Locals yet again?

[Cardgone]

I have read several post about getting locals on my direct tivo unit. I originally used xtreme25 on my tivo with Kravens update and used selectlocals.tcl That was about 3 months ago.

1st one channel in my local market dropped off. Now my UPN channel, comes and goes. It went right in the middle of recording Enterprise the other night! That is where I just can't take it anymore.

Some say to use the mvchannels.tcl script to erase everything, some say to do a reset through the system, causing season pass information to be gone, but recorded programs stay. Some say that they removed the select locals with mvchannels.tcl and then ran mvchannels again to install the locas.

At this point I just don't care about getting the stations re-mapped, I just want the stations to stay consistantly. Is there a proven way to do this?

PS I am running 2.5.1

[Cardgone]

I guess what I am getting at is there a script that works and does not start loosing locals? Is there instructions on how to set it up so that it does not loose locals?

[Will]

>> Some say to use the mvchannels.tcl script to erase everything, some say to do a reset through the system, causing season pass information to be gone, but recorded programs stay. Some say that they removed the select locals with mvchannels.tcl and then ran mvchannels again to install the locals. <<

All this is good advice. I prefer to remove everything by the Tivo erase function, but the mvchannels approach works too.

>> At this point I just don't care about getting the stations re-mapped, I just want the stations to stay consistantly. Is there a proven way to do this? <<

You have to continually loop mvchannels, or run mvchannels or selectlocals periodically. This did not seem to be true in the past just to hold locals in their 2-69 natural locations, but it is certainly true now for me.

[genericuser]

You really dont mention what you are doing with mvchannels. Are you looping it? What does it mean when you say that UPN moved? Were you remapping it out of its natural spot?

[Aviator]

how can you loop selectlocals?

[MoBigsley]

I have the4 same problem, I'm not happy with the locals situation.

you can do a ./selectlocals and use no area abrvs. to reset it to no locals, but if you do a system restart every local you ever added comes back and you have to weed them out by a ./selectlocals NY BA etc for only the ones you want.


I for one wonder if I set up a dish for the 119 bird will that correct the guide data for all the locals I set up?

Another thing I only have one transponder that falls below the 50 signal stregth mark I think its 18, but I think my problem is not the signal strength its that I dont receive the 119 bird yet.

Also (sorry) How about the 900's tcl? what will that get you and is it a mistake to run the 900s after running seleclocals and will that interfere with mvchannels.tcl? Question is are they all compatable or will the machine lock up or get flaky?


thanks for any help

[jones]

My tivo's running 2.5-01

I loaded and ran mvchannels.tcl 1.35 in the /hack dir
"./mvchannels.tcl reload"
"./mvchannels.tcl"

The following are the channels in channels.dat i'm interested in:
CL3:3:921:2859:318:2
CL5:5:922:2859:319:2
CL8:8:923:2859:320:2
CL19:19:924:2859:321:2
CL25:25:925:2859:451:2
CL43:43:926:2859:50:2
CL49:49:927:2859:453:2
CL55:55:928:2859:455:2
CL61:61:929:2859:456:2
PI2:2:944:2859:120:2
PI4:4:945:2859:119:2
PI11:11:946:2859:118:2
PI13:13:947:2859:497:2
PI19:19:948:2859:498:2
PI22:22:949:2859:499:2
PI40:40:950:2859:500:2
PI53:53:951:2859:121:2

They show up in the 900's as "To be announced"

I want to re-locate them to 0-99 so I don't have to run mvchannels in rc.sysinit and take the performace hit...right?...so I change the :2 to a :1 and save.

Now i'm stuck..do I need to re-run ./mvchannels.tcl to get them to stick in the 0-99 range?

Thanks

[jones]

Please disregard the rc.sysinit part. I wasn't thinking when I made that statement...what I wanted to say was "I didn't want to loop mvchannels"

I did add /hack/mvchannels.tcl to rc.sysinit...just above echo "rc.sysinit is completed"

I did run ./mvchannels.tcl in /hack after I changed :2 to :1. It did relocate the channels to 0-99. I'm still getting "To be announced"

Back to where I started...channels are just in a different bank now.

Thanks

[grooves12]

Originally posted by MoBigsley
I have the4 same problem, I'm not happy with the locals situation.

you can do a ./selectlocals and use no area abrvs. to reset it to no locals, but if you do a system restart every local you ever added comes back and you have to weed them out by a ./selectlocals NY BA etc for only the ones you want.


I for one wonder if I set up a dish for the 119 bird will that correct the guide data for all the locals I set up?

