No such thing as an OTA lineup issue?

scandia101 · 10-15-2011, 03:44 PM

I just had to report a lineup issue because two local OTA channels have moved and another was added. The problem is that apparently Tivo doesn't seem to think this can happen because their form for reporting lineup issues does not address anything other than cable and satellite. The name of a cable or satellite provider is a required field as designated by an asterisk. The field for their phone number is not asterisked, but the form can not be submitted w/o a phone number. I had to put in 555-555-5555.

This comes a couple weeks after I changed my tivo beta testing profile to update the Tivos that I have and their forms are set up for digital cable with a box as if the S3 and S4 models haven't been around for the past 5 years.

For anyone in the StP/Mpls area that doesn't already know this;
Channels 45-1 and 45-2 have moved to 5-45 and 5-4 and channel 5-3 was added but hasn't actually started broadcasting regular programming but is broadcasting a looped promo for the station, MeTv - looks similar to tvland. Channels 45-1 and 45-2 are only broadcasting looped blurbs stating that they have moved.

justen_m · 10-15-2011, 04:09 PM

I had something similar happen here in Boise on Aug 1. 12-1 (Fox) moved to 9-1, and 9-1 (CW) moved to 2-2. Sucks, because CW is no longer HD.

The guide data is correct, but I had to manually change my season passes. The only issue is that shows that I record on 9-1 Fox still show the CW emblem in the Now Playing list, and shows I record on 2-2 CW don't show any emblem.

appleye1 · 10-15-2011, 04:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scandia101

... channel 5-3 was added but hasn't actually started broadcasting regular programming but is broadcasting a looped promo for the station, MeTv - looks similar to tvland.

MeTV is great. If you like old TV shows you're going to love MeTV.

unitron · 10-15-2011, 10:30 PM

Aren't we paying Tivo and Tribune Media Services to stay on top of that sort of thing for us?

I can see them not catching it right away if it happened in podunkville, but ain't The Twin Cities big time enough for them to keep tabs on? That's Ted Baxter's media market for cryin' out loud!

rainwater · 10-15-2011, 10:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by unitron

Aren't we paying Tivo and Tribune Media Services to stay on top of that sort of thing for us?

It's different for OTA. For cable companies, there is usually someone at the local cable office who is the contact person for Tribune and they give Tribune the changes. For OTA there's no central contact so it is up to the individual stations to report the changes to Tribune.

The reason it isn't on the lineup form is probably because OTA stations rarely change and TiVo probably doesn't have contacts at the individual stations.

scandia101 · 10-16-2011, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rainwater

It's different for OTA. For cable companies, there is usually someone at the local cable office who is the contact person for Tribune and they give Tribune the changes. For OTA there's no central contact so it is up to the individual stations to report the changes to Tribune.

The reason it isn't on the lineup form is probably because OTA stations rarely change and TiVo probably doesn't have contacts at the individual stations.

OTA stations rarely change? The twin cities alone have seen a lot of OTA changes over the past few years. And the fact that it happens less often is no excuse for making it more difficult for customers to report issues.

cogx · 10-16-2011, 10:52 AM

I know dozens (hundreds?) of us were filling out the TiVo web form, during the two digital transition phases, to get them to send in requests to fix OTA frequencies that had changed (although sometimes it took weeks to get the changes made).

You might also have luck by using Zap2it's web form:
http://www.zap2it.com/services/site/...9403.htmlstory

scandia101 · 10-16-2011, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cogx

You might also have luck by using Zap2it's web form:
http://www.zap2it.com/services/site/...9403.htmlstory

Done, thanks.
Zap2it also requires a provider even when antenna is listed as the source

rainwater · 10-16-2011, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scandia101

OTA stations rarely change? The twin cities alone have seen a lot of OTA changes over the past few years. And the fact that it happens less often is no excuse for making it more difficult for customers to report issues.

