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Magnavox 537, 535, 533, 515, 513, 2160A, 2160, 2080 & Philips 3576, 3575 - Page 679

post #20341 of 23768
5/10/12 at 9:08pm
Comcast...my Comcast...

Turning on my 2160 this evening to set a timer recording for Persons of Interest &The Mentalist, I was greeted by the disappearance of my local CBS digital station. I flipped thru the other QAM digital chs thinking that it simply needed to rescan the CBS local, and to my dismay, found none of them -all of them were dark with 'scrambled program' showing. Forced to do the full channel rescan-and we all know how slow these scans can be with the Mag tuners. Terrific, I'm going to miss the chunk of the beginning, I growled. Scan completed minutes before showtime, and I'm greeted by another surprise. Comcrap has reordered all the unscrambled locals, giving them altered channel numbers and positions. Had to thumb up the see where everything was now located. Previously the local station sub channels were next to their big brothers-now the 5 primary stations (CBS, NBC, CW, NBC, & Fox) are grouped together, followed by the PBS digital and it's 2 subs, an independent station, then the other sub chs. Oddly, the SD QAM doubles of all those, WGN HD & it's SD clone, plus a PPV preview ch, remain in their old positions.
Don't know if this is permanent or not-my Fox affiliate and it's sub were given alternate chs for most of the fall before moving back to their on air ch positions. But it was darned annoying to discover this shorty before I needed to set a timer recording.

Two positives to report (for the moment) though, is that I now can set a timer rec for my NBC station in it's new position. Previously, for over a year, any timer set to it, would result in it's sub ch being recorded (if the 2160 where either off, or on another ch when it was time fr the recording to begin). The prescribed fixes in the Help section never cured it of this phenomenon.
And on the primary locals, a show's title now appears in the blue Display box when watching live tv. Doesn't appear on the finished recording. This could finally motivate me to update to the super FW, IF it holds.

.
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post #20342 of 23768
5/10/12 at 9:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by wajo View Post

Make adjustments on the QVC channel.

That's a pretty good idea, but we are OTA-no cable.
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post #20343 of 23768
5/10/12 at 9:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by wajo View Post

Have you tried Composite?

Is this one for me and my picture problem? If so, I have tried that in the past And couldn't seem to get any better results.
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post #20344 of 23768
5/10/12 at 9:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by wajo View Post

Your TV has an Advanced Picture > Black Level setting that can be set to Dark or Light... try that for the input you're using for the DVDR?

Found that too-it helped slightly.
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post #20345 of 23768
5/11/12 at 4:32am
Thread Starter 


2 ea. 515 refurbs at J&R. $199.99.

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post #20346 of 23768
5/11/12 at 10:26am
Hi all,
Just got a MDR513 a few weeks ago. I have the screen saver feature set to activate at 1 min. It never comes on unless I am in a setup screen where it works just fine. Any pointers on how to get it to activate if a have an image on pause?

TIA
Steve
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post #20347 of 23768
5/11/12 at 11:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Westly-C View Post

And on the primary locals, a show's title now appears in the blue Display box when watching live tv. Doesn't appear on the finished recording. This could finally motivate me to update to the super FW, IF it holds.

.

It seems your cable feed is now passing full PSIP. Update to 727V should have no effect on your tuner's ability to receive channels that got messed up by Comcast.
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post #20348 of 23768
5/11/12 at 11:31am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by gryffandor View Post

Hi all,
Just got a MDR513 a few weeks ago. I have the screen saver feature set to activate at 1 min. It never comes on unless I am in a setup screen where it works just fine. Any pointers on how to get it to activate if a have an image on pause?

As far as I've found, it only works on menu screens. This is prob. due to the thin lines in those screens which might tend to burn in compared to a full screen of video pixels? There may be other occurrences where the screen saver kicks in.

Pausing a playback lasts for ~20 min. on screen then releases to live TV. Pausing live TV lasts for at least 1 hour (my one test which I decided was enough time to wait).
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post #20349 of 23768
5/11/12 at 12:08pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by marusian View Post

Awesome amount of info from Wajo - Thanks!

I just ordered my unit from walmart.com and will not get it for a week or so, but it might take me that much time to read through and highlight all the very useful information posted by you since 2005. I can see it will help me to get the most out of my Magnavox 515, especially as I always read the user guide front to back before using a device like this - and you identify places where the user guide is in error (which may or may not have been fixed by now). Thanks for all your hard work.

