TV Guide has become the new industry standard for providing the mass market with a universal guide system. It operates anywhere in the US using your local over the air broadcast stations, which are also carried on your cable system. QAM digital cable tuners are typically part and parcel of a product supporting TV Guide, often times including a cable card option. This review will help you navigate the potential problems that may arise in setting up this feature for your HDTV.
When you first install the TV, or other product with this feature, you will be prompted to setup the system by answering...
I don't really know much about cablecards, but I know you don't necessarily need a cablecard to get channel assignments. I have a Westinghouse LCD HD TV. It correctly assigns cable channel #'s to about half of the free qam channels. It has been reported by various Tivo S3 unit owners not using a cablecard (or prior to installing them) that no channels are detected or all are. Among the latter, some get regular cable channel #'s (ie 805) and some get PSIP type data (ie , 7-1). Some have taken this to mean that the PSIP data is passed by the cable company and detected by the Tivo. I don't think that Tivo would engineer any PSIP capabilities into the S3, but they have been silent on the issue.
I just think that most cable systems are set up incorreectly. Whether or not that's on purpose, I can't say.
As for the cable companies being the major part of the problems that is certainly where nearly all the fingers end up pointing... check the Cable Card article linked in this one.
Richard,
Thank you for your review of how the TV Guide service works. That service comes with my Comcast Cable subscription in suburban Chicago. My only complaint is that TV Guide apparently cannot bring themselves to give any movie a bum rating. Every movie, even if it has earned only one star (which TV Guide reveals), is described as "charming" or "engaging" at the very least. So - good for finding a movie you're looking for; BAD for deciding whether to take a chance....
Alas, my Sony DVR model DHGHDD250 requires the TV Guide On Screen to set the clock/calendar! There is no workaround, as I found out recently when the analog local PBS station went off the air for 3 days. After speaking to the station engineer today, he too said that there is no workaround as yet for over the air TV Guide On Screen after the cut over to digital. I don't know if this is valid info, but it would make my Sony DVR worthless without a clock.
I do find the TV Guide On Screen very helpful with the advertisements not too intrusive.
I have yet to see anyone address the miserable setup interface of TV Guide Onscreen. I dare anyone with a digital cable lineup of about 250 stations to attempt reordering the listings into a meaningful order. Rather than rely on the cable channel number for the position within the listing, they have come up with a pseudo-random order. To change the order, you must find each station, hit Enter, Scroll to the box where you can edit the position number, and type in some number you guess at and hope for the best. Now do this for 200 stations.
You'll quickly see my point.
Gemstar has always been behind the curve. In its early days, they couldn't even muster up a working website. In the current incarnation, they have a fancy-looking website with minimal information. Want support? Try to find an e-mail address on their site. You won't. That's always the sign of a company that is flailing about.
Needs a lot of work.
I think I'll stick with my ReplayTV a bit longer when trying to schedule recordings.
I've been working with my cable company for 2 months to try to get this problem corrected... still not Fixed.
I have Charter Digital Cable in California (Central Coast) and a Sony KDS-R60XBR2 with a Cable Card. My On Screen guide for the most part works well except it does Not pickup information and listings for about 18 new channels that Charter added in the past year (mostly HD). I receive the channel but not the listings. The guide doesn't show the channel assignment or listings at all, and when you tune to one of the new channels the top of the screen shows "No Program Title Available". When you open the TV Guide once you are tuned to one of these channels, the guide narrative shows "Program information for this channel not available", and the channel text just shows "Cable".
We have tried the obvious; resetting the TV Guide many times, changed out the Cable Card, and had the Cable Cards reset. No change as a result of any of this. On a digital cable box, the stations show up on the guide just fine. One of the Techs' went to the headend and said that the test monitor (RCA set) at the headend using a Cable Card acted the same as mine... didn't show these new channels. The cable company has now concluded that the problem is either with my TV or with the TV Guide On Screen Service provider, and not with anything in the cable system.
Has anyone had a similar experience, and if so, can you please provide me with any information that may allow me to pursue this on my own, or to guide the cable company on steps they may need to do to get this fixed.
Your guide info comes from the embedded TV guide data which you are obviously getting. I ran into this myself with the Sony DVR for two months after my cable company changed ALL the channels and after that I can't tell you when it was fixed but it was; I had stopped using both of my products for long period.
I don't know how this info gets generated nor how long it takes to be corrected by TV guide and then correcting the data at your local. It isn't your cable company though; it can only be the cable companies fault if they are not telling TV guide about the change yet then why would all the other channel guides, data or paper, get it right.
It's TV Guides fault. Have you tried to contact them? I looked one time to find something and gave up...
Thanks Richard,
I'm trying to find a good link to TV Guide. I've tried to get them on a web site, but if you try this link:
TV Guide On Screen
TV Guide On Screen
Thanks to information received from members on this forum, my problem is fixed (well almost). As Richard posted "it is not the cable company"...... he was correct. The problem is that as new channels are added to the stream, most of them did in fact populate on the TV Guide On Screen channel map, but the default is for them to be turned off. It was a simple task of finding the correct channel logo and call sign(most of them will be at the bottom/end of the edit screen), assign the channel that they appear on the system, turn the channel on in the TVGOS edit screen and turn off the tv set. The channel & call signs immediately appeared on the guide, and t he following morning, all of the listings populated the slot in the guide. I still have an issue locating the proper logo and call sign for A&E HD and Hist HD, but I think they are there somewhere.
Thanks for the help folks,
Anybody else experience this problem with TV Guide On Screen? I have the newest Samsung 56" DLP TV with the LED light engine and TV Guide. And a Motorola set top digital cable box, and Comcast. Soon after hooking up my HDTV (which includes a little IR device that you dangle in front of the Motorola box) I received my Comcast bill, with $144 of bogus charges. Specifically, there was a pay per view porn channel selected once each day, usually in the wee hours of the night, for $11.99 per view. At no time did I view this channel. I'm assuming the TV Guide On Screen software selected it on the Motorola box which resulted in the bogus charges. (Comcast would not credit my account, even after talking with a supervisor, but that's not why I'm writing this). The TV Guide xmtr is now unplugged and that feature of my new TV disabled. Comcast's TV listings still work, but lack the advanced features of the TV Guide. This is a warning to other users of TV Guide about possible bogus cable charges via Motorola set top boxes.
I'm scratching my head here because I don't know of any PPV or VOD that allows you to view a program without a few more keystrokes. All your TV does is tell the cable box which channel to change to...
he following morning, all of the listings populated the slot in the guide. I still have an issue locating the proper logo and call sign for A&E HD and Hist HD, but I think they are there somewhere.