# BUG REPORT: Can't tune OTA w/o PSIP?



## peterd (Dec 17, 2003)

Well, I think this is what's happening but don't have a way to verify without the input of other 921 owners.

Here in the SF area, there's one station (KBHK, a UPN O&O) which I believe does not transmit any PSIP info at all. They were awarded an adjacent channel for their ATSC signal, and made the decision early on not to remap the channel. Instead they use this as a marketing tool ("UPN 44, Digital 45"). (As an aside, I find this particularly annoying since the DTV channel is always a simulcast. This had been in 480i, and the few HD feeds UPN has ("Star Trek: Enterprise" and "Jake 2.0", whatever that is) were not carried, but the simulcast recently went to 1080i so we'll see...)

The 921 sees 45 in the DTV channel scan, and in the "Add DTV" screen, but it is never added to the channel list (and cannot be tuned directly using the remote, either). As near as I can tell this is because there is no PSIP info, but I have no way to verify this. On the Dish 6000, all other stations' call letters show up (e.g. "KNTV-HD") but no PSIP ID shows up on KBHK's digital signal.

I thought of one test - to feed the 921 the output of my Dish 5000's 8VSB modulator (since the modulator does not output any PSIP info). However, this seemed to contradict the theory about a total lack of PSIP info since the 921 is able to add the 5000's 8VSB signal to the DTV channel list and tune it in just fine.

If anyone out there with a 921 is in the SF market and/or has seen something similar elsewhere, please report your experiences.


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## bobl (Jan 17, 2004)

Peter,

I'm having the exact same problem. I've been able to add fifteen stations to my 921 in total whereas I was able to add sixteen to my 6000 and 821. The one missing is KBHK. I was also wondering if the missing PSIP information was the reason. Two of the sixteen stations don't remap their digital channel numbers back to their analog channel numbers, however, KCSM (channel 60/43) must be transmitting some PSIP information since it was identified as KCSM when I added it to the 921 even though it shows up under it's digital channel number (43).

Bob

SW L142HECD-N
Boot 120B
Flash F051

DISH 500, Dish 300 & SW64 (119,110 & 148)


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## alipka (Dec 11, 2003)

bobl said:


> Peter,
> 
> I'm having the exact same problem. I've been able to add fifteen stations to my 921 in total whereas I was able to add sixteen to my 6000 and 821. The one missing is KBHK. I was also wondering if the missing PSIP information was the reason. Two of the sixteen stations don't remap their digital channel numbers back to their analog channel numbers, however, KCSM (channel 60/43) must be transmitting some PSIP information since it was identified as KCSM when I added it to the 921 even though it shows up under it's digital channel number (43).
> 
> ...


I don't know if this is exactly what you are asking, but I am able to add several channels in NJ even though they don't remap to their PSIP number.

However, due to the OTA bug, I can't tune them even though they have huge signals (>110).


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## bobl (Jan 17, 2004)

alipka,

Do the stations that don't remap to their analog channel number (what you called PSIP number) show up in the program guide? If so, do they show the stations call letters in the guide? If they do I believe the station is transmitting some PSIP information but not remapping their digital channel number to their analog channel number. In other words, how did the guide know what call letters to put in the guide unless they were received via PSIP.

Bob


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

In Denver, we have one station (our Fox) that doesn't use PSIP information in their stream. It's broadcasting on channel 32, and shows up on my 921 list as 032-01 NON, whereas all of the other local digital stations are using psip to remap to their analog channels and insert their station call letters.

I don't have any problem viewing my channel 32-1, though.


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## peterd (Dec 17, 2003)

Mark Lamutt said:


> [...] one station [...] that doesn't use PSIP information in their stream [...] shows up on my 921 list as 032-01 NON...


Mark -

That's how my 5000's modulator output (which I can tune in fine) shows up. (BTW - You can change that "NON(E)" by selecting (check-marking) the channel in the "Local Channels" list (menu-6-8) and using the "Edit Name" button.)

PS, Mark -
Can anyone post a 921 usage tip in this forum or do you want them sent to you 1st?