Welcome to the forum! Here's hoping you won't have any problems but, if you do, there are lots of knowledgeable users here who can help.
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post #20350 of 23768
5/11/12 at 1:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by marusian View Post

I just ordered my unit from walmart.com and will not get it for a week or so, but it might take me that much time to read through and highlight all the very useful information posted by you since 2005. I can see it will help me to get the most out of my Magnavox 515, especially as I always read the user guide front to back before using a device like this - and you identify places where the user guide is in error (which may or may not have been fixed by now). Thanks for all your hard work.
John

This is not a toaster and the manual can be a challenge. Reading it is a good move, as is having an on-line copy. I almost never edit, so I skip that part. For the 515H you should enjoy 99% of its functions without the manual. The first 20 posts are better than the manual in my opinion. It might be helpful to add your location in the UserCP and post how you will be using the unit.
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post #20351 of 23768
5/14/12 at 2:25pm
I have several 515's that I have used for about two years now to record basic cable DTV shows and analog shows that I get through Cablevision here in the NYC area. Unfortunately tomorrow Cablevision will scramble basic cable service here in the NYC area and require cable boxes to unscramble it. So being close enough to NYC to give off the air reception a try I did so and to my surprise I get all of the broadcast networks HDTV for free. I have, however, a weird problem with the 515's that was not there with the cable. When I rescanned for the channels using the "Antenna" setting something strange (and troublesome) happens on Channel 5 which is Fox TV.

There are two digital channels for 5: 5.1 which is HDTV (720p) and 5.2 which is the same content except broadcast as SDTV. On both of my HDTV's (one Pioneer and one Sharp) there is no problem with channel 5, when I run through the channels with the channel advance button on the remote I go from 4.1 to 4.2 to 5.1 to 5.2 to 7.1 as I would expect (this even is the way it is with my old analog TV in the kitchen that I hooked up to a converter box when we went to the antenna). On the 515's, however, when I run through the channels I get the following change in the sequence: 41. to 4.2 to 5.2 to 5.1 to 7.1 which is strange and a little frustrating. What is troublesome is the 515's will not record 5.1 unless the unit is on and set to 5.1. If the unit is on any other channel when recording starts it tries to switch to 5.1 and then records nothing but black. The units will switch to 5.2 if that is what I program it to do but the SDTV picture framing is off aspect. I called Magnovox and they said it could be their tuner's and suggested powering down the unit buy unplugging it and then try a rescan. I did so and it did not help. Given that all of my 515's do this it has to be either something weird about the 515 tuner, something weird of Fox TV on channel 5 or a combination of both.

Does anyone have any insight into this? Living with this is not going to be fun. (I apologize if this has been covered already, this thread is too huge to read through.)
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post #20352 of 23768
5/14/12 at 2:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ALP View Post

There are two digital channels for 5: 5.1 which is HDTV (720p) and 5.2 which is the same content except broadcast as SDTV.

Is it possible that there are two different broadcasts, one VHF and one UHF, for channel 5.x?

We have a channel that does that. They broadcast on VHF 13 and UHF 44 but my Mag tuners show both as 13.x and the Maggies do not like having both. I get better reception on the UHF version so I deleted 13.x from the tuner and then manually added UHF 44 which ended up reading 13.1 (44) and all is well.
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post #20353 of 23768
5/14/12 at 2:44pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ALP View Post

I have several 515's that I have used for about two years now to record basic cable DTV shows and analog shows that I get through Cablevision here in the NYC area. Unfortunately tomorrow Cablevision will scramble basic cable service here in the NYC area and require cable boxes to unscramble it. So being close enough to NYC to give off the air reception a try I did so and to my surprise I get all of the broadcast networks HDTV for free. I have, however, a weird problem with the 515's that was not there with the cable. When I rescanned for the channels using the "Antenna" setting something strange (and troublesome) happens on Channel 5 which is Fox TV.

