Like I said in another post I was able to recover the videos from the HDD in my DMR-HS2 (40GB) by hooking it up to my desktop PC (I used a IDE to USB2 cable and power supply which I bought on Ebay for $10). I used a hex editor (WinHex) to clone the HDD Image to a Raw (backup) File, then I could play the whole HDD image with VLC media player (right click on the file and have it open with VLC). I haven't edited the file into smaller videos yet (but there are Mpeg Video cutters that should do the trick).
They use some kind of UDF format, b.c I was able to use ISOBuster to open the (Raw) HDD backup file and I got a VR_Movie.VRO 36GB in size (and 2 other small files).
Hey all. I had a bit of difficulty with my system this past week or so. Evidently, I was trying to move some files to a disk, but the system choked on the disk. It warned me with a please wait near shutdown for a minute or two. I should have taken the hint and pulled the blank disk out ... but I didn't. Oops. It choked on it again, so I pulled it. But in the interim, my tvguide went down. I was able to move the files easily to another disk, but the tv guide did not come back. It has been about five nights. I used the remote to try and reinstall tv guide. but nothing worked, so I will unplug for half a day, and then replug and wait for tv guide's return. Sound reasonable?
Your loss of TV Guide could be a coincidence. In my suburb of Boston, I lost it last weekend. In fact, the hosting channel vanished from my Comcast lineup. (Confirmed by Comcast CS.) I have a note in to the engineer at the hosting TV station, who wrote back that the channel is still working at his end, and he's going to check with Comcast to see what's up.
I use the digital cable box Guide (It's just like the TVGuide) and set my DMR-E85H to record manually (Line-In). ( even though the DMR-E85H does have a TVGuide built into it I never use it).
If you used the TV Guide and it worked (always a bit iffy), you'd never want to go back to manual recording. It's light-years better. That said, the host channel is still missing in my Boston suburb. I just spoke to someone at Comcast, who's looking into it; no word yet through WBZ, the hosting station. (People are away on vacation, so answers are coming slowly.)
I'm in Boston and I'm not having any problems getting the TV guide. Every once in awhile I have to repick the channel lineup but I'm still getting all the channels and listings and I have Comcast.
I'm still not getting any TVGuide data here in northern California. It has been down for over a month. Due to a Comcast change, I am now required to go through a digital converter and use an IR-blaster to allow the DVR to change channels. But that seemed to work OK... even through the cable box I still got the TVGuide data. So I assumed something changed on the cable provider end. I tried the system reset (hold up & down, etc) and now even my clock will auto set (I know... I can set it manually). I contacted Comcast Tech support several days ago and raised it to the supervisor who seemed to understand what it was that was not working. He said they would look into it, but I couldn't get a support case number to follow-up with it. So far, no changes.
That gives me hope that it was just a glitch at my particular Comcast head-end, which is in Woburn. I think when the digital changeover occurred, a lot of stuff got switched around, and I'm hoping somebody just pressed the wrong button and made Ch. 97 go away by mistake. I lost the History Channel at the same time, and I don't know if that's related.
Still no TV guide on Charter Cable in the mojave desert, three weeks now. Not sure if this hit everyone, or just my pana. I am going to call and rattle their cage tomorrow.
Something has changed in the tv guide situation. Until yesterday, I had no listings in the grid with TV channel names, but now I have a black screen NO INFORMATION RECEIVED or something like that. So now I can't even just select a time slot from the grid and tell it to record the untitled programs. I suspect the TVGOS is being tampered with or ended.
Someone said to call engineering but I'm not sure just what engineering dept that is. You can also use Titantv.com for listings, it's pretty nice, Tivo uses it.
I just got my TVGuide back in the Boston suburb of Arlington. It was a technical snafu arising from the digital changeover. Here's what I did to get help. First I called the head engineer at the local host station, in my case the local CBS affiliate. (If you know what station your machine normally turns to when you've got it off, that's the host station.) I just called and asked for engineering. He was very helpful--knew all about the issue--and said it was working in Boston proper, but would contact the right people at Comcast to troubleshoot my issue. Well, it turned out those people were on vacation, so it was taking time. I got impatient and clicked a link on the Comcast website that said "Email the vice president." It was under a paragraph about how committed the VP was to customer service. I got a phone call the next business day. It was someone in my area, who had never heard of TVGOS but was willing to listen, and willing to get the engineers on the case. (In my case, the host channel, 97, had simply gone away from my lineup. You couldn't turn to it, even manually.) Less than a week later, I got another call, asking for a clarification. The next day, it was all working again--and I was urged to call him again if I had further problems. (He also said they never would have realized there was a problem if I hadn't contacted them about it.) So yes, the system is still running. Those of you not getting it might have to be persistent until you find the right person who can help. I give Comcast and my host station high marks for attention to customer service on this one! (And it's not because I'm a big spender; I have about the lowest level of cable service you can get!)