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Go ahead and post whatever tips you come up with.


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## Slordak (Dec 17, 2003)

Any tips about how what to do with "stuck" channels? By this I mean the following bugs in editing the OTA DTV channels:

1) The same channel shows up multiple times, i.e. 50-1 might show up as 3 identical separate entries.

2) Certain channels cannot be removed; if one selects them and then picks remove, the channels refuse to be removed. However, if one tries to remove enough channels, one can sometimes wind up with blank channels in the list, i.e. a line with a check box but with no text at all on the line. This entry cannot be removed.

3) Channels show up in the channel guide which do not appear at all in the OTA channel list. E.g. There might be a channel 75-1 which does not show up at all when editing the channels. Since OTA channels cannot be controlled by the favorites list, it's essentially always there.

It basically seems as if the OTA channel database is corrupted. Is there a way to completely reset the OTA data base? Unless this database is going to be able to repair itself with the next 921 software release (or there is going to be a way to reset it, say be attempting to remove all channels), there's going to be problems.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

#1 is definitely a bug that has been reported and confirmed. I haven't seen #2 or #3. Got any idea what you did to make those happen?


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

Mark Lamutt said:


> #1 is definitely a bug that has been reported and confirmed. I haven't seen #2 or #3. Got any idea what you did to make those happen?


I am still waiting on my 921. But I do have 2 6000's. WB has a habit of incorrecting sending PSIP info that includes several stations, in the NY area, 11,12, and 75. 75 is actually invalid but they do it anyway. Perhaps you are seing the same. And with the 921 behaving as badly as it does with invalid PSIP info, this is probably worse.


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## pculley (Dec 23, 2003)

Slordak said:


> Any tips about how what to do with "stuck" channels? By this I mean the following bugs in editing the OTA DTV channels:
> 
> 1) The same channel shows up multiple times, i.e. 50-1 might show up as 3 identical separate entries.
> 
> ...


I got the same exact issues on my system; I have not found any real sequence to when this happens, but it seems to happen shortly after the OTA tuner crashes and refuses to tune via the guide.

The various problems seem to go away if you tune to a sat channel, do a DTV channel scan, and then a full reboot. But they come back a bit later.

I think the DTV channel scan removes everything from the corrupted database...


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## Slordak (Dec 17, 2003)

The very first thing I did when I got my receiver from the dealer was remove (or try to remove) every single analog and digital channel the dealer had added by selecting each and every one, a page at a time, and picking "Remove". When I was all done doing this, I had four blank entries that could not be deleted. Things may have gone downhill from there 

In some cases, problem #2 (in my above post) shows up when trying to fix the results of problem #1. That is to say that after a DTV scan, there might be 3 copies of a given channel, and in trying to individually remove 2 of them, some of the copies refuse to be removed. Sometimes one is able to remove one of the copies, but if one exits out of the OTA channel editing area and returns, the entry can show up completely blank in the OTA channel list.

Problem #3 may have something to do with the PSIP information. One or two of the IND channels in the Chicago area has decided that they will broadcast their corresponding analog channel number as "1" instead of the analog UHF/VHF number. However, when editing the channel list, there is no "1-1" or "1-2" shown; how does it manage to show up in the channel guide? Some combination of DTV scanning plus trying to remove duplicated and blank entries may have left it behind in the database, but its not clear how or why.


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## peterd (Dec 17, 2003)

I have seen problem 1, but not 2 or 3. I wonder if #2 has to do with the procedure used to delete channels?