There are two digital channels for 5: 5.1 which is HDTV (720p) and 5.2 which is the same content except broadcast as SDTV. On both of my HDTV's (one Pioneer and one Sharp) there is no problem with channel 5, when I run through the channels with the channel advance button on the remote I go from 4.1 to 4.2 to 5.1 to 5.2 to 7.1 as I would expect (this even is the way it is with my old analog TV in the kitchen that I hooked up to a converter box when we went to the antenna). On the 515's, however, when I run through the channels I get the following change in the sequence: 41. to 4.2 to 5.2 to 5.1 to 7.1 which is strange and a little frustrating. What is troublesome is the 515's will not record 5.1 unless the unit is on and set to 5.1. If the unit is on any other channel when recording starts it tries to switch to 5.1 and then records nothing but black. The units will switch to 5.2 if that is what I program it to do but the SDTV picture framing is off aspect. I called Magnovox and they said it could be their tuner's and suggested powering down the unit buy unplugging it and then try a rescan. I did so and it did not help. Given that all of my 515's do this it has to be either something weird about the 515 tuner, something weird of Fox TV on channel 5 or a combination of both.

Does anyone have any insight into this? Living with this is not going to be fun. (I apologize if this has been covered already, this thread is too huge to read through.)

jjeff had a "sorta-similar" problem in which he deleted his "bad" channel 29 and was then able to enter 29.1 directly in the timer rec menu with the number keys. That allowed timer rec but took away the CH+/- surfability, but the former was more important.

You can prob. do the same by Deleting your DTV 5 channel. When you then enter a timer rec program for DTV 5.1, you don't have to use the "dot" key if you enter a zero first, like 051. Just don't use CH+/- key to set the channel.

The Mag has a "hybrid" (switched) tuner that doesn't handle co-channel interference as well as an integrated HDTV tuner does.

His slightly diff. story is here, but it's the result that counts... hope it works for you!

P.S. Read "Your Bottom Line" here on the all-scrambled thing just to be sure before you accept the Cablevision thing (give it the "Lie" test).
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post #20354 of 23768
5/14/12 at 3:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by wajo View Post

jjeff had a "sorta-similar" problem in which he deleted his "bad" channel 29 and was then able to enter 29.1 directly in the timer rec menu with the number keys. That allowed timer rec but took away the CH+/- surfability, but the former was more important.

Yes, everything has been working just fine doing it that way. My guess is his channels while same number may be on different frequencies, at least thats the case in my market
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post #20355 of 23768
5/14/12 at 3:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ALP View Post

I have several 515's that I have used for about two years now to record basic cable DTV shows and analog shows that I get through Cablevision here in the NYC area. Unfortunately tomorrow Cablevision will scramble basic cable service here in the NYC area and require cable boxes to unscramble it. So being close enough to NYC to give off the air reception a try I did so and to my surprise I get all of the broadcast networks HDTV for free. I have, however, a weird problem with the 515's that was not there with the cable. When I rescanned for the channels using the "Antenna" setting something strange (and troublesome) happens on Channel 5 which is Fox TV.

There are two digital channels for 5: 5.1 which is HDTV (720p) and 5.2 which is the same content except broadcast as SDTV. On both of my HDTV's (one Pioneer and one Sharp) there is no problem with channel 5, when I run through the channels with the channel advance button on the remote I go from 4.1 to 4.2 to 5.1 to 5.2 to 7.1 as I would expect (this even is the way it is with my old analog TV in the kitchen that I hooked up to a converter box when we went to the antenna). On the 515's, however, when I run through the channels I get the following change in the sequence: 41. to 4.2 to 5.2 to 5.1 to 7.1 which is strange and a little frustrating. What is troublesome is the 515's will not record 5.1 unless the unit is on and set to 5.1. If the unit is on any other channel when recording starts it tries to switch to 5.1 and then records nothing but black. The units will switch to 5.2 if that is what I program it to do but the SDTV picture framing is off aspect. I called Magnovox and they said it could be their tuner's and suggested powering down the unit buy unplugging it and then try a rescan. I did so and it did not help. Given that all of my 515's do this it has to be either something weird about the 515 tuner, something weird of Fox TV on channel 5 or a combination of both.

Does anyone have any insight into this? Living with this is not going to be fun. (I apologize if this has been covered already, this thread is too huge to read through.)

