Glenn's Daily Script » Home Theater

TIVO Support – Fixing Channel Guide Info

Glenn — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:38:17 +0000

I have a Tivo Series 3 and a Tivo HD. On both of my systems, I was seeing channels that had a number in front of them (i.e. “1 Womens HD”). Any of these channels that had a number in front of them had no channel guide information and just stated “To Be Announced”.

I sent in a support request to TIVO about this issue. It took a few days before I got a response. That was a little disappointing since many companies are moving to speed up support responses (especially those via the internet). The answer solved 90% of these channels and now I have guide info for almost all of the newly added HD channels. I can still watch the few that don’t have guide info but I don’t know what is going to be on that channel in advance and can’t set up a recording.

The answer showed a short cut to getting to Channel Guide setup. There was also a bit that tells whether you are talking standard or digital channels.

For completeness, here is the info I recieved:

Choose TIVO Central (usually by pressing the TIVO button)
Select Messages and Settings
Select Settings
Select Channels
Select Channel List
Press the ENTER key
Follow the onscreen instructions. The TIVO will ask questions regarding your channels and service.
Ensure that you enter the proper zip code.
Ensure that you enter the proper provider for your service.
In the screen directly after you enter your cable provider, press the ENTER key. This will take you to a list of available lineups. In my case, I needed to choose .
You will be given an opportunity to review the line up after you chose (note: it will not have the premium channels like HBO)
Answer the remaining screens based on your service.
It will take 10-30 minutes to reset this data so go do something else.
Finished

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TIVO Support – Fixing Channel Guide Info

Our HDTV Update

Glenn — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 15:54:20 +0000

If you remember a few posts ago, I mentioned that our 5 year old HDTV died. Kathy was just watching it and the picture went off and a light on the front panel started blinking. Generally not good. As a customer of this Pioneer Elite Rear Screen Projection TV (which is no longer made), we were very frustrated. It had already had a recall and another repair after the recall. The TV is great but having problems like that early in it’s life makes you remember bad things so we were prepared for the worst – meaning a high cost repair option that probably meant we would choose to get a new TV instead. The TV is a first generation HDTV meaning it doesn’t even have HDMI connections so we’ve worked around things to connect to modern devices.

With all this in mind, the repair guy gets to our house and takes a quick look at it and after a quick conversation with me (he’s a very nice guy), he pushes a few buttons on the front panel and the TV comes back on. It turns out that Pioneer was worried that people could steal their technology so they put a switch on their TV that disabled the TV if it was opened. Now if I was an engineer, I would know about such a thing and probably even have a service manual and probably even know how to bypass such a thing so this is such a silly thing. On top of that, the material that is pressing against the switch is particle board which doesn’t really hold up over time – getting soft and flexible – so doesn’t press adequately against the switch which is what caused my problem.

A ton of electrical tape over the switch to disable it and add to the pressure the back and we are good to go. Hopefully, the TV will last a while longer.

Our 5 year old HDTV died

Glenn — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 23:27:42 +0000

We owned a first generation HDTV from Pioneer – a Pioneer Elite Pro 730HD. The picture is great and the size has been great for our space.

Unfortunately, we have had several problems with it though. We have had problems with the tubes/guns not showing the image correctly and needing to be replaced – not once but twice. Once was a warranty recall but the other was a problem that we identified just before the manufacturer warranty ran out.

After all of that, we even got the extended warranty just in case any other problems showed up. The problem is that the extended warranty gave an extra 2 years on top of the manufacturers 2 years so we were covered for 4 years.

As you saw from my post title, the TV is just a few weeks shy of 5 years old so we are not covered by anything.

We are not even sure what is wrong with it. We are getting an error that shut down the display entirely and flashes the power lite red repeatedly. The error is mentioned in the troubleshooting section but only says to call service so is not helpful at all.

Tomorrow we call service to find out if anything can be done in a reasonable cost but I am not hopeful. Cost of a new TV within that size is $2000-$6000 so it’s an expensive path to go down.