Slordak said:


> _ remove (or try to remove) every single analog and digital channel [...] by selecting each and every one, a page at a time, and picking "Remove."_


_I've done the complete deletion somewhat differently:

 When you go into the "Local Channels" screen and check the first channel in the list, the cursor is automatically placed on the Remove button.
 When this happens, I move the cursor back into the list and down to the second channel.
 At this point, I can check every channel on the page. I stop, however, before checking off the last one showing.
 I press the "Page Down" button on the remote.
 Now, I up-arrow once to scroll the last channel from the previous page (the one I did not check before) onto the top of the list.
 Repeat previous steps as needed.
 When all channels are checked, select "Remove."
This way, I remove all the channels at once. Would this make a difference? I have no idea! Perhaps someone who is experiencing problems 2 or 3 can try this and report back..._


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## Slordak (Dec 17, 2003)

Did you try that procedure to delete all of the channels while you had duplicates (e.g. 3 copies of 50-1) in your list? I.e. Run the "Scan DTV" several times to get duplicates in your list, then try and delete all of them. Once duplicates are in your list, it seems like trying to get rid of them then can lead to problems #2 and #3 (at least from my observations).

I saw someone on Satellite Guys described this same problem, the problem with being unable to delete certain channels from the OTA list, and then coming back in and finding them completely blank. Thus, I am not the only one who has observed this particular issue. In one case, I even managed to tune one of the blank channels, by deleting everything I could and leaving four undeletable blank entries; in this case, once one exits this screen, the receiver tries to tune a channel it names "UNKN".


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## peterd (Dec 17, 2003)

Slordak said:


> Did you try that procedure to delete all of the channels while you had duplicates (e.g. 3 copies of 50-1) in your list?


I can't honestly say I remember. Put it this way - I've seen multiple copies of channels (although if memory serves me I noticed it in the Create Timer screen); I've always used this procedure; I don't have any duplicates at the moment.

I also have to say that I will not intentionally create the problem just to test it. Every time I get the 921 reasonably stable after hours of deletion, scans and reboots I try extremely hard *not* to do anything which would trigger any OTA bugs! :grin:


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

peterd said:


> The 921 sees 45 in the DTV channel scan, and in the "Add DTV" screen, but it is never added to the channel list (and cannot be tuned directly using the remote, either). As near as I can tell this is because there is no PSIP info, but I have no way to verify this. On the Dish 6000, all other stations' call letters show up (e.g. "KNTV-HD") but no PSIP ID shows up on KBHK's digital signal.
> 
> If anyone out there with a 921 is in the SF market and/or has seen something similar elsewhere, please report your experiences.


I also live in the Bay Area, and I see the same problem! I enjoy watching Star Trek in HD. I have noticed that it is only in 1080i on Wednesday nights, and not on Sunday nights during the encore presentation. I wanted to be able to record this show.

I just got my 921 tonight (Thanks Scott and Claude), and I now think it is not going to happen any time soon. Out of the few hours it has been hooked up, I've been able to watch only a few minutes of OTA broadcasts.

To be honest, this is alpha quality software. Maybe it is only developer quality. Alpha quality is supposed to be at least feature complete, and this isn't.

I hope we get a new software update soon!


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

As mentioned, I can't add the channel UPN, 45 to my channel list, even though the signal strength is actually above 100.

I sent them an email, inquiring about it. Who knows if my question will make it to the station engineer or not though. I suspect it will take more than one email to get through....

Here is the URL and contact info for KBHK:

General Contact Information
UPN44/Digital 45 (KBHK-TV)
855 Battery St. 4th floor
San Francisco, CA 94111
Telephone: 415-249-4444

For programming and/or scheduling comments, e-mail them to: [email protected].

http://kbhk.com/aboutus/local_story_814374224_html

Maybe if enough of us send an email, we will get a response. I asked them if their PSIP data stream differs from any of the other stations...

It would be nice to let the developers know what is unique about this channel!

We really appreciate the hard work of the people trying to integrate the hard ware and software to produce a PVR 921!


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Guys, just a piece of advice, coming from more than 2 years of experience working with local television stations as a consumer - calling them and asking to speak with the chief engineer almost always produces better results than emailing them.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Guys, just a piece of advice, coming from more than 2 years of experience working with local television stations as a consumer - calling them and asking to speak with the chief engineer almost always produces better results than emailing them.


