DTVuser2009

Adding one last bit of info, after some time, or as the official transiton date looms, or post-transition, some channels may move to different RF-air channels, resulting in a no-signal from your current scans. that means you will have to rescan afterwards since after the official switch, some channels will relocate to different bands. also as more channels are added as a feature of multicasting, update scans or easy adds are a great way of periodically adding new channels, some of them interesting.

Other problems:

Dates/times go to manufacturer defaults or program data or channel lists are gone after box is powered down or after losing power. date can even show as January 1, 1980.

Solutions:

While i have not yet taken apart a box to dianose such an issue, it is true that some parts of some converter boxes share some interesting components as your personal computer (there's even Intel ARM CPUs in some of them an a bit of non-volatile RAM) and it's quite possible there is some sort of power backup that normally saves the date/time in the event of a power down or power failure. if this device, in this day and age consisting of a capacitor or Integrated Circuit, instead of a CMOS battery, has become faulty, as sometimes happens on lower quality converter boxes that have hit the market, the box can lose info after being turned off and back on or after a power failure, or even show dates as January 1 1980, defaults used in personal computers since that date was when the first IBM PC was manufactured. if the converter box shares components with computers the date/time can actually default to that as well. in such cases it's annoying but it can be the harbinger of impending failure, if you're receipt allows exchange it's best to do so before the 30 days is up. coupons used to purchase these boxes don't give refunds.