Erasing all channels from memory

1164 Views 6 Replies 2 Participants Last post by bleech2, Oct 17, 2019

bleech2

Discussion Starter · Oct 14, 2019

I have had a Series 3 for a long time and live in a rural area that receives weak signals from 4 or 5 different markets. It has accumulated about 265 channels in its memory, and will be gaining more with local frequency reassignment occurring on the 18th. I utilize the "channel strength" utility quite often and many phantom/obsolete channels use the same PSIP assignment, which makes checking channel strength quite annoying. Is there a way to wipe out this channel list and start from scratch? I'm guessing "Clear and delete everything" would accomplish this. If so, Is there a way to go through that process without actually erasing all of my recordings?

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V7Goose

· #2 · Oct 14, 2019

No need to do a CDE. Just repeating Guided Setup will rest all the channels in the list to the default for your zip code (under Bad_Rovi, this will be all channels in your DMA, which WILL include a lot that you cannot receive). To my knowledge, there is no way at all to remove all the bogus channels that Bad_Rovi now includes in the default list - you just have to know which ones to leave un-checked.

But first, just try to Delete previously scanned channels under the Channel scan menu.

BTW - any channel in the list shown with an * was added by doing local channel scans instead of being part of the TiVo lineup list, and just hitting Clear while looking at the channel list should remove all of these.

You can compare your current channel list to the TiVo default for your zip code by just going to TiVo Online and setting your zip code and provider (OTA?) there.

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bleech2

Discussion Starter · #3 · Oct 15, 2019

Thanks for the information, I did not know you could delete the * channels, it looks like that would take care of the most annoying ones. I'll try to the guided set up after the frequencies change on Friday.

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V7Goose

· #4 · Oct 15, 2019

After the frequencies change, you still have to wait for TiVo to finally get off their butt and fix their lineup. Until they do that, a scan will pick up the new channels as * channels, but you will not have any guide data.

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bleech2

Discussion Starter · #5 · Oct 15, 2019

Ugh...I forgot about that. We actually went through this in January of 2018 when several sister-stations that sold spectrum combined onto one new frequency, it took over a week for the guide data to sort out. Can't wait to go through that again.

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V7Goose

· #6 · Oct 16, 2019

Just one last comment for you - the TiVo channel scan is stupid and very flawed. Even if all of your available channels are already in the lineup, the channel scan might find many new BOGUS ones to add with an *. Here is one of the reasons why:

ALL of my OTA channels come from low-power translators on different physical frequencies from the primary channels they repeat. When the scan finds a signal on those real frequencies that does not match up to a channel already in the lineup, it ads it as a * channel, but you cannot actually tune it in. For some unknown reason, this does not happen with ALL of my OTA channels, only about half of them. I have never figured out why. These same problems exist with old S3 boxes and new Bolts, but they are not shown the same way.

For example, one of my local translators operates on physical channel 16, but its four stations are broadcast with display channel numbers 2, 15, 29, 33. These channels are in my lineup and work fine (after a LONG fight with Rovi to get it right), but my channel list also shows *16-1, *16-2, *16-3, and *16-4 - all of which are non-tuneable. I know of no way to get rid of these from the channel list, as they just come back with every channel scan.

My Series 3 also seems to add bogus * channels based on the channel name it sees in the PSIP data during the scan. For example, my local NBC station for Channel 4, KOB out of Albuquerque, is broadcast as channel 8 on physical channel 30, but I also have a BOGUS *KOBDT1 on channel 4-1 showing in my channel list.

So I am just trying to tell you that you CAN clean up a lot of OLD *scanned channels, but then you probably will still have a bunch of bogus *scanned channels that you cannot do anything about. And those usually DO show a signal in the Signal Strength screen that corresponds with the same signal for the real channel on that physical frequency, but the bogus ones do not show any video to go with the good signal strength.

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bleech2

Discussion Starter · #7 · Oct 17, 2019 (Edited)

I'm well aware of the bogus channels...mine has collected 150+ of them over the years! I live about 40 miles west of Milwaukee but my Tivo is loaded up with stations from Madison, Rockford, Chicago, Green Bay, and even Grand Rapids (on the other side of Lake Michigan!)

This evening I noticed that my TIVO is automatically adding the new channel frequencies and has already shifted the guide information to them and off of the soon-to-be-obsolete ones. While I thought this would create havoc, they have been considerate enough to postpone the change for stations that I have recordings scheduled for between now and Friday morning...I am very impressed, it looks like the transition will go much smoother than I was anticipating.

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