Did you know about the Freeview EPG?

Otherwise known as the Freeview Electronic Programme Guide, the EPG allows you to view information about programmes on all you available Freeview channels for 8-days ahead.

So if you wanted to see what's on - there's absolutely no need to check elsewhere - it's all right there on your TV screen and it's a completely free service provided by Freeview.

Click here to see how you can access & unleash the wonderful power of the Freeview EPG!

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Permalink Reply by Alan Douglas on November 14, 2013 at 10:56

Well I for one love the Freeview EPG as it makes it so much easier to set up to record a program and it is always up to date........ Well not always!.

I quite like 'In Plain Sight' that screened on TV3 very late on Friday night or sometimes even on Saturday morning. Thank goodness for recorders!

I checked my EPG on Friday evening to make sure 'In Plain Sight' on Saturday the 9th November (12:20am) showed the indicator that it would be recorded. All good!

But when I sat down to watch the recording a day or so later I was subjected to an old episode of 'CSI: Miami' even though 'In Plain Sight' was listed correctly in my PVR recordings list. Grrrr!

TV3 did make the effort to have a voice over preceding the show saying that “This program differs from the one advertised.” But it was obvious that they did not bother to update the EPG?

I wish this was an isolated incident but not so. Sometimes the networks even forget to update their web pages too. It took TV1 until late afternoon most days to update their web site and Freeview EPG during the ongoing coverage of the Americas Cup.

Does anyone know if this is just incompentence or apathy on the part of the TV Networks, or is updating the Freeview EPG a difficult process that just can't be done by clicking a mouse?

I would have hoped that the Freeview EPG would just take a direct feed from the TV Networks computers that run the live schedules. If a sudden change in schedule was needed (eg. To extend coverage of a major news item.) I would have expected that the Freeview EPG would be updated immediately.

But maybe that is too much to ask for.

I would also like to know why some program descriptions seem to be too long to be displayed by the EPG and just get cut off in mid sentence. Surely there is some checking that is done.. somewhere?

Or is this the Networks just not bothering to check the size?

Alan

Permalink Reply by forumuser on December 5, 2013 at 22:12

The EPG can only be updated every 6 hours so 12am, 6am, 12pm, 6pm or the most case is every 6pm the EPG rolls over for new information if changes occur

Permalink Reply by Alan Douglas on December 6, 2013 at 8:54

Thanks Joshua, that is very useful information and does excuse slow updates to the EPG, just slightly.

(In this day and age... 6 hours!!!! Who thought that was a good idea??)

It certainly still does not excuse most of what is going on.

I have also seen many 'one off' programs, like documentaries, loaded in the EPG as a series.

e.g. You are asked if you want to record the whole series when setting the program to record, although there is only one singe episode.

I am receiving Freeview off a satellite. Are there two separate EPGs, one for terrestrial and one for satellite, that the networks have to manage????? If so, perhaps they do not put much effort into maintaining the satellite EPG as there is only a small percentage of the population using it. All the effort may go into the SKY and Freeview terrestrial EPGs. Just a thought.

Alan

Permalink Reply by Sue on December 6, 2013 at 12:43

I also receive Freeview via satellite. I have noticed recently that a box comes up when you are viewing a programme (and not one that you are recording necessarily) to let you know that a series/single programme that you have recorded is now at an end. Quite a large box pops up (even when you are viewing a recorded programme) and you have to exit the box before it lets you continue watching your programme. Is this necessary as it's really annoying??

Alan Douglas said:

Thanks Joshua, that is very useful information and does excuse slow updates to the EPG, just slightly.

(In this day and age... 6 hours!!!! Who thought that was a good idea??)

It certainly still does not excuse most of what is going on.

I have also seen many 'one off' programs, like documentaries, loaded in the EPG as a series.

e.g. You are asked if you want to record the whole series when setting the program to record, although there is only one singe episode.

I am receiving Freeview off a satellite. Are there two separate EPGs, one for terrestrial and one for satellite, that the networks have to manage????? If so, perhaps they do not put much effort into maintaining the satellite EPG as there is only a small percentage of the population using it. All the effort may go into the SKY and Freeview terrestrial EPGs. Just a thought.

