Just got hooked up yesterday. I have a Hopper 3. I have Over The Air for my local channels. The guide doesn't seem to work real well with them. Some are OK but half of them only show what is going on now and the next hour. Or it just shows the channels call sign all across the grid. It was worse yesterday, but I called customer service and they said to leave the hopper on stand by over night and they would send some kind of message to get it going. They also said it may take 24 hours. I was wondering if this is normal or is there something I can do on my end to get it going correctly. Thanks in advance
The Guide Doesn't Populate OTA Channels Very Well
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Dish cust service is right. It takes at least 24 hours for guide to download ota program information. Some of the sub channels will show nothing! That is the ugly truth. I get about 25 ota channels including subs. Some show no description in Guide. There are some web sites that provide ota listings.
Check this for your area.
www.ontvtonight.com
Where I live, I get pbs (OTA) from 2 different towers. The closest occasionally gives me a fuzzy picture, but Guide provides all the programing details. The other tower which is farther gives me a perfect picture but Guide shows nothing other than sub numbers. So, I pick this station and its subs when I record, and check the guide for the other station for programing information.
Check this for your area.
Local TV Guide - TV Listings
Check out American TV tonight for all local channels, including Cable, Satellite and Over The Air. You can search through the Local TV Listings Guide by time or by channel and search for your favorite TV show.
www.ontvtonight.com
Where I live, I get pbs (OTA) from 2 different towers. The closest occasionally gives me a fuzzy picture, but Guide provides all the programing details. The other tower which is farther gives me a perfect picture but Guide shows nothing other than sub numbers. So, I pick this station and its subs when I record, and check the guide for the other station for programing information.
If I want to record a program that should be on that channel at 9PM but it doesn't list the program in the guide do you just ask it to record that channel at that time somehow? Hoping the guide will fill in the blanks but I can probably make it work. Like you I may get 2 CBS channels but the one that comes in the best doesn't have any guide info.Dish cust service is right. It takes at least 24 hours for guide to download ota program information. Some of the sub channels will show nothing! That is the ugly truth. I get about 25 ota channels including subs. Some show no description in Guide. There are some web sites that provide ota listings.
Check this for your area.
Local TV Guide - TV Listings
Check out American TV tonight for all local channels, including Cable, Satellite and Over The Air. You can search through the Local TV Listings Guide by time or by channel and search for your favorite TV show.
Where I live, I get pbs (OTA) from 2 different towers. The closest occasionally gives me a fuzzy picture, but Guide provides all the programing details. The other tower which is farther gives me a perfect picture but Guide shows nothing other than sub numbers. So, I pick this station and its subs when I record, and check the guide for the other station for programing information.
Yes, that’s the assumption. For instance, channel 18 in Lexington, KY is NBC. 18-2 is metv. There are a lot of shows on Metv that I love and record as series. if the weather is bad, the tv screen gets pixelated for few seconds. NBC in Cincinnati is channel 5, and Metv is 5-2. Their tower is farther away but no issues at all when the weather is funky. So, I do my recording from 5-2.
I just checked my Guide few seconds ago. Certain sub channels such as Bounce, courtv, Dabl, Laff have no info at all.
I just checked my Guide few seconds ago. Certain sub channels such as Bounce, courtv, Dabl, Laff have no info at all.
Yes, that is what those one-hour blocks with the channel's call letters are for. You can select that block in the guide, and it will take you to where you can set a manual timer for that channel. You can even edit the start and stop time, for programs that are longer than one hour, or if you only want to record a half-hour, for instance.
According byo DISH it cannot be fixed. If enough people demand it they will find a way.
According to DISH it cannot be fixed. If enough people demand it they will find a way.
Dish CAN fix it, and years ago they did when there were changes. They just finally got to the point where they said they wouldn't any more, and screwed their customers that need it. What good is a dvr, IF it can't record stuff from the epg? "Just set a manual timer" is a BS excuse...
Dish gets the Guide data from the satellite. It does not use the broadcast PSIP data for the Guide.
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I am currently on Dish Pause and am still considering whether to allow my Dish subscription to re-up when the pause is over, but this is one of the key issues that may drive me away for good. Other than the major networks, OTA is almost unwatchable on Dish due to all the missing guide data. While on pause, I have been using Channels DVR and getting full OTA guide listings through that service. Anything less would be a step backwards for me at this point.
When you go on pause your subscription pauses as well. So if you have a commitment it will pause as well and continue where you left off. You would need to continue paying monthly until the end of the commitment or pay an early fee.
I am long past any commitment, so my decision will be made purely based on whether I want to continue with Dish.
Yea, something about it being "too expensive" or "too hard to program" or other such garbage according to people here. Oh, wait, I forgot the favorite "it doesn't go out far enough". But I still haven't gotten a good answer of why they'd rather have no guide data than a day.
I really don't think OTA is a priority for EITHER major satellite company. As for me, my priority OTA device is my TiVo Bolt. I just use the dual tuner dongle for my Hopper 3 as for two extra tuners when I need them (and occasionally for showing guide info on my OTA primaries without me having to change the input). Often I have to either look up the guide info online or on my TiVo and then set manual timers on my Hopper 3 for my spare OTA tuners because of conflicts. I also may note that my antenna is also hooked up directly to my TV if for some reason I want to watch it that way, or for certain PIP options on my TV setup.
My understanding of the sub-channel guide problem (the possibility that I am wrong is fairly high) is that the metadata used for the primary channel is the same for all the associated sub-channels and that makes it difficult to properly associate guide data for sub-channels correctly with programming. It must be done manually, which is a problem.
My Tivos seem to have no problem correctly assigning guide data with sub-channels. I don't know what is different about the Dish Network method and TiVo's method.
My Tivos seem to have no problem correctly assigning guide data with sub-channels. I don't know what is different about the Dish Network method and TiVo's method.
