Houston PBS 8.1 (only) stopped working with Windows Media Center

purpleb

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#21

Post by purpleb » Sat Oct 05, 2019 5:24 pm

I have the same issue with 3 PCs. On my OLED TV Tuner, it works fine.

I sent an email to them and got this response.

***************************
Thank you for contacting Houston Public Media. I hope you’ll be happy to know we did not stop broadcasting over the air. We recently transitioned from Local Control in Houston, TX, to Joint Master Control in Syracuse, NY. Since that transition we have been receiving phone calls and emails about channel loss. The issues seem to be emanating from the old DTV (government-funded) boxes. Our engineers have advised to offer our viewers the following suggestions to resolve their channel loss issues:

1. Unplug the box, wait at least one minute, and then plug it back in.

2. Run a rescan on the DTV box or TV.

3. Delete the “extra” channels. (Some of the old DTV boxes are showing duplication of channels. IE 8.1, 8.1, 8.2, 8.2, 8.3, 8.3, 8.4, 8,4. The duplicate channels are showing only black. Please delete the blank channels).

4. The TV guide isn’t showing. (The TV guide will take some time to download. Typically after deleting the “extra” channels will buy enough time for the guide to download.)

Your specific issue may require more than one of the suggestions. If none of them solves your issue, please write down the model number of the box and call its manufacturer for further assistance.

We are working to resolving the technical issues that remain on our side, and we apologize for the loss of service.

**************************

I did all of what I could and as of this am, still not working. I am glad I am not the only one and they have issues.

twegner

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#22

Post by twegner » Mon Oct 07, 2019 5:04 pm

Thanks Mugsy, that's an interesting update on KUHT. Still not working here. I have been using WinTV to record PBS NewsHour, works ok for this limited purpose.
When KUHT the fix is done, let's compare notes and see what we have to do (if anything) to get WMC working. Hope your report is correct that it might be today.

twegner

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#23

Post by twegner » Tue Oct 08, 2019 1:41 pm

(purplep, I missed your message when I posted my last one because our thread has now extended to two pages :D .)

I finally got off my duff and emailed KUHT late last night. Those of us who have asked have gotten a little variation in the responses. The one I got (from Will Shifflet) was short and clear:

>>We are having PSIP issues. I’ve been working on this since last Wednesday.
Hope to have it resolved by this Wednesday.<<

From the number of cc's in the various emails, I would say that by this time the whole management team is well aware of the problem!

twegner

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#24

Post by twegner » Wed Oct 09, 2019 7:43 pm

Hooray! I just tried KUHT 8.1 here in Houston on two different machines with Windows Media Center and it just works. Didn't have to do anything, it just started working. So the PSIP issues are apparently resolved!

(later) I wrote Will Shifflett at KUHT to thanks him, and got this back:

>>Yes sir. We got the PSIP issue resolved today. <<

john z

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#25

Post by john z » Wed Oct 09, 2019 11:12 pm

Confirmed working here too!!!

bobviolence

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#26

Post by bobviolence » Thu Oct 10, 2019 12:33 pm

Now working for me as well.

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Mugsy

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#27

Post by Mugsy » Thu Oct 10, 2019 1:28 pm

twegner wrote: Mon Oct 07, 2019 5:04 pm Thanks Mugsy, that's an interesting update on KUHT. Still not working here. I have been using WinTV to record PBS NewsHour, works ok for this limited purpose.
When KUHT the fix is done, let's compare notes and see what we have to do (if anything) to get WMC working. Hope your report is correct that it might be today.
I was told on Wednesday they hoped the problem would finally be resolved "by the end of business" that day.

It appears they were successful. I didn't have to make any changes (though I had previously performed two unsuccessful channel rescans.)

GORGY

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#28

Post by GORGY » Thu Oct 17, 2019 5:07 pm

StinkyImp wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 2:50 pm I have a channel (not PBS) that exhibits this same behavior. Occasionally I'll scan the airwaves with my TV (hooked directly to my antenna) to see what it captures. Then I'll go into WMC and do a scan and then verify it against what the TV captured. Then I just add the "missing" channels in WMC.