Wireless Speakers

Glenn — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:55:05 +0000

I have a need to put in 2 speakers in a certain location in my house (they happen to be in a bathroom area) and wireless would be a convenient way to go but…

wireless speakers still need some form of power and that means battery or AC
battery powered speakers need to be turned off and on while AC speakers might not need to be
wireless speakers can have range issues
wireless speakers don’t always have good audio characteristics

Now, I could go with wired speakers but…

wiring speakers is a lot of work and in the attic which makes it even worse
once the speakers are wired, the location is fixed
wired speakers need to have an outlet location so you are constrained by walls, ceilings
did I mention the amount of work and how awful it would be in the attic?

Anwyay, I still have to think about what I want to do here. I may just bite the bullet and wire the speakers.

New Pronto NG’s via Ebay

Glenn — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 23:37:10 +0000

As posted previously, I bricked a Philips Pronto NG touch screen programmable remote. Before these remotes were discontinued, they retailed for more than $400. They are very cool and I like them a lot. I had 2 of them for 2 rooms.

Anyway, I ordered 2 on ebay at a severe discount. I received them today. One of them worked without issue whatsoever.

The other had some issues. After some playing around (and I mean hours and hours of re-firmware updating, refining a setup and download, crashing, repeating until I finally got something to work), I think I’ve come up with a working theory. I think that there is a bad spot in the flash memory and the code inside the Pronto NG is not elegant in dealing with bad blocks and just crashes rather than marking bad and moving on.

Once I took my very large setup and shrunk it down to less than 1/4 of it’s original size (it was 4 rooms worth of programming and now it is just one room and heavily optimized at that), it now loads and works.

I’m not sure why this failure happened because I believe that flash’s failures really occur after lots of burning and I doubt a remote get’s lots of burning (once in a great while when a setup changes which is not very often). Even then, it takes a lot of writes to cause failures unless Philips used really inexpensive flash memory which is possible.

Still it’s my best theory. I’m bummed that I’ve got a limited remote but at least it works and I’ll try to have a conversation with the person I bought it from to see what we can do (he has 100% good ratings and I’m not out to hose him so I’m hopeful).

VMWare’s Fusion (I’ve left Parallel’s)

Glenn — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 23:06:36 +0000

I’m very dutiful about upgrading my versions of software and making sure that they are up to date and working as the developers tell us they should.

I’ve actually purchased both VMWare’s Fusion and SWSoft’s Parallels and tried them both. I’ve actually preferred Parallels as it seemed simpler though perhaps it was nothing more than I’ve been using it longer.

Well, with the last updates for both Parallels and Leopard, I have run into a problem that is a bit of a show stopper for me. One of the tasks that I still do under Windows is program my remote control (a Pronto NG) for my home theater. Well, after some diagnosis, I’ve determined that the combination of Parallels and Leopard caused some bad mojo to happen during the synch and with some overly aggressive attempts on my part, I bricked one of my remotes.

I’ve verified that the latest version of Fusion and Leopard do not have this problem so I’m back up rather than having to borrow Kathy’s system which would be a bummer.

Way to go VMWare!

Returned Toshiba HD-DVD Player

Glenn — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 00:49:04 +0000

Well, after about a week of using the two Toshiba HD-DVD players that I bought (see previous posts) I decided to return them. I had several motivations.

First and perhaps least, the video from the Toshiba HD-DVD player was great but the video on upscaling DVD players is pretty good too. I know my kids don’t care. Kathy says she can see the difference but the value she places on it isn’t high so that means that I’m the only one that places any significant value on it. Based on the other issues (see the next issues), I’ll live without it for a while longer.

Next, the usability of these particular players is just awful. When you turn on the Toshiba HD-DVD player, it takes about 2 minutes before you see any video pop on to your TV screen or any controls will work (meaning you can eject the tray to put in a movie). When you put a movie in the tray, it takes close to another 2 minutes before you see the menu for the movie. This means that it takes 3-4 minutes to get a movie playing. That is just sad. Also, the Toshiba HD-DVD player doesn’t seem to remember where it was last on the disk when you turn it off and that is also sad (not to mention that we’ve gotten used to a multi-disc version of remembering where you were on a disc on our Sony DVD players).

Lastly, content is limited and given the news with Warner Bros the HD-DVD content will become increasingly limited so HD-DVD is probably going to be a dead end. I could have stayed with the players but this was probably the deal killer for us and so we returned them.

