Local Station Program Guide

budhead151

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Jan 4, 2007
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After a required rescan of my locals, NBC3 (WSTM-NBC3) moved frequencies. The guide has CBS5 programs listed on 3, Antenna tv programs on 3.2, which is on WSYR 9.2 and Digital Service on 3.3 5 and 3 are both owned by the same company
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. Has anyone seen this before?
 
After a required rescan of my locals, NBC3 (WSTM-NBC3) moved frequencies. The guide has CBS5 programs listed on 3, Antenna tv programs on 3.2, which is on WSYR 9.2 and Digital Service on 3.3 5 and 3 are both owned by the same companyView attachment 151135. Has anyone seen this before?
Since the two stations are owned by the same company, I suspect that they are now also sharing the same OTA frequency. Similar guide problems are happening on Dish receivers in cases like this in many markets across the country, including multiple pairs of stations in the market where I live: Cleveland, Ohio.

The problem comes because Dish's OTA EPG mapping is only looking for the TSID (alpha-numeric code being broadcast by the host station, in this case CBS5 apparently) and the subchannel number (-01, -02, etc.). It has no way to distinguish between different primary channel numbers (5 and 3) being broadcast on the same frequency. So, the guide for 5-01 gets mapped to both 5-01 and 3-01 in your case. There is nothing you can do on your end to fix the guide mismatch in cases like this. The solution will require a change in the way Dish does their OTA guide mapping, so that each -01 channel (-02 channel, etc.) gets its own separate guide information, instead of mirroring the same guide info on both sets of channels and subchannels.
 
Since the two stations are owned by the same company, I suspect that they are now also sharing the same OTA frequency. Similar guide problems are happening on Dish receivers in cases like this in many markets across the country, including multiple pairs of stations in the market where I live: Cleveland, Ohio.

The problem comes because Dish's OTA EPG mapping is only looking for the TSID (alpha-numeric code being broadcast by the host station, in this case CBS5 apparently) and the subchannel number (-01, -02, etc.). It has no way to distinguish between different primary channel numbers (5 and 3) being broadcast on the same frequency. So, the guide for 5-01 gets mapped to both 5-01 and 3-01 in your case. There is nothing you can do on your end to fix the guide mismatch in cases like this. The solution will require a change in the way Dish does their OTA guide mapping, so that each -01 channel (-02 channel, etc.) gets its own separate guide information, instead of mirroring the same guide info on both sets of channels and subchannels.
So if it is up to Dish nothing will get fixed. Still cant figure out how Antenna tv, which is on 9.2 is showing up on 3.2 on the guide.
 
So if it is up to Dish nothing will get fixed.
Someone posted recently that a similar problem in Denver actually did get fixed. I even replied to that post, linking the specific uplink report that likely fixed it. So, it looks like Dish is testing a way to fix this issue. Hopefully, the fix gets rolled out to more markets, sooner rather than later.

Still cant figure out how Antenna tv, which is on 9.2 is showing up on 3.2 on the guide.
I am guessing that with the repack, your channel 3 actually split their signal up across multiple stations. So, like I speculated above, CBS5 is now broadcasting 3.1, while 3.2 is now being broadcast by WSYR. This would cause 3.2 to share the same frequency as 9.2 (and unfortunately, the same guide info as 9.2 on Dish receivers, at least for now).

You can call the station engineer at your local station (any of your affected local stations) to verify this. I would be curious to know if my theory is correct. I can only speculate, based on the behavior being displayed by your receiver's guide.
 
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Welcome to the club of FUBAR Dish OTA guide data. I have been living this nightmare for YEARS and the common thread is that they are sharing the same digital frequency for broadcast. I have no hope of this ever getting fixed, but I will welcome a miracle.

TiVo DVR's are able to provide EXCELLENT OTA program data--well, I mean ACCURATE--program data for ALL stations and all the digital nets, and Dish contracts with TiVo for its EPG data, so the SOURCE (TiVo) has the data, but Dish seems unwilling to integrate it into our EPG's. I suspect it cost MORE MONEY for the FULL OTA EPG data. If anyone knows the REAL reason Dish does not have accurate EPG data for ALL OTA station's digi-nets, then do tell us by all means. I suspect it is MONEY.

It is issues like these that I miss the old Tech Forums. Just provide a phony question to the operator, and then when going LIVE, ask the REAL question. I would have LOVED to hear Mark and whoever of the two co-hosts (or even the Tech Forum Peanut Gallery to take the heat off of Mark) answer that one on LIVE TV, and MAYBE promise a fix. :).
 
Evidently Dish went the route of patch when it had to incorporate digital channels into it's guide.
The software evidently cannot differentiate between subchannels with the same decimal channel number on the same RF frequency.
IMHO a complete re-write is needed for the guide software - don't hold your breath.
 
Someone posted recently that a similar problem in Denver actually did get fixed. I even replied to that post, linking the specific uplink report that likely fixed it. So, it looks like Dish is testing a way to fix this issue. Hopefully, the fix gets rolled out to more markets, sooner rather than later.
Where was this? I don't recall seeing this post of yours or the uplink that fixed it.
 