Thanks for the advice Mark. I've done both! I sent an email, and left a voice mail to their engineeers. The cool thing is that UPN 45 is owned and operated with KPIX 5 (CBS). The 921 doesn't seem to have a problem with KPIX, but it does have one with KBHK. Maybe just figuring out the difference between the setup of the two data streams will be helpful!

We will see if they call me back or return an email.... :nono:


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## TVBob (Dec 19, 2003)

My DISH 6000 finds 045-01 but the call letters are just blank (not "NON" as someone posted earlier). My DVR-921 finds digital 45, but never adds it to the guide no matter what tricks I tried.

I think the DVR-921 logic has some code that says no digital call letters = no way to list it in the guide, so just skip it. It should be an easy bug to fix, say:

// For KBHK SF prob. If call sign empty or blank, use "N/A" and continue
if ( *digital_callsign == '\0' || *digital_callsign == ' ' )strcpy(digital_callsign, "N/A -DT");​I also left a voice mail message with the KBHK engineering dept. "Mark" or "Mike" (?) asking them to put the KBHK call letters in the digital stream so that we all can tune in KBHK-DT on our DVR-921s while Echostar is working on a bug fix.

KBHK seems to be the only digital station in the Bay Area not including station call letter ID in the digital stream. I wonder, are they violating any FCC rules? All licensed stations must identify themselves on the air periodically, one way or another, but I don't know if the rules require call letter identification in the digital stream (they should).


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

TVBob said:


> My DVR-921 finds digital 45, but never adds it to the guide no matter what tricks I tried.


I have the same problem. It finds digital 45, but won't add it. However, the same is also true with KPIX, digital 5 when I try to manually add it. KPIX will get added when I do a "Scan DTV" though.

Maybe someone will answer one of our phone calls soon...


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## peterd (Dec 17, 2003)

TV Bob -

I love it when we intuitively "see" the code to fix things.  Personally, though, I'd surround the strcpy with curly braces since I've been bitten too many times by adding a line that winds up outside the conditional block! :sure:

Now, let's hope the guys at Eldon saw your post!


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## Slordak (Dec 17, 2003)

Just as a further follow up to my problem... I tried doing the OTA channel removal where one takes every single channel from the OTA channel setup menu, checks all of them at the same time, and them picks "Remove" in an effort to remove all of them at once, and it still fails. On my system, exactly 4 channels / channel copies are left behind.

When I exit out of the menu and check the channel guide, lo and behold, there are exactly four local digital channels with questionnable PSIP information in the guide. In my area (Chicago), WGN should be on channel 9, but the channel guide seems to say it should be on 75-1 and 75-2. There are also two IND channels which should have PSIP mapping in the UHF range, but which get mapped to 01-1 and 01-2. Is it the unusual PSIP mapping which is breaking the 921's OTA digital setup? Quite possibly, but it's impossible to tell without looking at the actual contents of the data being broadcast.

If one returns to the OTA channel setup menu, these four channels all have a blank name, so one is basically left with four identical blank items which cannot be removed. Once one starts adding new channels, the blank channels begin taking on the names of the new channels added (so they effectively become duplicates which cannot be removed instead of blank channels which cannot be removed).


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

I finally reached one of the engineers for KBHK-digital 45 today!

There doesn't appear to be much he can do about the problem though. The KPIX-digital 5 uses a different computer to transmit the PSIP data stream, apart from KBHK. From what I got out of it, it doesn't sound like they have a computer, or software to transmit PSIP for KBHK. It looks like there is absolutely nothing for it at all. Maybe that will help the 921 developers understand the scenario to be able to take a stab at fixing the problem!  

He said he would ask around to see if there is something they could do, but not to get my hopes up. 

:nono:


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## peterd (Dec 17, 2003)

If the problem were complete absence of PSIP then the 921 would not tune in the 5000's 8VSB Modulator. It does. Go figure!?


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

peterd said:


> If the problem were complete absence of PSIP then the 921 would not tune in the 5000's 8VSB Modulator. It does. Go figure!?


peterd, I need to make sure I understand this... The dish 5000 actually could transmit a digital signal?? Could it do mpeg encoding too? I'm guessing it doesn't do that, which means you are relegated to re-broadcasting mpeg encoded digital streams.