We did briefly consider getting Blu-ray players but I think it’s smart to hold off at this point. The Warner Bros news, CES, and time itself will likely lower the prices of Blu-ray players so that maybe next Christmas we can get 2 players.

Warner Bros in HD-DVD vs Bluray

Glenn — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 15:32:21 +0000

Yesterday, the big news in many of my technology blogs was that Warner Bros had decided to switch from producing both HD-DVD AND Blu-ray movies which satisfy all customers wanting high definition content to deciding on only a single format.� In a way, it doesn’t matter what the format was because it eliminates some portion of customers out there and says “you are not worth our attention AND you chose the wrong thing AND you’re investment in hardware and movies is now worthless.”� It probably says a lot more too but I think those are the creme of the crop statements.

Warner Bros chose Blu-ray in fact.� In their press release, which many sources reported as the actual news, they claimed (I’m paraphrasing) that the customers are not interested in choosing between formats and that they wanted to make everything easier for the customer.� I agree that a format war like the one that exists where some studios only produce for one format or another and not both (like Warner Bros was doing) is bad for customers/me.� The problem is that Blu-ray by itself is not doing what competition ought to do and that is drive price to a point where customers want to buy.� HD-DVD products have really done that (it’s the only reason I bought HD-DVD players).

As a customer, I’m very disappointed in the news as that I just put my toe in the sand.� I’m not really sure this is about customers at all.� Corporations forget customers all the time and just don’t realize what is important for customers and try to justify their business decisions for psuedo customer reasons.

Ultimately, I don’t think HD-DVD is better.� I just think that this decision is spun and we should open our eyes to what it really is.

Blu-ray may be position to win this now with virtually everyone falling in line so for future customers it does make an easier decision but for the ones left behind, this is not pleasant.

Coax Connectors – Compression Fittings (Snap N Seal)

Glenn — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 20:36:26 +0000

I’ve come through the school of hard knocks when it comes to low voltage wiring. I’m self taught but I believe that I know quite a bit. I’ve become quite proficient at coax, twisted pair wiring. My projects have been an extensive video distribution system for my TV (which has been Satellite but is now Cable), security cameras (as much a hobby as they are for security) and a wired home network for probably 40 network ports and close to the same number of telephone ports (obviously I have a wireless network too but that doesn’t require wiring).

I have over time migrated to compression fittings from Thomas & Betts which make the Snap N Seal system.� I’ve been very happy with this system and gotten great results.� The link above is to the manufacturer.� You will need to google to find retailers for the tools and parts to get some yourself.

The reason for this post is that in the last 2 years, I have seen the cable industry, through their visits to my house, go to a “simpler” compression fitting.

The Snap N Seal system is essentially a 2 part system.� You slide a sleeve over the cable, strip the cable, peal back the wiring/insulation, slide down the fitting till the white part of the inside of the cable is through the� fitting (with the inside copper wire sticking out) and then you compress the sleeve to the fitting and it’s down.� Again, great results!
The stuff I’ve seen from the cable industry is a single part.� You strip the cable, peal back the wiring/insulation, slide down the fitting till the white part of the inside of the cable is through the fitting (with the inside copper wire sticking out) and then you compress one piece fitting down.� It’s simpler and the cables that I’ve gotten from the cable company have had equally good results.

Now, I was at Frys (a local big/enormous electronics store that does computers, TVs, and higher end Radio Shack kind of stuff) and I found a single piece compression fitting system so I decided to get it and try it.� My first few attempts at it were not good.� I have been unable to get the fitting down so that the white part of the cable is through the fitting.� This is essential for a good cable so this is a problem.� I’m not sure if it is the fitting or the cable.� I will keep trying.� The compression bit worked well.� Also, I found a stripper for both coax and twisted pair while I was there that is just fabulous so that part of the trip was great.

At this point, Snap N Seal is still the big winner but I will try this other system a few more times with some other cable and give it some more evaluation.� I’d love to hear if anyone else has knowledge of a single component compression system that beats Snap N Seal!� Let me know.

Onkyo TX-SR605 and HDMI

Glenn — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:23:25 +0000

As I pointed out a bunch of posts ago, I updated equipment in my gym. I updated my TV to a 42″ LCD 1080P HDTV and I replaced the receiver to an Onkyo TX-SR605 (my selection was primarily due to the recommendations of The HT Guys where they have talked about this unit several times over the last bunch of months if you search for it on their site.