I went to Rabbit Ears to look up the station info: http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php

Display Physical
Channel Channel Video Audio Call Sign Network/Programming Nickname
05-1 44.3 720p DD5.1 WNYW FOX "Fox 5 New York"
09-2 44.4 480i DD2.0 WWOR-TV MyN "My 9"

05-2 38.4 480i DD2.0 WNYW FOX "Fox 5 New York"
09-1 38.3 720p DD5.1 WWOR-TV MyN "My 9"
09-3 38.5 480i DD2.0 BOUNCE Bounce TV

You are seeing an issue that was first discussed some time ago for the Twin Cities PBS stations. They have 2 Physical channels which map to the same Display Channel (That is the Rabbit Ears term - it is often referred to as a virtual channel.

Remember, it appears that the Philips/Magnavox OTA tuners do not maintain tables of all of the Virtual sub-channels. They just seem to maintain a list of the Physical Channel(s) that host a Virtual Channel.

Initially, this was not an issue at all for most OTA users. While some Physical Channels hosted more than one Virtual Channel, a Virtual Channel was not hosted on more than one Physical Channel, except for repeaters. Repeaters are not much of an issue because, if you can receive the original and the repeater, the content is identical, so it generally does not matter which one you are tuned to.

During the OTA channel scan which is done in Physical Channel order, Physical Channel 38 would have been found first. That would associate Physical 38 with both Virtual 5 and Virtual 9. Later it detected Physical Channel 44 which added entries for Physical Channel 44 to the Physical Channels associated with both Virtual 5 and Virtual 9.

When you tune to Virtual 5 or Virtual 9, the tuner will first go to Physical 38. Then it will try Physical 44.
That is why I would expect the Virtual channel order to be 5-2,5-1 or 9-1,9-3,9-2.

This creates a recording issue for some or all of the Tuners. Based on reports of those who experience the issue (I don't because Denver Metro does not have any stations that played this game) the Philips Tuners and possibly some or all of the Magnavox tuners only try one Physical Channel when recording. If you schedule a recording from 5-1, It will only tune to Physical 38, and 5-1 isn't there.

Happily, according to Rabbit Ears, there is no Virtual 38 or 44, so I think you can schedule a recording on Virtual 5-1 by entering 44-3. I also believe you can directly tune 5-1 by entering 44-3 on your remote.
I presume you can record 9-1 and 9-3 without any problems, since they are on the lower Physical Channel.

I can't test this, but you can. Good luck
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post #20356 of 23768
5/14/12 at 7:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ALP View Post

I have several 515's that I have used for about two years now to record basic cable DTV shows and analog shows that I get through Cablevision here in the NYC area. Unfortunately tomorrow Cablevision will scramble basic cable service here in the NYC area and require cable boxes to unscramble it. So being close enough to NYC to give off the air reception a try I did so and to my surprise I get all of the broadcast networks HDTV for free. I have, however, a weird problem with the 515's that was not there with the cable. When I rescanned for the channels using the "Antenna" setting something strange (and troublesome) happens on Channel 5 which is Fox TV.

There are two digital channels for 5: 5.1 which is HDTV (720p) and 5.2 which is the same content except broadcast as SDTV. On both of my HDTV's (one Pioneer and one Sharp) there is no problem with channel 5, when I run through the channels with the channel advance button on the remote I go from 4.1 to 4.2 to 5.1 to 5.2 to 7.1 as I would expect (this even is the way it is with my old analog TV in the kitchen that I hooked up to a converter box when we went to the antenna). On the 515's, however, when I run through the channels I get the following change in the sequence: 41. to 4.2 to 5.2 to 5.1 to 7.1 which is strange and a little frustrating. What is troublesome is the 515's will not record 5.1 unless the unit is on and set to 5.1. If the unit is on any other channel when recording starts it tries to switch to 5.1 and then records nothing but black. The units will switch to 5.2 if that is what I program it to do but the SDTV picture framing is off aspect. I called Magnovox and they said it could be their tuner's and suggested powering down the unit buy unplugging it and then try a rescan. I did so and it did not help. Given that all of my 515's do this it has to be either something weird about the 515 tuner, something weird of Fox TV on channel 5 or a combination of both.

