Is the strike messing up my guide data?

[ToddNeedsTiVo]

Earlier tonight, I looked at the To Do list and was surprised to see an episode of Criminal Minds (they're not out of new episodes yet?) scheduled to record. I looked at its details and it showed an original air date of today, 12/19. With little else on tonight, my wife & I were going to watch that tonight. We started it later, and realized it was a repeat from earlier in the season. Where did this new episode go?

Last Thursday, an episode of Big Shots was scheduled to record, and it showed as a new episode as well. During the time it was recording, I was at a friend's house checking out his new HDTV and DirecTV setup. I was flipping channels and landed on ABC. I knew Big Shots was supposed to be on at this time, but an episode of Private Practice was on instead, and the guide data on his D* box correctly listed Private Practice. What's up with that?

I see another "new" Big Shots is supposedly scheduled for tomorrow night, but who knows what is going to air in that slot.

So what's up with these TiVo guide data dropped balls? Are the networks really making decisions to shelve these episodes that late and thus don't get updated in time? I assume the new episodes exist somewhere because there were synopses for them, but they apparently didn't air. It's not like they were appearing with non-specific guide data like, for example, recent episodes of Letterman that simply say "David Letterman interviews guests and hosts musical performances" instead of listing guests' names, etc.

Has anyone experienced this problem lately?

[phox_mulder]

CBS made a last minute decision yesterday to not air the new NCIS but hold onto it until February (or thereabouts).

They also made the decision to pull the new Criminal Minds and CSI:NY for the same reason today.

I'd assume the other guide data problems were also a trickle down result of the strike.

One thing to make note of, when these new episodes finally do air, the TiVo's might not record them as they think they already did.

Autorecord wishlist with the show and episode name will overcome this.


phox

[marksman]

Argh this sucks. I was looking forward to a new episode of Criminal Minds as it is one of the only shows I watch with any episodes left.

They were running ads for it being new in the last few days too.

Stupid CBS

[bicker]

They announced this on Monday:

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news.aspx?id=7523

[speedcouch]

Argh this sucks. I was looking forward to a new episode of Criminal Minds as it is one of the only shows I watch with any episodes left.

Same thing for me and NCIS on Tuesday night. We let 40 minutes buffer so we could ff'd through commercials. When I tuned to it and immediately saw it was a rerun, man was I pissed! Immediately hit delete and went onto the something else on the Tivo. But I did let the Unit and Criminal Minds record, hoping they weren't reruns as well. Good to know (from the article) that at least the Unit is actually a new episode.

Stupid CBS

You can say that again!

Whenever stuff like this happens (last minute changes by the network), I always wonder if they will ever get to the point of sending more immediate guide updates to our boxes? Or am I just expecting way too much from a TV network? :rolleyes: I've realized in the last few years of "rejoining" network TV because of HD that the networks have absolutely no respect for viewers (based on the number of reruns they insert in the middle of the season.)

Cheryl

[astrohip]

This was posted in the Season Pass forum. People are pretty good about posting last minute changes to that forum. I have that forum set to auto-load when I start FireFox daily.

see: Morning Coffee (http://www.shaneliesegang.com/projects/coffee.php) for a slick extension that autoloads pages based on the day of week

[bicker]

NEITHER Tribune NOR Gemstar effected the update -- I have DVRs that get guide data from each. So that indicates to me that the fault rests solely with CBS for making up their mind so late, despite having publicized it on Monday. That's just too soon to effect a change.

[ToddNeedsTiVo]

Now it gets even more strange. A few minutes ago, we finished watching a DVD and I switched back over to the TiVo. One tuner was buffering some random channel I had been surfing on earlier. The other tuner was recording. When I hit Info, the banner indicated (correctly) that Private Practice was on.

I'm thinking, okay, it got the program information straightened out somehow in the last couple hours since I last looked at the To Do list, and knows Big Shots isn't on. Must be recording Private Practice as a suggestion.

However, when I looked in Now Playing, Big Shots was the first item in the list and it had the red "recording in progress" indicator next to it. I checked and the box didn't connect to the TiVo service this evening; it last did so early this morning and will next do so tomorrow.

Can someone explain how it can show one program name in the banner and indicate another in Now Playing for the same recording?

[mattack]

Can someone explain how it can show one program name in the banner and indicate another in Now Playing for the same recording?

Are you sure you weren't rewound back to the previous hour?

Though this just sounds like one of the things that annoys me most about Tivos (and I say that as a huge fan).. I see a similar problem VERY often.

For example, I'll look at the To Do list (when a show is in regular production, not this strike weirdness) and see the generic description for an episode. But if you go into View Upcoming, you WILL see a useful description for the show.

Like you, this is many hours after it has gotten new guide data. I term it as the right and left hemispheres of the Tivo's brain not communicating properly (soon enough). Eventually, it 'fixes' until the next time I notice it.. Usually at least once a week, probably a lot more.

[ToddNeedsTiVo]

Re: behind in the buffer

Interesting idea, but I can't imagine that was the case. I hadn't been watching the TiVo for over 90 minutes, and hadn't been using the buffer behind real time prior to our DVD viewing.

Besides, Private Practice wasn't on in the previous hour (9e/8c), too, right? My initial report was based on what I saw during the 10e/9c hour.

[Jonathan_S]

Now it gets even more strange. A few minutes ago, we finished watching a DVD and I switched back over to the TiVo. One tuner was buffering some random channel I had been surfing on earlier. The other tuner was recording. When I hit Info, the banner indicated (correctly) that Private Practice was on.

I'm thinking, okay, it got the program information straightened out somehow in the last couple hours since I last looked at the To Do list, and knows Big Shots isn't on. Must be recording Private Practice as a suggestion.

However, when I looked in Now Playing, Big Shots was the first item in the list and it had the red "recording in progress" indicator next to it. I checked and the box didn't connect to the TiVo service this evening; it last did so early this morning and will next do so tomorrow.

Can someone explain how it can show one program name in the banner and indicate another in Now Playing for the same recording?Probably because the TiVo hadn't finished indexing the guide data.

There is a disconnect between when the TiVo gets (and displays) the new guide data and when it finishes indexing it and updates the ToDo list.

If last minute changes get made you can end up with a situation where the TiVo shows you that the new show it on but still "thinks" that it is recording the old one.


And yes, that's annoying.

[ToddNeedsTiVo]

Probably because the TiVo hadn't finished indexing the guide data.

There is a disconnect between when the TiVo gets (and displays) the new guide data and when it finishes indexing it and updates the ToDo list.

If last minute changes get made you can end up with a situation where the TiVo shows you that the new show it on but still "thinks" that it is recording the old one.


And yes, that's annoying.

Good grief, I think it had been about 20 hours at that point since my last connection to Mother TiVo for guide data. It isn't recording as much lately due to the rerun situation (yes, aside from normal dual-tuner buffering) so I'm disappointed it would take so long to index the data. It's not like I just got it and it has to index the whole 12 days or so of data, but then again I suppose each day's data update has to be integrated into all the days of data it holds so maybe that takes longer than I realized.