So, if you take your 5000, tune into say, KPIX, which does have PSIP info, and re-broadcast this through the 5000 to the 8vsb input on the 921, you will see that channel on the 921 without the call letters?

What channel does the demodulated channel re-mix too? Is there a UHF 'channel 3' so to speak?

With this method, you can watch KBHK, channel 45 on the 921 when re-broadcast through the 5000 then?


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

peterd said:


> If the problem were complete absence of PSIP then the 921 would not tune in the 5000's 8VSB Modulator. It does. Go figure!?


Actually, that is not necessarily true.

If the 5000 strips info from the channels that contain PSIP, it could well be re-transmitting blanks.

It could be converting '\0' for KBHK to ' ', right?


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## TVBob (Dec 19, 2003)

jsanders said:


> I finally reached one of the engineers for KBHK-digital 45 today!
> 
> He said he would ask around to see if there is something they could do, but not to get my hopes up.


I'm almost certain that KBHK-45 used to broadcast their call letters in PSIP, because I remember seeing "KBHK-DT" in the banner at one time, many months ago, and then it just disappeared.

Does anyone else remember seeing "KBHK-DT" displayed in the banner last year? Does anyone have any old (early 2003) VCR recordings of _Star Trek: Enterprise_ or _The Simpsons_ lying around, recorded from digital 45? If so, please check the first few seconds of the recording, look at the banner, and tell us what you see.


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## krt (Jan 20, 2003)

I do not recall having seen KBHK in the PSIP. However, I do recall that channel 45-1 used to be a blank screen, and channel 45-2 used to actually be KBHK on the 6000. No PSIP on either one. Then after some months, the two sub-channels disappeared, and KBHK could be tuned on 45-1. I recall receiving a software update on the 6000 around the same time this happened. Not sure if this was a coincidence. I believe this was a while back, even before Dish carried KBHK channel 44 as a SF local. 

Could it be that KBHK is still transmitting on 45-2 with a blank 45-1?
And the 6000 ignores the blank sub-channel?


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## peterd (Dec 17, 2003)

jsanders said:


> peterd, I need to make sure I understand this...


jsanders -

The 5000 was Echostar's 1st generation HD-upgradable receiver. They developed a modulator which would take an HD MPEG-2 signal from the QPSK satellite channel (e.g. HBO-HD) and remodulate it over an 8VSB ATSC channel (VHF 3 or 4, although the early pre-production units used UHF 14 or 15). There was no OTA tuner in the unit at all. The idea was that you would already have a Set Top Box (or built-in tuner) for OTA HD reception, so the remodulated satellite channel would just show up on your HD tuner as just another ATSC signal.

There is no PSIP because this is not something that is transmitted over QPSK satellite signals, and there was no reason to put in the engineering effort to generate PSIP info for the modulated signal. This complete lack of PSIP has been known to cause problems with other ATSC tuners in the past (some of the Samsung units if I recall correctly). So, it is not that I can remodulate KBHK but rather that I have a second channel to test against which is known to have NO PSIP at all. Since the 921 works, I'm guessing that the developers tried this case (learning from the Samsung problems), but never tried something like PSIP present without any call letters...


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## peterd (Dec 17, 2003)

Has anyone in the SF area tried adding KBHK tonight after downloading the L145 update?

I'm out of town, so I can't try this.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

peterd said:


> Has anyone in the SF area tried adding KBHK tonight after downloading the L145 update?


I tried it tonight with L145. Unfortuantely, it still doesn't work! :nono2:


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## peterd (Dec 17, 2003)

Thanks, JS! BTW - did you see my reply re the 5000 modulator?


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

peterd said:


> Thanks, JS! BTW - did you see my reply re the 5000 modulator?


Hi Peter,

Yes, I did read that post. It is interesting, a creative solution to save money on tuners. From what I get from your experiment, you tested the 921 without PSIP info via the 5000, but were not rebroadcasting KBHK because the 5000 only receives satellite signals. From what you are saying, it sounds like the 921 is okay with a null string, but not white space?? This is weird!