Where was this? I don't recall seeing this post of yours or the uplink that fixed it.
Here is the post from the member in Denver. My response with the uplink report link follows it:
 
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Thanks - I completely missed that post previously. Not having a Hopper I don't always read the threads that talk about Hoppers as closely.
 
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WE have the same type of issue here in Beaumont,Tx dma. KFDM that owns both CBS and FOX stations in our area decided to move the Fox channel from 4.1 to 6.3. DABLE is now at 4.1 but the guide information is from the former Fox channel. Channel 6.3 FOX 4 only shows FOX4 and no guide information. So now we can't use the ota guide for either DABLE channel or for FOX channel since it's wrong.

When I did a online chat with the Tech dept or "Dr. DISH" as they referred to them, I was told that DISH would get around to fixing it someday. Evidently I pressed them to hard to fix it because the next day my satellite locals were showing as some small town in Louisianna about 135miles away. I neither asked for a move of my locals or authorized it in any way ,shape or form. Had to call in again and get them to fix my service address and locals to get back to my own locals.

My TABLO ota dvr picked up the changes within the same week as the move and I have full guide for everthing and the makers of TABLO or in Canada. So I can record my locals ota since I have 4 ota tuners in my TABLO.

In the early days of HD ota channels & sat HD locals I could email dishquality@echostar.com and I would get responses and even phone calls from them. I got a lot of my local sat channels tweaked by talking to the engineer in charge of locals. WE adjusted the picture and sound quality on all our locals so they were uniform and no loud or too low sound. The guide information was fixed for some of our new digital sub channels when I called in to get them fixed. Now nothing is done about ota guide information. The split from Echostar means DISH doesn't prioritize customer satisfaction over inaccurate ota guide information. DISH is now a cell phone company and soon the video portion will not matter. Just like Cable is now an internet provider and the video no longer matters.
 
I should also add that this particualr "bug" is in addition to the fact that far too many Local OTA "sub-channels" have no guide data at all, the original and still a problem. It seems to me as if Dish does NOT have anyone dealing with keeping things tidy with OTA--that would probably cost more MONEY to have someone there whose job it is to keep OTA highly reliable for us OTA tuner people.

It is just that Dish goes to the trouble of providing a great technology for OTA integratioln, but it would have even MORE value to the customer if it could also show EPG data for ALL "sub-channles," especially with trying to keep current customers happy and not leaving. There really is a lot of decent programming on the digi-nets, etc. on OTA's, and this could be the thing that keeps some people from leaving Dish altogether, if they can get the full value of all the content they can record on a DVR using their OTA dongle.
 
Evidently Dish went the route of patch when it had to incorporate digital channels into it's guide.
The software evidently cannot differentiate between subchannels with the same decimal channel number on the same RF frequency.
IMHO a complete re-write is needed for the guide software - don't hold your breath.
I'm not sure I understand.

Here is what I think I know so you don't have to use your time to explain it to me, you can correct me, instead:
Both the " .1 main" and ".X sub-channels" for both separate "TV Stations-call letters" sharing a single Frequency are all on that same "real" frequency, in a single digital stream (I hope that part is correct), but it is the "mapping" that determines the "virtual" and even the "real" channel display and, I would presume (of course I could get it wrong) the UNIQUE virtual (and real channel if it also is the same number as the virtual channel) or real channel (28.3 vs 58.3) relating to each virtual channels EPG data.

Now TUNING to a channel is a different thing: I believe that is physically located as a table on EACH separate physical "device" such as a TV, DVR, etc., which is why a "re-scan" of some kind is required when new channels are added or re-assigned because the table needs to be updated/re-written so the device knows which REAL RF channel to tune in, map to UNIQUE virtual (or virtual channels numbers that match REAL numbers) channels, demod, and then the rest is software that does refer to the TABLE for mapping the data to the correct channels that are displayed in the guide. TiVo seems to regularly re-scan in the background and can notify you if something is new on OTA requiring no scanning action from the user to "re-scan" unless the user specifically wants to for any reason.

So, it seems to me that since Dish does NOT use PSIP--nor does TiVo--it falls to Dish (and TiVo for their DVR's) to MAINTAIN the channel table for us. In the case of TiVo, they maintain it VERY WELL (although with TiVo we now get other/outside DMA channels cluttering the full list in CHANNEL SETTINGS that is supposed to exist in our DMA's, but do NOT; my point is that for TiVo DVR's all the channels in our DMA, every single channel and sub-channel has ACCURATE EPG data). In the case of Dish, they do NOT to a very high degree, at least in the LA DMA with some 160+ channels. Smaller cities may have a lower degree of no guide data because they have fewer total channels, so YMMV in your DMA on how many channels have no EPG data.

