WCCO has fixed my DTVPal
DTVPal Timer Testing - Special Report (still not my final results).
OK, the bold title of this post (assuming you bothered to read it) is intended as sort of a "shocker tabloid headline." It has some truth in it, but it's a bit misleading.
The only very technical terms I'm using here are "PSIP" and "TVGOS." For anyone new here that doesn't know, PSIP refers to the data sent with digital TV broadcasts, including the upcoming broadcast schedule. This data is displayed by converter boxes' EPG (Electronic Program Guide), including the DTVPal's Guide. TVGOS is "TV Guide On Screen," and is only used by people who have a "guide-enabled device" (a small minority). It is a completely different system than PSIP, but DTVPal is somewhat involved with TVGOS also, because it helps analog TVGOS devices get data from digital stations.
Now, on with the report:
WCCO-DT (channel 4.1, "actual" channel UHF 32) is the local CBS affiliate that happens to transmit digital TVGOS (although I don't have any evidence that TVGOS transmission is directly involved in what happened to my DTVPal). I do know from my testing that the PSIP coming from WCCO (or perhaps it was some missing or random data inserted where PSIP was supposed to be) was one of the causes of some timer problems on my DTVPal, and those particular problems, at least, have disappeared.
Just to be clear, I am quite certain that there was NO DTVPal SOFTWARE UPGRADE transmitted to me, just other changes at WCCO that improved the PSIP they are sending.
Here's what happened:
On Wednesday, July 2, when I got my DTVPal, WCCO was sending out apparently normal PSIP.
Then, maybe late Friday or sometime Saturday, it began sending NO PSIP. This was not the default "DTV Program" PSIP, but "No Information Available," the same thing DTVPal puts in the Guide grid when a station's signal is too weak. But in this case, WCCO had a strong signal, there just was no PSIP, or, at least, none that the DTVPal could interpret.
During this time of no PSIP from WCCO, certain DTVPal problems were easy to reproduce. One in particular was the one where, after turning off the DTVPal for a only a short time, say 10 to 30 minutes, the Guide would always load data when it was turned back on. Also, the timers that had been set always had their channels changed in the timer list. A timer set for WCCO (4.1/32) would always change to KSTP (5.1/50). WFTC (29.1/21) would always change to KARE (11.1/35). A timer set for KSTC (45.1/44) would disappear completely. This was all easily reproducible, and happened every time the DTVPal was turned off and back on (although some delay was required; it didn't happen if the DTVPal was turned back on immediately). Also, I found I could delete WCCO from the DTVPal channel list, and that would stop these things from happening. (That was not a good permanent solution--I would lose my only CBS station when WCCO was deleted.)
I wish I had better recall of what was happening when WCCO was still sending PSIP data on July 2 and July 3. The DTVPal was new, and I didn't know what I was looking for yet. But I believe I was already having these same problems, at least part of the time.
Sometime today, Tuesday, July 8, WCCO's PSIP came back. And the excessive Guide loading, and the timer channel replacing and timer erasing have gone away.
So, it could be that WCCO became aware they were sending out bad PSIP, and then shut it down for a few days to track down and correct the problem.
Since WCCO also sends digital TVGOS, they should be very aware of the right way to do these things, so it's even possible they were intentionally sending out bad data for awhile, followed by no data for 3 days, for some sort of diabolical experiment. As dagger666 would say, "very suspicious."
I'm doing more testing now to see if additional problems have also gone away. I had the most timer failures with Daily or Mon-Fri timers that I had set early in the evening to be triggered and recorded 9-12 hours later, just before I'd get up in the morning. That length of time seemed to give DTVPal enough time to get screwed up and fail.
Tonight's test will tell me just how much difference the change at WCCO has made.
Of course, even if all my timers work perfectly from now on, the DTVPal software should still be upgraded to resist the effects of bad broadcasts!
