Channel Lineup post DTV transition

[omelet]

The "Antenna (Digital)" channel lineup for my area code needs updating after the DTV Transition on February 17. The physical addresses for two of my local stations moved from their temporary UHF frequencies down to their traditional VHF assignments. I tried using the BeyondTV Setup Wizard to create a new lineup based on my zipcode (54623), but the channel lineup in Web Admin stills shows the old temporary UHF physical address. Will this be updated automatically soon, or are there some manual steps I must take to make this happen? As a workaround, I created my own custom lineup using Web Admin to be able to tune to these channels, but the program guide data is unavailable for these channels (pretty hard to go without).

[SnakeDoctor]

So the fun begins. This was the very issue I raised a few weeks back and no one seemed to know for sure. My hope was that SnapStream had its guns loaded with all of the guide updates and was ready to pull the trigger Tuesday morning. But then (as someone else so aptly put it) stupidity happened and now we have another 4 months to wait. In the meantime, some stations have decided to go ahead with their transition and a mess of a different kind has now been created.

So the big question is, how do you manually edit the channel setup to get us through this transition? My experience with SS responding to guide modifications is less than stellar so if we can't modify our own systems to keep up with these interim changes who knows how long we'll have to go without our guides working properly.

[Nick Burns]

There's two other posts on this... so far the standard response is to submit a trouble ticket. If SS gets enough of them, I'm sure they'll react soon, especially, especially if it's affecting their enterprise customers!

[omelet]

Thanks for the quick responses. I submitted the problem to technical support and will post the results back here, when resolved.

I had not realized how dependent I had become on BeyondTV for my "entertainment" until it was no longer working for me as expected. To me, this is high praise for a product's usefulness: I need it fixed. (If I did not rely on it daily, I would ignore the problem and move on to playing with something else).

[BeachSandGuy]

Omelet, from what I can tell, this is a large issue due to some 400+ stations around the country deciding and getting approval to move to digital only on Feb 17, with some of those electing to move their physical channel. I too am having this problem in the greater Phoenix, Arizona area. Opened up a ticket myself for the one station (good test before June's big crossover, ticket DZJ-808696). I am hoping that SnapStream will be better prepared right away to be able to reconfigure quickly so as not to lose anything. I'm not overly optimistic though as I have another open ticket open since January 21st on a missing channel in Phoenix (ticket LQI-495847) that STILL hasn't been addressed. I would hope the more of us who open tickets will speed corrections to address the issue.

BeachSandGuy

[YodaMann]

Originally Posted by BeachSandGuy

Omelet, from what I can tell, this is a large issue due to some 400+ stations around the country deciding and getting approval to move to digital only on Feb 17, with some of those electing to move their physical channel.
BeachSandGuy

The channel and antenna location assignments were made years ago. The Feb 17, now June something, was the *last* date that stations had to turn off their analog transmissions. There have been a few around the country that switched last year and most of the remainder are transmitting both analog and digital. With very few exceptions, the stations were ready to pull the analog plug on Feb 17, and many did because they were already set up with viewer support and a marketing outreach plan.

[enigma9o7]

Yoda, the problem isn't stations shutting down their analog. What's causing the problem is that of the channels that have chosen to shut down their analog signal, only some have moved their digital signal back to their former-analog frequency - but they are free to do it whenever they want, don't have to be done until the new June 17 date.

All of this is well and good, but it makes it hard for BTV to keep up. When it was all going to happen on the same day, less complicated... but the way it is now, its very arbitrary.

[YodaMann]

Originally Posted by enigma9o7

Yoda, the problem isn't stations shutting down their analog. What's causing the problem is that of the channels that have chosen to shut down their analog signal, only some have moved their digital signal back to their former-analog frequency - but they are free to do it whenever they want, don't have to be done until the new June 17 date.

All of this is well and good, but it makes it hard for BTV to keep up. When it was all going to happen on the same day, less complicated... but the way it is now, its very arbitrary.

Actually, very few stations will stay in the VHF spectrum after the switch. And those that are staying will eventually be moved when their technical, usually propogation or antenna pattern or location difficulties beyond their control are resolved.

