TiVo : General TiVo Discussion Part 2

[jagsman]

After reading through some of the posts on here, I find it totally unbelievable that some posters are telling people, that to get an up-to-date EPG, you should do a manual update. The sad thing about this, is that these posters are right in what they are saying.
The problem I have, is that along with this advice, their posts should be filled with some heavy duty industrial language aimed at Virgin. But they dont. Why not? We are paying a premium of £3 per month for the "privelige" of having TIVO, but what is the extra money for? Well it's not for a decent EPG, is it?

The FA announce on Tuesday that the England game is off. I go out on Wednesday morning and buy a newspaper, and its tv schedule is more up to date than my TIVO EPG. What <Deleted> century are we living in here? Its a complete embarassment. Virginmedia's flagship product, slower than the print media.

I know someone suggested that the EPG servers would not be able to cope if everyone was updated at the same time. Well why not stagger it? At the moment they are only updating every 24hrs or so, what the hell are the EPG servers running on, some tech's laptop. This is a multi-billion pound company who's aim is to make the fastest digital experience for all its consumers, yet it cannot update 50,000 boxes more than once a day. What's going to happen when it rolls out TIVO to all its customers? Updates once a fortnight?

If Freeview and Sky can have an up-to-date EPG, then so should we. No compromises, excuses or <Deleted> Just get it done.

[clinteastman]

Originally Posted by jagsman

After reading through some of the posts on here, I find it totally unbelievable that some posters are telling people, that to get an up-to-date EPG, you should do a manual update. The sad thing about this, is that these posters are right in what they are saying.
The problem I have, is that along with this advice, their posts should be filled with some heavy duty industrial language aimed at Virgin. But they dont. Why not? We are paying a premium of £3 per month for the "privelige" of having TIVO, but what is the extra money for? Well it's not for a decent EPG, is it?

The FA announce on Tuesday that the England game is off. I go out on Wednesday morning and buy a newspaper, and its tv schedule is more up to date than my TIVO EPG. What <Deleted> century are we living in here? Its a complete embarassment. Virginmedia's flagship product, slower than the print media.

I know someone suggested that the EPG servers would not be able to cope if everyone was updated at the same time. Well why not stagger it? At the moment they are only updating every 24hrs or so, what the hell are the EPG servers running on, some tech's laptop. This is a multi-billion pound company who's aim is to make the fastest digital experience for all its consumers, yet it cannot update 50,000 boxes more than once a day. What's going to happen when it rolls out TIVO to all its customers? Updates once a fortnight?

If Freeview and Sky can have an up-to-date EPG, then so should we. No compromises, excuses or <Deleted> Just get it done.

I don't think anyone is saying you should have to do a manual update to get a up-to-date EPG.

[HDFootyMan]

Originally Posted by jagsman

After reading through some of the posts on here, I find it totally unbelievable that some posters are telling people, that to get an up-to-date EPG, you should do a manual update. The sad thing about this, is that these posters are right in what they are saying.
The problem I have, is that along with this advice, their posts should be filled with some heavy duty industrial language aimed at Virgin. But they dont. Why not? We are paying a premium of £3 per month for the "privelige" of having TIVO, but what is the extra money for? Well it's not for a decent EPG, is it?

The FA announce on Tuesday that the England game is off. I go out on Wednesday morning and buy a newspaper, and its tv schedule is more up to date than my TIVO EPG. What <Deleted> century are we living in here? Its a complete embarassment. Virginmedia's flagship product, slower than the print media.

I know someone suggested that the EPG servers would not be able to cope if everyone was updated at the same time. Well why not stagger it? At the moment they are only updating every 24hrs or so, what the hell are the EPG servers running on, some tech's laptop. This is a multi-billion pound company who's aim is to make the fastest digital experience for all its consumers, yet it cannot update 50,000 boxes more than once a day. What's going to happen when it rolls out TIVO to all its customers? Updates once a fortnight?

If Freeview and Sky can have an up-to-date EPG, then so should we. No compromises, excuses or <Deleted> Just get it done.

I had a mini-rant about this on my blog last night. I'd love to know how much of the £3 monthly fee is going to Tribune, because in the past I've felt like I've been doing their job for them. I couldn't believe it when I saw the online TV schedule which showed that the England game was still on.

If VM feel confident enough to publicly consider rolling out free Wi-Fi, then surely the infrastructure is in place to update the EPG at regular times throughout the day, without user intervention.

How can VM have the best network but the most inaccurate EPG? Apps, Wishlists and Catch-Up TV don't mean much when your PVR misses episodes from Series Links due to rubbish metadata.

[clinteastman]

Originally Posted by HDFootyMan

I had a mini-rant about this on my blog last night. I'd love to know how much of the £3 monthly fee is going to Tribune, because in the past I've felt like I've been doing their job for them. I couldn't believe it when I saw the online TV schedule which showed that the England game was still on.

If VM feel confident enough to publicly consider rolling out free Wi-Fi, then surely the infrastructure is in place to update the EPG at regular times throughout the day, without user intervention.

How can VM have the best network but the most inaccurate EPG? Apps, Wishlists and Catch-Up TV don't mean much when your PVR misses episodes from Series Links due to rubbish metadata.

I relayed your blog post to VM and TiVo as I think it did a good job of summing up the way bad data affects it's customers. I personally haven't had as many problems as you but that's not the point.