Another thing I only have one transponder that falls below the 50 signal stregth mark I think its 18, but I think my problem is not the signal strength its that I dont receive the 119 bird yet.

Also (sorry) How about the 900's tcl? what will that get you and is it a mistake to run the 900s after running seleclocals and will that interfere with mvchannels.tcl? Question is are they all compatable or will the machine lock up or get flaky?


thanks for any help

Do you get video for these locals?? I am assuming you are "authorized" for the locals you are trying to recieve, correct?? Are you sure you are covered in the spot beam for the locals you are trying to receive?? If not, you will get results like you are experiencing.

[MoBigsley]

Originally posted by grooves12
Do you get video for these locals?? I am assuming you are "authorized" for the locals you are trying to recieve, correct?? Are you sure you are covered in the spot beam for the locals you are trying to receive?? If not, you will get results like you are experiencing.

Yes I am authorized and no I am not sure about being comvered by the spot beam, do you think if I pulled in the 119 that would open up more locals with guide data?

[captain_video]

Here's the easiest way I've found to get locals. All files can be found in the 3rd page of the How Tos Only thread. If you do not have a TurboNet or TivoNet adapter set up in your DTivo you will need a serial cable to communicate with your DTivo. Make one from the instructions in the How Tos or buy a ready-made cable from 9thTee.

1) Get a copy of mvch135.zip, DOS2UNIX, TeraTermPro, and textpad if you do not already have these.

2) Install TeraTermPro, textpad, and DOS2UNIX on your PC.

3) Unzip mvch135.zip and edit the channels.dat file in textpad. Place a "#" symbol in front of every line that you do NOT want to display in your channel guide.

4) For the local channels you want to have in the channel guide, change the 2 at the end of the corresponding line to a 1. Save and exit textpad.

5) Make sure the channels.dat file is in the same directory as the DOS2UNIX file. Open up a command prompt (i.e. DOS window) and navigate to the directory containing the DOS2UNIX file. Type in dos2unix channels.dat and press Enter.

6) Open up TeraTerm and connect to your DTivo via serial connection. Transfer the mvchannels.tcl, main.dat, and channels.dat files to the /var/hack directory using Zmodem protocol. If using a TurboNet and ethernet connection, use an FTP program, such as CuteFTP, for transferring files to your DTivo (TeraTerm does not work via ethernet for file transfer and FTP is much faster anyway).

7) Navigate to the /var/hack directory and type in chmod +x mvchannels.tcl and press Enter to make the file executable.

8) Type in ./mvchannels.tcl reload and press Enter. Wait until a bunch of stuff scrolls by and the bash prompt returns. This clears out any previously installed locals from the guide.

9) Type in ./mvchannels.tcl -loop=0 -file=/var/hack/channels.dat and press Enter. The new channels set up in the channels.dat file are loaded into the guide. Wait until the sequence ends and there is a message indicating that the program is going to sleep for 5 minutes. Terminate the Telnet session by closing TeraTerm.

10) If necessary, disconnect the serial cable and reconnect your DTivo to your TV and/home theater setup.

After the DTivo has finished booting up, display the DTV guide and check for your locals in the 0-99 range. All of the channels specified in the channels.dat file should now appear in the guide. The listings will all say To be announced but the programming info will start filling in after a while. It may take at least a day for all upcoming programming to refresh for the newly added channels. The local channels should stay in the guide once installed and no further action needs to be taken for them to remain there, even if the DTivo should be rebooted for any reason. I have found that once they're installed you're good to go. It might not be a bad idea to make a backup image of your DTivo at this point but it's not all that necessary.

I have found that I can copy the backed up image to another drive and install it in another DTivo, do a clear and delete so that the new drive can acquire info from the DTivo it's placed in (otherwise, the DTivo serial number and/or access card info don't match, resulting in an error #51 message). Afterwards, simply rerun the mvchannels program again per the above steps and the locals will be setup on the new DTivo as well.

For those that want to add the MPT channel (Maryland Public Television, channel 22) to their lineup, use the 978 entry instead of 980. For some reason the 980 entry places a void before and after channel 22 in the channel guide. In other words, if you start out at channel 2 and scroll down, the guide is blank after channel 22. You can manually enter a channel number higher than 22 and the guide info from channel 22 and higher will be displayed but will be blank below 22. The 978 line allows a continuous display from channel 2 to 999 in ascending order with no gaps.

[jones]

Thanks Captain!

[opticalcarrier]

what script (dss 3m script) are people using to authorize locals? Im guessing that if you subscribe to a locals market and its possible to get different markets simultaneously then its not required to subscribe to a locals market at all? I have a 3m script on my hu where locals come and drop off frequently on my hughes receiveer and on the T60 the locals never come in at all. So does the script matter when using mvchannels or selectlocals?

