You've got to remember that the OTA receiver Dish uses is available (with software) from Amazon. It's not rocket science. There is already code that understands how to get PSIP info from these USB dongles. There is a chip manufacturer that has this part in their catalog and probably has a demo board with software to start development. I just can't figure out who makes it and I'm not going to gut mine to find out.
OTA channel guide problem
- Thread starter Jeffrey A
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You've got to remember that the OTA receiver Dish uses is available (with software) from Amazon. It's not rocket science. There is already code that understands how to get PSIP info from these USB dongles. There is a chip manufacturer that has this part in their catalog and probably has a demo board with software to start development. I just can't figure out who makes it and I'm not going to gut mine to find out.
Dish is already apparently okay with only having limited guide data on certain channels. Has anyone tried scrolling forward in the guide on the streaming Dish Scapes 2 channel 198? I always hit a wall where beyond a certain point, it will only say "No information available."
(For example, at the moment, there is no way to go forward to see what next month's Scape will be on this channel, since my guide info only goes out to 6/29 at 8:00 PM Eastern. In other months when I have checked this, even when the guide window finally does include days in the following month, that data will continue to list the current month's Scape. The guide for this channel does not actually get updated until after the Scape actually changes over at the beginning of the next month. It is almost like Dish does not want us looking up these particular Scapes in advance in the guide.)
I have seen this same limited guide data behavior on other streaming channels in the guide, also. My point is that if Dish is okay with only having a limited guide on channels that they are actually providing as part of the subscription, then they should also be fine with only having limited guide data on OTA channels in the guide.
That gets to my point about why I feel it is a mistake for Dish to only be concentrating on fixing guide mapping issues with the four major OTA networks, while ignoring all other OTA guide problems. There is overlap onto other OTA channels that need to be fixed. For example, I provided an example earlier where WOIO (Cleveland CBS) OTA guide data is being mirrored on Cleveland's OTA CW affiliate, WUAB. Since the CBS guide data is correct, Dish apparently has no interest in fixing this. However, anyone setting a name-based Search timer for CBS programs might accidentally end up getting WUAB's programming recorded, instead of recording WOIO. I mentioned this particular guide issue in my private conversation with brittanygarden. There has been absolutely no reply since then, so Dish is remaining silent on this particular issue.
I don't know if all TVs work this way, but at least on our Samsungs, when I go to the guide, programming is interrupted while it gathers the content information from the stream as it has to switch to each channel to get the info. It takes enough time to get a 4 hour block that it only does it for a page's worth of grid at a time. I don't know how far ahead content info goes and that may relate to the gathering time. So to gather continuous OTA program info would require that the scan process be able to grab the tuner for extended periods of time. That might be OK if you have the two tuner version (I swapped out the extremely overheating single tuner for cooler dual tuner a couple of years ago).
The method that Dish uses - I'm reverse engineering it - is to get the provider info during the channel scan and assign the channel/provider pair to the grid. Then use Dish's own content provider to make the grid content. I'd guess that if they used pure PSIP that the ability to record programs based on "name", ie, MASH which it translates to two 1/2 hour slots Sun-Fri - wouldn't work as robustly as it does.
Maybe a compromise would be to use Dish's content provider by default and then to use the PSIP as a backup. Something might be better than just 1 hour blocks of "channel name".
What I still don't understand is that up until the move MeTV made, Dish had a fairly good mapping of providers to the content. After a single channel moved from 8-1 to 21-1 and the entire 21-* channel group slipped up to make room, none of the content is there any more... They had MeTV and have failed to restore it to the new location. Again, I'll volunteer to fix the software bug.
The method that Dish uses - I'm reverse engineering it - is to get the provider info during the channel scan and assign the channel/provider pair to the grid. Then use Dish's own content provider to make the grid content. I'd guess that if they used pure PSIP that the ability to record programs based on "name", ie, MASH which it translates to two 1/2 hour slots Sun-Fri - wouldn't work as robustly as it does.
Maybe a compromise would be to use Dish's content provider by default and then to use the PSIP as a backup. Something might be better than just 1 hour blocks of "channel name".
What I still don't understand is that up until the move MeTV made, Dish had a fairly good mapping of providers to the content. After a single channel moved from 8-1 to 21-1 and the entire 21-* channel group slipped up to make room, none of the content is there any more... They had MeTV and have failed to restore it to the new location. Again, I'll volunteer to fix the software bug.
I wonder if these publicly available email addresses might be useful in getting some visibility into how serious, or not, that Dish executives consider the nationwide OTA guide problems.
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One of my first posts on this topic was that the local OTA major network guide info for the OTA was only shown as, for example, CBS in hourly blocks (dish 8-0 vs OTA 8-1 at the time). I typically delete those duplicates so didn't see it until a rescan. Well, I did a re-scan again in the past week or so to see if any of the channel/provider parings had been fixed and lo-and-behold, the network mapping is broken again. This time it's channel 3 - 3.0 is the dish version of NBC and has program info, 3.1 has just "NBC3" in hourly blocks...
What meta data is missing in what's provided in PSIP?
Preaching to the choir. As I said, I've brought up using PSIP for years on this board, if there's some issue with the satellite delivered data. What I listed were the reasons other posters would tell me why PSIP wouldn't work.
Looking today on ESPN there is World Chase Tag. It has the original air date as 7/2/22 and 7/9/22...kind of hard to have the original air date a week or two in the future and on today.
Remember the huge mess years ago, when Dish switched guide data providers (for the satellite-delivered guide info) and stopped using Gracenote? Even if the title of the show, season number and episode number (the data that is actually visible to the user) seemed to remain unchanged, the meta data behind the scenes (what the DVR actually uses to search for and record shows) was different from what it had been before. That caused all kinds of problems with timers that had been created before the guide provider switchover (and even with new timers that were created during the guide provider transition) and the only solution was to completely delete the old timers and start over with all new timers. Then, repeat that process the next time the timers screwed up.