[zantarous]

Regardless of who provides the EPG data the Tivo only updates once a day, they would need to fundamentally change the way Tivo updates to resolve these sorts of issues.

Having said that I have yet to have any major issues with EPG data apart from new South park. Surely everyone knew the England game was called off as the were mentioning it on the news every 10 minutes?

[HDFootyMan]

Originally Posted by zantarous

Regardless of who provides the EPG data the Tivo only updates once a day, they would need to fundamentally change the way Tivo updates to resolve these sorts of issues.

Not my problem.

I'm paying for a service, I expect it to deliver. I can accept the odd error here and there but the sheer amount of them noticed by me and several other customers at VM's forums isn't acceptable given the extra fee were paying and VM's marketing of the box ("It can do everything the V+ HD can and more!").

Most of the issues aren't even due to a lack of Dynamic EPG - its just poor, inaccurate data.

It can't stay like this - people are complaining now, what will it be like when all of VM's 3.7 million TV customers are on the TiVo platform?

Originally Posted by zantarous

Having said that I have yet to have any major issues with EPG data apart from new South park. Surely everyone knew the England game was called off as the were mentioning it on the news every 10 minutes?

Everyone but Tribune it seems, and not everyone has time to keep in touch with the news while at work. Sure, I knew, but it doesn't say much about the EPG update process that my TiVo didn't know 48 hours after the game was called off, does it?

[denphone]

Originally Posted by zantarous

Regardless of who provides the EPG data the Tivo only updates once a day, they would need to fundamentally change the way Tivo updates to resolve these sorts of issues.

Having said that I have yet to have any major issues with EPG data apart from new South park. Surely everyone knew the England game was called off as the were mentioning it on the news every 10 minutes?

l agree with you as l do not know what all the fuss is about as no EPG is 100 per cent perfect and never will be

[HDFootyMan]

Originally Posted by denphone

l agree with you as l do not know what all the fuss is about as no EPG is 100 per cent perfect and never will be

You may think differently when series-linked episodes you've expected to record haven't recorded, and then you have to explain to your girlfriend why TiVo is such an improvement over the previous box which you weren't paying a additional monthly fee for.

I've made it clear that I don't expect the EPG to be 100% accurate, but most of the cases I've highlighted have been in the last 2 months - I honestly can't remember my V+ HD missing or screwing up so many recordings in such a short space of time.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by HDFootyMan

You may think differently when series-linked episodes you've expected to record haven't recorded, and then you have to explain to your girlfriend why TiVo is such an improvement over the previous box.

I've made it clear that I don't expect the EPG to be 100% accurate, but most of the cases I've highlighted have been in the last 2 months - I honestly can't remember my V+ HD missing so many recordings in such a short space of time.

Believe you me the tivo is a almighty improvement on the V+ in nearly every facet and can you truly tell me otherwise but remember there will always 1 or 2 data bugs or failures to update on any box.

[HDFootyMan]

Originally Posted by denphone

Believe you me the tivo is a almighty improvement on the V+ in nearly every facet and can you truly tell me otherwise but remember there will always 1 or 2 data bugs or failures to update on any box.

I know that, I do a blog on the sodding thing.

Doesn't mean I'm blind to its faults, or I should be doing Tribune's job for them and reporting EPG errors.

[New to cable]

Originally Posted by HDFootyMan

<snip>Not my problem.

I'm paying for a service, I expect it to deliver.


<snip>

This is a good point, Tivo users pay £3 just for the EPG data so it should updated instantly and far a head of Sky or the V+ boxes. Else whats the point?

[zantarous]

Originally Posted by HDFootyMan

You may think differently when series-linked episodes you've expected to record haven't recorded, and then you have to explain to your girlfriend why TiVo is such an improvement over the previous box which you weren't paying a additional monthly fee for.

Your V+ experience must have been very different from mine, series links would often just stop working, I remember one series of American Dad that I had to set the series link three times during its run and still missed episodes.

No system is ever perfect and but from my experience the Tivo EPG is working far better then what we had before. heck i was very impressed with my wish list for Eureka picked up the new episodes that were broadcast last week and that was something I set up in April when I got the box.

EPG data will get better but it is going to take time any new system will have issues, these things can't be sorted with just a click of your figures.

Not my problem.

I'm paying for a service, I expect it to deliver.

if you expect a service to deliver something it is not designed to do then you need to look elsewhere as currently the EPG updates once a day, no amount of moaning will change that unless Virgin are willing to open up their network to let broadcasters update their EPG.

[HDFootyMan]

Originally Posted by zantarous

if you expect a service to deliver something it is not designed to do then you need to look elsewhere as currently the EPG updates once a day, no amount of moaning will change that unless Virgin are willing to open up their network to let broadcasters update their EPG.

It compares very poorly to every other UK broadcasting platform out there, whose EPG data is updated more often. And, as I've already said, most of the errors aren't due to a lack of Dymamic EPG.

I've had my V+ HD since 2006. I've created god-knows-how-many series links on it and I could probably count on 1 hand the number of serious, non-dymanic EPG recording errors I had with it.

[clinteastman]

Originally Posted by HDFootyMan

It compares very poorly to every other UK broadcasting platform out there, whose EPG data is updated more often. And, as I've already said, most of the errors aren't due to a lack of Dymamic EPG.

I don't think the problem is a non-dynamic EPG ether, it's bad data to start with.

TVGuide.co.uk also showed the England game as being on on the Wednesday. No idea who their source is, maybe themselves.