Even though the channels arent showing in my guide, on the tivoweb webpage i see wntries for every local channel on the 101 satellite, but only the Atlanta local channels (the local channels i auth'ed in my 3m script) have program data in the tivoweb.

What exactly is going on behind the scenes with mvchannels and selectlocals to "fool" the receiver into tuning local channels that the access card doesnt have authorization for? Im curious as to how this part works.

and lastly, whats the difference between mvchannels and selectlocals?

Thanks,
OC

[captain_video]

We don't discuss DSS hacking here. That's a topic for other forums so you'll need to look elsewhere for anything that will allow unauthorized reception on a DTV signal.

The reason for having a program that will permit locals is because, even with a DirecTivo legally subscribed to DTV, the locals will not be displayed on any unit that has been Xtremed. Thus, several programs have been developed that will allow the locals to be displayed in either the 900's or in the 0-99's. The 900's requires that the program be run in a looping mode to force the channels to stay put in the 900's. Their natural tendency is to migrate to the 0-99's which is where they normally are displayed in the guide. You have to tell the DTivo what channels need to be displayed and the guide data will update automatically once this has been accomplished. The guide will display any channels you tell it to, but that does not necessarily mean that you will be able to tune to them. You have to be authorized for specific locals for them to actually be viewable on your DTivo. Selectlocals and mvchannels are just different means to the same end. They are both programs fro displaying locals in the guide but they each go about it differently. I don't know any more about the differences between them as I have never attempted to install selectlocals. Mvchannels is much newer and seems to be the current program of choice for setting up locals in the guide.

[Agix]

I seam to have a problem with locals too, so I thought I would just put my question here with hopes of a answer.

I think I did everything that the captain mentioned except that I renumbered some of my locals in the 2-99 range. I have like 4 cases of duplicate channel numbers.

I changed them in the dat file to be like from 70-90 and pulled up the guide and all was good. I thought I did it. Sometime during the night, the channels that I remapped started to go back to their original channel number (still within the 2-99 range).

Any clue to why my channels are not sticking where I program them too?

Thanks

[BubbleLamp]

Originally posted by Agix
I seam to have a problem with locals too, so I thought I would just put my question here with hopes of a answer.

I think I did everything that the captain mentioned except that I renumbered some of my locals in the 2-99 range. I have like 4 cases of duplicate channel numbers.

I changed them in the dat file to be like from 70-90 and pulled up the guide and all was good. I thought I did it. Sometime during the night, the channels that I remapped started to go back to their original channel number (still within the 2-99 range).

Any clue to why my channels are not sticking where I program them too?

Thanks

Unless you're looping mvchannels, they will always go back to their original numbers.

[Will]

>> I renumbered some of my locals in the 2-99 range. I have like 4 cases of duplicate channel numbers.

I changed them in the dat file to be like from 70-90 and pulled up the guide and all was good. I thought I did it. Sometime during the night, the channels that I remapped started to go back to their original channel number (still within the 2-99 range). <<

If the channels are moved ANYWHERE but their original 2-69 positions then you will need to continually loop mvchannels to keep them in their new places.

[Agix]

I thought by the readme that you only had to loop if you moved your channels from the 900's.

What is the best way to loop?

[captain_video]

You shouldn't be trying to change the channel numbers from their original numbers. If you have several locals that are assigned say, channel 4, then you will have to pick only one of these channels that you want to keep and comment out the extraneous ones. You are correct in assuming that you only have to loop if placing the channels in the 900's. However, in order to loop the channels you will have to edit the rc.sysinit file so that the mvchannels.tcl program runs like every 5 minutes. This tends to use up some of the Tivo processor's resources and may affect its performance. If you leave them in the 0-99's then the Tivo doesn't have to constantly force them to a location that is not their default assignment.

If you run mvchannels.tcl in looping mode from a telnet session, the program is only active as long as you maintain the telnet session. As soon as you terminate the session, you terminate mvchannels and any channel reassignments will revert to their original default locations. This is why you need to edit the rc.sysinit file to include the statement "./mvchannels.tcl -loop=0 -file=/var/hack/channels.dat". Add this statement near the end of the rc.sysinit file and save and exit when you're done. Type in "/tvbin/reboot" to reboot the DTivo. This will initiate the mvchannels program and begin running it in looping mode when the DTivo reboots. I have never been able to get this to work successfully on my DTivos and it always ended up causing my DTivos to lock up, but it could just be something that I'm not doing right.

