Over-The-Air Tuner problem and other new bugs

[Major Havoc]

zoglizard wrote:

New to the forum, but thought I would add some info. Was having the same OTA problem that has been reported. (Was reading the forums, hoping for a solution). However, if I hook the antenna directly to my TV, it works great. Great resolution, no pixelation, guide information (now on my TV, not on my hopper) populated in seconds. So, its not a signal issue. I have plenty of OTA signal. So, I guess I could use the OTA this way, but then its not in the same guide, and I can't DVR, so deal breaker for me.

This is not a signal problem. Your receiver is getting plenty of signal. Without being too technical, the transmitted signal from an OTA service can carry one or more "channels" of TV and/or data. That is why you often see 5.1, 5.2, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 etc. There is also a standard data channel where guide info is sent. It is possible that the OTA tuner module does not give access to this data. That would prevent Dish from displaying OTA guide info.

The other problem is there is only 1 tuner, and the tuner would be needed to step through (almost) each channel to get the guide data for those streams. But if the OTA channel is being used, it cannot scan the other channels. The new two channel OTA tuner module could solve this issue, at least while both tuners are not in use. Also, there is about 24 hours of guide data available, so it would not have to tune all the time.

Lastly, that same data stream also contains the current playing show info. Again, if they tuner cannot access that, it would indicate why it does not show.

It does look like Dish populates the guide for channels you get in their local channels package. I assume if you dropped locals, your OTA guide entries may be empty.

If the data is there, I hope Dish engineers figure it out. I would really like to see this work correctly.

[zoglizard]

Major Havoc,

No I mean, that my TV tuner (not involving the hopper) populates its own guide.
(some of the sub channels don't have much info). My TV received guide info even when local channels were not subscribed. (Same as the Hopper did, except the Hopper was extremely slow at populating). This was when local channels were turned off.

After reading elsewhere, I think the problem is the dongle may be overheating. Dish Techs called me back yesterday, and they said the same thing. That might explain the on/off behavior. That engineer said they thought they would have to redesign the adapter. Which would explain why OTA direct into TV via coax works fine, but via the USB dongle, I get problems.

[Major Havoc]

I did understand. The TV has a tuner that can populate the guide for all channels that send the data, including what is on now. Many sub channels do not send this data, so each system or TV handles that however they like.

The Dish OTA tuner does not populate the guide data, nor show what’s on. The Dish box appears to use Local Channel guide info it has from its own guidendata to populate some OTA channels that are the same, but does not populate all channels that do send data. You can confirm that by looking at what you TV gets for OTA data, and what Dish populates into the guide with and see that they are not the same data.

The DISH guide data is there even if you don’t subscribe to the channels. Set you guide to show non-subscribed channels and you will see guide data for them as well. I can only assume that even if you are not subscribed to locals, the Dish box will move some channel data into the local channel’s guide for OTA, but I have not tested that theory.

You can further confirm this by noting that the data your TV gets from OTA is not the same data you see in the Dish guide. There is some OTA data, but not a lot of data being sent OTA for each channel, and the data that gets populated into Dish’s guide is much more detailed, and amazingly (not) matches exactly what they put into their own local channel guide.

Bottom line at this time based on all observations and tests: Dish is not using any OTA guide info to populate the Dish guide. I’m reasonably sure of this.

Lastly, sensitivity of OTA tuners varies greatly. I have two TVs connected to the same roof antenna, and one gets about 10 channels more than the other.

Just in case you are curious why I’m fairly sure about the OTA tuner: Besides the imperial testing of guide data on and off the Hopper box, I was a pioneer in digital television, helped set many standards for cable and satellite digital transmissions, and one of three architects for the basic design of digital set top boxes, much of which is still used today. The compression technology has improved greatly, but transport of shows and data is still fairly close to the early designs and standards. I was also a member of the ATSC (over the air digital signals) standards committee (and one of a few people that rejected the current method for the European DVB standard which would have been so much better),, so I have a good understanding of how OTA signals work, as well as how set top technology gets its guide data.

Sorry for the long winded answer. Hope this explains what you might be seeing.