Does anyone have any insight into this? Living with this is not going to be fun. (I apologize if this has been covered already, this thread is too huge to read through.)

hi alps...

i have the same exact situation here in vegas wth Cox Cable....

in my locale, cox has elected to plant 5.1 ( primary fox ) on RF cable channel 101, and 5.2 ( in my case fox weather ) on RF cable channel 100...

the clue, here, is your ' backward advance ' sequence when using channel up... eg, you get 5.2 before you get 5.1...

this happens because the auto scan is performed sequentially up, and whatever it hits first, it assigns first.. soooo, if RF channel 100 has, say, channel x.1 in the first time slot, followed by 5.2 in the 2nd time slot, it gets mapped ( 5.x causes the tuner to look at RF 100, where there is no 5.1 available; only x.1).... then, RF channel 101 gets scanned, and channel assignments go on to get assigned, probably including your 5.1...

the end result is that you'll find the memorized channels fine with the up/down stuff, but direct entry won't work right, nor will timer progrmmed channels, since timer recordings utilize the equivalent of direct entry...

direct entry for 5.1 does not work.... you get black, or possibly 5.2 instead...

there are 2 possible solutions, of which only 1 is totally reliable...

in either case, you'l need to learn which dtv display channels are located on which RF channel assignments. i'm lucky with my mits tv, as the channel editor shows both display and rf channels allocated... but you'll need to figure them out somehow...

in my locale, cox has crammed all their clear qam onto about 5 rf channels, and has interspersed same display channels onto different RF channels, which is probably similar to your case.

during my initial problems with this, my 1st solution was to fiddle around disabling certain RF channels until the tuner properly mapped 5.1. this was the 1st solution. unfortunately, this solution stopped working after a while....

the 2nd solution, and still reliable for me, is to locate the offending RF channel and, while perfforming an auto-scan, momentarily disconnect your cableco feed as it approaches the offender, then quickly reconnect right after the scan increments.

the only rub is that you'll lose those display channels for the rf channel you skipped during the auto scan... if other display channels are important, you might do a manual channel add AFTER the auto scan has been completed.

this did not work in my case, but the balance of channels on the offender were not too important to me, so i live with it...

hope this helps..

rgds,
ron g

the 1st solution i
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post #20357 of 23768
5/14/12 at 8:23pm
Guys, Had to go out tonight so I just read this, thank you so much for figuring this out for me, will give it a test tomorrow and report back. Once again, thank you so much!
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post #20358 of 23768
5/14/12 at 9:59pm
For RKG22-

ALP's situation is different in that he's getting stuff off the air, not by cable.

The only thing I can figure is that possibly the two channel 5s are actually being transmitted on different OTA channels.

The number we see on our TVs or other devices with digital tuners are artificial...they're just window dressing. My local channel 7 broadcasts on a high double digit channel number, but all you see is "7".

If you go to the antennaweb.org website and input your address, you can get a readout of all the OTA channels in your area, and on a chart it'll show you what channel they're really transmitting on.

http://www.antennaweb.org/Address.aspx

If ALP first deleted the channel 5s, then manually added the frequency for 5.1 back in, it'd be interesting to see what he'd get.

As a first step, it'd be interesting to see what the real channel numbers of both 5s are (if they actually are different).

ALP-

Can you give us your zip code or by Private Message your street address? (Or are you familiar enough with antennaweb.org to know how to sort this out?)
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post #20359 of 23768
5/14/12 at 10:03pm
I've checked.

In NYC, Fox 5.1 broadcasts on real channel 44.

ALP-
Go into your channels and delete the 5s.

Then key in 44 and save it.

See what you end up with.
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post #20360 of 23768
5/14/12 at 11:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by gastrof View Post

For RKG22-

ALP's situation is different in that he's getting stuff off the air, not by cable.

The only thing I can figure is that possibly the two channel 5s are actually being transmitted on different OTA channels.

The number we see on our TVs or other devices with digital tuners are artificial...they're just window dressing. My local channel 7 broadcasts on a high double digit channel number, but all you see is "7".

If you go to the antennaweb.org website and input your address, you can get a readout of all the OTA channels in your area, and on a chart it'll show you what channel they're really transmitting on.

http://www.antennaweb.org/Address.aspx

If ALP first deleted the channel 5s, then manually added the frequency for 5.1 back in, it'd be interesting to see what he'd get.

As a first step, it'd be interesting to see what the real channel numbers of both 5s are (if they actually are different).

