On a couple of cheap SD boxes - Audiosonic and MTV - both have an annoying habit of forgetting the time in the settings, so when EPG info is shown the wrong time is displayed, usually an hour ahead.

I've tried several times to change the settings, but it never seems to stick. They seem to have a mind of their own when it comes to the timezone.

Does the EPG transmission itself determine the time display; and if so, it makes the box system setting redundant.

Any suggestions, other than buying a more expensive box

Cheers!

My Hotchips HD set top box wont keep the right time either, no matter what I set the GMT Zone to it always displays one hour behind
My Digicrystal SD PVR always displays correct time.

I want a fix for the HD box

cheers

Hmm, it's certainly a bit of a mystery. It's not critical, just annoying

I was looking around just now for set top boxes - SD and HD. There's hardly any around; maybe one or two. That's a whole different forum topic, though

All,
The stations transmit the time in UTC or GMT. The receiver has to add the appropriate number of hours. You should find in the installation menu a reference to which state of Australia. When you have set this it should then be ok.

AlanH

Thanks, alanh

On my audiosonic SD box in the System Setting I only have a Regional Setting with options of: Country and Time Zone (GMT+10:00); but then there's another option further in the Menu, Time Setting, with options of: GMT Usage (OFF/ON), Set Date, Set Time.

No matter what I set either of these options to, the time always changes by itself. I guess it's a quirk of the cheaper box, I don't know

Like I said this doesn't work for my Hotchip HD set top box.

cheers

It's a little more complex unfortunately. The stations transmit UTC in the Time and Date Table (or TDT) and a (series of-) Time offset descriptors in the Time Offset Table (TOT). The difficulty arrises in the way the STB reads the TOT; in a basic 'DVB implementation' the box will read the country descriptor and read the associated time offset and applies this to the EPG time. For situations like in Australia, where there are multiple time zones DVB allows for a sub code under the country code. Australia has defined 8 different time zones within this scheme, zones AUS01 to AUS08 and stations can either broadcast all of them or just the one(s) relevant to their actual time zone.

STB's targeted for the Australian market are supposed to have a menu option to select the time zone by name (NSW/ACT, VIC, etc.) and will be able to select the correct time offset descriptor through this mechanism. Some STB's however are not specifically targeted for Australia and may not be able to read the regional time offsets. They will either default to AUS01 or, if this 'national' time zone is omitted to AUS02 which is the NSW/ACT zone, or will fail to read the offset altogether in which case manually entering the number of hours offset may be the only option.

An STB that correctly reads the time offset for its local time offset will be able to change correctly upon daylight saving changes as the TOT always carries the exact time and date of the next change.

Even some 'compliant' boxes are known to be slow to update the time, even though TDT and TOT are transmitted every 20 seconds, it's not always just the 'el cheapo' models screwing up.

Cheers
Rusty

Rusty Juggler,
So what you are saying is that these boxes do not meet Australian Standard AS 4599.1-2007. Perhaps this has to be compulsory to mark compliant products before sale or ban the sale of non compliant products.

AlanH

Exactly, but what can you do about it?
Without a body that actually tests and accredits equipment the consumer will never know if a box is going to work properly. The networks perform small scale tests with only a few of the most common STB's and integrated TV's to verify their platform changes in their individual test labs but there is no organised common approach.

A compliance mark, as you suggest, would be a major step forward but it will require industry wide support / sponsorship and I can't see that happen any time soon.

Cheers
Rusty

Perhaps this is one of the reasons the SD and HD boxes have been pulled from places like Coles.

I'm hoping that early this year a second generation of cheap SD/HD only boxes will emerge. The market definitely doesn't need two products on the shelf: separate SD and HD boxes; it needs a box that provides both; with HD video and audio down-converted as necessary to analog only, CRT TV sets.

What isn't acceptable is a proliferation of set top boxes of differing formats and capabilities. Unity is needed for a successful transition.

avoidz,
All HD boxes can output SD signals, so all SD boxes should be withdrawn from sale. However the the retailers and wholesalers will try and get rid of their existing boxes. We need to stop the import of more SD boxes.

Rusty Juggler,
You may wish to put in a submission to the ACMA enquiry. It closes in February.

AlanH

Thanks, alanh. I assume the HD boxes that'll replace the SD ones on sale at the moment will work okay on CRT televisions? The HD signal downgraded and a downmixed audio signal?

avoidz,
This has always been the case, however there has been no independent programming for HD and the HD boxes were very expensive.

AlanH

Thanks. I watch HD programming on my PC at the moment (The Shield has just returned to Channel 10, on HD only).

It's annoying not to be able to buy a cheap HD box at retail at the moment, though.

I noticed that The Shield was back on too (good thing I got my DVX 555U in time) so I could now record it, seeing as it's only on HD. It's a bit of stuffing around getting the video off, and it seems to only record in 2 channel, but it's HD, so I can live with only 2 channels for now.

Anyway, to proper topic..... I think it was my old DGTec SD box that I had to set to Adelaide I think, for it to work for QLD time, whereas I think the Teac PVR may have done that instead, but it still gets it's time from the show data, so I don't know whether I did the time zone for it or not.

Another cheap SD STB with a variation of this problem, in Perth WA anyway, is the DSE SD Mini STB G2128. It shows correct time on all channels except SBS. SBS always changes setting to GMT+10 whereas other stations retain GMT+8 setting. The time is even changed if the setting is altered from GMT Usage to Time and Date Usage
I rang SBS Transmission section and they advised me that they send the correct time for Perth. I then rang DSE helpline to see if there was any firmware updates to overcome this problem but they were not interested at all in the problem.