OTA Tuner guide question

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mwdxer1

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Nov 3, 2015
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Seaside Oregon
I have tried several OTA outboard tuners to try and get a good OTA guide without spending a fortune. My local stations claim their OTA guide goes out 5-10 days depending on the station. However I have only found one tuner that goes out 12 hours. I could spend the money for a TIVo or Tablo and pay for a guide, but isn't there something I can find that will display the whole EPG that is transmitted from the station? Thanks.
 
Most stations only transmit a tiny bit over 12 hours of data, as that's the minimum the FCC requires. Not sure which stations you're watching, but looking at data I have from the Portland stations from last year, the guide data runs:

KATU: 24 hours
KOIN: 24 hours
KGW: 24 hours
KOPB: Guide data didn't decode, but looks like several days worth should have been encoded
KPTV: 48 hours
KWVT-LD: 24 hours
KPXG: 24 hours
KNMT: 12 hours
KRCW: 72 hours
KUNP-LD: 24 hours
KPDX: 48 hours

- Trip
 
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I had to ask the local tv station engineers several years ago to up the data amount. I had moved my mother closer and she didn’t want any pay tv, so at the time I gave her one of my Pal dvrs, which were using psip. There was only 12 hrs of data from the locals at that time. All but the local Cox stations responded and were happy to help once they knew some viewers were using the data.

They said they just had a couple of test tvs that only showed 12-18hrs of data, that they used to verify things were working. I emailed back and forth with them as they made changes and I reloaded data on my DTV Pal dvrs until they were satisfied things were working and there were no problems with the extended data.

I actually connected one of my Pals back up a few days ago, as I’m giving it to some friends to use. I don’t remember how much but it went out several days on the scripps, griffin and Sinclair stations.

The Pal dvrs are all I have left that uses the psip data. All my others use some type of online service. I put my HD Homerun back in service, but it pulls data thru Plex now and of course my TiVo’s get data from TiVo. My LG tvs pull data from online sources too.
 
The Ematic stand alone tuner with the DVR function using a thumb drive gave me about 12 hours on most stations (2-6-8-10-12). I just checked KATU and it went from 8:30 PM (now 8:45) to 7PM on Sunday, so nearly 24 hours, 22 1/2, so it is working better now. ME TV goes out about the same 22 1/2 hours. So maybe that is all we will get without a guide subscription like on a Vivo. Same now goes for KOIN, 7 PM Sunday. KGW runs to 8:30 PM (Sunday Night Football) OPB 7PM Sunday also. Interesting, KPTV only goes out to 1:35 PM on Sunday. KPDX which also shares the same translator goes out to 4PM. I have no idea if the EPG is different running the translator here on the coast.
 
I have tried several OTA outboard tuners to try and get a good OTA guide without spending a fortune. My local stations claim their OTA guide goes out 5-10 days depending on the station. However I have only found one tuner that goes out 12 hours. I could spend the money for a TIVo or Tablo and pay for a guide, but isn't there something I can find that will display the whole EPG that is transmitted from the station? Thanks.

There's always www.titantv.com
 

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