Well I spoke on the phone with Vic at Global couple days ago and good news the type of equipment has been choosen and ordered and now just waiting for all the pices to arrive. The feeling all the installation and so forth should be completed by summers end which is not that much longer. It was a not so easy task getting the funding for OTA from the powers to be I am told as the costs have landed near or may pass the 100.000.00 for global bc alone.
As Vic stated in the first few of his posts the team which I believe he named at global are the real drivers in making this happen.

I say from me Thanks Vic and the entire team at (Global BC Chan TV )and Global National for making this happen.

Do DTV stations actually transmit guide info with their signal? I thought there was a lot of confusion as to what the standard PSIP info should be?

As far as scheduling recordings I do it the way I used to do it with my VCR: manually enter the start and stop time and day. :)

We all wish they would do it properly, but at this point the EPG info in PSIP data streams seems to be a low priority. CBC HD in Vancouver is great, but CTV HD here gives only about 1.5 days of EPG.

I think this problem is going to take some consumer action to get them taking it seriously, especially for folks with OTA PVRs.

Yes. Some do. Some of the stations from Buffalo send info for the current and next show on my new converter box - but that small amount of data is a limitation of the box. There is likely more there to see if the little box could show it.

The Canadian stations are really terrible with this currently only CFTO-dt and CBLT-dt have useful future guide info.The rest have worked in the past but are not anymore.All the Buffalo stations are working and we use it with our OTA PVR.There can be mistakes with sports and last minute changes which they do not correct in there guides.

I recall SUNtv's working at one point, now it's completely useless.
Our tv reads up to 12 hours ahead, I think, I havent really tried to go further. Perhaps I will and post back.
But Canadian PSIP data is horrible.
American channels are fine.
Hopefully by 2011 it is all worked out.

I think I read somewhere that the FCC mandates to use of EPG on digital channels (sorry, I don't know the specifics) while the CRTC does not (yet anyway).

That said, I've been noticing some weird stuff on WKBW lately - generic stuff like "ABC programming".

I seem to recall CityTV used to have program guide data. - In fact I think they were the first broadcaster in Toronto to broadcast an atsc signal.

Nowadays, they've gone backwards, nothing useful in the EPG, just "Event xxx". Probably happened around the time Rogers bought the station, but I'm sure that's just a co-incidence. I wouldn't want to be cynical and suggest otherwise :p

I was bored earlier, so I went through the channels and found that its not just Canadian Channels that are problematic.

2-1 6:30p-4:30a (10 hours) - full details (Channel name, program name, time, description)
4-1 No data.
5-1 6:30pm-10:55am next sat (almost 7 days) - full details
7-1 7pm - 4:30am (9.5 hours) - no show names or descriptions, but channel name/time intact
9-1 7pm- 4am (9 hours) - full details
17-1 7p-4p (21hours) - full details
23-1 7p-4:30a(9.5 hrs) - full details
25-1 No data
29-1 7p-4am (10 hrs) - full details
41-1 No data - Channel name incorrect - "Channel"
44-1 8p-5a (9 hours) - all program names "Event ####", time read 9:23 @ 7:05
49-1 7p-3a (8 hours) - full details
57-1 5p-2a (9 hours) - all program names "Event ####", time read 6:49 @ 7:05
64-1 2p-11p (9 hours) - all program names "Event ####", time read 2:09 @ 7:09
66-1 No data

This is all using a Viewsonic n4285p.

I know for a fact that suntv and citytv used to work, so I don't know what happened.
CBC's is by far superior, having a full week's data available.

Does anyone have an update?

I can't pick up Global on my media center PC nor my Samsung DLP. The antenna is pointing towards Grand Island, and most of the other Toronto stations come in fine with that orientation. Once Global is up and functional, I had planned to swing the antenna over towards Toronto since most of my viewing needs will now be covered.

However, the antenna's in the attic and I barely fit up there through the access hatch. I don't want to be dragging myself up and down for several hours tinkering if I know in advance that Global is not going to work yet.

If anyone has any recent experiences with Global on media center or on a Samsung set that they can share, I'd appreciate the info.

Thanks
Pete

I'm a bit confused, Global is on air. You may have to readjust you antenna a bit.

Based on earlier posts in this thread, they have had PSIP issues that cause reception problems on some receivers.

I'm fishing for information that would justify my getting covered in fiberglass insulation to go up and readjust (or to avoid the trip and wait until the PSIP is fixed).

Pete

So you were looking for me to comment eh? :-)

I'll see if I can do some mucking around this week. I figure there's no point in coaching them on PSIP for Media Center if they're equipment is faulty. I'm in the same boat with Fox - they're the first one out of the gate with new fall programming and it comes in for me about 75% of the time. That's just frustrating.

Pete

globals signal is very steady and reliable.

It just comes in at 65.2 with no channel name on my new samsung DLP.
no way to add or change name on the sammy.

Recorded 90210 last night from Global HD (for the wife, shutup) and from a quick glance it was rock solid. I am using an HD Homerun with MythTV, so for that hardware/software combo, it works.

Tom

What physical channel does Homerun catches it? I wanna try to force the channel through BTV.
P.S.: Chicks in 90210 are smoken' .... ;)

Global (Toronto) is physical channel 65.

I turned my antenna, and was able to pick up Global Toronto using Media Center. MCE picks it up as channel 41-1, physical 65. Woohoo!

What physical channel does Homerun catches it? I wanna try to force the channel through BTV.The HD HomeRun with MythTV doesn't need a physical channel, I manually assigned it to 117, since that made it align with my guide data.

It's all fine now on my HTPC - I manually entered physical 65 in Beyond TV with mapping to 41-1. Works fine with no allignments to antenna. Which proves that the problem is in weird PSIP data (or how my tuner tries to understand that data ;) ).