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Here is a list of TVGOS stations, my CBS is not sending the data so I can't try it.

RabbitEars.Info - Digital TVGOS Service List

Thanks for the updated TVGOS station service listing. My local CBS station confirms they carry the Macrovision distribution.

According to the support at Tech@echostar.com, I am not sure it really matters if the local CBS station carries the Macrovision feed at all, since they claim the DTVpal+ collects the programming information off the PSIP (Program System and Information Protocol) stream and builds the TV listing from this information to send to the TVGOS enabled device. This is what the folks at Echostar stated.

It is the sending of the data from the DTVpal+ to the Guide+ enabled device where the problem lies, if what Echostar states is true. It is clear the DTVpal+ works great in the standard mode of operation in getting the TV listings. So, I can only conclude it gets the listings from the PSIP just fine, but when it is placed in the TV Guide / Guide+ mode of operation the Guide+ enabled device never finds a host channel on the DTVpal+ to get its TV listing information. If what Echostar says is true, then the DTVpal+ is failing to create a host station with the proper data on the VBI of the NTSC signal.

The support from Tech@echostar.com went silent the past 2 days and they are not answering any more questions, not that they have answered any specific questions. The phone support and live help support at Dish has been absolutely useless. They simple apologize and tell you they cannot help you. More to follow…

Here is another update...

The folks at EchoStar to date have tried to pin the blame on my Guide+ devices and referred me to contact the manufacturers of those devices. Devices that have worked flawlessly on the Analog television feeds and continue to work on the OTA Analog TV feeds. EchoStar needs to train their staff on this issue, but I do realize these are new issues that have overloaded manufacturers in the transition.

EchoStar may have finally pinned the tail on the donkey by pointing their finger at Macrovision. I guess you will get lucky pointing the finger at somebody else eventually when you do not understand how your own product works. There seems to be no way to find intelligence at EchoStar on how their DTVPal Plus actually handles passing the TV Guide+ data to a TV Guide+ enabled device.

EchoStar stated in early February that a Macrovision representative would contact me about the issue. Nobody from Macrovision has contacted me about the DTVPal Plus issue to date.

Today, I received a response from Macrovision indicating that the Guide Data was down in my area, but this is in response to an issue I reported to them back in October 2008 when Charter Communications changed the local PBS and CBS analog feeds to digital feeds. Macrovision states they expect to resolve the issue within the next 6 weeks while they work to install equipment at the broadcast station. This may resolve my cable issue and hopefully my OTA digital signal so I can see if the DTVPal Plus really passes TV Guide+ data. I spoke with a representative at Macrovision back in October who was very helpful when my Guide+ devices first failed to update on a cable connection. He explained they would contact Charter Communications at that time to work with them on how to continue the TV Guide+ service for their users.

Based on technical talk from that discussion I doubt that the DTVPal Plus takes the PSIP data, as EchoStar stated, and builds Guide+ data to be transmitted to Guide+ enabled devices. I believe the DTVPal Plus simply passes a digital broadcast station signal and that digital feed is converted to an NTSC format with the data placed at the appropriate VBI just like the Closed Captioning data would be passed. I think it was mandated that all converter boxes must be capable of converting the CC data which works similar to how the TV Guide+ data is placed on an NTSC signal.

So, I guess I will wait with my fingers crossed and see what happens in a few months.

Since my last communication with EchoStar in early January 2009, I have called and visited numerous stores who handle HDTV's with the TV Guide feature, mainly Sony Televisions since they advertise the TV Guide feature. Nobody (Sears, HH Gregg, Best Buy, Circuit City (now history), REX, etc.) could demonstrate the feature! Most of the stores say they have a satellite feed and they cannot demo the feature. I have asked each and everyone of them if I could hook up a pair of rabbit ears overnight to see if it actually works or not. None of the stores were willing to attempt receiving an OTA signal to see if it would work. Why would anybody purchase a TV with a feature that cannot be seen! What has happened to sales people? Are sales people really just cash register attendants these days? If you want to sell something you should be prepared to demo it! How can a company like Sony allow retailers to get away with this type of attitude as it does not promote their TV over anybody else's TV. The marketing people have missed their calling. Will Macrovision let TIVO once again take the lead in the digital transition due to ignorance? Sony should mandate their resellers have the ability to demo their features or pull their product from unqualified retail stores. Perhaps, nobody really cares? Why put any features in a product if there is no return on the investment?

Check out the threads at AVS Forums. Macrovison is having some problems right now around the country with the digital OnScreen data. The Pal+ conversion feature for the Version 7 onscreen devices and earlier is not currently working. The Pal+ will take the digital OnScreen info and convert it into a format that the legacy devices can understand, in theory.

The DTVPal Plus Guide+ feature is now working

About 4 weeks ago I received an email from the folks at TVGOS indicating some hardware updates would were being installed at the local broadcast station in the next 4-6 weeks. Last weekend, I noticed my TV Guide screen was populated with information on my RCA Guide+ TV connected to the Charter Communications cable. I quickly entered the diagnostic page on my TV and found the host channel is x0C which is cable channel 12 (WHIQ, PBS Station digital feed from Charter in analog format). I guess I was expecting the CBS station to handle the TV Guide, but it appears that the local PBS station is carrying the Guide+ information broadcast on their digital feed.
Charter switched from the analog feed to the digital feed back in October 2008 and this is when my Guide+ devices all lost their TV Guide information. This is the compelling event that led me to purchase the DTVPal Plus to see if it would decode a digital channel and provide the Guide+ information. This attempt to recover the Guide+ data from a digital TV station failed as outlined in an earlier post.