Compared to cable companies, yes it is rare. And like I said, it most likely because Tribune has to deal with the station directly. It's hard for Tivo to facilitate this. In fact, TiVo just uses a form and sends it to Tribune. I'm sure they can fix the form, but I doubt it will improve the process. If you want the guide data updated, it might be best to contact the station directly.

scandia101 · 10-16-2011, 08:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rainwater

Compared to cable companies, yes it is rare. And like I said, it most likely because Tribune has to deal with the station directly. It's hard for Tivo to facilitate this. In fact, TiVo just uses a form and sends it to Tribune. I'm sure they can fix the form, but I doubt it will improve the process. If you want the guide data updated, it might be best to contact the station directly.

It is not at all rare, it's just less often.

"The process" as far as the customer is concerned is essentially nothing more than filling out the online form. What Tivo does with that, they don't really care, they just want results. If the form is inadequate for the necessary information, that can hinder getting results. If the form had options that reflected OTA issues, the customer wouldn't have to try to explain it in a coherent way so that somebody at Tivo doesn't have to try to decypher it. I believe I gave a coherent explanation, but I see a lot of explanations here on TCF and elsewhere that make little sense and are difficult to follow and I'm sure the authors thought they were very clear.

KBrack · 10-17-2011, 12:35 PM

I just got my antenna up and my TiVos running over the weekend - changing from DirecTV (Old DirecTivo units) to OTA. I also ran into the issue with 45 in the Twin Cities. I used the chat feature on TiVo.com to try to report the issue.

After an introduction to the issue and the suggestion to change my zipcode, Here's what the agent told me:

Agent: Thank you for your patience. We will need the frequencies for those channels to more easily correct this.
Agent: To find this information tune to one of the new channels then press Live TV on the remote to switch to the other TV tuner and tune to another channel that moved.
Agent: Once that's done go to Settings & Messages > Account & System Information > System Information.
Me: I'm not in front of my TV
Agent: Ok, no problem. This case is being documented. When you can, contact us again and provide the frequencies listed and their respective channel number that are affected.

Does this make any sense? Once I get home, I'll give them the requested info and I will fill out the online form at TiVo and Zap2It. Perhaps others can report the issue via chat - the squeaky wheel....

mattack · 10-17-2011, 09:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by appleye1

MeTV is great. If you like old TV shows you're going to love MeTV.

If you like old TV shows that are hacked up for more commercial time.. i.e. you're not seeing the original entire show.

mattack · 10-17-2011, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by unitron

Aren't we paying Tivo and Tribune Media Services to stay on top of that sort of thing for us?

Yes, in theory, but I appreciate having such a facility available (lineup issue reporting). I wish there were FAR more things like that (ways to officially report bugs to TiVo, etc..)

RockinRay · 10-18-2011, 09:25 AM

I am also in the Twin Cites and reported the KSTC 45 change to Zap2it.

Hopefully, they will get this cleared up quickly for us!

KBrack · 10-20-2011, 02:00 PM

Got a message on my TiVo that the lineups have been changed. That was faster than I expected.

I'm new to the OTA thing on TiVo - what do I need to do? I have two listings for all the 5 subchannels one says TBA and the other has the changed listing. However, the picture is on the TBA and the one with the correct listing has no picture. Do I need to rescan channels, restart the TiVo's, just wait or something else?

It also looks like Me TV is live now!

rainwater · 10-20-2011, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KBrack

Got a message on my TiVo that the lineups have been changed. That was faster than I expected.

I'm new to the OTA thing on TiVo - what do I need to do? I have two listings for all the 5 subchannels one says TBA and the other has the changed listing. However, the picture is on the TBA and the one with the correct listing has no picture. Do I need to rescan channels, restart the TiVo's, just wait or something else?

You can try a rescan. But it sounds like the frequencies in the guide data are wrong for that channel. Otherwise, it wouldn't show the listing twice. The TBA listings are the actual channels that the box sees.

scandia101 · 10-20-2011, 02:53 PM

I reconnected my digital converter box and rescanned to see what is actually out there vs. what tivo says.
They have it all frakked up.
Tivo (via TMS) has all of the KSTCDTx channels listed as KSTPDTx.

