Sony DHG-HDD250/500: Official Thread - Page 905

TiVo vs. DHG

With a quick 5 minute cursory review this morning, both DVRs seem about the same on record and playback picture quality.

The PBS Nature show – Wolves and Buffalo does have some unusual picture quality issues, at least in my market and set up. It reminds me of the lower quality LCD panels of years gone by with jerky poppy motion that would give me a headache.

This is easy to spot in the recorded show around the 44 minute mark. It is actually present for the entire one hour show. It is most objectionable with the extreme telephoto lens shots. Instead of the normal smooth flowing 24p you would get with BluRay, you get video jerkiness that sort of drive me nuts. Perhaps with all the video electronics used in the production along with the delivery to my house, it just turns into chop suey. It could be that video cameras were used instead of film cameras etc. Sort of like the changes in the CSI series that took place a few years ago that is so easy to spot.

Both DVRs mark this picture around the 44 min mark, plus or minus 30 seconds. In the picture shot attached the wolves head just pops around on the screen from side to side a couple of inches. To me there are almost 50% of the frames missing. As I said the entire one hour is like that; but only during the very long distance lenses does it start to go wacko. For the record my wife does not see any of this.

I was also able to capture recordings of Basketball, Golf, and NASCAR on both DVRs so I may be able to look into those comparisons this week.

um how do I put a picture here with windows 8? I get an error every time I try to upload?

That would be nice. I would like to know what the instruction manual says concerning how long the service will be supplied. Then there is the few of us who make weekly recordings. That would be hard with 48 hours of listings I guess. My real problem comes from trying to figure out who supplies the data, who builds the box, who writes the firmware and just how smart does it have to be? Time zone? Zipcode? Cable? PSIP needed? This road is well traveled but leads nowhere. Sorry.

I'm still getting V9 OTA for my Sony TV from WCCO.......just saying.

The DTVPal converter did not create anything. It took the existing legacy data that was imbedded in a separate PID from the TVG1 data, and inserted that data into the VBI of the analog channel. The legacy data was created and sent out by Rovi. In order to do the same for the internet data, Rovi would have to insert the legacy data there, and then design a device that would convert the data from the internet (the DTVPal converter worked with OTA data only).

Mark

Are you sure that you're not just seeing telecine artifacts? I doubt that there is anything wrong with your equipment.

I would say yes, except for the fact that it is not consistent, but very irregular throughout the show. Other shows I have viewed today do not seem to have that effect that I can tell.

OTA and clear QAM here in SF. As unadvertised, TVGOS stopped last week. Continued with manual recordings until yesterday, when a hard lockup forced a FP reset. Now clock is 36 minutes slow. Built an Excel spreadsheet which computes offset, then applies that to scheduled recording times to produce times to be entered. Will continue to use that for now while awaiting Sony's answer and researching alternatives. I personally find doing offset recordings easier than pulling plug to sync time. BTW, never changed my zip code. Picture quality of recordings remains superb.

This one is nice too:
http://www.avsforum.com/t/537711/sony-dhg-hdd250-500-official-thread/24600_50#post_21615780

BTW, was the loss of cable data from the same station? No one has reported loss of analog cable data until now.

^^
Where did he say it was analog?

No where. Sometimes I ask questions in a round about way since asking someone what was their cable host channel and were they using a digital inserter is not always productive. And there is this:

http://www.avsforum.com/t/793017/san-francisco-ca-comcast/13300_50#post_19070086

OK, I just saw a ghost...

As I noted before, South Carolina ETV shut down its TVGOS inserters way back at the beginning of November. After the listings disappeared a week later, I bought a TiVo Premiere. I think the last time I used either of my DHGs was to record the last episode of the fall season of The Amazing Race, to match the other episodes that were on that box. At that point I still had the clock and a "No Listings" grid. After I finished copying all my recordings from one box, using a Hauppauge HD PVR, I pulled the plug on it, but left the other one active because I still have some PBS opera broadcasts on it that I want to watch. At some point I lost the clock but still had the channel grid. I don't remember when I last looked at the grid, must have been before New Year.

Tonight I decided I wanted to record something with it, because I want the closed captions to be visible, and the DHG's captions are less obtrusive than the TiVo's. Shortly before the program started, I fired up the DHG, tuned the channel, and held down the "record" button to bring up the manual recording options. Hey, the time looks like it's correct! So I set the recording, padding the end a half hour to make sure, and it started up. Then I thought to hit the guide button... and I actually have program listings in my grid!

They're spotty. Only about half the program blocks are filled in. They extend only through next Friday. Some days have more data than others.

A few days ago a storm front swept through, and I must have had an unusual spell of tropospheric enhancement from North Carolina or maybe Georgia, enough to bring in briefly some station that still carries TVGOS. I wonder which one it could be? The only one that I know of in NC that carried TVGOS is WTVI in Charlotte, but it's something like 2.2 watts VHF, about 80 miles away. I've seen it a handful of times in the last five years. I get stations from the Greensboro area a few times a month. Maybe it's one of them?

That comes close to being a miracle. You can always look at your clock set channel. A clock set is much faster than a host set.

As (un)luck would have it, the power went out briefly and I lost the clock as a result. Clock Set Chan and Failing Clock Chan are both zero now.

I'll have to try to remember to check the front panel clock occasionally to see if it happens again. Probably not much of a time window left for it to happen, though.

Actually 2.57 kW. Forgot the "k". Still pretty small for a high-VHF station (ch 11). The FCC's service contour falls about 30 miles short of my location.

 

Update: Since the 'User Cofig' and 'FGR' resets this past Thursday, all has been recording,  playing, and forwarding/rewinding just fine.