I have found that the Onkyo sounds amazing and is very easy to use but that really is the core of this post.� I really wanted to talk about HDMI.� HDMI is a specification that allows both digital video and audio to go over one cable for a source.� The current specification is up to 1.3 (which this Onkyo supports).� This greatly simplifies cabling which is amazing as I can attest to given what I replaced in the gym and how many cables I didn’t have to use – just WOW!

I love the above but HDMI does have one downside too.� HDMI does have some sort of signal verification (maybe it’s even DRM) built into the specification.� This really slows down connections when the system is turned on.� This is not very user friendly.� I mean with the slowness of things like HD-DVD and Bluray players already, having HDMI slow things down even further is just wacky.

The players designing these technology are really not thinking about the users.

Programmable Remotes – Philips Pronto NG (TSU3000)

Glenn — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:17:15 +0000

I’ve had a “Home Theater” system since it was nothing more than my TV hooked in to my amplifier and producing stereo sound. Now, I have 3 Home Theater’s in my house and I use programmable remotes to control them because using the remotes that come with the components mean too darn many remotes.

Early on, I tried many different remotes but I eventually settled on Philips Pronto remote. Their first version was just that – a first version but it was great in that time frame. I upgraded to the Pronto NG (TSU3000) when that came out and have (actually had but more on that in a minute) 2 for my home (I use one in my Family Room, and one in my bedroom – I’d love to have one in my gym but currently don’t). I’ve got a lot invested in it. Programming the Pronto takes a bunch of work though Remote Central has been a great help.� You can check out a version of the setup in my downloads.

Well, when I was updating my setup for the HD-DVD players that I just got (see other posts) I had an issue.� The setup went great.� I’ve gotten very good at programming these remotes so I rarely have problems with that.� Anyway, when I went to synch the remote up with the new setup the remote crashed.� I tried re-updating the firmware.� The remote just bricked.� I’m pretty proficient with technology and I tried quite a lot (searched the web to make sure I wasn’t missing things) but it was dead.

After some investigation, I’ve made an educated guess that Parallels on my Mac Pro under Leopard OS X 10.5.1 is what caused the problem.� I repeated everything on a Vista machine on my second remote and all went great and the remote works fine.� I even tried to use Vista to see if there was anything to do with the bricked remote but alas it’s still dead

I’ve ordered 2 replacement Pronto NG’s via ebay (which are at a good price) and unfortunately, I’ll have to use the Vista system (Kathy’s system) to program the remotes in the future which is sad.

There are some really interesting remotes coming from Philips in their Pronto line this next year as the Pronto NG is being discontinued.� I’ve tried the Logitech line of programmable remotes but find that their wizard based programming model is just too limiting for advanced programming and limiting (though it does work for many uses – I gave mine to my parents).

HD DVD Player – Toshiba HD-A3

Glenn — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:05:27 +0000

Kathy’s folks gave us a generous Christmas gift (they really didn’t need to but we are grateful anyway!).

With some of it (and returning a upscaling DVD player I had just bought), I decided to get 2 HD-DVD players.� I’m not really attached to either side of the format wars (HD-DVD vs Bluray) but since I needed 2 players (more in a sec) I really needed to go with the lowest cost option and that was clearly the HD-DVD players from Toshiba and by quite a bit.

The reason that I need 2 players is that I have 2 places that I primarily watch movies.� My family and watch movies in our family room with an early generation HD rear screen projection Pioneer Elite TV (they no longer do anything but plasma).� I also have a dedicated theater in my Gym (it’s an elaborate gym and somewhat elaborate theater).� I’m really the only one who watches movies there though the kids play the Wii in there.� As I have almost 500 DVD’s, there was no way I was only going to upgrade just one location because I am an avid watcher and wanted to be able to watch in both locations.

As to the player, the picture is fabulous.� The setup was easy.� The sound is great.� The controls are great.� I still need to set up my universal remote (I hope to do that today).� My one complaint is that there was a feature that we have gotten used to on the Sony DVD players that is missing from the Toshiba players.� On the Sony players, it will remember the location on where you left off from on several DVDs even when power is turned off.� The Toshiba will remember only one DVD and only if you leave the player on.� This is frustrating and wasteful with power.� Not a show stopper but frustrating none the less.

