happening go into the diagnostics menu of the guide and arrow right on the opening page to bring you to the system statistics page. Look down towards the bottom and see if there is a current date in the Last SU and SU change columns. You should not have a hexidecimal number in the cable ready column either. If there is a current date then you may have a signal issue with the cable feed for your DHG. If not then a simple reset of the guide to its factory defaults should do the trick.

Thanks-I'll check. Which reset do you mean ? The TVGOS guide reset, or the full "bomb" reset (the one that requires .21 be reinstalled).

Ill re-seat the CC as well.

My cable co dropped all analog two weeks ago, so the system has seen some juggling. All is QAM now, and unfortunately, all scrambled save the 'must carry' local signals. We were told that this freeing up of spectrum would result in faster internet as the bandwidth is re allocated...that would be nice.

What they did was give out "free" boxes for a year to cover all the old analog sets (and monetize all those spare bedroom/kitchen television sets hooked up over the years) I am giving my two "free" boxes back at month 11 and hooking back up to the OTA antenna at that time-these sets only see occasional news/weather.

The Sony side of the HDD is fine...I can direct tune anything. It's just the upstairs box TVGOS has a mind of its own.

If you do reseat the cablecard, do this before you reset the guide. Just do the TVGOS reset not the full bomb.

I'll do that, but we just got word that my cable company is getting away from "Switched Digital Video" on a few channels, as we dropped analog recently, and the cableco is using that space to put some channels which were switched to "regular" broadcast. The notice even said that it would be better for CableCard customers. The web has also been quite slow the past few days, they are clearly working on the system. I'll wait till it all stabilizes again and then reset tvgos. Thanks.

Talk about mixed emotions.

My TVGOS has been dead for the last 6 or 7 weeks. To make matters worse, I've had to unpower my DVR several times for various reasons. So after my last power reset, my clock was 2 hours and 12 minutes off the actual time. I proceeded to adjust the dozens of "unkown" recordings the appropriate numbers so that my 7PM recording would start at 4:48, etc. And I was reasonably happy and life was good in TV land being able to time shift my favorite shows for the the last two weeks.

Then Thursday happened. I went to watch my shows and they weren't at all what I expected. They started in the middle of a show that I didn't even want to see and ended in the middle as well. What the @#@^# happened this time? I didn't think I had lost power, but I checked the clock and sure enough it had changed again. So I got out my paper and pencil to recalculate the shift I was going to have to make THIS time on my couple of dozen scheduled recordings. I checked my wall clock and it was five of six. I looked at the DVR and it was reading 5:55. Being Polish, it took me a minute before I figured out the time difference. How the hell did THAT happen? I checked the grid (hoping against hope) and sure enough, I no longer had a screen full of "NO LISTING" anymore. There were actually some boxes that had information in them. Friday and Saturday more and more data appeared in the grid.

After reading this forum, I had pretty much accepted the fact that TVGOS was dead in the Philly area. I don't know what happened, but I can't tell you how good it is to have the grid back up and running. I had almost forgotten how sweet this thing actually works when all is right with the world.

linkstur...

It's good to see that your TVGOS is working once again. I had developed an Excel worksheet a while back that would automatically compute the "DHG Time" for scheduling recordings, based on the displayed time and the desired time to start/end recording. Somewhere in this forum I had posted a link to the worksheet. If I could find it, I would provide you the link to that post. But with this crappy excuse for a "Search This Thread" function, it would take way too long for me to locate it. Good Luck !

I searched for "spreadsheet". I saved a copy on my computer DHG-SonyTime.xls 16k .xls file . I hope I never need it. The new forum is not so good.
Edited by JoeKustra - 6/17/12 at 5:14pm

I assume you are using cable and not OTA because OTA TVGOS has been going strong full-time since the last outage at KYW-TV back in the Dec-Jan time-frame. Cable providers are highly unpredictable in their support of TVGOS.

Sorry to hear Philly Comcast has gone all digital. Have you checked the new host channel & clock set channel?

WS: I downloaded your spread sheet a while back, but never had to use it since the time shift wasn't all that bad. Thanks for digging it up again, Joe.

I'm not sure how to check the host channel and all that. I was doing good with the G*, but after they stopped that, I didn't really have a clue about the digital crap.

Actually, right now, I'm holding my breath. The last 36 hours of the grid have absolutely nothing again, and the clock is about 1 minute off. Maybe it was a fluke. But since OTA is working (Frank), does that mean if I hooked up an OTA antenna and ran that with cable that the grid would populate?

If you re-scan and are able to pick up 3.1 KYW OTA, then yes, it will use that signal in the absence of something on the cable side that provides TVGOS; but apparently now you're getting the TVGOS stream via some cable host channel, so don't mess with success. If it goes away again, hook up the antenna to the antenna coax connecter and re-scan.

Thanks. That certainly is good news.

TVGOS is down in the NY metro area again. The clock is seven minutes off and we are "no listings" 2 and 4 days in the future. How hard is this ?

As a point of reference, TVGOS OTA in Philly is up and functioning fine (KYW-DT, 3.1), so the overall TVGOS system is up. If you're OTA, the NYC CBS station is at fault. If you're on cable/sat/fios, the provider is at fault.

See if this helps:

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1122914/tvgos-tv-guide-on-screen-devices/1200_50#post_22158584

Frank,

I hope chan. 3 in the Philly area (OTA) is working. I just made a major uh oh... I made a make shift antenna to get OTA with some wires strung up the wall in back of the TV (Oh yea...the wife loves it). It actually works and I'm getting channel 3 and 20 more digital OTA channels...but then I re-did my settings and re-scanned the channels and I forgot that when you change system settings, you lose the grid completely. Well, the grid is gone and it's been about 6 hours and still nothing. So I guess it's time to practice patience. I am worried about the clock, though. My contractor is nearing completion on some renovations and I'll have to turn the power off soon to re-connect some fixtures. I'll let you know if the grid appears any time soon.