Still NO TV listings in Calif. Desert. I am getting fed up. I don't really know who is the host channel here. I spoke with some desk type at the cable company a month ago, they acted like they could do nothing unless I am willing to put their little cable box into the chain. I would rather not. I want things as they were two months ago, period. So, I think you guys have told me the PBS affiliate is the normal host, so I called KCET in Los angeles. No response yet. I am going to follow the starrig advice and turn off the box, and turn it on again, to see if it tells me what is my host channel. Also, someone here mentioned using titantv instead of TVGOS. Is there a way to make the panny receive the titantv listings directly via cable? Thanks. K
Starrig, I turned my machine off while it was on two different channels. Each time, when I turned it back on, it was on the same channel it had been on when I turned it off. So this method did not tell me what is the host channel. Suggestions? K
Kassel -- Did you turn it off and leave it off for a good long time, such as overnight? You have to outthink the box, to some degree. Does it channel surf when it's off? (In other words, is it repeatedly changing the channel on the cable box, which I assume is between your cable input and the Panasonic?) If so, that means it's searching for the host channel. If it does that indefinitely, then it's not getting a host carrier. (You might need to do a reset, and make sure it's set for cable service.) If you're not hooked into a cable box, then all of this will be a lot more difficult, for the simple reason that as soon as you turn the Pan on, it's going to switch back to the last station you were watching or recording. So what I do is turn on the TV and set it to a Video setting that bypasses the Pan, and that lets me see what channel the Pan is tuning to when no one's watching it. In my case, it's now the local CBS affiliate. (Changed from PBS earlier this year.) You might just try calling the CBS station in your area and asking the engineers if they're the TVGOS host channel. You can also go to the TVGOS support page at Macrovision, and they will eventually respond to an email request for help. (At least they did for me, though by then my local people had already solved the problem.) They could tell you the station.
Thanks for the great response Starrig. If I don't get satisfaction within one or two days, I will try the macrovision TVGOS office. Since turning it on or off did not change the channels, I instead set it to a channel, then turned it off, then unplugged the unit for 20 or 30 seconds. This one showed me that when I do plug it back in, it sets itself to channel 5 in LA. So, I sent an email to channel 5 in LA. Hopefully someone will respond. I wonder why it is always us Pana users who are telling these station engineers about the problem. It seems some other systems must also be using TVGOS, not just pannys, right?
Starrig, just in case KTLA calls about fulfilling its role as host channel, I think I should be able to point him to the tech in Boston area. What station hosts over there? Do you remember who you spoke with? I would just steer the KTLA guy to him if he doesn't know what I am talking about. K
If you reach an engineer at your station and he doesn't know anything about TVGOS (also called Gemstar), then you probably have the wrong station. If I were you, I'd forget the email and pick up the phone and call your station and ask for the engineering department. This is something they contract for--if they're the people, they'll know about it. If they're not, it's possible they'll know which station is. Our host in the Boston area is WBZ, the CBS affiliate. I don't know that my contact there would appreciate my putting his name out as someone to call when people in other parts of the country are having trouble. But it was someone at my PBS station who first told me to try the CBS station. There's really no substitute for finding someone to talk to. As was explained to me, Comcast isn't a monolithic organization; it has all these sections and regions and headers, and things get configured differently from one place to the next. In my case, I happened to be in one very small area that had something misconfigured. They would never have known if I hadn't called them. But first I had to find the engineer at the host station, who then knew the right person to pass the info on to. As for your test, I'm not sure what you learned, if anything, by unplugging the unit and looking to see what station it tuned to when you plugged it back in. What you want to know is what station is it tuned to before you turn it on. That's where the cable box is your friend. Have you verified that it's set up for a cable box?
TVGOS is a billion dollar company, so I'm sure the would like their product to work. I'm testing some stuff with my machine at the moment. This resets your machine. Hold down channel up & down buttons on the front (Might be under a door) for 5 seconds or until your machine turns off. Wait a minute for it to cycle. Turn on the machine. Complete a NEW TVG setup on screen, it appears automatically. Once you get to Watch TV, press enter. It should do auto clock setting too. Get to FUNCTION menu, channels, auto channel scan (Should be available now). Rescan. Check TVG settings & clock settings. Wait for TVG to refill. So I'm waiting at this point. I'm in mid Calif. Note: This keep programs you have on your HD but it'll clear any recording settings & it also cleared my TVG window of it's pretty blank recording boxes.
