Thin-Air ATSC: Progress...But Microsoft's Still Not Off Scot-Free

Yesterday morning, after I passed my previous writeup on this topic over to Microsoft, a PR representative promised that the company would review my situation and get back to me ‘with an update ASAP’. I’m still waiting. But after perusing some of the comments on the relevant Green Button forum last night, I decided to do some experimentation. I’ve made some progress, but my Windows Media Center system’s Program Guide is still not up to its former robust status prior to last Friday’s full-power NTSC shutdown.

Green Forum forum participants had noted that the FCC-defined names of some of their received stations had changed, from KRXI-DT (for example) to KRXIDT. Default channel guide information in Windows Vista is stored in a file called atscchannels.xml, and ordinarily a re-setup of the TV signal feeding Media Center would be sufficient to resolve any issues stemming from this syntax evolution. However, as my recent cover story pointed out, I’m now pulling in Verdi, NV translator signals for four of the six stations I receive, since I can’t reliably tune in the Reno, NV primary transmissions. And as I described in a mid-February multi-part blog post, the way to tell Media Center to redirect its attention to the translators’ physical channels (as well as to append stations’ sub-channels that Media Center for some reason doesn’t already know about) is by means of a separate file called atscprefs.xml.

It occurred to me this morning that if Reno stations’ naming syntax had changed but my hand-crafted atscprefs.xml file still had the old syntax, that could explain why the Program Guide information was (in some cases) non-existent and (in other cases) wrong. So I deleted atscprefs.xml, then re-ran the TV Signal Setup routine (which gave me a latest-and-greatest atscchannels.xml). Next, within Media Center I added missing station sub-channels, which re-created atscprefs.xml. After exiting Media Center, I fired up EditPad Lite and updated atscprefs.xml with correct physical channel data for relevant stations’ virtual primary- and sub-channels. Then I re-launched Media Center and re-ran TV Signal Setup again, so that Media Center would ’see’ my atscprefs.xml edits.

Here’s where I am now:

The good news is that I now have primary virtual channel data for ABC affiliate KOLO, which was previously missing. But focusing next on sub-channels, you’ll see that KOLO’s entries are still missing, and that other stations’ entries are still repeats of the primary channel data. I suspect the atscprefs.xml sub-channel syntax is messed up, although since it was created by Media Center, not by me, Microsoft is at fault here.

Next, let’s jump ahead to this evening’s scheduled recordings:

The Program Guide entries for the 6PM and 6:30PM showings of The Simpsons on Fox affiliate KRX1 are redundant, therefore the 6:30 show won’t record. However, if you look at the program listings on the station’s website, you’ll see that the two episodes being broadcasted back-to-back tonight (and every night, for that matter) are different. Specifically, the episode Hunka Hunka Burns In Love (I never thought I’d type the words ‘Hunka Hunka’ for EDN publication…) is on at 6:30, not 6:00. Again, whatever source Microsoft is pulling its program guide data from is off-base.

I had to laugh when I took a peek at the latest-and-greatest attscchannels.xml. As my mid-May cover story pointed out, Media Center has historically believed KOLO’s digital transmission was on physical channel 23, even though KOLO was actually broadcasting ATSC on physical channel 9. Well, as of last Friday, Media Center now believes KOLO’s on physical channel 9…but KOLO moved to channel 8 last Friday. Consistency’s usually desirable…but not when you’re consistently one step behind reality. This particular discrepancy doesn’t particularly affect me, as I’m getting my signal from KOLO’s Verdi-area translator anyway (whose physical channel 24 details are embedded in atscprefs.xml), but anyone attempting to tune in the station’s primary transmission will be impacted by the error.

Finally, whenever I run TV Signal Setup, Media Center thinks that my laptop’s connected to a cable box. I have to manually override this determination and tell Media Center that I’m tethered (and only tethered) to an over-the-air antenna via a Hewlett-Packard/Hauppauge ExpressCard TV Tuner adapter. Since I haven’t needed to run TV Signal Setup in a while, I’m not sure when this particular quirk first emerged…last Friday, or perhaps when I recently installed Windows Vista’s Service Pack 2.

Reiterating what I wrote for mid-May publication:

As with many products for consumers who are not technologically savvy, Windows Media Center hides technical details and advanced settings behind a slick, simple user interface. When everything’s working as intended, it’s an easy-to-use product, but, when glitches arise, finding and fixing them can be frustrating.

When I finally resolve these issues with Microsoft, I’ll report the outcome here on Brian’s Brain. Don’t worry…I’ll be persistent.