 

As far as the 'duplicate' date-recordings, only one plays back no matter if the 'other' recording is selected to play.  I deleted the latest of the pair, and the other one is 'gone'. 

 

I tried playing another dupe pair, and both same-dated, same-time recordings each played OK.   I will watch each one and try to delete each one and see what gives.

 

I will do more testing and see what happens.

Ok, I'll make it official then. When my OTA TVGOS disappeared, so did my Analog TVGOS from cable. My Panasonic DMR-E95H always got data from cable. I always knew that my analog cable data came from my OTA CBS station, because every time there would be an outage OTA, the analog cable data would also disappear. Once the OTA data was restored, so was the cable data. The fact that my analog data disappeared, when the OTA inserter was removed was no surprise to me at all, which is why I never mentioned it directly (I did mention once that my analog DMR-E95H, would most likely outlive my DHG since you can manually set the clock on the DMR-E95H). So in Wichita, both the analog data from Cox cable, and digital data from OTA died on 2/6/2013.

Mark

Yes, I like this spreadsheet even better. And colorful, too

My TVGOS came from cable 5.1 and other times OTA 5.1, both KPIX (CBS) in digital feed only. Such a shame since it was working better than ever when they pulled the plug
Edited by jwpottberg - 2/17/13 at 11:17pm

Thanks. I didn't know it was possible for a cable company to do that. Thanks for the information.

So it's not good to have two recordings that are identical? Makes sense. I hope you find a solution.

Just speculating, but perhaps your cable feed was passing all the data from KPIX including PSIP and TVGOS. If you haven't done a reset yet, I wonder what channel is shown internally by the 753... clocks2 screen. KPIX is on physical 29.

Update:

Ever since I used the 653274147 code, ANY reset, power pull, crash, etc. causes my clock to return to 12AM 01/01/04. That's not ideal, because I can no longer use the plug-pull method to adjust the clock back an hour or two. And since my DHG self-resets or locks up once or twice per week, I can never rely on it holding the correct time w/o adjustment.

I am not 100% sure if using 653274147 caused the problem, or if I just lost some critical data/setting. On Thursday, I will try other methods to find out.

- Kerry

Dallas Update:

Less than one day of “Listings” left in the box.

Essentially, the TVGOS data has stopped; however I believe the inserter is still in place. Still have a PID, ClockSets, and Time is correct. HostChannelSet only reaches 0xc68 during the last three NumSearches.

TiVo vs. DHG:

College Basketball comparison via record to playback. The source was OTA CBS at 1080i native on both boxes. Moderate to light starving for bandwidth – normal for basketball. So there was some minor blocking on both boxes.

Overall I would say both boxes are 99% the same. The following differences could be entirely imaginary by me.

1. The Sony “might” have better black level detail.

2. The Sony “might” be sharper, but at the same time the staving bandwidth (blocking) is more visible (maybe).

3. Smoothness on playback (non-jerkies) essentially the same. This was significantly smoother than the PBS Nature show by a very wide margin.


I honestly cannot tell if the two boxes are 100% the same or 99% the same.

Are you going to box it up or do manual recording while you still have a clock?

Well, at least you're 100% honest . . .

As long as I have clock, will just leave it plugged in and may do the occasional recording.

Here are two more codes that you can try, that aren't as destructive as the 653274147 code. 653214741 is listed as a cold reset. 147412356 is listed as a warm reset. I have used both codes in the past, and couldn't tell the difference between what effect each one had. They both seemed to only clear the counts from the 753 menu, but left everything else (grid, listings, etc.) intact.

You guys who have been doing these resets have ventured into an area that hasn't been explored. What happens when you run a system without the 08.05.40, and 08.06.44 patches. We don't know what kind of stability issues those patches may have addressed. Wiping out those patches could have increased system instability. That is the main reason I decided to make tapes that have the two software patches on them. So if nothing else I could restore the software patches if I found the system to be unstable after wiping them out.

Mark

Just like Dallas, today is the last day of listings for Los Angeles. Inserter is still there but I reckon it will be pulled soon. I took my DHG500 out of service when I got the TiVo, but I'll leave the DHG250 in place for now. As long as the clock is more or less accurate I can use it for the occasional recording when there's a 3-way conflict. Eventually I'll likely get a HD Homerun to serve that purpose.

Got to wonder why Rovi didn't just pull the plug all across the country at the same time? There doesn't appear to be any logic to which stations are going offline when. Maybe they didn't have room for all those returned inserters at one time?

 

Hmmmm.  Is this 653 reset a FP Clock killer?   I think it wiped some software (via 753, I see some 000000s there since the 653 reset).
 
If you do not have any incoming TVGOS data, I wonder if you did a User Configuration reset, that this would help clear-up some of your frequent locks or even self-resetting?   It appears to have ‘calmed’ my 250 since I did this.

 

The User Configuration Reset wipes clean everything, except recorded programs.  You would start afresh with channel scanning and Guide Setup.  (Last week, I did not setup the Guide.)
 

If you do have a Cable Card, I don't know if a User Config reset helps or not on its issues.

Wednesday night, I plan to do multiple Guide and Front Panel reset testing, hours ahead of midnight.

Note: This is the fastest I have seen the clock drift since Thursday’s reset:   It is now 5 seconds ahead.

 

Yep, those are the numbers that are now gone since the 653 reset. 

 

 [] I still have a Guide Clock.
 [] I still have days of the week coordinated.
 [] I am still recording and watching programs.

 

If anything, my 250 is just as ‘stable’, if not more so without the TVGOS running.