EDIT: I just looked at another posting about a "FIX" to this problem and in the uplink report posted is state "MAPPING turned off", but that was reported to FIX the problem. So, it seems it is a MAPPING problem, but one that can be fixed easily enough IF SOMEONE AT DISH HAD SPECIFIC DUTIES TO KEEP THINGS UPDATED WITH THE OTA FEATURE/TABLE. It seems to me that Dish just does NOT want to commit human resources to MAINTAIN the accuracy of the OTA table on their DVR's most likely because everyone else is too busy, and Dish does not want to create a FULL-TIME job for someone to practice constant maintenance of OTA tables for Dish DVR's because that would cost MONEY. I can imagine such a dute would be a full-time job, or at least a few days a week part-time job that would be seen as too much costly for Dish economics :). And I still wonder if Dish would be required to purchase additional EPG data for additional OTA channels from TiVo in order to provide EPG data for every OTA channel and sub-channel. All that above is my THEORY. It is an IMHO, so I am ready to learn.

Please, if I got it wrong--which is likely--let me know, and explain what you meant or how it works by not knowing the difference between the same decimal number for the same RF. I probably missed something. I thought that the data was associated to POST TUNING/DEMOD process of parsing the data for display using the channel tuning TABLE as a reference for the VIRTUAL data being associated to each UNIQUE virtual channel as per the table--and a REAL channel is still a "virtual" one ONLY in the sense of POST tuning/demod for displays and EPG. I know I must have gotten something wrong :). Thanks in advance for your corrections.
 
I should also add that this particualr "bug" is in addition to the fact that far too many Local OTA "sub-channels" have no guide data at all, the original and still a problem. It seems to me as if Dish does NOT have anyone dealing with keeping things tidy with OTA--that would probably cost more MONEY to have someone there whose job it is to keep OTA highly reliable for us OTA tuner people.

It is just that Dish goes to the trouble of providing a great technology for OTA integratioln, but it would have even MORE value to the customer if it could also show EPG data for ALL "sub-channles," especially with trying to keep current customers happy and not leaving. There really is a lot of decent programming on the digi-nets, etc. on OTA's, and this could be the thing that keeps some people from leaving Dish altogether, if they can get the full value of all the content they can record on a DVR using their OTA dongle.
It occurs to me that there is a relatively simple solution for this problem: Locast. True, Locast will not allow you to record directly. However, for the markets that they serve, they do provide complete guide data for the channels and sub-channels that they carry. So, perhaps the Locast app on Dish receivers could add a "Record This" button to the guide, which would then find the OTA version of that channel on your receiver (if you have that channel scanned in) and set a manual timer for that time slot, regardless of what the Dish EPG shows for that channel. For the main channel (and certain select sub-channels that Dish actually carries on satellite) the feature could even look for the satellite-delivered version of the channel if the OTA version is not scanned in, or if all OTA tuners are already tied up recording other shows in that time slot. ViP receivers used to have a TV Guide app, many years ago, that would let you set DVR timers for popular cable channels directly from the app. It is a shame that such a basic and useful feature not only is no longer available on the ViP's, but also never existed in the Hopper interface at all.

(although with TiVo we now get other/outside DMA channels cluttering the full list in CHANNEL SETTINGS that is supposed to exist in our DMA's, but do NOT; my point is that for TiVo DVR's all the channels in our DMA, every single channel and sub-channel has ACCURATE EPG data)
Again, this is an area where Locast excels. Not only do they provide the full guide data for all of the channels and sub-channels in your DMA, but they also deliver those channels to those of us who cannot receive them OTA. That way, we can at least watch the channels, even if we can't record them.
 
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I'm not sure I understand.

Here is what I think I know so you don't have to use your time to explain it to me, you can correct me, instead:
Thanks in advance for your corrections.
The problem is in the way that the Dish receiver maps the guide data stream that it is receiving from the satellite signal. The system was never set up to handle channels with two or more different virtual (the number before the decimal point) channels on the same frequency (the same OTA stream) which may or may not also each have sub-channels that use the same digit after the decimal point.

The mapping does use the PSIP data, although all of the actual guide data being broadcast by the station is stripped out. The Dish receiver is only looking for the TSID (Transport Stream ID) being broadcast by the host station. It then maps the satellite-delivered guide data based on that TSID and the sub-channel number only, without looking at the virtual number before the decimal point. The problem with the frequency-sharing arrangements is that both stations now have the same TSID (since they are part of the same signal) which confuses the Dish receiver's guide data mapping process. So, it finds the host station's TSID and maps that station's guide data to every channel it finds in the guide that happens to share the same TSID and sub-channel number.

Of course, 43.1 is actually a completely different channel than 19.1, and 43.2 is actually a completely different channel than 19.2, etc. However, the Dish receiver has no way of knowing that. It finds 19's TSID (in this example) and maps that guide data to both sets of channels in the guide. The correct guide data for 43 is still being uplinked to the satellite. It is just a matter of changing the mapping (or changing the entire mapping process, or changing the entire OTA guide delivery system) in order to get that guide data to actually show up on the appropriate channel in the guide.
 
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TiVo seems to regularly re-scan in the background and can notify you if something is new on OTA requiring no scanning action from the user to "re-scan" unless the user specifically wants to for any reason.
This is a feature that I used to enjoy very much on the DTV Pal digital-to-analog converter boxes that Dish used to sell during the 2009 digital transition. It is a shame that they never included this automatic OTA scanning in any of the Dish receivers. :(
 

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