Alan

Permalink Reply by Alan Douglas on December 6, 2013 at 13:01

Sue, you probably have a DishTV satellite PVR like me. (s7090 in my case) This 'feature' was added to one of their recent firmware upgrades. It certainly did not do this when I originally purchased the box.

I have to agree with you in that it is a bit annoying. And I can find no way of turning it off.

May pay to send support@dishtv.co.nz an email. Justin, who seems to sit at the end of this email address, is very helpful and may know of a way to turn it off.

Alan

Permalink Reply by Paul on December 6, 2013 at 13:07

It does the same thing on the Dish TV S7070r , which is extremely annoying , I have gone back to the previous software (firmware) version on my receiver to cure this problem .

Alan Douglas said:

Sue, you probably have a DishTV satellite PVR like me. (s7090 in my case) This 'feature' was added to one of their recent firmware upgrades. It certainly did not do this when I originally purchased the box.

I have to agree with you in that it is a bit annoying. And I can find no way of turning it off.

May pay to send support@dishtv.co.nz an email. Justin, who seems to sit at the end of this email address, is very helpful and may know of a way to turn it off.

Alan

Permalink Reply by Sue on December 6, 2013 at 14:03

Thanks Paul and Alan.

My DishTV S7090pvr seems to have a few issues. Paul when you say you have gone back to previous software version to correct problem, wouldn't that change when they do OTA firmware upgrades so not a permanent fix.

Alan, I have same satellite Dish S7090 PVR as you. I would be interested to know if, since the changes to the way Prime is broadcast through satellite whether you are experiencing some problems that I have. You are suppose to be able to record 2 channels and watch a third (its in their marketing material and use to work) - doesn't now because of so-called groupings of TV channels. Prime seems to be the culprit here. If you record Prime and say TV1, but are watching TV3 and then change to Prime, a banner comes up on Prime and jams the whole system and you can't use your remote to change channels or get off Prime. You have to turn TV off at wall and then you lose all recordings. Dish TV advised me to do some sort of Eprom reset (whatever that is). If I am not the only one to have this problem - perhaps they can do a firmware upgrade.

Thanks, Sue

Paul said:

It does the same thing on the Dish TV S7070r , which is extremely annoying , I have gone back to the previous software (firmware) version on my receiver to cure this problem .

Alan Douglas said:

Sue, you probably have a DishTV satellite PVR like me. (s7090 in my case) This 'feature' was added to one of their recent firmware upgrades. It certainly did not do this when I originally purchased the box.

I have to agree with you in that it is a bit annoying. And I can find no way of turning it off.

May pay to send support@dishtv.co.nz an email. Justin, who seems to sit at the end of this email address, is very helpful and may know of a way to turn it off.

Alan

Permalink Reply by Alan Douglas on December 6, 2013 at 14:53

Sue,

That sounds very interesting. I will give your scenario a try and report back. We may have to start a DishTV thread in these Forums. It will have to be a big one as there are lots of 'quirks' with these boxes.

The s7090 should not 'lock up' (But I have had mine do this a few times, but under different circumstances.)

I am not sure what the EPROM reset is. (Haven't had to do one of those!)

FYI. You can just hold the Power Button on the physical s7090 for about 10 seconds to get it to switch off when its locked up. You will still loose your recordings but it saves switching it off at the wall. (That is one of the many things that isn't in the manual.)

If you do go back and load an older firmware, if you can still get a copy, you can turn off the OTA upgrades via the Settings menu to stop it being upgraded.

Regarding the recording two channels and watching a third...... The caveat for this is that the channels must come from the same transponder on the satellite. This was the situation until Prime moved to a different transponder. If you are recording a program from Prime, one of the s7090's two tuners will be locked to the Prime transponder and this reduces your options on recording and viewing other channels. It still shouldn't lock up the s7090 when you swap around though.

I will have fun tonight trying out your scenario.

Alan

Permalink Reply by Paul on December 6, 2013 at 15:09

Yes you are correct it does try to install the new firmware OTA , (Fri-Sun ) hopefully they will stop broadcasting soon.

We also have a Veon SAT 101 ( a clone of the DishTV S7070r) which we use on (Fri-Sun ) and turn off the DishTV for those days.

Sue said:

Thanks Paul and Alan.

My DishTV S7090pvr seems to have a few issues. Paul when you say you have gone back to previous software version to correct problem, wouldn't that change when they do OTA firmware upgrades so not a permanent fix.

