Watch Out If You Get The Same Channel In 2 Markets

[Savage1701]

I've thought I've had a hardware problem because both my north (Madison, WI) and south (Rockford, IL) market lineups have the same channel, WREX-DT 13.

Problem is, the south lineup calls the channel by a different name and physical channel and uses a different channel info number. I had one of 3 south tuners that happened to have the same ones as the north lineup, which tunes the channel fine, but now it switched as I was trying to get the right channel info into the south lineup.

Sage needs to get consistency across its channel lineup provider.

This is not a hardware issue. The south tuners can tune that channel on competing tuner software using the same antenna/amp/splitter/cables with correct ID info, physical, and logical info. My north tuners all pull it in with the same correct data. But the south lineup data is not correct (13-1 is not a correct physical tuning; it's 13-1-1) and the channel info number is uniformly wrong in the south lineup; its correct in the northern one.

And if I only had a south lineup, I'd never be able to tune the channel again.

Which, by the way, tuned fine for a year until Sage auto-updated something or another last week.

Just a warning to those out there whose channels suddenly stop displaying and go from 100% strength to 4% strength.

Don't let Sage pass it off as a bad tuner. It my be, but it probably is not. In 5+ years of a dozen tuner cards, NTSC, ATSC, and digitizers, I've had one go bad.

Just a warning so you don't bang your head against the wall past the point of no return. Zap2It is pretty shoddy when it comes to the nitty-gritty of consistent information such as this.

[gplasky]

Did you do a full channel rescan of your south tuner?

Gerry

[Savage1701]

3 times.

I've had this before - when Charter Cable offered the same HD locals via my HD-PVR, it totally threw my OTA ATSC ones.

If you look at the channel lineup physical/logical/station ID info for Madison, WI and Rockford, IL, you will see that WREX DT 13-1 has totally messed up info in the Rockford, IL channel vs. what a Madison, WI tuner sees and tunes correctly. The Rockford, IL one does not even tell the tuner to tune to physical 13-1-1, just 13-1. Both markets also name the station differently: WREXDT vs. WREX-DT. That throws Sage off as well.

I should have known when EPG guide data started disappearing. That's a huge red flag.

Zap2It needs to get their act together, or Sage needs to change providers or put some squeeze on them.

Maybe I am in the minority because I happen to live at the exact sweet spot for 2 markets, but it would really be no different if I lived halfway between Madison, WI and Milwaukee, WI. I'm pretty sure people in Minneapolis/St. Paul may encounter the same thing, if you want a larger example.

[Fuzzy]

Sage doesn't receive tuning info from zap2it. All it gets from them is a list of channels in a given lineup. The tuning info comes exclusively from the channel scan. During the scan, it gets the broadcast ID of the station (which can vary greatly, hence the WREXDT vs WREX-DT, vs WREX DT, as there is no standard). It then uses this ID to attempt to match it to a channel in the zap2it lineup.

WREX is not IN the Madison lineup at all (at least not for my check for zip 53562). So, what is happening, is sage is finding this 'unknown' station on your Madison pointed tuner during the channel scan, and just using the information it has. It gets the ID from the stream, and then grabs the EPG data that is broadcast in the stream. The problem is, this broadcast EPG data is hardly ever accurate, and never consistent. What you need to do is tell sage that this 'unknown' wrex channel (it will have a very low channel ID) that it is the same channel that it already knows about on the roscoe lineup. To do this, go into your madison lineup channel setup, select the WREX channel, and choose Remap this Channel. From there, choose Remap Station and scroll through the list to find the 'REAL' WREX channel. The channel ID for the highlighted station will be listed at the top of the list. Make sure you choose the correct WREX station - it will have a channelID of 31497.

[Savage1701]

Fuzzy:

A couple of things - I do get the correct WREX-DT lineup info under Sage when I set the tuner to the Madison, WI choice and the INCORRECT tuner on Rockford, IL lineup. I've never checked via zip code. You'd need a southern Madison zip code for sure, since WREX Rockford would be pushing it to go to northern Madison.

Should I try your suggestion with the Rockford lineup? I tried changing it to Madison, WI info, which it tunes, but that did not work. But I probably failed to change all parameters.

Where exactly do I alter Rockford, IL info to match Madison, WI info (that works correctly)? Is this just in the tuner setup section, or do I need to go into the properties file, which is fine with me anyway?

Thanks for any info. What's odd to me is that it's home market has bad info.