If you watch over-the-air TV (meaning, no cable or satellite) this may be of interest to you.
Some digital-tuner devices, including televisions and DVRs, that rely on Rovi, Guide Plus or TV Guide-branded on-screen channel guides (all operated by Rovi) are losing their free guides. We have a Sony television with a free on-screen channel guide provided by Rovi, and the guide is displaying this message:
I’m bummed. The on-screen guide was THE reason we chose this Sony set over other brands. :( Apparently there’s nothing that can be done, either.
A little side info – while channels are required to broadcast guide info via the PSIP protocol, devices aren’t required to receive that signal. Some devices, like the cheapie Zenith set-top boxes many of us bought when the DTV transition took place in 2009, aren’t affected — they use the PSIP protocol to show their channel guides. We have an older Samsung set-top converter box that does get a full, on-screen channel guide grid, and I may hook that back up once the Rovi guide finally goes dark.
I’ve been reading about this tonight, and apparently the entire line of Sony DVRs will become “bricks” once the Rovi guide goes offline. They have no other way to utilize the other, free PSIP channel guide, and a lot of people are pretty upset, naturally.
One reason that many devices used the Rovi guide is because of the speed with which it loaded. To display the free PSIP guide on screen, a device must receive the channel info signal from each individual network, which had a little delay when you would page through the available listings as it was gathering signal data for the next page of the guide. (Our Samsung box operates this way – it works great, but it’s slower.) Rovi combined and cached all of the individual channel’s data into a nice, free guide that you could quickly surf and select channels from as it was all sent out together.
Rovi has already pulled the plug on the guides in some parts of the country, but it will go offline completely by April 2013. Our TV’s message says we may be able to get the guide by connecting the TV to the internet once the over-the-air guide disappears, so we’ll have to play with that too once it happens.
Just a heads up. A pretty good, free online TV Guide can be found at www.titantv.com too if you’re affected by this.
mashupmom says
argh
Ours (through a Channel Master) shows the next couple of hours of programming and then just “no information available” thereafter. Fan-tastic. We never got any warning messages on the screen, so the first I knew of it was reading your warning here today.
Coupon Maven says
MashupMom – Here’s a link about Channel Master:
http://support.channelmaster.com/entries/21359315-why-don-t-i-have-any-t…
Their TV Guide grid is also supplied by Rovi, so yes.. its days were numbered too.
It looks like you can set your Channel Master to use the PSIP data (which is still available, though it doesn’t go out as far day-wise as the TVGOS signal did) versus losing the grid altogether. I wish our TV had that option.
Coupon Maven says
Update
It appears the over-the-air Rovi, Guide Plus and TV Guide signals went offline today in Chicagoland. Our onscreen guide is dead and shows no programming info. What a bummer.
1/2/13 Update – listings back?!
Perhaps Rachel and I are the only ones still watching over-the-air TV and affected by this (hee) but I woke up to a full listings grid on my TV again..! No idea what is going on, but I sure hope it sticks around for awhile…
Another note too for anyone who has a Sony television that’s internet capable – Sony sent over a document today on how to switch the settings to use the Rovi online TV guide over the internet (provided -that- one stays functional.) The link is:
http://www.kb.sony.com/selfservice/documentLink.do?externalId=C1009552
Coupondad says
We have a 2009 KDL46Z5100 Sony flat screen, with only Roku attached and we get TV Guide by just pushing the “guide” button on the remote. It does not come from Roku but directly off the antenna.
And is working fine at this moment.
Coupon Maven says
That’s good!
It likely uses the PSIP data then versus this Rovi/Guide stream we’re talking about. My older Samsung uses that too and still has a full guide with no problems.
rj017850 says
TVGOS
It looks like you can set your Route Expert to use the PSIP information (which is still available, though it doesn’t go out as far day-wise as the TVGOS indication did) compared to dropping the lines completely. I wish our TV had that choice.