The above concern may not be a problem if the guide provider that the station uses for the PSIP happens to be the same guide data provider that Dish uses. However, there is no guarantee of that being the case, nor even of all OTA stations using the same PSIP guide data provider as the other OTA stations. This can lead to all kinds of variations in the meta data that would not be visible to the user, but would still break any timers that you attempt to create. In short, it would be another huge mess.
I notice the same type of problem with the guide data on the streaming Vix TV channels that I have been tracking in the thread that I am using as a sort of make-shift uplink report. Whenever I flip through those channels, I notice that the description in the Info banner at the top of the screen will give tomorrow's date for every program. This is not even a case where the incorrect date could be attributed to the guide data using Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time) as the time zone, instead of a US time zone, since I am flipping through the channels early enough in the evening or afternoon that the time zone difference would still put the shows within the same calendar date.
Don't remember that. But again, WHAT is the Metadata that isn't viewable that causes things to be screwed up? From what I remember, there's various charts and tables showing the PIDs for the audio/video and other assorted elements. I'm pretty sure the station provides guide data (programming charts including descriptions )to a company, and that company then provides the information out to the MVPDs and guide displays (TV Guide, etc). The channels use that same information for their PSIP.
Apparently, the issue started in 2017. Here are some posts from Scott about it at the time:
New EPG Info data - strange
I was looking through the guide for next week for any new shows that may be starting. And I noticed that 3 shows that I have timers set to record new are not shown with the designated red timer icon. I assume this is all tied to the same issues mentioned in this thread? It's weird because...
www.satelliteguys.us
New EPG Info data - strange
I have also missed a couple of episodes because of the new guide. Looking last night at my timers it seemed the guide is a little better than it was.
www.satelliteguys.us
Here are some posts from Tampa8 that have the best explanation I have found so far:
New EPG Info data - strange
I have also missed a couple of episodes because of the new guide. Looking last night at my timers it seemed the guide is a little better than it was.
www.satelliteguys.us
New EPG Info data - strange
I have also missed a couple of episodes because of the new guide. Looking last night at my timers it seemed the guide is a little better than it was.
www.satelliteguys.us
When channels were packed some to allow spectrum for ATSC 3.0, the Dish guide for -00 channels is correct but for some the -01 channel program guide for the same station is wrong. Here (Mobile, AL) 44-00 schedule is ok but 44-01 shows the virtual ch 15 NBC station schedule, the programming is correct though!! This caused by the RF freq for the 44-01 and the 15-01 on the same transmitter. ATSC 1.0 can multiplex two 1080i channels on the same transmitter.
Actually ATSC 1.0 you can get up to eight (?) channels, with either 2 or 3 HD from the same frequency.
With Dish, isn't the -00 the satellite delivered version and the -01 is the OTA delivered?
Here in Chicago, we have one channel that has 9 subchannels, the last one is -10. None of them are HD, even the -01 is SD.
I vaguely remember reading about a company in one city that had like 30 channels that was delivered over two broadcast towers. The channels were mapped so that they were all subchannels on for one channel. There was even a TV guide channel on one of them.'
I believe that they were all in SD.
My memory might be failing me - but I think it might have been rural Alaska and they had the two towers setup to rebroadcast the major networks channels.
15 SD channels on each broadcast tower?
In the Washington D.C. market, we used to have MHz Networks which specialized in foreign language channels, all of which were SD IIRC. They had 6 channels on their very local (2mi away from me) broadcast tower in Merrifield, VA, and another 6 channels broadcast from a tower southwest of Dale City (name escapes me but it started with "Gold"). They all appeared as subchannels of 30. The MHz Network has subsequently given up both stations in favor of streaming only.
After doing some research last night, I realized that that I was confusing the Mhz Network with the Alaska Rural Communications Service.15 SD channels on each broadcast tower?
In the Washington D.C. market, we used to have MHz Networks which specialized in foreign language channels, all of which were SD IIRC. They had 6 channels on their very local (2mi away from me) broadcast tower in Merrifield, VA, and another 6 channels broadcast from a tower southwest of Dale City (name escapes me but it started with "Gold"). They all appeared as subchannels of 30. The MHz Network has subsequently given up both stations in favor of streaming only.
The ARCS is a network of over 100 low-powered repeater stations that was started in the 1970s to provide television service to the remote areas of the state. In many areas, the ARCS repeater is the only television station one can receive. The ARCS service is just a single channel which airs a selection of programming from the three major network affiliates in Anchorage.
There is ~19.39Mbs that can be split up. Some of that gets reserved for PSIP and headroom and such. I think HD programming is usually 7-10Mbs, SD is anywhere from 1-3. Obviously the less bandwidth the poorer the quality.
USDTV?
USDTV - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
"USDTV, an acronym for U.S. Digital Television, was an over-the-air, pay television service in the United States.
...
USDTV leased subchannel space from local TV stations for its subscription TV service.
...
The cost for the basic-tier service was $19.95 per month. USDTV also offered Starz! for an additional monthly fee. The basic tier started out with 11 cable channels: ESPN, ESPN2, Disney Channel, Toon Disney, Discovery Channel, TLC, Lifetime, Lifetime Movie Network, Home & Gardening Television, Fox News, and the Food Network.[2] By July 2003, the service had 30 channels."
Considering that each broadcast tower could be used for multiple stations' broadcast antennas (with each antenna operating at its own separate frequency, obviously) yeah, that is not too surprising.
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