-Jeff


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## peterd (Dec 17, 2003)

I'm not sure the difference is as simple as between '\0' or ' '. Not having the PSIP signal at all means no data stream as opposed to an empty (or improperly formed) data stream (which we really don't know is one null, all nulls, blanks, etc.). I've looked at KBHK's ATSC RF signal with a spectrum analyzer and it hasn't looked significantly different than any others (but this is just the carrier, and doesn't give me visibility to the data stream).

In any case, I don't know how Dish is going to solve this one without someone in the SF area (since we haven't heard yet about similar cases elsewhere) having beta software with PSIP logging enabled.

I'm willing...


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## Bogney (Jul 11, 2003)

The new software has not helped the situation with 2 New York City area stations.

WXTV-DT, channel 40, has a limited amount of PSIP information and can not be viewed despite high signal strength.

WPIX-DT, channel 12, is the WB station and has remapping to channel 75. It also has the phantom channel in the list that can not be deleted. Picture can be seen on remapped channel 11 but no picture is seen when channel 75 is selected.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

peterd said:


> In any case, I don't know how Dish is going to solve this one without someone in the SF area (since we haven't heard yet about similar cases elsewhere) having beta software with PSIP logging enabled.
> 
> I'm willing...


I'm willing to help too. If we could just get a printf of what the incoming PSIP information is, that would probably tell volumes. Or it might not even be related to the PSIP data stream. 

I wonder if there is anyone in the bay area that has one of those PC cards that record ATSC transmissions. Maybe someone like that could tell us what KBHK is doing! The engineer over there suggested that they don't have a computer to transmit anything.


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## peterd (Dec 17, 2003)

Jeff -

I have a HiPix card, but not currently hooked up. If nobody else volunteers the info, I'll try to get a chance to hook it up next week & see what I can see...


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

peterd said:


> Jeff -
> 
> I have a HiPix card, but not currently hooked up. If nobody else volunteers the info, I'll try to get a chance to hook it up next week & see what I can see...


Sounds good to me! I sure hope the 921 developers can squash this bug soon! Maybe someone has one of these cards hooked up and ready to go. Any takers??


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## Bogney (Jul 11, 2003)

jsanders said:


> Sounds good to me! I sure hope the 921 developers can squash this bug soon! Maybe someone has one of these cards hooked up and ready to go. Any takers??


I have a Hipix computer in NYC where channel 40 has no PSIP. Let me know if I can be of any assistance.


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## peterd (Dec 17, 2003)

Bogney said:


> I have a Hipix computer in NYC where channel 40 has no PSIP. Let me know if I can be of any assistance.


Bogney -

What do you see (if anything) that looks different between the channels the 921 gets and channel 40? The HiPix does give a fair amount of info on the OSD as I recall.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

Bogney said:


> I have a Hipix computer in NYC where channel 40 has no PSIP. Let me know if I can be of any assistance.


Hey, that is great! If the 921 can't pick up channel 40 in NYC, then by all means, tell us what you find! Even if the 921 does pick it up, it would be interesting, it would at least tell us the case w/o PSIP where it does work.


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## Bogney (Jul 11, 2003)

peterd said:


> What do you see (if anything) that looks different between the channels the 921 gets and channel 40? The HiPix does give a fair amount of info on the OSD as I recall.


My 921 does not work with WXTV-DT, channel 40.

The only significantly different information about channel 40 on the Hipix is the channel ID line:

ATSC CH 40.1

For comparison here is what the CBS station says:

WCBS-DT 2.1 (56)

If anyone wants a CD of a sample of the stream for channel 40 to analyze, I can send it to you.