[omelet]

Tech support resolved my situation, and my BeyondTV channel guide updated automatically this morning for my over-the-air broadcasters. The two stations in my viewing area that moved digital broadcast from their temporary UHF frequencies (41 and 39) to traditional (now shut off analog) VHF frequencies (8 and 13) are now able to be tuned to---and the program guide is accurate and works for recording. Hats off to tech support for following up on my trouble ticket!

[marcn]

Looks like I lost many of the DTV broadcasts after the transition. I created a custom channel guide and followed instructions supplied in this forum.

Question: For the stations that went back to the VHF band (say KABC out of Mount Wilson/LA) I believe they went from 53 to 7 (based on a spreadsheet I found on the internet). I understand I set the 'PHYSICAL' to 7 in the custom channel guide but what about the 'MAJOR' and 'MINOR' settings?

Also, I am thinking I can't pick them up because my antenna is UHF specific. Anyone else have this problem and need to change to a UHF/VHF antenna? Could it be my antenna amplifier not allowing the VHF through or does the anteanna basic design make that big a difference? I am only 40 miles from Mount Wilson and the anteanna.org site says I should only need a small tabletop antenna although my UHF is a large outdoor model and produced 98 level signals for all the UHF channels I used to pick up.

Thanks, Marc

[Nick Burns]

Major And Minor will remain the same, just change the Physical channel.
KABC went from Physical 53 to 7, but it's still 7-1 thru 7-3 for major and minor.

[SnakeDoctor]

Originally Posted by marcn

Also, I am thinking I can't pick them up because my antenna is UHF specific. Anyone else have this problem and need to change to a UHF/VHF antenna? Could it be my antenna amplifier not allowing the VHF through or does the anteanna basic design make that big a difference? I am only 40 miles from Mount Wilson and the anteanna.org site says I should only need a small tabletop antenna although my UHF is a large outdoor model and produced 98 level signals for all the UHF channels I used to pick up.

Thanks, Marc

In my area, I also had a channel return to VHF (Physical 7). I knew this was going to happen so when I purchased my antenna I made sure it was intended for VHF-HI also. I was prepared for the worst but was pleasantly surprised to see that I am getting a very strong signal and having no problems (it's the closest station to my home). A second station in my area returned to VHF (Physical 13) and is the farthest station from my home. I still receive its signal although a bit weaker.

[Harold]

Looks like Ive got the same problem for several channels here in Houston. This assumes that the physical channel information in the web admin reflects what is actually being scanned.

Houston's ABC, CBS, FOX moved from uhf to vhf and PBS went to a different vhf slot.

The web admin shows their old slots.

[Harold]

Correction Fox shifted to an adjacent uhf slot, not to vhf.

[GoAWest]

So I, like a gazillion others today (BTV or other), am having a problem with mis-mapped OTA channels in cases where stations changed frequencies. I'm using two HDHRs ==> two clear QAM tuners from my cable and two my OTA ATSC antenna.

When I checked this AM, a bunch of the OTA channels were no longer valid since the freqs. were changed last night. I then did an HDHR rescan with the SiDust SW (which showed dead channels then valid channels after the scan--so it found the channels on the new freqs), then a rescan with the SnapStream BTV config (found mostly 0-strength dead channels for area stations but did find a few active OTA stations--those that didn't change freqs?) and then updated my BTV Program Guide. After that, a dozen or so OTA stations are no longer listed in the BTV lineup. Since the stations *are* visible from the HDHR and I can view them with VLC, the issue is just a mis-map--BTV isn't finding them where they're expected, but the antenna and HDHRs are receiving them (e.g. not a VHF/UHF antenna issue).

As one simple example, a scan with the HDHR now shows KTVU (2.1) on primary channel 44. It was previously on channel 56, and that's where it's still listed if I use the Web Admin to view the Channel Lineup--that channel still shows the Physical lineup as 56. So its mapping hasn't been updated.

So I'm wondering about my next move and who I'm waiting on. Do I just wait (a day, a few days, a week, for) for SlipStream channel mappings to update? Do I just rescan with the BTV Config Wizard every few days? Do I need to manually import something? Do I need to delete my OTA mappings and start from scratch? Do I need to manually create new mappings on the Slipstream website or on my BTV box and then import something somewhere?

Thanks for any pointers.