The player came with 2 movies in the box (Bourne Identity and 300) and if you search the web for the right PDF, you can mail order 5 more so in the end, I should get 12 HD-DVD movies.� I’m not sure I’m rushing out to convert my collection but I will turn the switch on Netflix and start getting HD-DVD’s when possible.� The picture is very cool.

Update to Gym Theater

Glenn — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 20:32:43 +0000

I had to tear down my gym while we were putting in the new windows so the crew could put the windows in (which look good, they did a great job!).� I’ve put the gym back together now.

A big part of the setup though was a new gym theater.� In preparing for some new Christmas gear (for some munkins in our house), I put in a new TV.� I got a Philips 42″ LCD 1080p TV.� It’s got a nice picture and works in a bright room.� My gym has a lot of windows and they are almost always open (the blinds I mean though the windows sometimes are open too) so it is a usually bright in both winter and summer.� I also replaced the receiver with Onkyo TX-SR605 which supports HDMI 1.3 and lots of audio formats so is a good receiver for the price.� The room also has a Sony upscaling DVD player and a Tivo HD DVR.

It’s a great system for watching my shows and movies while I’m working out.� It will also be great for the family with the new gear which I’ll have a post after Christmas – keep a look out.

Started Looking for a TV

Glenn — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 17:17:15 +0000

I’ve started the process of looking at TV’s. It’s not our main TV but to me, it’s an important TV. It’s for my Gym so I watch it nearly everyday for quite a while. I mostly watch movies though I watch a bit of TV (and as I watch TV, I’ve become increasingly needing HD TV not plain ordinary TV). We are also getting something for Christmas (it’s kind of a family gift though really it’s mostly for the kids) and I think it’s ultimate home will be the Gym so a good setup will be important there too.

First some quick decisions – I want a flat panel and I want it to be 42″ diagonal.

I want something that won’t be outdated too soon so I want to get a recent technology device though bleading edge is probably not the right product for this room.

That probably means a 1080p TV. It’s really irritating that when you go to shop for TVs that they don’t stick with the common terminology. Literature refers to TVs with 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p. When you go shoping though they will put it in pixel resolution instead so the shopper has to bring a chart to figure out what they need. For 1080p, I need 1920×1080.

I also need something that can do well in a bright room. From what I’ve read, that means an LCD flat panel though there are some Plasma TV’s that might work. The problem hear is that given it is a secondary TV, I’m not really willing to go top dollar for it so Plasma is probably not in my budget.

I’d like it to be good with TV shows, movies and video games as these are my primary uses. LCD will work though Plasma would probably be better. Again, since this is a secondary TV and I’m not willing to go top dollar for it – Plasma is probably not in my budget.

This probably means one of the budget oriented LCD manufacturers such as Vizio, Westinghouse and so on. I have read and heard mixed news on whether or not prices are likely to drop going into the holidays. I’m going to wait at this point at least till after Thanksgiving but after that, all bets are off depending on the market.

If anyone reading this has ideas, shoot me some info via the comments as I’d love to hear other thoughts.

DVD sales drop

Glenn — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 18:37:05 +0000

A great post at HD Blog about DVD sales drop is worth checking out.

I think this bit summarizes it though:

A couple of things Hollywood should take note of when creating a DVD.? Take a look at the LOTR (Lord of the Rings) trilogy.? Up front they told consumers there would be two versions.? One theatrical and one extended.? They were also told the extended would be much better (DTS soundtrack, new scenes, 2 disks of extras).? This drove sales for each version because of the honesty to the consumer before the first DVD came out.? The second example I would want Hollywood to look at would be The Incredibles.? Day one they distribute a great DVD with many extras and a person knows that there is no super edition coming in just 6 months.

I would also add that if Hollywood would also get smart and stop treating their customers like criminals that would also help.? I certainly mean the intrusive DRM that is on the movies that doesn’t allow even the most obvious of Fair Use applications but I also mean the piracy commercials at the beginning of each and every movie which implies we are all evil and should be shot.? Is it a wonder customers won’t by products from people who keep questioning their integrity?