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## Jerry G (Jul 12, 2003)

There are two channels in Los Angeles I'm having difficulty adding. One can't be added at all. I don't think either has PSIP information. Both can be added to my 811, but neither has a channel ID or get mapped to their NTSC channel number as the other channels do. So it may be a lack of PSIP, or incorrect PSIP, that is causing the problems. BTW, the channels are 66 and 43 for those in Los Angeles.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

I just called Dish and told them about this problem, not being able to add a digital channel to the list, even though the signal strength is at 100 (whatever that means).

Anyway, I asked them to give me a free, local channel satellite version of it because I couldn't get it otherwise, and it is the 921's fault, not mine.

They told me that they couldn't give me a free local channel, and the next sentence they said that the problem I was reporting was not on their list of known problems... I didn't get much farther then that with this CSR, it was like talking to a brick wall somehow.

Anyway, it doesn't appear they know about this. Has anyone else tried calling them?? I just want to watch Enterprise on Wednesday nights, and I can't do it with the 921. And I don't want to pay extra to get a bunch of compressed SD locals that I don't need, except for UPN.


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## keitheva (Aug 23, 2002)

I just installed my 921 tonight - same problem with KBHK.

I hope the Dish engineers really are reading this forum and will get around to addressing this bug (it clearly is a bug, since so many of us are having the exact same problem).

What else can we do?


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

keitheva said:


> I just installed my 921 tonight - same problem with KBHK.
> 
> I hope the Dish engineers really are reading this forum and will get around to addressing this bug (it clearly is a bug, since so many of us are having the exact same problem).
> 
> What else can we do?


I think it is a good idea to actually call dish as well. They apparently need a few call in complaints before the CSRs recognize this as an official bug! I would at least like to get it on their recognized "list", whatever that means....


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## Tom Foolery (Jan 29, 2004)

Yeah, I have the same problem with ATSC ch 30 in Portland Oregon. I get a signal strength of 100+ and still can’t save the channel.


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## keitheva (Aug 23, 2002)

jsanders said:


> I think it is a good idea to actually call dish as well. They apparently need a few call in complaints before the CSRs recognize this as an official bug! I would at least like to get it on their recognized "list", whatever that means....


Let's all call folks. Not being able to receive all the OTA channels we have so painstakingly set ourselves up to receive (with antennas and preamps and rotors and whatnot), is a major bug in my book.

-Keith


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## keitheva (Aug 23, 2002)

Jsanders (and anyone else in the Bay Area) - do you have any problems with KCSM OTA reception? I can crash my 921 at will by just tuning to KCSM OTA. I get good signal strength readings (100+) and I have no problems with it on my Samsung receiver.

Thanks,
-Keith


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

keitheva said:


> Jsanders (and anyone else in the Bay Area) - do you have any problems with KCSM OTA reception? I can crash my 921 at will by just tuning to KCSM OTA. I get good signal strength readings (100+) and I have no problems with it on my Samsung receiver.
> 
> Thanks,
> -Keith


Hi Keith,

Can you tell me what channel KCSM is? I will try it out tonight and let you know if it works for me, or whether it is DOA....

Jeff


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## keitheva (Aug 23, 2002)

jsanders said:


> Hi Keith,
> 
> Can you tell me what channel KCSM is? I will try it out tonight and let you know if it works for me, or whether it is DOA....
> 
> Jeff


Hi Jeff,

You can see all the bay area digital channels here:

http://www.choisser.com/sfonair.html

KCSM is 43.x.

Funny thing is that sometimes I can get 43.2 or 43.3, but 43.1 will crash my 921 every time.

Thanks,
-Keith


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

keitheva said:


> Hi Jeff,
> 
> You can see all the bay area digital channels here:
> 
> ...


I'm having a weird experience with it. I switched to 043-1. I got a blank screen, however, the 921 wasn't wrecked yet...

I tried to swtich to 043-2, but I found it wasn't in the channel list. So, I brought up the "Local Channels" menu to scan it in.

Now, I get this message:

"Error 603

Point Dish can not get the selected tuner (Satellite Input 1)."

I clicked "Okay", then tried to "Add DTV". I typed "43", but it does not show any signal strength, then I tried some other channels, they don't show any signal strength.