Permalink Reply by Sue on December 6, 2013 at 15:37

Dish TV s7090pvr problems - Pleased to hear Alan and Paul that I am not the only one having problems with this Freeview model sat box and a complete new thread about problems with Dish TV s7090pvr would be helpful as these discussions get lost - this discussion was started about EPG problems which is another issue also. Still think a lot of these problems only started since the Prime change on satellite as things were great before then. Look forward to hearing how you get on.

Alan Douglas said:

Sue,

That sounds very interesting. I will give your scenario a try and report back. We may have to start a DishTV thread in these Forums. It will have to be a big one as there are lots of 'quirks' with these boxes.

The s7090 should not 'lock up' (But I have had mine do this a few times, but under different circumstances.)

I am not sure what the EPROM reset is. (Haven't had to do one of those!)

FYI. You can just hold the Power Button on the physical s7090 for about 10 seconds to get it to switch off when its locked up. You will still loose your recordings but it saves switching it off at the wall. (That is one of the many things that isn't in the manual.)

If you do go back and load an older firmware, if you can still get a copy, you can turn off the OTA upgrades via the Settings menu to stop it being upgraded.

Regarding the recording two channels and watching a third...... The caveat for this is that the channels must come from the same transponder on the satellite. This was the situation until Prime moved to a different transponder. If you are recording a program from Prime, one of the s7090's two tuners will be locked to the Prime transponder and this reduces your options on recording and viewing other channels. It still shouldn't lock up the s7090 when you swap around though.

I will have fun tonight trying out your scenario.

Alan

Permalink Reply by Alan Douglas on December 6, 2013 at 18:42

Sue,

Just saw an error in my last post. (Too much typing and not enough thinking.)

Correction... (Before anyone starts mocking me.)

Regarding the recording of two channels and watching a third...... The caveat for this is that the channels must come from only two transponders on the satellite as there are only two tuners on the s7090. This was the situation until Prime moved to a different transponder. If you are recording a program from Prime, one of the s7090's two tuners will be locked to the Prime transponder and this reduces your options on recording and viewing other channels. It still shouldn't lock up the s7090 when you swap around though.

Just gave your scenario a crack on my s7090.

I could not get the machine to lock up when switching around the channels.

I was recording TV One and Prime and I could happily switch around all the channels. If I tried to go directly to a channel that I could no longer access, because both my tuners were using other transponders, I got the banner "Invalid Entry" displayed. But no lock up.

I am running the latest firmware that I downloaded from DishTV's website and installed manually. It is Version 1.61. I don't know if it has been sent out via OTA but it certainly does not seem to have the lockup problem that you are experiencing. (It certainly still pops up those screens when a series ends. Grrr!)

Alan

Permalink Reply by Sue on December 6, 2013 at 19:51

Thanks Alan for your reply. Perhaps I don't have current version on mine. There is

hardware version 2.1

chip version 4.1

software version A3U_11_0161

Loader version LDR_DISHTV_HW21_SW20

MCU Version DC

Date Sept 30 2013

Time 21:50:29

If its not the current one I guess I will have to find out how to do it manually.

Thanks very much for your assistance.

Sue

Alan Douglas said:

Sue,

Just saw an error in my last post. (Too much typing and not enough thinking.)

Correction... (Before anyone starts mocking me.)

Regarding the recording of two channels and watching a third...... The caveat for this is that the channels must come from only two transponders on the satellite as there are only two tuners on the s7090. This was the situation until Prime moved to a different transponder. If you are recording a program from Prime, one of the s7090's two tuners will be locked to the Prime transponder and this reduces your options on recording and viewing other channels. It still shouldn't lock up the s7090 when you swap around though.

Just gave your scenario a crack on my s7090.

I could not get the machine to lock up when switching around the channels.

I was recording TV One and Prime and I could happily switch around all the channels. If I tried to go directly to a channel that I could no longer access, because both my tuners were using other transponders, I got the banner "Invalid Entry" displayed. But no lock up.

I am running the latest firmware that I downloaded from DishTV's website and installed manually. It is Version 1.61. I don't know if it has been sent out via OTA but it certainly does not seem to have the lockup problem that you are experiencing. (It certainly still pops up those screens when a series ends. Grrr!)

Alan