Missing EPG Data for Buffalo Digital OTA

[Lester Jacobs]

I just recently started using the HDHomerun to receive Buffalo and Toronto OTA programming. It was all working very well until yesterday when I noticed that I wasn't getting EPG data for two of the Buffalo stations; WUTVDT2 and WNEDDT2. Anyone else using Buffalo OTA stations and notice this? I just want to confirm that this is not an issue with only my setup before submitting a problem ticket.

Cheers
Lester

[Conejo]

If those two channels were originally part of your lineup then they should still be working. If you ADDED them then the latest upgrade could be causing issues. I had two previously added stations that I provided stnNum that worked before the upgrade but went 'no data' afterwards.

If SageTV Support doesn't give you quick correction, you could try jumpstarting the EPG:

1. Setup Video Sources > select an HDHR tuner > select EPG Lineup > Use US, Canada... > select Local Broadcast > Buffalo > Don't Scan [DONE, Back to Summary, Finish, Back to Main Menu]
2. View GUIDE and verify EPG (for only those channels)

Then swap back:

1. Setup Video Sources > select the previous HDHR tuner > select EPG Lineup > USE AN EXISTING CHANNEL LINEUP WITH THIS SOURCE > select the lineup that was used before (Usually a DIGITAL version) [DONE, Back to Summary, Finish, Back to Main Menu]
2. View GUIDE and verify EPG for all channels

[jasmithvr6]

Originally Posted by Lester Jacobs

I just recently started using the HDHomerun to receive Buffalo and Toronto OTA programming. It was all working very well until yesterday when I noticed that I wasn't getting EPG data for two of the Buffalo stations; WUTVDT2 and WNEDDT2. Anyone else using Buffalo OTA stations and notice this? I just want to confirm that this is not an issue with only my setup before submitting a problem ticket.

Cheers
Lester

Hey Lester...I'm a fellow Queen City native myself. I'm running OTA through Sage via a Fusion Lite 5 card and have not experienced any issues with EPG data. What is being displayed in the program guide for those channels?

[Lester Jacobs]

From what I'm hearing it sounds like the safest thing might be to remove the HDHomerun as a source entirely and re-add it. Something seems to have gotten messed when I started adding the custom channels for Toronto.

Thanks for the replies
Lester

[JonSS]

I am in Toronto and am setting up OTA, have you found that the OTA signals for Toronto & Buffalo main stations (ABC, fox, City, CTV, Global etc) have the EPG built into the signals?

I am having alot of problems with the EPG mapped to Rogers Digital cable to get EPG data, and Sage is looking into it for me.

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally Posted by Conejo

If those two channels were originally part of your lineup then they should still be working. If you ADDED them then the latest upgrade could be causing issues. I had two previously added stations that I provided stnNum that worked before the upgrade but went 'no data' afterwards.

If SageTV Support doesn't give you quick correction, you could try jumpstarting the EPG:

1. Setup Video Sources > select an HDHR tuner > select EPG Lineup > Use US, Canada... > select Local Broadcast > Buffalo > Don't Scan [DONE, Back to Summary, Finish, Back to Main Menu]
2. View GUIDE and verify EPG (for only those channels)

Then swap back:

1. Setup Video Sources > select the previous HDHR tuner > select EPG Lineup > USE AN EXISTING CHANNEL LINEUP WITH THIS SOURCE > select the lineup that was used before (Usually a DIGITAL version) [DONE, Back to Summary, Finish, Back to Main Menu]
2. View GUIDE and verify EPG for all channels

Well I completely removed the HDHomerun and ten re-added it. Things seem to be working a bit better. I am now getting some EPG data for those two channels where I wasn't before. However te EPG data only goes out a day or so. My suspicion is that SageTV is getting the EPG data for these channels via PSIP (EPG embedded in the broadcast signal) rather than the Zap2It feed.
So the long and short of it is that I am still not getting the proper EPG data for those two channels (WUTVDT2 and WNEDDT2). All other channels are gettign their EPG data fine.

Looks like it's time to open a ticket.


Lester

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally Posted by JonSS

I am in Toronto and am setting up OTA, have you found that the OTA signals for Toronto & Buffalo main stations (ABC, fox, City, CTV, Global etc) have the EPG built into the signals?

I am having alot of problems with the EPG mapped to Rogers Digital cable to get EPG data, and Sage is looking into it for me.

I haven't specifically tested to see whether the stations are broadcasting the EPG in their signals. I am instead attempting to get the EPG data via the SageTV servers which get their feed from Zap2It. However I have heard that the Canadian stations in particular are currently quite bad at embedding the EPG data.

When I setup my OTA I chose the Buffalo Digital Lineup then manually added in all the Canadian stations. This works great and I get the proper EPG data for all channels except the two I have mentioned in this thread (WNEDDT2 and WUTVDT2).


Lester

[Opus4]

In Channel Setup, when you choose Remap -> Map Different Station to this Physical Channel, do you see 2 entries for the problem channel names?