I exited the menu, and I was no longer on channel 043-1, it said:

"077-0 Unknown Record G[V] UKN"

The time and date are correct though. Usually that gets messed up!

I was able to switch back to Discovery HD. I was able to switch back to OTA CBS.

Very weird stuff, and I can't view 043-1, but it didn't completely bring down the machine. I can view the other channels afterward, however, every time I try to go to the "Local Channels" menu, it says that same message as above, thene exits to the Unknown Record channel.

When it crashes for you, do you have to reboot??


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## keitheva (Aug 23, 2002)

jsanders said:


> I'm having a weird experience with it. I switched to 043-1. I got a blank screen, however, the 921 wasn't wrecked yet...
> 
> I tried to swtich to 043-2, but I found it wasn't in the channel list. So, I brought up the "Local Channels" menu to scan it in.
> 
> ...


Very weird!

I don't get all that stuff - I just get a black screen when I go to 43-1. I think that if I then go to a satellite channel straight away I can avoid a reboot. But if I go to 43-1, then try to channel surf to 43-2, then 43-3, all I get is black screens, and after that every channel (Sat or OTA) is just a black screen. At that point it's a pull out the plug reboot.

There seems to be something funny about the KCSM signal?


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

keitheva said:


> Very weird!
> 
> I don't get all that stuff - I just get a black screen when I go to 43-1. I think that if I then go to a satellite channel straight away I can avoid a reboot. But if I go to 43-1, then try to channel surf to 43-2, then 43-3, all I get is black screens, and after that every channel (Sat or OTA) is just a black screen. At that point it's a pull out the plug reboot.
> 
> There seems to be something funny about the KCSM signal?


I completely agree. Something weird about KCSM, and KBHK for that matter. I wish I could tell the developers what is unique about that signal so they can put it on their 8VSB simulator to try it out, but they don't print out any error messages as to why it won't add KBHK, or why it goes berzerk on KCSM!

This means it may take a while before this gets fixed!


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## keitheva (Aug 23, 2002)

jsanders said:


> I completely agree. Something weird about KCSM, and KBHK for that matter. I wish I could tell the developers what is unique about that signal so they can put it on their 8VSB simulator to try it out, but they don't print out any error messages as to why it won't add KBHK, or why it goes berzerk on KCSM!
> 
> This means it may take a while before this gets fixed!


I wonder if it will ever get fixed, unless it's a consequence of some of the other more general issues there are with the OTA tuner, which are easier for the engineers to diagnose.

It is a 921 problem though, my Samsung OTA receiver gets KBHK and KCSM just fine. So there's something different about these transmissions that the 921 is sensitive to, whereas the Samsung isn't.

They'll need to come out here with a 921 and an antenna and oscilloscope


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

keitheva said:


> It is a 921 problem though, my Samsung OTA receiver gets KBHK and KCSM just fine.
> 
> They'll need to come out here with a 921 and an antenna and oscilloscope


My Dish 6000 works fine too, it is a 921 problem.

They don't need to come out here though to find the problem. At lest for the KBHK problem, they just need to print out a diagnostic message when it tries to "Add DTV", which prints out the PSIP data stream or something like that. Then, we need to write down on this message board what it says. That would give them an indication of what edge case they are looking at.....

They can probably do something similar with KCSM


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## TVBob (Dec 19, 2003)

I'm trying to see how common the duplicate channel problem appears to be.

Please vote in this POLL: http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=23320


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## keitheva (Aug 23, 2002)

Read this today on the HDTV-in-SFbay newsgroup:

<<<
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 21:00:32 -0800
From: "Hanns Ullrich" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Why can't I receive ch 43?

We are having trouble with our DTV encoding equipment as well as our PSIP generator at KCSM. We currently are broadcasting 2 channels, and depending on the receiver, they may be found at 43.1 & 43.2 or 43.2 and 43.4 All our encoders are having a firmware upgrade this Friday, and should solve most issues. Thanks for your patients.

-Hanns
>>>

That may explain it. Have to try again after Friday.

Cheers,
-Keith


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