[hartbow]

For my own Dish Hopper with dual OTA and not subscribing to any Dish locals I am receiving 44 watchable, and recordable channels. Less than 1/2 of the channels received are in what would be my Dish market area. All prime and most secondary channels receive guide data. Eight secondary channels,(.2,.3,.3,.4,.5 ect.) of which some in my market area and some out do not receive guide data.

I have not spoke to any Dish rep. about the missing guide data as I don't think they would know.

[zoglizard]

Major Havoc wrote:

The DISH guide data is there even if you don’t subscribe to the channels. Set you guide to show non-subscribed channels and you will see guide data for them as well. You can further confirm this by noting that the data your TV gets from OTA is not the same data you see in the Dish guide. There is some OTA data, but not a lot of data being sent OTA for each channel, and the data that gets populated into Dish’s guide is much more detailed, and amazingly (not) matches exactly what they put into their own local channel

Major havoc,

Thanks for the response. Makes sense

Guide really wasn’t my concern. That is a minor aside compared to getting my hopper to not crash continuously when an ota is connected. My first tech support call, of course, they said it’s limited signal. Which is absolutely not the case.

I just found I interesting that I got better and quicker guide info with ota and tv (no hopper connected at all) than I did using the hopper (assuming it wasn’t rebooting at the time). But I guess the crashing could be compromising hopper guide function.

Thanks

[jimmyir2]

New customer since last April. I have a Hopper 3 and can only hit the west satellite and my locals are in SD. So low and behold I have the OTA tuner installed. Works for the most part except for recording. When they enabled the ability to record two OTA channels that's when it all went to crap. Now when I even try to record one channel and not use the other OTA tuner recordings are full of studdering and pixelizations to the point of not being watchable. I have a Channelmaster 3228 antenna and receive the local channels without any issues on my TV sets. I also have a HTPC system with a tuner installed and use it to backup my recordings. That works perfectly. Dish doesn't. They have even swapped out the Hopper 3 and I still have the same issue. Wish I would have never signed a contract. Won't be making that mistake twice. Extremely dissatisfied with this service.

[Major Havoc]

Very strange. I have both the single OTA tuner and the newer dual OTA tuner and do not have the issue (at least not yet) and can record both satellite and OTA at the same time with no problem. I can understand your frustration.

jimmyir2 wrote:

New customer since last April. I have a Hopper 3 and can only hit the west satellite and my locals are in SD. So low and behold I have the OTA tuner installed. Works for the most part except for recording. When they enabled the ability to record two OTA channels that's when it all went to crap. Now when I even try to record one channel and not use the other OTA tuner recordings are full of studdering and pixelizations to the point of not being watchable. I have a Channelmaster 3228 antenna and receive the local channels without any issues on my TV sets. I also have a HTPC system with a tuner installed and use it to backup my recordings. That works perfectly. Dish doesn't. They have even swapped out the Hopper 3 and I still have the same issue. Wish I would have never signed a contract. Won't be making that mistake twice. Extremely dissatisfied with this service.

[TPRIBORSA]

Major Havoc wrote:
Very strange. I have both the single OTA tuner and the newer dual OTA tuner and do not have the issue (at least not yet) and can record both satellite and OTA at the same time with no problem. I can understand your frustration.

I have no issues on some channels and some channels are unwatchable. I can't scan some channels at all with the new tuner that came in perfectly before the problem that started back in August or so. Some of those channels were not scanned at all with the new dual-channel tuner, but when I look at them on the TV (where they are scanned OK) the missing channels seem to share a characteristic that they are on a digi-sub group that has lots of subchannels. As I understand it the licensee is allocated a bandwidth and can divide it up (not required to be equal) but the more subchannels the lower quality some of them will be. Some channels "upscale" a 4:3 program to HD but some are broadcasting it native - it may be those that are getting garbled. I'm trying to find a way to see what the actual underlying signal is but can't find a way to tell.

[TPRIBORSA]

Got a software update last night U506 12/12/2017 that at least for me doesn't seem to fix any of the OTA issues.

[hartbow]

U507 update on 12/19/17. See no difference anywhere as yet.