ALP-

Can you give us your zip code or by Private Message your street address? (Or are you familiar enough with antennaweb.org to know how to sort this out?)

hi gastrof...

sorry about that...

i must have keyed in on what he posted incorrectly, but thought he was doing cableco stuff...

( boy would i love to be able to re-write the firmware controlling these tuners )

( for quick OT reference... my mits tv tuner is a pain as well... if it finds RF it memorizes EVERYTHING... scrambled or not... then i have to kill about 80 channels off every time i do a re-scan )
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post #20361 of 23768
5/14/12 at 11:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by gastrof View Post

I've checked.

In NYC, Fox 5.1 broadcasts on real channel 44.

ALP-
Go into your channels and delete the 5s.

Then key in 44 and save it.

See what you end up with.

If you check my post abovehttp://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...ostcount=20362, you will see that there is a relationship between Virtual 5 and Virtual 9 and Physical 38 and Physical 44. I am not quite sure what would happen when you start deleting and manually adding back channels.

As has been suggested, I think there is a difference in how the tuners handle this type of situation in a Cable or OTA environment. I think the designers may have anticipated lots of crazy mappings on Cable, since some Cable companies want to confuse equipment they don't provide. For OTA, it is in the station's best interest to make it as easy as possible for every type of tuner to receive their signal, since that maximizes their coverage, and allows them to charge the advertisers more. As a result, the designers may not have anticipated this sort of channel assigment in an OTA environment.

If he isn't bothered by the funky order when using channel up and down, I don't think he needs to delete the Virtual 5 or Virtual 9 entries. I believe his only real problem is in scheduling recordings. As I mentioned I would not expect a problem with 9-1 or 9-3. The tuner should try Physical 38, and it will find them both there. By scheduling 44-3, I believe he will be able to record 5-1. This should work since Rabbit Ears reports no Virtual 44. If there was a Virtual 44, that would create problems. The OTA tuner is Virtual Channel dominant, so if there was a Virtual 44, it would tune to the lowest Physical Channel associated with it. Again, as long as there is no Virtual 44(and Rabbit Ears doesn't list one), that should not be an issue.

I still haven't figured out a good reason why the stations used these mappings, unless the Physical stations are located where some viewers could receive one, but not the other. If they were co-located on the same transmission tower, I would think it would make more sense to put all Virtual 5sub-channels on one Physical Channel and all Virtual 9 sub-channels on the other. That would have avoided this issue, which I supect has some effect on more than just these tuners.
If the issue is coverage, they still could have avoided this situation by assigning the Fox-HD to Virtual 5-1 and MyN-SD to 5-2 on one Physical Channel and MyN-HD to 9-1 and Fox-SD to 9-2 on the other Physical Channel. I suppose the marketing people though that would be too difficult for the typical viewer to understand, although I suspect the Engineering people would understand the potential technical problems the current arrangement might cause.
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post #20362 of 23768
5/15/12 at 7:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by kenavs View Post

I went to Rabbit Ears to look up the station info: http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php

Display Physical
Channel Channel Video Audio Call Sign Network/Programming Nickname
05-1 44.3 720p DD5.1 WNYW FOX "Fox 5 New York"
09-2 44.4 480i DD2.0 WWOR-TV MyN "My 9"

05-2 38.4 480i DD2.0 WNYW FOX "Fox 5 New York"
09-1 38.3 720p DD5.1 WWOR-TV MyN "My 9"
09-3 38.5 480i DD2.0 BOUNCE Bounce TV

You are seeing an issue that was first discussed some time ago for the Twin Cities PBS stations. They have 2 Physical channels which map to the same Display Channel (That is the Rabbit Ears term - it is often referred to as a virtual channel.

Remember, it appears that the Philips/Magnavox OTA tuners do not maintain tables of all of the Virtual sub-channels. They just seem to maintain a list of the Physical Channel(s) that host a Virtual Channel.

Initially, this was not an issue at all for most OTA users. While some Physical Channels hosted more than one Virtual Channel, a Virtual Channel was not hosted on more than one Physical Channel, except for repeaters. Repeaters are not much of an issue because, if you can receive the original and the repeater, the content is identical, so it generally does not matter which one you are tuned to.

During the OTA channel scan which is done in Physical Channel order, Physical Channel 38 would have been found first. That would associate Physical 38 with both Virtual 5 and Virtual 9. Later it detected Physical Channel 44 which added entries for Physical Channel 44 to the Physical Channels associated with both Virtual 5 and Virtual 9.