I personally do not see the need for having that many locals in my guide since all of the network affiliates show the exact same programming during primetime anyway. I tried setting up multiple locals, being careful to eliminate duplicate channels, and I was able to get most of them (some of them would simply not display any video, probably due to being in a different spot beam from my area, although I thought I had researched that so it would not be the case). I suppose that there may be some interest in local programming from another area but then again, that's a matter of personal preference. Since I find that I can also get the national network feeds in the 380's, having more than 1 or 2 sets of locals becomes completely redundant since I can get both east and west coast feeds. Having a 2-tuner setup and both feeds means that I never have to worry about schedule conflicts for recording my favorite shows.

[opticalcarrier]

i dont understand one thing...can you actually buy local channels for different markets simultaneously? A lot of people are talking about doing this, and are "supported" I pay for 2 separate DTV subscriptions (no not 2 in 1 house, but 1 in each of 2 houses) and I cant even buy locals from a single market, let alone 2 markets, and me trying to get locals is "unsupported".

The Canadian government's stance is that "If their citizens can't buy directv then that fact pre-empts them from stealing it. Thats why dtv hacking in canada is ok. Same thing in my situation. I cant buy locals so that also means I cant steal them.

So what are people who are paying for 1 set of locals doing to get other markets as well?

-OC

[Agix]

I agree with ya captain, but my problem is that my local WB is on channel 9 and I also get LA9 at times.

Oh well. Thanks for the input.

[BubbleLamp]

Originally posted by captain_video
This is why you need to edit the rc.sysinit file to include the statement "./mvchannels.tcl -loop=0 -file=/var/hack/channels.dat". Add this statement near the end of the rc.sysinit file and save and exit when you're done.

Your statement in rc.sysinit should be

/var/hack/mvchannels.tcl -loop=0 -sdelay=4 -file=/var/hack/channels.dat > /dev/null &

If mvchannels and channels.dat are in a different dir, adjust the paths accordingly. You need the -sdelay to allow the Tivo enough time to finish booting before mvchannels runs. You need the > /dev/null & to start it in the background and return your bash prompt. Using ./mvchannels.tcl only works if you are in the directory already.

BTW Agix, if you never watch LA9, just hide it and unhide WB.

HTH

[Agix]

Nah, i watch both on occasion is my problem :)

[genericuser]

Agix,

You should than have two channel 9s. LA9 and ??9. Both show up as channel 9. As far as I know that is not a problem. The tivo knows what is playing on each channel 9.

Does that make any sense?

[FredThompson]

So how is the numbering conflict handled?

FWIW, I'm using an oval dish and all locals are getting pushed into the 0-99 area.

[Agix]

I get CH9 and LA9 with a certain type of card :). On my sub card I get just CH9 and LA9 is unavailable in my area.

I usually use my sub card because it is safer.

During the past 2 weeks, I have had the tivo not record a program because "A signal was not found on tuner 2" or something to that effect. When I manually check the channel, the tivo is confused and it was trying to record LA9 in place of CH9. Hope that not too confusing.

If I force a channel change and go back to CH9 it acts normal. I thought possibly this could be what is causing this strange problem.

[BubbleLamp]

You'll also probably find that scrolling through the guide will lock up when you have the dups.

[JustCuz]

I don't have that problem at all, Bubba. I have multiple dups of nearly every channel I get in the 0-99 range. Never had a problem with locking up, programming, searching, tuning, etc...

[Will]

>> >> You'll also probably find that scrolling through the guide will lock up when you have the dups. << <<

JustCuz replied to that:
>> I don't have that problem at all, Bubba. I have multiple dups of nearly every channel I get in the 0-99 range. Never had a problem with locking up

JustCuz, your exprience matches mine.

[Nuke2000]

was playing around with this and i want to see what happens if i add a LA channle i live in the east coste. well i get a 721 error i add all the channles for ATL and they worked great there all in the 2-99 i like them there.

is it becasue iam not in the spotbeam so i can't get LA channle i only add one LA11. Ever thing else is working great thank you all for makeing this fun.

[Cardgone]

I originally ran selectlocals and had duplicate numbers for two cities but the tivo style guide would show each with its respective two letter abreviation for the city in front of the channel number. For example I would see CH50 and DT50 but the tivo uniot never got these confused or locked up. OK, maube once it locked up in about 5 months on the guide, but it never got them confused. It worked well, but then after about 6 months I started to loose channels when I switched to a new 3m that only showed your local channels.

I had to rerun select locals to get them back and they are again working

[botcher]

do I need to run ./selectlocals xx xx xx ... after a reboot, or will my chosen local markets stay put for good?

Botcher