Since the new TVGOS hardware was added to my local PBS stations digital feed and my Guide+ devices are now receiving the TV Guide data, I decide to hook the DTVPal Plus to my RCA Guide+ enabled TV to see if it would work. The DTVPal Plus was placed in the Guide+ mode of operation and my RCA TV was setup accordingly using the special Zip Code listed in the manual, selecting Cable as the feed even though I am using rabbit ears, and selecting the cable box attached entry. When I turned the TV off it started sending the channel commands via the G-Link cable every 60 seconds to the DTVPal Plus as normal to scan from channel 2-99 looking for a host channel.

A few hours later I checked on the TV and notice the TV was no longer sending commands to change the channel on the DTVPal Plus box. This is very evident because the LED on the DTVPal does not flash when there are no commands send to it via the G-Link cable. Of course, my blood was pumping with excitement since that means the TV found a host channel or the firmware has crashed. I have never seen the firmware crash in my TV, so I immediately entered the diagnostic mode on my RCA TV to see what happened. To my surprise, the TV had found a host channel on channel 24 of the DTVPal Plus. As you might recall, I explained that the DTVPal Plus re-maps channels in the channel 2 through 99 range. This is how it works to be compatible with the Guide+ devices since they scan channels 2-99 by default. The folks at EchoStar were not aware of this even after I explained to them how their DTVPal Plus unit worked. In any event, the re-mapped channel 24 on the DTVPal Plus is actually digital channel 25-1, my local PBS broadcast station. I expected the CBS station to carry the Guide+ information from all that I had read about Macrovisions deal with CBS, but I find that the local PBS digital channel is carrying the information for Guide+. I guess it is easier for them since they carried the Guide+ on their analog feed (and still do).

I have connected my DTVPal Plus to my TV to see what happens. I set the DTVPal in the Guide+ mode and then setup my RCA Guide+ information using the special ZIP code supplied in the DTVPal Plus manual. This morning I had a hand full of stations populated in my Guide+ screen. However, it appears the stations in the listing are for Nashville, Chattanooga, and Birmingham. There are only 2 local stations in the Guide for Huntsville or Muscle Shoals, my local viewing area.

The good news is my TV did find a host channel and it stopped scanning channels 2-99 in an endless loop as reported initially. It is working!
So, I am happy to report that the DTVPal Plus with the firmware version I posted earlier, does indeed provide my analog Guide+ enabled devices with the Guide+ data expected on the vertical blanking pulse of the NTSC signal when the broadcast station is providing the proper information. It appears that the digital signal is simply decoded and converted into the NTSC format with the Guide+ data and the Closed Captioning data (basic federal requirement of all converter boxes) where they need to be.

It is unfortunate that EchoStar nor Macrovision publish's this information publicly as I am sure it has impacted some potential sales. I am just happy it works as advertised after all the numerous calls to Dish and EchoStar looking for answers with no help or resolution. These companies need to work on educating their staff about how their products perform so they can explain it to the end user. It does not have to be technical to an Engineering level, but they need to know how it interacts with a Guide+ device for basic troubleshooting purposes.

I will send Macrovision a brief on the channel listing problem, but there is a way to work around this problem. I simply went back and into my Guide+ setup on the RCA TV and set the Zip Code to 00000, turned the TV off, and then turned it back on. Again, I entered the Guide+ setup screen as an initial installation and used my normal Zip Code instead of the special Zip Code provided in the DTVPal Plus manual. The next day I re-entered the Guide+ setup and had 5 different channel lineups to choose from. I did not select any of them. Instead, I selected the custom or manual option to pick my channels from a list. Using the channel editor in the Guide+ menu I was able to select almost all of my local stations and assign the proper digital channel to them. See my earlier notes in the post on how to enter a corresponding digital channel. There are some digital channels (not main stream) that do not appear in the list and you will not get the TV Guide information for them, but all of the major network channels are listed with the exception of their minor digital channel numbers. For example, my local channel 19 is listed and I enter it as 291 in the channel editor, but channel 19-2 has no listing in the channel editor. This is where the Special Zip code would be nice if it was working and listed all the stations in the local area.

I am happy to report that the DTVPal Plus Guide+ mode of operation does work as advertised in the manual when a local broadcast station carries the information on the digital feed to satisfy the Guide+ enabled device. It was unfortunate, that it took this long to arrive at this conclusion. Dish and EchoStar clearly need to educate their staff on their product offerings and capabilities or at least direct their customers to somebody in their organization who can help explain how their products work. The Dish and EchoStar Management/Engineering staff infrastructure get a big "F" for failure to communicate. This is really a shame because the product does function the way it should, but nobody at Dish or EchoStar could articulate how the product works. If they did not hang up on me I got comments like: "it doesn't work that way", "you have to disable something, but I am not sure what it is…", "the book says it does it", "I cannot help you", "You have to call the manufacturer of your Guide+ unit", "You need to call Macrovision", "I have no idea what you are talking about", etc… Maybe you start to get the picture of what I am communicating about service that provides useless information or simply frustrates the customer.

The DTVPal Plus is great product with the EPG / TV Guide built-in along with the Guide+ device support. When will their Marketing , Engineering, and Support teams bring the synergy together to capitalize on the market? Oh, the opportunities that are being missed…