VIP 622/Dish off air guide, how do I enable it?

[Club Chapin]

I'm a new dish subscriber. I have the Bronze package and am using an off air antenna for locals in HD (Less money and no compression).

My problem is that the guide does not work for anyting off of my off air antenna. It says "Digital Service" or something like that, but does not show guide data.

Is there a way to enable guide data? Or, is this a ploy to get me to spend the money for compressed locals? I would like the full lineup that my off air antenna provides, as well as the un-compressed quality. Would like to be able to dvr and time shift shows via the guide.

Thanks, Pete

 

[StevenD]

If you do not subscribe to the Dish locals, it will NOT populate the giude data for the OTA locals.

 

[Club Chapin]

Thanks. That's a drag.

If I do subscribe, will it populate guide data for my loals, including locals that are not carried by dish?

 

[garys]

Probably not, each area has been different. Some areas will not have guide info for PBS plus most of the subchannels even if Dish does have the channel.

 

[mike123abc]

It only will have guide data for the main channel (no sub channels) and only on channels dish carries.

 

[Club Chapin]

Not what I wanted to hear, but thanks for the info.

Did they ever have the guide data for off air, maybe before they had HD locals?

Pete

 

[garys]

An older model 6000 used to put up NY or LA for the networks, which wound up have a lot of errors in the particular station's programing. It is a lot better, but still need work.

 

[Club Chapin]

Seems like it wouldn't be too hard to provide support for this. All of the data is out there. My off air tuner gets the guide data from sub carrier or meta data in the broadcast themselves.

 

[Club Chapin]

I just signed up for the locals. It seems that they provide data for my off air channels, including channels they don't provide, but not sub-channels.

I was able to disable satellite locals, so still using my off air antenna, and effectively paying the fee just for the guide data.

 

[DWS44]

and effectively paying the fee...

Yup...welcome to Dish!

 

[garys]

I just signed up for the locals. It seems that they provide data for my off air channels, including channels they don't provide, but not sub-channels.

I was able to disable satellite locals, so still using my off air antenna, and effectively paying the fee just for the guide data.

Leaving sat locals enabled to not block the ota, number designation for sat would be xx-00 while ota would appear as xx-01 ect.

 

[Tulsapoke]

I just switched from DirecTV to Dish today. This is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. If I understand this correctly, I will have to pay for the locals to get the guide data? It was simply there with DirecTV. Now that I have a DVR there and really need this data there is none and I see no way to select anything off the locals to record. This is frustrating. I am going to call and complain to Dish about this fleecing.

 

[Friend]

While I undstand your anger, question is if dish does provide local data for free then why will you ever want to have local from dish if you get it from off-air and channel data for free. Like I can go ahead and buy 211/811 from ebay and only subscribe channels I want and get off-air local with guide for free. That's a saving of 60 bucks a year. So, I can also understand dish's point of view.

 

[osu1991]

You will have to set a manual timer for the locals just like an old vcr if you don't pay for the locals. Not a big deal for me right now as I need the sat locals for my other receiver.

 

[hperry]

While I undstand your anger, question is if dish does provide local data for free then why will you ever want to have local from dish if you get it from off-air and channel data for free. Like I can go ahead and buy 211/811 from ebay and only subscribe channels I want and get off-air local with guide for free. That's a saving of 60 bucks a year. So, I can also understand dish's point of view.

I understand what you're saying about Dish's perspective. But come on, forcing people to get locals like this is only going to iritate users and drive some of them away. As stated earlier, D* offers the guide data for OTA locals for free. And if they really wanted to force you to get their sat locals, why even put an OTA tuner in the receiver?

 

[techweb]

The 811 displays guide info for OTA channels without having to subscribe to locals.

 

[ChetK]

In fact, the guide data is already there from the OTA feed. I believe it is required by law to be available. It's just that E* DISABLES the information in order to make you pay for locals. This seems like disceptive practices to me.

 

[hperry]

In fact, the guide data is already there from the OTA feed. I believe it is required by law to be available. It's just that E* DISABLES the information in order to make you pay for locals. This seems like disceptive practices to me.

In the case of the 622, I'm not sure if the hardware supports the OTA built-in data. And I've heard this data is very unreliable anyway so it would not be a great solution.

 

[osu1991]

The guide info from the locals psip isn't always great. Our ABC and PBS stations just have HD or DTV Channel in the info box from my Sony's built in tuner.

 

[Mr Tony]

The 811 displays guide info for OTA channels without having to subscribe to locals.

correct. As long as Dish has that channel in the locals.

I noticed on my 811 when I scanned in the digital channels, it populated the Minneapolis locals in the 8000's (which is their technical spot) but in red. All the XX-1's are correct except for Pax (which Dish doesn't carry the local feed). That says "digital local". The only local that Dish shows on a subchannel is 17-2 which is the PBS 17 feed (they use sister station channel 2 on 17-1).