I did this yesterday and had a particular channel that just wouldn't cooperate.
  • Worked fine on the TV connected directly to the antenna.
  • Worked fine in WinTV using the same Hauppauge tuners that WMC uses.
  • Would NOT work in WMC. Tuner lit but showed "no signal" and had 100% strength.
I have no clue what could be causing it but I suspect it has something to do with the "assigned frequency" and I don't know how to determine the correct one. I found that my "problem" channel's frequency is UHF 599MHZ but that's not much good for assigning a two digit frequency in WMC.

Is there a regional/city listing of OTA channels somewhere that gives the WMC assigned frequency for each available channel?
I looked through the various WMC setup options, and saw that WMC thinks the channel 8.1 signal is strong. It's just that if you actually try to display TV from channel 8.1 that WMC says "no signal".

twegner

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#29

Post by twegner » Fri Oct 18, 2019 4:37 pm

Gorgy, KUHT fixed their PSIP problem, is it still not working for you? I have been flawlessly recording some KUHT programs since October 9th.

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StinkyImp

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#30

Post by StinkyImp » Fri Oct 18, 2019 4:50 pm

GORGY wrote: Thu Oct 17, 2019 5:07 pmI looked through the various WMC setup options, and saw that WMC thinks the channel 8.1 signal is strong. It's just that if you actually try to display TV from channel 8.1 that WMC says "no signal".
The solution to my problem was that the "assigned frequency" was different than the channel that was displaying "No Signal" even though it had a full signal. When I setup channel 35.3 in WMC (which exhibited that problem) and used 12 as the assigned frequency, everything worked like a charm.

Luckily the OTA scan in Hauppauge's WinTV 8 captured that information for me! :thumbup:

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#31

Post by GORGY » Sat Oct 19, 2019 12:07 am

I have a channel (not PBS) that exhibits this same behavior. Occasionally I'll scan the airwaves with my TV (hooked directly to my antenna) to see what it captures. Then I'll go into WMC and do a scan and then verify it against what the TV captured. Then I just add the "missing" channels in WMC.

I did this yesterday and had a particula filezilla uc browser rufusr channel that just wouldn't cooperate.
Worked fine on the TV connected directly to the antenna.
Worked fine in WinTV using the same Hauppauge tuners that WMC uses.
Would NOT work in WMC. Tuner lit but showed "no signal" and had 100% strength.
I have no clue what could be causing it but I suspect it has something to do with the "assigned frequency" and I don't know how to determine the correct one. I found that my "problem" channel's frequency is UHF 599MHZ but that's not much good for assigning a two digit frequency in WMC.

twegner

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#32

Post by twegner » Mon Oct 28, 2019 4:45 pm

In the case of PBS 8.1 (KUHT) in Houston over the air, several of us asked the station and they admitted "We are having PSIP issues", when they fixed the problems, WMC magically worked (and it still works). Apparently WMC is more picky about the signal that other software such as WinTV. My suggestion is to ask the station.

For what it's worth (not much because I am ignorant), when I did attempt to reconfigure WMC for KUHT 8.1 I used "8" for the frequency. WMC seemed to accept this, but it didn't solve the problem until KUHT fixed the signal.

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#33

Post by dmagerl » Mon Oct 28, 2019 6:31 pm

599 MHz is ch35.

bobviolence

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#34

Post by bobviolence » Sun Nov 03, 2019 8:16 pm

... and the problem is back for channel 8.1

Same as before, no signal.

twegner

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#35

Post by twegner » Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:14 pm

bobviolence wrote: " ... and the problem is back for channel 8.1"

While I did see a problem a few days ago very briefly (a WMC error message about no signal), but my recordings did work as requested, and channel 8.1 (KUHT here in Houston) is still working perfectly for me. I don't think it's relevant, but in the interest of full disclosure I am now running WMC with EPG123 on Windows 10 1903, and not Windows 7. Bobviolence, are you still seeing a KUHT 8.1 problem?

bobviolence

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#36

Post by bobviolence » Fri Nov 08, 2019 11:20 am

8.1 is working again. Like you, it appeared to only be down for about a day.

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