OTA Channels and the Guide

[RT-Cat]

Is it normal for some of the OTA channels to not show any guide information and others to show full info?
The ones that are not showing info only display the station call letters.

 

[CyberSpock]

Is it normal for some of the OTA channels to not show any guide information and others to show full info?
The ones that are not showing info only display the station call letters.

Yep. Some don't even show the current shows title while even your direct antenna feed to your television will do that. The OTA guide is a complaint to Dish for years now. You can search the forum and see.

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[RT-Cat]

Thanks for the info.
99% of the time I do a search for something, I get 200-300 answers and 90% of them have nothing to do with the subject. I almost never have any good results with a search.

 

[pattykay]

Is it normal for some of the OTA channels to not show any guide information and others to show full info?
The ones that are not showing info only display the station call letters.

Yes, this is normal. The ones without guide information tend to be channels that Dish does not carry in the satellite-delivered locals. As with everything, there are exceptions to this, though:

• In the event of a dispute with a local station that was previously carried, Dish will often uplink a separate OTA guide data stream for that station, instead of linking the OTA guide to the guide stream for the satellite-delivered channel like they normally would. This way, viewers of that station can ride out the dispute with OTA, including guide data, despite the fact that Dish no longer carries it in the local package.
• When Dish first started providing OTA guide data, they would also provide guide data for subchannels of the main station if Dish carried the main station, even though Dish did not carry the subchannels in the local package. At some point, Dish stopped adding new subchannels to the OTA guide data list, but existing subchannels with guide data got grandfathered in, for the most part. This is why some subchannels may have guide data while others don't. In most of those cases without guide data, the subchannel did not exist yet at the time when Dish stopped updating their OTA guide data list.

With the above rules in mind, though, there are still exceptions to the rules that can only be considered glitches. The most annoying of these glitches (to me, anyway) are cases where Dish actually does carry the station in the local package, yet the guide data for the OTA version still does not work. This is due to the link (that is supposed to put the guide for the satellite-delivered local on the OTA channel in the guide) being broken somewhere in the process, and nobody ever took the time to fix it. WMFD in the Cleveland, Ohio local package is one example of this situation. At least Dish did change the guide to provide one-hour blocks showing the station's call letters. It was not always this way. Previously, there would just be one big, long block in the guide for the channels without guide data. The one-hour blocks make it slightly easier to set manual timers (rather than name-based timers) by simply selecting the block in the guide.

The other major glitch that needs to be fixed was caused by the repack, and stations entering into frequency-sharing agreements. When this started happening, it caused a problem where after you re-scan your OTA channels, the guide data for the host station will show up on both stations in the guide. I explained why this happens in a recent post in another thread, so I will not go into more details here.

 

[RT-Cat]

Well that sure covers the subject. A lot of involvement when it comes to channel guides for sure.

 

[AngryStamen]

So, I am in the Pittsburgh market, where DISH has an ongoing dispute with Apollo, which owns my local NBC affiliate. I have not had my NBC network for several weeks now, but I do have a simple indoor antenna which is picking up the OTA signal. Is it correct to assume that programs on NBC will not be recorded via Prime Time Anytime because I am using the OTA signal versus the dish provided signal?

Also, if I stopped paying for the local channels bundle ($12/month), would I still be able to use the guide and my OTA antenna, or would the guide info go away, along with the Dish-provided local channels?


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[pattykay]

So, I am in the Pittsburgh market, where DISH has an ongoing dispute with Apollo, which owns my local NBC affiliate. I have not had my NBC network for several weeks now, but I do have a simple indoor antenna which is picking up the OTA signal. Is it correct to assume that programs on NBC will not be recorded via Prime Time Anytime because I am using the OTA signal versus the dish provided signal?
...

This is correct.

...
Also, if I stopped paying for the local channels bundle ($12/month), would I still be able to use the guide and my OTA antenna, or would the guide info go away, along with the Dish-provided local channels?

In this case, Prime Time Anytime would completely stop working. However, as long as you had PTAT set up before dropping the locals, AutoHop should continue to work for any prime time shows you record from OTA, if those shows would have had AutoHop on the PTAT recording. The guide will continue to work for the OTA channels, including the one in dispute, since Dish uplinked a separate OTA guide data stream for that channel.

 

[AngryStamen]

Thanks for the info! That is good to know that I could continue to use the guide info for my locals, even if I dropped the Locals package from Dish. And a bonus that AutoHop would still work!!

Now, I just need to decide if PTAT is worth the extra $12/month.


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