When you tune to Virtual 5 or Virtual 9, the tuner will first go to Physical 38. Then it will try Physical 44.
That is why I would expect the Virtual channel order to be 5-2,5-1 or 9-1,9-3,9-2.

This creates a recording issue for some or all of the Tuners. Based on reports of those who experience the issue (I don't because Denver Metro does not have any stations that played this game) the Philips Tuners and possibly some or all of the Magnavox tuners only try one Physical Channel when recording. If you schedule a recording from 5-1, It will only tune to Physical 38, and 5-1 isn't there.

Happily, according to Rabbit Ears, there is no Virtual 38 or 44, so I think you can schedule a recording on Virtual 5-1 by entering 44-3. I also believe you can directly tune 5-1 by entering 44-3 on your remote.
I presume you can record 9-1 and 9-3 without any problems, since they are on the lower Physical Channel.

I can't test this, but you can. Good luck

Kenavs, Problem solved, you are THE MAN. Thank you so much for that rabbitears link, it really helped. It took me trys to get it right. First I just entered 44 on the key pad while watching 4.1 on the 515. The unit went to 44.1 which brought up 5.1. I was pleased but a little concerned that I did not have to go to 44.3 to get 5.1. Second I setup recording 44.3 with the unit starting on 4.1. When the record time started the unit went to 5.3 to record, however, there is no 5.3 channel in my area so I still recorded black. However, with this second bit of information I was pretty sure I understood how the tuner in the 515 does look up of which virtual channel to select. I set up the unit to record 44.1 while it was on 4.1. This time when the record time started the unit went to 5.1 and that is what I wanted. Thank you very much!

I do have to say that after looking at the information on the rebbitears link the only think I could think of is what idiot (or idiots) set this up. Why didn't the give 38 to either 5 or 9 and 44 to the other one? Why did they mix the two over the two frequencies?
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post #20363 of 23768
5/15/12 at 7:26am
When I bought my 515's new at Walmart last year I paid about $225 a unit. I noticed from wajo's lead post that they are now about $330 a unit new at Walmart. Did Funai and / or Walmart decide to cash in on a winner?
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post #20364 of 23768
5/15/12 at 8:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ALP View Post

When I bought my 515's new at Walmart last year I paid about $225 a unit. I noticed from wajo's lead post that they are now about $330 a unit new at Walmart. Did Funai and / or Walmart decide to cash in on a winner?

You missed when Amazon was selling a new 515H for $1600 I guess?
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post #20365 of 23768
5/15/12 at 10:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ALP View Post

Kenavs, Problem solved, you are THE MAN. Thank you so much for that rabbitears link, it really helped. It took me trys to get it right. First I just entered 44 on the key pad while watching 4.1 on the 515. The unit went to 44.1 which brought up 5.1. I was pleased but a little concerned that I did not have to go to 44.3 to get 5.1. Second I setup recording 44.3 with the unit starting on 4.1. When the record time started the unit went to 5.3 to record, however, there is no 5.3 channel in my area so I still recorded black. However, with this second bit of information I was pretty sure I understood how the tuner in the 515 does look up of which virtual channel to select. I set up the unit to record 44.1 while it was on 4.1. This time when the record time started the unit went to 5.1 and that is what I wanted. Thank you very much!

I do have to say that after looking at the information on the rebbitears link the only think I could think of is what idiot (or idiots) set this up. Why didn't the give 38 to either 5 or 9 and 44 to the other one? Why did they mix the two over the two frequencies?

Glad to hear you can record what you want.
I am curious about something:
What happens if you tune 44-2. Does it tune to 9-2?
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post #20366 of 23768
5/15/12 at 4:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeKustra View Post

You missed when Amazon was selling a new 515H for $1600 I guess?

Actually, it's still listed on Amazon for $1,599.99 plus $9.99 shipping from seller SmartCart. What a deal!
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post #20367 of 23768
5/15/12 at 5:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ALP View Post

I do have to say that after looking at the information on the rebbitears link the only think I could think of is what idiot (or idiots) set this up. Why didn't the give 38 to either 5 or 9 and 44 to the other one? Why did they mix the two over the two frequencies?

