My TV is a Sony KDS-50A2000. I found the tuner performance of the DVR to be nearly identical to the Sony both in sensitivity and multipath performance. I was hoping it would have been a little better but at least it's not worse.

The AGC level shown on the Sony (Diagnostic screen) shows that there is a little amplification through the pass-through port on the DVR even when it's turned off. I think a previous poster measured this. There seems to be no degradation of the passed through signal to my TV. This is good because it makes the setup cleaner and easy to switch between the DVR tuner and the Sony tuner.

There appears to be no way to tune to a channel that hasn't been scanned in first. This is quite inconvenient to check to see if a "part time" channel is coming in but it's unlikely I'd be recording those anyway and the Sony is very good in this regard.

No TVGOS data yet. I hope it shows up overnight because some of my Sacramento locals are providing no PSIP program info.

This is a nit but I'm not so enthused having to push 5 digits for direct channel entry.

I've barely had a chance to record anything but I like what I've seen so far.

Standing next to the DVR, I definitely notice a hum. The machine also has a slight vibration when you touch it -- even when it's "off".

This is the first DVR I've ever owned, so I'm guessing this is common. I don't notice the hum at all when I'm at a TV-watching distance.

Just a quick note. I sent the following question to Dish Network support regarding the DTVPal DVR:

"When will firmware be listed online for download via USB? Are there any release notes you have regarding the current version downloaded by ethernet? Any ideas what the plans are for the ethernet and usb? Thanks!"

Here is the Dish Network support response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for your email. I'll be happy to assist you with your software questions. There is no current release date for new software. The Ethernet connection and USB will be used for software upgrades. There are no other plans for those ports at this time.

Your business is greatly appreciated and we thank you for allowing us to be of assistance to you. If you have further questions you can respond to this e-mail or access our online technical support at the following link: http://tech.dishnetwork.com/departme...al/index.shtml

A Technical Service Representative is available via live chat 24 hours a day, 7 days per week regarding your concerns. Please click the following link to use this option. http://tech.dishnetwork.com/departme...formrf23.shtml

Thank you,

Shane D.

DISH Network Technical E-care


For those of you having issues, there appears to be a live 24 hour chat available. I know kyboman is having issues, may be worth a shot. Whether they can diagnose and fix his issue is another story.

Yes the chat I believe is the best source, I had tried phone, email, and chat when trying to get info on when my unit would be delivered, only the chat guy seamed to be giving me strait answers.

Kyboman,

could it be posible that yourr coax in and coax out are switched?

Those says
-------
AMD
218T316ZLA12GP
P35786.00
0750SS
------

I'm guessing these are their 'Theatre' demods.

I get this message frequently when starting a recording, but the whole show has been there every time so far.

Mine just seams to find channels by itself. Frequently when I have turned it on, it announces that it found new services. There were for very weak stations that I normally can't get. It must briefly see a signal enough to get the station ID and add the station. The signal is not strong enough to see these channels though.

It found all but one station in my area so far. It even found a station at channel 4, which is fairly far away and my antenna isn't for lo-VHF. I was surprised to find in my guide last night. Edit: Overnight it found the last station but not enough to identify it by channel number/station ID, only the actual channel and that it had 3 sub-channels (10-1, 10-2, 10-3).


Make sure you set the zipcode to the area of the stations and not necessary your actual zip. I initialized used my actual zip - nothing after 2 days. I changed it to the alternate zip listed in the manual - nothing after 2 more days. Once I set it to the actual zip for the stations I wanted, then the 7 day finally was populated.


Don't enter so many digits. You don't need leading zeros and you don't need the two sub-channel digits if you want the primary channel. For example, I have channel 2 in my area, I could enter 00201, but just hitting 2 and waiting a second or two works also. Same for two digits stations, just enter the two digits.

Good guess.

The TivoHD uses the Theater314 and it actually says that on the chip (high res picture). However, it also has very similar part number -- 218T314ZGA21G. It looks like the DTVPal DVR is using a newer Theater316 variant, not yet listed on the AMD/ATI site.

Edit: Some searching reveals that the Pinnacle HD Ultimate Stick also uses the AMD/ATI T316 demodulator to support both ATSC and ClearQAM.

Check the Broadcom sight - AMD sold it's DTV division to them.

or you could just do "2" Select and it would quickly jump to 2-1. This also works on the DTVPAL's.

With all electronics, the cooler the better. I put mine in my entertainment center and I am planning to put in a fan in the cabinet. You can use PC fans or you can buy specialty fans. I actually use a PC fan and an old cell phone charger with some wirenuts for my aquarium. You shouldn't need that much air movement for the DVR (I haven't found that it gets overly hot) so I would just find a quiet solution. Face the fan to draw out the air from the cabinet.

There are also products that control fans when it reads a specified temperature. I'm sure there is plenty of info on the board.

I chatted online with Tier 2 technical support. They blame my antenna (or in my case, both of them). He suggested taking the box to a local dish distributer who may have an OTA antenna to try out the box.

He did state that the power button will not work until the box goes thru its initial configuration and that this is consistent with their other models.

I did triple check to make sure I hooked the antenna coax to the correct jack on the box and even tried the other jack just to make sure the box wasn't internally miswired.

If it's 80 in the cabinet, the internal temperature of the unit is likely 15-20 degrees warmer - That's not good if you are looking for longevity on this unit, or the rest of your gear. Find a couple of of computer case fans that you can install in the back of your cabinet - their quiet, and consume very little power.

Describe your antenna setup...and have you checked out AntennaWeb.org? Are you using an amplifier? - even at 30 miles from the transmitters, you may be over powering the digital tuner in the DTV DVR. Upplug any antenna/coax amplifiers

A quick fix for you if your signal is to hot.