5-1 should be KSTPDT1
5-2 should be KSTPDT2
5-3 should be KSTCDT3 not KSTPDT3
5-4 should be KSTCDT2 not KSTPDT4
5-45 should be KSTCDT1 not KSTPD45

ETA
and it appears that 45-1 and 45-2 have stopped broadcasting the message about moving.

ETA 5-2 has moved to 45-5

scandia101 · 10-20-2011, 03:42 PM

I just sent an email directly to both KSTP and KSTC regarding the issue

eatswodo · 10-25-2011, 02:57 PM

I'm in the Twin Cities too. I just picked up a Premiere on Saturday, and noticed the channel 5 and 45 confusion after setting it up. I'm just using an antenna, no cable.

I reported it to TiVo on Sunday using this link:

http://www.tivo.com/setupandsupport/...neup_tool.html

I just checked, and I had a message on the box about a lineup change. It seems to be fixed now.

Probably had nothing to do with me at all.

LoREvanescence · 10-25-2011, 03:44 PM

when I was using OTA I often had to submit a line up issue. The problem was New Hampshire Public television.

They have 4 or 5 broadcast towers in the state all on different sequencer.

The main station was on channel 11, the the station I picked up in western mass was out of kene on channel 49 in the days of analog.

When they went digital the main one was mapped to channel 11, and mine to 49 where the guide data was. However, then they mapped them all to channel 11. No guide data.

I kept having to submit a line up issue, and I got it correct like 3 times. But for ever reason they kept wanting to change it back to channel 49 where I got no channel.

scandia101 · 10-26-2011, 03:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eatswodo

I'm in the Twin Cities too. I just picked up a Premiere on Saturday, and noticed the channel 5 and 45 confusion after setting it up. I'm just using an antenna, no cable.

I reported it to TiVo on Sunday using this link:

http://www.tivo.com/setupandsupport/...neup_tool.html

I just checked, and I had a message on the box about a lineup change. It seems to be fixed now.

Probably had nothing to do with me at all.

I reported it again last Friday.
I came here to say that everything seems to be ok now as long as you have the correct channels checked on the channels list. The channels that receive a signal now have the guide data to go with them, but all of the superfluous channels in the channel list are still there and more have been added such as kstcdt8 and kstcdt9.

KBrack · 11-03-2011, 01:21 PM

I pulled up the Slingplayer to watch a little TV over lunch and it seems that the TiVo guide data is messed up again. There was a message on the TiVo saying a Lineup change occurred. Seems like they "re-did" the 5/45 changes. I didn't have time to dig too deeply, but while the MeTV listings seem to be there, the ThisTV listings are gone and channel 45-5 was removed entirely from the channel list.

Should I rescan channels before reporting this to TiVo or will that not help with this type of issue? (I'm still a newbie for OTA.)

scandia101 · 11-03-2011, 03:11 PM

On 10/31 I received a response from my email to kstp (tech@kstp.com) asking if everything was ok now. At the time it seemed to be, but there were still a lot of superfluous channels in the channel list to have to weed through to get the correct ones. With today's deletion of 6 channels, some of which should not have been deleted, I finally replied to kstp with the latest issues. A response came immediately that he'd contact TMS.

KBrack, rescanning will not accomplish anything.

unitron · 11-03-2011, 10:05 PM

As I observed elsewhere, the station wants you to watch them, so get them to raise hell with Tribune Media Services.

scandia101 · 11-11-2011, 08:44 PM

Finally!
My HD had everything correct after todays message for the lineup change that added channels, but my Premiere had duplicates of the two added channels (5-4 and 5-45) and each 5-4 and each 5-45 had to be checked as received. If I unchecked one, the other would magically uncheck itself and then when I re-checked just one, the other would magically be checked too. After a hard reboot everything is as it should be.

Thank you to Dick the tech at KSTP.

unitron · 11-11-2011, 09:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scandia101

...Thank you to Dick the tech at KSTP.

Scientifically Treated Programming?