If so, then somehow you've managed to get multiple entries where one channel has a Zap2it StationID and the other does not, and the channel mapping process is matching the non-Zap2it channel names. The next version of SageTV already has a fix for this so that it prefers the Zap2it channels during scans.

If that isn't your situation, then I'm not sure what is happening.

- Andy

[Lester Jacobs]

After doing a bunch of fiddling I've concluded that the problem lies with the EPG feed. To prove this I added a new source (used an svideo entry on one of my tuner cards) and selected the Buffalo Local broadcast lineup (this is different to and a superset of the Buffalo Digital OTA which I was working with before). This lineup matches the lineup name on the zap2it website. The lineup on the zap2it website shows entries for WNEDDT2 and WUTVDT2. However the Sage channel list for that lineup is missing those channels. The reason that those channels originally showed in the Buffalo Digital Lineup in Sage when I was configuring my HDHomeRun must be due to Sage picking up those channel names from the HDHomeRun *.scn files rather than from the lineup itself.

So I will send a note into Sage Support to have them investigate why those channels are missing.

Lester

[Opus4]

If the channels were not in the OTA lineup in SageTV to start with, there is a good chance that SageTV doesn't have access to Zap2it's listings for those channels -- the EPG info for OTA-only channels that are not also on some cable/sat lineup is not available to SageTV.

- Andy

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally Posted by Opus4

If the channels were not in the OTA lineup in SageTV to start with, there is a good chance that SageTV doesn't have access to Zap2it's listings for those channels -- the EPG info for OTA-only channels that are not also on some cable/sat lineup is not available to SageTV.

- Andy

Ah, that would explain it. Those channels are indeed not on any cable/sat lineup. Too bad.

Here's a follow on question then. Assuming that those channels broadcast epg data via PSIP. How do I get SageTV to pick up that data? At one point I thought it was doing that since I had a few hours of EPG data at one point but now I get no EPG data at all, not even if I tune the station and watch it for a while.

So is there a trick to getting SageTV to pick up the PSIP data? (I'm on 6.3.10 if that makes a difference)


Cheers
Lester

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Lester Jacobs

Here's a follow on question then. Assuming that those channels broadcast epg data via PSIP. How do I get SageTV to pick up that data? At one point I thought it was doing that since I had a few hours of EPG data at one point but now I get no EPG data at all, not even if I tune the station and watch it for a while.

As far as I know, it should be scanning the added channels for EPG data in their broadcasts.

Oh -- did you say that SageTV added the channels during a scan, or did you manually add them and use their Zap2it station IDs? If they have Zap2it IDs, they might not scan the broadcast data, but I'm not sure about that. Let's see... you could also check these properties:

epg_data_sources/<####>/disable_data_scanning
mmc/disable_qam_epg_data_scanning

I don't remember when those properties were added, so they may/may not be there. And, depending on how you configured the HDHR OTA tuner, it may act like a QAM tuner. I haven't used v6.3 in a long time, so I'm just guessing at some things. And, of course, those stations may not be broadcasting EPG data.

- Andy

[Lester Jacobs]

The disable_data_scanning is there and set to false which I assume means that SageTV will try to get PSIP data if available. It's possible that the station is not broadcasting it but I swear that I saw some EPG data for this channel when I was doing initial setup. I could be wrong though.

I did send in a support request to Sage about the missing data but haven't heard anything back one way or another (yes I did check my spam bucket). If there's no EPG data then I'd certainly like the PSIP data if available.

Cheers
Lester

[bmac.to]

I actually had a similar experience - WNEDDT2 would never update it's EPG data. What I ended doing was turning WNEDDT2 off and adding the channel name WNED (the analog station) and station ID 11709 and then mapping it to the physical channel 44-17-2 (if you have a look at zap2it, the analog channel 17 and digital 17-2 have the same EPG data). This seems to work very well.

Isnt WUTVDT2 the SD version of WUTVDT? Perhaps you can play the same trick?

I am a new SageTV user (from Toronto) which means setting up the channel list has a significant manual step. I have not found a method of setup which results in consistent results time after time - I always have special cases in order to get it to work. However, I have always been able to get it to work (so far).

Hope this helps.
________
Ford Model B (1904) Specifications

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally Posted by bmac.to

I actually had a similar experience - WNEDDT2 would never update it's EPG data. What I ended doing was turning WNEDDT2 off and adding the channel name WNED (the analog station) and station ID 11709 and then mapping it to the physical channel 44-17-2 (if you have a look at zap2it, the analog channel 17 and digital 17-2 have the same EPG data). This seems to work very well.

Isnt WUTVDT2 the SD version of WUTVDT? Perhaps you can play the same trick?

I am a new SageTV user (from Toronto) which means setting up the channel list has a significant manual step. I have not found a method of setup which results in consistent results time after time - I always have special cases in order to get it to work. However, I have always been able to get it to work (so far).

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the tip! This did the trick!

Cheers
Lester