Run the incoming coax from the wall to a splitter (input) then (output) to the input on the DVR.
This should drop your signal about 7dB.

S

Emerson 19" HDTV model#: LC195EM8
Video 2: Componet (Y/Pb/Pr), Audio (L/R)
Video 1: S-Video, Video, Audio (L/R)

I'm a Dish subscriber with a 722 DVR, love the thing, we've had it for almost a year now. I've been looking for some kind of DVR for my parents for years now. Currently they use a series of VHS players hooked to several TVs.(They had bad luck with a DVD recorder so they don't even use the one they have. They don't want or have dish, cable or high speed internet, and they just bought an Sony LCD. This looks perfect. Same great interface as our 722,(the timer things sucks though) but no monthly fees. I'll be ordering it this week for them.

Here's my question for you guys. The roof antennae is wired into the basement through an amplifier/splitter, then to several TVs in the house. I had to plug in the amplifier to get all the channels to come in on their TV, and I had to reroute it around their VCR.(not surprising) I bought a two way splitter to go to the TV and DVD recorder, but it only gets about half of the channels. I'm not sure if this is a cable problem or what?

So my question is, can I get some kind of splitter to run the output of the DVR back into the coax, so the DVR can be used on the other TVs? I know Dish does this with their receivers, but I'm not sure it would work on channel 3 or what?

Do you see any image on the screen?

Even if it finds no channels, I would think you should still be able to get to the menu. I am using a powered antenna, but it is split when it comes into the house. Try removing the powered amplifier between the antenna and the line and just connect the antenna without amplifier to the antenna input jack and try again. I would think the unit works especially if you can see the menus.

If the unit does not even boot or you can't get to the setup screen, then I think your unit may be hosed.

The box has a coax out and in the set-up you specify channel 3 or 4. Others have reported that all outputs are active at the same time. I would think that you could run the coax out to another TV.

Of course, you would need a way to control the box in another room (RF Remote) and you would see the same thing on both TV's. (Can't use the second tuner on another TV).

Still no luck getting the full guide. I live in the Cleveland market(44135) and I tried other ZIP codes for this area and the substitute ZIP but I only get 10-11 hours ahead except the CBS station that gets 24-36 hours. No TV Guide logo on screen.
I don't want to use the TVGOS setting because I want to record to the Pal's hard drive only, not another device.

Congratulations - Cleveland does NOT have digital TVGOS -
http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=tvgos

This means you only get PSIP guide information.

Blah blah blah blah....

Can you just use the DVI input for the DTVpal DVR?

So the PSIP guide only goes less than 12 hours not 7 days?

No, The PSIP guide can go at least 72 hours, (my CBS does 72 hour PSIP) all my other staions just do the 12 hours currently required by the FCC.

"R" In a previous post I said that I had seen the red R on the info screens of programs that were scheduled to record in the future that were repeats and concluded that they were using this to indicate that the program was a repeat. I have not seen that lately so I am not sure what I saw.

The DVR has two tuners which means you can record two shows and watch a recording or record a show and watch a show "live". I think this is why a number of us have observed lockups and the inability to schedule a program to record when one is already being recorded. I have not devined their exact logic for how the tuners get allocated but can make the following observations.

If two programs are scheduled to record at the same time, when the second on starts it grabs the second tuner and you can no longer watch live TV so the screen goes blank and the recorder appears to be locked.

If you are recording a program and attempt to add another you can't because the software senses a conflict between using the second tuner to watch live TV and do the recording. It took me a while to realize where the conflict was because the error message is not all that helpful as others have pointed out.

I guess they consider this a sort of first come, first served arrangement where the scheduled recording gets to take precedence over the current use or maybe they just assume a recording is more important than live TV since there are alternative ways to view the live TV.

Anyhow that is my theory about why we see what we see.

Is anyone else bothered by the fact that "Daily Schedule" lists everything you have ever scheduled, recorded or deleted and there is no obvious way to clear this history. Maybe there is a time limit or this is stored in a circular buffer but if there is a limit to the number of timer events I don't want to waste them on this.

I think PSIP can go out as much as 16 days but most stations send just a few hours. Even with the TV Guide logo I think you can tell the TVGOS data from the PSIP data by all the "No program information" in anything beyond a day. I have some channels that are fully populated and some don't even show what is on now.

The PSIP guide goes out as far as the station supplies that info.

Your other issue may turn out to be time reliability. If TVGOS is supplied, the DVR takes its time from the station supplying the TVGOS. If there isn't - I hope all of your stations' PSIP time is real close. Maybe they will start paying attention to it after analog shutdown....

I need some help to test the analog pass thru.
Since I cannot get past the set-up, I can't use the analog pass thru button to see if my antenna input works.
When I shut off my unit, I still cannot get an analog signal to my TV. I am using the coax output to my TV.
I do get the start-up DVR menu on analog Channel 3.
Can someone unplug their DTV Pal DVR and try to get an analog signal via the coax output of the unit? If your ananlog channels work on your TV, then I know my antenna input is bad.
I am going to my sister's house in the next town to try the unit on her TV antenna.
My roof antenna directly feeds a splitter to my DVR and TV. I get no digital channels.
My attic antenna goes to a 3-way powered splitter to 3 digital tvs. All pick up all the chicago digital stations. I get no digital channels when using this antenna.

Is anyone else's machine randomly rebooting? It just happened to me during a commercial during the Eagles-Cowboys game. It shut itself down, came back on with the DTV Pal screen, and then re-downloaded the guide data.

I have upgraded to the latest firmware. This is probably the third time this has happened since I hooked it up on the 24th.