DTV question [minor]

[William Sommerwerck]

I wrote back, and he replied to that. Here's what he said, in part:

(I had done nothing to my DTV box this whole time.)

So does anyone know if this is correct? Now there's another station (one
of the big networks, not a local independent) that's missing its program
info. Is it possible that my DTV box would selectively omit this
information for just one or a few stations? Every other station shows
this info for me, with the exceptions noted above.

It might be true. I note that the information supplied, and even the call
letters (!!!) of particular channels, can change from day to day on my
Vizio, even though I have done nothing.

 

[David Nebenzahl]

So one of my local TV stations seemingly stopped sending program
information data--you know, the text that says what's on, what's going
to be on, and explaining in more detail what's on. Landing on that
channel, display simply showed "- No program information -". (BTW, this
seems to be the default for all of the minor little public TV stations
around here, not including the big PBS stations which are diligent about
supplying this information.)

OK, no big deal, but slightly annoying, so I fired off an email to the
station, alerting them to this situation and asking them if this was due
to an omission at their end. (I confess I really don't know what that
information is called, or how it gets supplied at their end. All I know
is that it is somehow transmitted as part of the DTV datastream.)

Well, a day or two later, the program information started appearing for
that station. I figured it *might* have been on account of my email--big
slaps on the back for me as an Alert Citizen!--but since they hadn't
replied, I had no way of knowing.

Then a couple days after that I got a reply back. The station's
operations manager wrote and told me that they (the station) was
supplying that information, and therefore if I wasn't seeing it, it was
probably due to a problem at my end. He suggested doing a complete
rescan (not an "update scan") on my DTV box.

I wrote back, and he replied to that. Here's what he said, in part:

Nothing changed on our end. However it is not unheard of for
set-top-boxes to need to reload the PSIP tables for a channel once in a
while. Forcing a rescan forces the tables to reload. Eventually they
will usually reload on their own which is probably what happened in your
case.

(I had done nothing to my DTV box this whole time.)

So does anyone know if this is correct? Now there's another station (one
of the big networks, not a local independent) that's missing its program
info. Is it possible that my DTV box would selectively omit this
information for just one or a few stations? Every other station shows
this info for me, with the exceptions noted above.


--
The current state of literacy in our advanced civilization:

yo
wassup
nuttin
wan2 hang
k
where
here
k
l8tr
by

- from Usenet (what's *that*?)

 

[David Nebenzahl]

IME DVB-T STBs seem particularly prone to mains borne noise and spikes
corrupting the various bits of NVR data, you could try a mains conditioning
socket strip to clean up the supply or run it through a UPS - handy for
power outages that would mess up recordings on a PVR, otherwise doing the
occasional re-scan is not such a big deal.

Are you sure of this, or is this just hand-waving? (Like the old "reboot
your computer" advice of the techie on the other end of the phone, no
matter what the problem.)

I ask because after doing a rescan, *another* channel still shows no
program information, so obviously the scan did nothing to correct that.
I still have no idea if the problem is at their end or my end, but the
scan didn't help.

Does someone here *actually know* how this information is handled,
propagated, etc?


--
The current state of literacy in our advanced civilization:

yo
wassup
nuttin
wan2 hang
k
where
here
k
l8tr
by

- from Usenet (what's *that*?)

 

[David Nebenzahl]

Various DVB-T faults get discussed on uk.tech.digital-tv so you could try
asking there.

You use the term "DVB-T" as if that's supposed to mean something to me.
I'd never heard this term before.

OK, so it appears to be a *prospective* worldwide DTV standards-setting
body. (Looks suspiciously like yet another Euro-standard being pushed on
us, but never mind.)

But is this even applicable to the US? Not sure, even after reading
this, with no mention of DVB-T applying to us:

http://www.dvb.org/about_dvb/dvb_worldwide/usa

In any case, I'm still looking forward to someone *here* who has at
least an inkling of how textual program information is handled *here*
(the US, where I live).


--
The current state of literacy in our advanced civilization:

yo
wassup
nuttin
wan2 hang
k
where
here
k
l8tr
by

- from Usenet (what's *that*?)

 

[David Nebenzahl]

You don't seem very grateful for the attempts to help you, so I think I've
reached the limit of what I can do for you.

Well, you haven't been very helpful, so I guess we're even.


--
The current state of literacy in our advanced civilization:

yo
wassup
nuttin
wan2 hang
k
where
here
k
l8tr
by

- from Usenet (what's *that*?)

 

[David Nebenzahl]

Go read this as it should help you get started.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSIP

Thank you. You win the "first person to actually provide useful
information in this whole damn thread" award.


--
The current state of literacy in our advanced civilization:

yo
wassup
nuttin
wan2 hang
k
where
here
k
l8tr
by

- from Usenet (what's *that*?)