Daylight Savings Time Change

That's a good question...

It's been so long since I set up a fresh UTV that I don't recall setting the clock. I'm not at home now to look for a clock setting. Come to think of it, I don't believe you need to set the clock on the UTV. I think it gets that set in the stream when the guide loads. There's yet another nice part of the GUI that makes the UTV great.

- Wish you could access the interactive menues in DTV pacakges like NASCAR Hot Pass with the UTV though -

The UTV allows you to define your "Time Zone" and disable Daylight Savings.

That is a very good question about DST and how the UTV will respond.

If anyone finds out from DTV what kind of issues UTVs and other older DTV receivers will have with this... let us know.

I suppose worse case scenario we could all manually adjust our "Time Zone" forward or backward to reflect the proper time and disable DST to prevent an odd "jump" when "old" DST was suppose to take effect... (If UTVs are hard coded with DST settings)

Here's the scoop from D* DVR support:

A DST patch for UTV will be coming down the pipe some time on March 3rd. You should see the update appear in your system on or after that point.

If you don't see it by the 5th, my advice would be to contact D* support. Make sure your receiver is plugged in and connected to the system on the 3rd.

Very Cool. A UTV update.

Network... did DTV say anything about a "long term" update? UTV OS 3.71 for example?

Just in case there is a future need to "refresh" an UTV's OS after March 5, 2007... The DST patch will be rolled in already on download.

Might have to plug in my "spare" UTV to make sure it gets the patch in case it's a one time only update.

I didn't ask about any other updates. I was frankly surprised anyone knew the answer to the DST question. I figured it was best not to push my luck....

When you say plugged in, I assume you mean to a telephone line? That sure is a problem for us VoIP folks. I guess I'll have to take it to the office again.

No, to the sat line and power. The update, like others, should come from the satellite.

I haven't, either. I hope I wasn't the victim of D* spin.

My unit is say 3.7 (version 28218). I wish I had made a note of that 5 digit version number before the date so I would recognize if an update occurred. It still says "None scheduled" under the upgrades section.

I'm tempted to just let it ride and see what happens come Sunday morning.

Hi Network,

3.7 (version 28218) is what I recall all of my UTVs saying too.

Hadn't changed Sunday/Monday when I checked. (on all my active and spare UTVs)

I'd agree we should all check back here on Sunday/Monday to see how everyone faired. I too am suspicious of DTV "spinning" a general "fix" that may be far simpler then they are letting on.

I doubt 3/11/07 will be the day UTV dies on DTV... But if it doesn't go smooth I can see some helpful DTV Reps saying "Your UTV is DEAD! Let us send you are replacement DVR for $xx a month..."

Just remember folks you may be able to manual adjust your "Time Zone" settings if it does act oddly. You may also want to reboot/reset your UTV Sunday Morning as Preventive Maintenance and to make sure DST takes effect.

I know my Cell Phone requires to log off/on the network when DST changes are made. UTVs may be similar.

Lets hope MS didn't "hard code" UTVs to activate DST on a pre-set date... but when the "network" says DST is in effect.

Here's the message I got from a person that worked with the UTV developers years ago:

"It's been a long time since anyone worked on the Ultimate project that I know of. As for DST I don't think any changes are required, but like I said it's been a long time. I don't know of any active or planned development on the project or even who would do it if a change was requested or required."

-Joe

I think UTVs don't need an update because the guide shows the 2AM hour missing on Sunday. Everything in the guide after 3AM is listed at the correct time. My Directivo that hasn't updated yet (phone line is not hooked up), still shows the 2AM hour in the guide and everything in the guide is off one hour after 2AM. I emailed DirecTV to ask if there would be a DST update and below is their reply:

j123,

"On the other hand, when MSN TV has an upgrade for DIRECTV with UltimateTV, customers must accept upgrade. To postpone upgrade, customers need to exit MSN TV."

Odd. Very Odd. I assume they are talking about an actual "MSN TV Upgrade" (Internet terminal) and not a "UTV DVR" function upgrade... I don't see how one could postpone/avoid a future DVR upgrade (3.7x) by exiting "MSNTV". Since it (UTV) is always on and is basically a MSNTV/WebTV terminal with DVR functionality...

Further oddity - when I turned on my UTV, it was tuned to the Biography Channel. I never watch that station and always tune to 1020 before powering down.

I immediately checked the version again and it still reads the same.

However, my guide is also reading no 2AM on early Sunday morning. So, it appears we either got the upgrade or the machine doesn't need one. Maybe the "upgrade" is purely on D*'s end and their fix is to simply eliminate 2AM and adjust shows accordingly.

Strange brew...

That response looks like they grabbed a canned response, maybe even a bot answering. Probably an answer that had meaning before they stopped upgrading UTVs.

Agreed. I doubt the answer applies here.

However, I am more optimistic now that I've seen the guide. I'm prepared to let it roll.

Yeah, here's another case where the UTV developers seem to have made the best farsighted decisions. It's hard to imagine that if they could get the guide to display correctly now that they won't be able to handle this correctly.

Well, my UTV officially appears to be on the right time. Ironicly, it's my Pocket PC that seems to not be switching correctly.

Very true. Maybe D* add a null entry to the guide with blank programming blocks to correct any potential issues since they skipped 2AM for this change.

My utv's have the right time and didn't miss a beat. My windows xp system also worked, probably because I'd been using the auto updates for it. My win2000 systems had to be manually changed, and I'm not sure how it will work with my internet time sync program. My palm required simply a choice of daylight saving on/off.

So, I guess the world didn't crumble like some were beginning to warn again, like in the y2k joke.

Yep,

Yet there are sites (like this one) which aren't reflecting the change yet. Which is an interesting point. I've seen some "local" sites that probably won't change until Monday... However since the early DST change is more US based... I wonder if the GMT setting I'm looking at on this site isn't going to switch until April 1 or when ever other DST observing countries are scheduled to switch...

Yep. It appears DST turned out to be little reason to panic. Even my PocketPC I referenced above is humming along with the right time - now that I found an easy to apply patch on MS's site. Since all my computers are running some form of XP, those fixed themselves with my regualr visit to Windows Update.

Most of the clocks that gave me any trouble were the manual ones - and those are always an issue. My VCR was another (yes, I still use it once in a while when I run out of tuner space). It normally sets itself, but it couldn't pick up the right time on its own. My truck stereo did just fine picking up the time from the PBS data.

So, at the risk of ticking off any greenies, does anyone think this new date for DST will save more energy than Al gore uses up

Just a quick update. Had one of my UTVs up during the DST change over... I was following the ISS/Discovery mission on NASA TV... UTV buffer gets almost twice the advertised "2 hours" with NASA TV (hard drive dependent)... Very nice for reviewing things that otherwise one would miss. NASA TV takes some getting use to... plenty of real-time raw footage... not for ADD inclined people wanting things quick cut/compressed... (That's what the DVR Buffer is for. )

Checked it around "4AM" and noticed since it was in "buffer" mode that it hadn't updated. I turned the unit "off" and did a 12357 reset code. Later in the day when I checked the other UTVs (which were in "standby" mode) they had all updated on their own.

So anyone that has left their UTV in "Buffer" Mode during the change over... switch the UTV "Off"/"Standby" to get the DST update before it screws up any recordings...