It's just a combination of your tax dollars at work and the features of the Magnavox tuners. Sort of why there must be a physical ".1" channel or the Magnavox tuner gets fussy. The assignments are stupid, but well documented. See the entries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WNYW

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWOR-TV

Luckily, it's rare that this happens. My cable feed has a 26.0000 which causes the Magnavox to declare it "scramble" and increases all subsequent 26.x channels one higher. My TV just ignores the 26.0. Life can be fun.
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post #20368 of 23768
5/15/12 at 10:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by rkg22 View Post

...( for quick OT reference... my mits tv tuner is a pain as well... if it finds RF it memorizes EVERYTHING... scrambled or not... then i have to kill about 80 channels off every time i do a re-scan )

I got so frustrated / annoyed with the Mag DVDR Tuner Auto-Scanning so many 'INVALID' FiOS channels that I finally sat down and created an Excel spreadsheet of the 'VALID' channels that I subscribe to.

IIRC, I used a 'Special Menu' on my Motorola 7232 PVR to find the FREQUENCY, then I GOOGLE'd for a chart to convert the FREQUENCY into a CHANNEL, and now I just Auto-Scan with the RF disconnected (to clear the memory, if necessary; else, on a BRAND-NEW unit, I just start out this way now), MANUALLY enter the 'VALID' channels and I no longer suffer with the problem of 'GARBAGE' channels interfering with my CH UP / CH DOWN / Timer Recordings .
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post #20369 of 23768
5/15/12 at 11:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ClearToLand View Post

I got so frustrated / annoyed with the Mag DVDR Tuner Auto-Scanning so many 'INVALID' FiOS channels that I finally sat down and created an Excel spreadsheet of the 'VALID' channels that I subscribe to.

IIRC, I used a 'Special Menu' on my Motorola 7232 PVR to find the FREQUENCY, then I GOOGLE'd for a chart to convert the FREQUENCY into a CHANNEL, and now I just Auto-Scan with the RF disconnected (to clear the memory, if necessary; else, on a BRAND-NEW unit, I just start out this way now), MANUALLY enter the 'VALID' channels and I no longer suffer with the problem of 'GARBAGE' channels interfering with my CH UP / CH DOWN / Timer Recordings .


hi cleartoland -

this is a good philosophy as well. the only rub for this that i don't care for is that if i have, say, RF channel 89, but with only DTV virtual 89.3 that's available on that freq, i get a bunch of unusable channels to land on when using the up/down stuff if i manually add that channel... the manual add process seems to enable everything that has an active slot, even though there might not be active content.... IOW, in my case, if i add 89 manually, i get 89.1 ( dead ), 89.2 ( dead ), 89.3 ( active content ), etc....

during the auto scan, the machine seems to understand the lack of active content and, therefore, only memorizes the active 89.3 virtual...

anyhow, kind of a moot point, i guess, unless someone can do a firmware re-write ...
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post #20370 of 23768
5/16/12 at 3:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ClearToLand View Post

I got so frustrated / annoyed with the Mag DVDR Tuner Auto-Scanning so many 'INVALID' FiOS channels that I finally sat down and created an Excel spreadsheet of the 'VALID' channels that I subscribe to.

IIRC, I used a 'Special Menu' on my Motorola 7232 PVR to find the FREQUENCY, then I GOOGLE'd for a chart to convert the FREQUENCY into a CHANNEL, and now I just Auto-Scan with the RF disconnected (to clear the memory, if necessary; else, on a BRAND-NEW unit, I just start out this way now), MANUALLY enter the 'VALID' channels and I no longer suffer with the problem of 'GARBAGE' channels interfering with my CH UP / CH DOWN / Timer Recordings .

I was manually programming my FiOS channels as well until I realized all of the "bad" channels that create tuner conflicts are below digital channel 10 and all of the local access junk is up in the 100s. The lowest tunable channels are a couple of Spanish language channels that I never watch carried on channel 26, then nothing until WGN on 55. My local channels are in the 70s. Now I just run auto channel preset with the coax disconnected until the digital scan passes channel 26, then I reconnect the coax until it passes channel 80, then I disconnect it again and wait for it to finish.
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AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › DVD Recorders (Standard Def) › Magnavox 537, 535, 533, 515, 513, 2160A, 2160, 2080 & Philips 3576, 3575